Heh.. most of the time we can't even get a weather forecast right, except as very rough probabilities, and that's our own atmosphere. Even the objects we know about in LEO have huge margins of error at to where they'll land, with paths hundreds of miles wide, and THOUSANDS of miles long (given that small variances in pitch have large effects at speed). The only chance we really have is to intercept these objects long before they become a definite threat. And that's assuming we even see them. It's incredibly difficult to see asteroids due to their typically low brightness, unless we get lucky with a shiny one with a good angle of reflection, or one that happens to occlude another light source when we're looking. In reality, from tracking to prevention, we're a LONG way away from being able to do anything more than sweep up the mess.
It could be patent law, but copyright law wouldn't prevent you from using a clean room design, ala Compaq and Cyrix. Granted, doing this on a ROM with high-level software is more complicated, and therefore more expensive.. It would only be worthwhile if there was perceived to be a huge demand.
So the most straightforward reason this was never done (or never lead to a publicly released product), and thus the answer to the GP's question, is simply because nobody believed there was enough money to be made.
I dunno.. I've got 2 Logitech mice, and while the pricey one could definitely be considered a durable good, this other one that came free with my keyboard probably won't make it through the winter.
At any rate I seriously doubt Logitech has made anywhere close to 1 billion of any particular model. If we're counting ALL models, then I'm guessing Gilette has produced over 1 billion shaver handles, Kodak has probably produced over 1 billion cameras.. home phones (think old AT&T), cell phones, baseballs, baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis racquets, mouse pads, floppy discs, compact discs, DVDs, videotapes, audio tapes, vinyl records, computer cables, CRTs, keyboards, resistors, capacitors, ICs (and pretty much any other electronic component), shingles, ceiling tiles, bathroom tiles, bricks, gallons of paint, sqft of carpet, windows, wrenches, eating utensils, dishes, mugs, glasses, pots, plastic cups, knives, axes, guns, springs, ball bearings, Barbie dolls (confirmed), board games, books, sewing machines, buttons, zippers, jeans, brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, electric motors, combustion engines, umbrellas..
Maybe not all of those count as durable goods, or have been produced in quantities over 1B by any one company, but I'd be surprised if NONE of them have. I'd wager on Milton Bradley and Mattel producing at least 1B board games each, and possibly Monopoly sets alone. Zippo is at 700+ million, which isn't too bad when you consider their relatively limited target audience, although they've been in production for 70+ yrs. Craftsman has probably sold over 1B wrenches, and almost certainly that many when you expand the category to "hand tools" overall. At the same time, I doubt any non-consumable item has been produced in that quantity with the exact same specs, with the possible exception of bricks or cinder blocks.
Depends what you consider a lot. Obviously you need one to direct the action, and maybe two or three others to gather all the components and.. oh wait. Oh God, that's not what you meant at all, is it? You sick, sick man.
The DIVX comparison doesn't really hold water.. DIVX failed because the cost/benefit ratio was way too high. You had to buy specialized, non-portable hardware, and going to Circuit City every time you wanted to rent a movie wasn't significantly more convenient than renting from your local video store. The latter are are usually closer to home and more widely distributed than large stores like Circuit City; something that trumps the minor inconvenience of a return trip, for most people. The activation by phone was just a small component.
Why do few people chip their xbox 360's? Because they are afraid of detection on xbox live.
I'm guessing it's because the firmware flash is easier, but it could also be because there are no 360 chips.
Smartassery aside, I've never had any problems with Live. Maybe it's just chance.. or maybe they don't ban people who regularly make Live Arcade and extra content purchases. But as you say, most people are afraid of getting their console banned. Personally, I could completely live without online play, and getting my console banned would save me money!
Also, while I've never been chased, I should mention that it's probably best to have a clear schedule. It wouldn't hurt to have a plausible excuse ready as well... "I just remembered I left the stove on," is probably better than "I like to exercise?"
I don't know about you, but when my legitimate purchases occasionally set off the exit alarm for whatever reason, I run. It's way more fun than shoplifting, and it's perfectly legal. If you're with another person, make sure to look at them and yell "Run!" first.
Funny.. I've never had my real money refuse to be honored because it was > 1 year old, or because a server was down, or because someone managed to copy it before I had a chance to use it.
I'd prefer one that deprioritizes (or outright bans) my ISP and geographical region.. but then again, I'm a Comcast subscriber in the US. As a Comcast subscriber, I know that I'm not likely to get decent speed from other Comcast subscribers (unless they happen to be on my node), and as a US citizen, I'm well within the reach of anyone who decides they want to sue me because my kids torrented some MP3s when I wasn't looking.
what most students studying the subject really are after is software engineering
And what he's saying is that you can't get there from here. From EWD (or TFE, if you prefer):
A number of these phenomena have been bundled under the name "Software Engineering." As economics is known as "The Miserable Science," software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline," doomed because it cannot even approach its goal since its goal is self-contradictory. Software engineering, of course, presents itself as another worthy cause, but that is eyewash: if you carefully read its literature and analyse what its devotees actually do, you will discover that software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot."...
In the same vein I must draw attention to the astonishing readiness with which the suggestion has been accepted that the pains of software production are largely due to a lack of appropriate "programming tools." (The telling "programmer's workbench" was soon to follow.) Again, the shallowness of the underlying analogy is worthy of the Middle Ages. Confrontations with insipid "tools" of the "algorithm-animation" variety has not mellowed my judgment; on the contrary, it has confirmed my initial suspicion that we are primarily dealing with yet another dimension of the snake oil business.
What he's getting at is that skipping from "this is a computer" to "click this to create your program's window," without discussing why and how it works results in inferior "solutions," just as skipping from "here's an essay" to "let's discuss it" without reading it results in an inferior, or at least redundant, discussion.
While his argument may not be as obvious in present day, where we have instant feedback, instant access to information, and (more importantly) access to helpful experts, it is fundamentally sound. Without a comprehensive understanding of the technology you are using, the "solutions" crafted will be less efficient, ill suited to the task, and/or can (and often do) solve simple problems at the cost of creating much more complicated problems. This is readily apparent in a plethora of "business" software. One model is used to suit a given set of tasks, and then "modified" to perform specific functions based on customer request. The customer often ends up with a "solution" which is more expensive and time consuming than what they were doing to begin with . In many cases, the software engineer's "solution" is a hackneyed effort that costs more to "maintain" (a topic which is also addressed in the essay) than a proper effort by a knowledgeable programmer would have cost in the long run. The customer or owner is, in real terms, poorer for the experience, despite the fact that he saved money in the short term by hiring a "software engineer."
In essence, his argument can be summed up as "the real shortcut is to do it right the first time." In this case "doing it right" means using fully-trained programmers who understand that "saving" something is a user-level concept, and means that understanding how to create black-box programming modules is the best way to know when and how to implement them. How can you know whether a given objective is complicated or simple unless you understand how the machine works? Sorting a list might seem like a complicated task on the outset, but learning binary trees and bubble sorts shows that it's a fairy simple operation for a logic machine. Voice recognition might sound easy to someone with no experience in programming (after all, dogs can do it), but it's a fairly difficult task for a machine. Those are somewhat extreme examples, implying complete ignorance in the latter case, but the issue becomes even more compelling when you get into less cut-and-dry tasks.
Personally, I feel that real-world results trump theory any day, and I don't have enough experience to say who is right.. I see plenty of real-world scenarios in w
I don't have a time machine, but I'd be happy to sell you stock in my time machine company!! (Although you'll probably still wish you had a time machine after you buy my stock).
Since I very rarely* see a bluescreen in Vista, I'm going to go ahead and suggest you try testing your RAM and HD, although I'm leaning more toward the latter since you state that the problem gets worse the longer you use it AFTER a fresh install. To me, that suggests that you're gradually encroaching on bad sectors which are intermittently returning corrupted data.
* I get blue screens on my POS laptop, but then again, Linux freezes on it too, which brings us back to hardware issues.
Maybe Stereotypical power mom "Lynette" should stop spoiling her progeny and covering up their crimes, stop micromanaging her husband, and stop being an overall bitch. Just because you had cancer doesn't give you a license to screw up everyone else's life too.
Don't kid yourself, whippersnapper. We were on to you the moment you confused a crochet hook with a knitting needle. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for Precious, Mittens, Donner, Blitzen, Happy, Grumpy, Abby, Scabby, Blooper, Dancing Queen, and Colonel McCain to try on their new sweaters.
But is it a part of our culture because it has intrinsic value and meaning, or because we're a consumerist society which finds value and culture in whatever corporations are selling? I tend to believe it's less of the former, and more of the latter. We say we want Mickey Mouse to be free, but if he was, he'd be a stupid mouse, just like Paul Bunyan is a stupid lumberjack, and Babe is a stupid Blue Ox. Godzilla, King Kong, and Han Solo would lose their value if there wasn't a concerted effort to preserve it, and an incentive to do so.
And if those things really have cultural value, then does it really matter who is preserving it? Whether it's the artist, or the distributor, or Michael Jackson with his Beatles library? Isn't that secondary to the fact that it is being preserved?
I believe there is some validity to the idea that once there's no longer a corporate force marketing these "properties," they lose much of their allure. And I think that speaks more to our susceptibility to marketing than it does to any intrinsic value of the products themselves.
I don't disagree that copyright laws are overly broad and excessive in length (although this particular case is actually a trademark issue, as noted above), but I don't necessarily buy the argument that these things are part of our culture, (at least not for any reason other than the fact that they were successfully marketed), or that we are being deprived of their potential value by tying it up in IP law. I think if we had fewer and freer IP regulations, it would force companies to produce more innovative and compelling content for the very reason that as soon as the copyright expired, the products' value would be diluted, and the market would be saturated by anyone who could create a webpage or punch out a lunchbox.
Clearly you've never seen an easter egg hunt. It's like when people get frustrated with videogames, except instead of controllers, there's aborted chickens flying around.
Seriously, teaching children to be "good sports" is like trying to teach a dog not to sniff assholes. What can you do, really? You can't be honest.. "look honey, I know you're upset that you only got 3 eggs, but to be fair you looked like a retard out there. You could have picked up like 700 eggs in the time it took you to figure out that there were no eggs hiding under your feet, and that a 6' vertical jump is simply impossible for a 3 year old. Next time pick up the fucking eggs that are right next to you and let the other kids waste time seeing who can fall out of a tree the fastest."
The only thing you can really do is shove them in a room (if you have one available) until they learn that antisocial behavior results in social seclusion, although clearly some people never learn.
Anyway, this is getting OT, so in conclusion: you should keep your passwords in a safe-deposit box, keep a key with your estate trustee, and instruct the bank not to let them in unless you're dead. Unless you have kids, in which case I'm going with the OP's suggestion. Turnabout is fair play after all.
Hmm.. I'm pretty sure I'd run the breakfast/laundry/precog browser in the background, and use the one I really like for the actual browsing. These aren't women after all, therefore the odds that they would "accidentally" shrink your laundry or poison your breakfast out of jealousy are substantially lower.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh.. most of the time we can't even get a weather forecast right, except as very rough probabilities, and that's our own atmosphere. Even the objects we know about in LEO have huge margins of error at to where they'll land, with paths hundreds of miles wide, and THOUSANDS of miles long (given that small variances in pitch have large effects at speed). The only chance we really have is to intercept these objects long before they become a definite threat. And that's assuming we even see them. It's incredibly difficult to see asteroids due to their typically low brightness, unless we get lucky with a shiny one with a good angle of reflection, or one that happens to occlude another light source when we're looking. In reality, from tracking to prevention, we're a LONG way away from being able to do anything more than sweep up the mess.
It could be patent law, but copyright law wouldn't prevent you from using a clean room design, ala Compaq and Cyrix. Granted, doing this on a ROM with high-level software is more complicated, and therefore more expensive.. It would only be worthwhile if there was perceived to be a huge demand.
So the most straightforward reason this was never done (or never lead to a publicly released product), and thus the answer to the GP's question, is simply because nobody believed there was enough money to be made.
As I posted above: Barbie Dolls.
I dunno.. I've got 2 Logitech mice, and while the pricey one could definitely be considered a durable good, this other one that came free with my keyboard probably won't make it through the winter.
At any rate I seriously doubt Logitech has made anywhere close to 1 billion of any particular model. If we're counting ALL models, then I'm guessing Gilette has produced over 1 billion shaver handles, Kodak has probably produced over 1 billion cameras.. home phones (think old AT&T), cell phones, baseballs, baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis racquets, mouse pads, floppy discs, compact discs, DVDs, videotapes, audio tapes, vinyl records, computer cables, CRTs, keyboards, resistors, capacitors, ICs (and pretty much any other electronic component), shingles, ceiling tiles, bathroom tiles, bricks, gallons of paint, sqft of carpet, windows, wrenches, eating utensils, dishes, mugs, glasses, pots, plastic cups, knives, axes, guns, springs, ball bearings, Barbie dolls (confirmed), board games, books, sewing machines, buttons, zippers, jeans, brooms, mops, vacuum cleaners, electric motors, combustion engines, umbrellas..
Maybe not all of those count as durable goods, or have been produced in quantities over 1B by any one company, but I'd be surprised if NONE of them have. I'd wager on Milton Bradley and Mattel producing at least 1B board games each, and possibly Monopoly sets alone. Zippo is at 700+ million, which isn't too bad when you consider their relatively limited target audience, although they've been in production for 70+ yrs. Craftsman has probably sold over 1B wrenches, and almost certainly that many when you expand the category to "hand tools" overall. At the same time, I doubt any non-consumable item has been produced in that quantity with the exact same specs, with the possible exception of bricks or cinder blocks.
Depends what you consider a lot. Obviously you need one to direct the action, and maybe two or three others to gather all the components and.. oh wait. Oh God, that's not what you meant at all, is it? You sick, sick man.
The DIVX comparison doesn't really hold water.. DIVX failed because the cost/benefit ratio was way too high. You had to buy specialized, non-portable hardware, and going to Circuit City every time you wanted to rent a movie wasn't significantly more convenient than renting from your local video store. The latter are are usually closer to home and more widely distributed than large stores like Circuit City; something that trumps the minor inconvenience of a return trip, for most people. The activation by phone was just a small component.
Why do few people chip their xbox 360's? Because they are afraid of detection on xbox live.
I'm guessing it's because the firmware flash is easier, but it could also be because there are no 360 chips.
Smartassery aside, I've never had any problems with Live. Maybe it's just chance.. or maybe they don't ban people who regularly make Live Arcade and extra content purchases. But as you say, most people are afraid of getting their console banned. Personally, I could completely live without online play, and getting my console banned would save me money!
Also, while I've never been chased, I should mention that it's probably best to have a clear schedule. It wouldn't hurt to have a plausible excuse ready as well... "I just remembered I left the stove on," is probably better than "I like to exercise?"
I don't know about you, but when my legitimate purchases occasionally set off the exit alarm for whatever reason, I run. It's way more fun than shoplifting, and it's perfectly legal. If you're with another person, make sure to look at them and yell "Run!" first.
They are real money.
Funny.. I've never had my real money refuse to be honored because it was > 1 year old, or because a server was down, or because someone managed to copy it before I had a chance to use it.
I'd prefer one that deprioritizes (or outright bans) my ISP and geographical region.. but then again, I'm a Comcast subscriber in the US. As a Comcast subscriber, I know that I'm not likely to get decent speed from other Comcast subscribers (unless they happen to be on my node), and as a US citizen, I'm well within the reach of anyone who decides they want to sue me because my kids torrented some MP3s when I wasn't looking.
what most students studying the subject really are after is software engineering
And what he's saying is that you can't get there from here. From EWD (or TFE, if you prefer):
What he's getting at is that skipping from "this is a computer" to "click this to create your program's window," without discussing why and how it works results in inferior "solutions," just as skipping from "here's an essay" to "let's discuss it" without reading it results in an inferior, or at least redundant, discussion.
While his argument may not be as obvious in present day, where we have instant feedback, instant access to information, and (more importantly) access to helpful experts, it is fundamentally sound. Without a comprehensive understanding of the technology you are using, the "solutions" crafted will be less efficient, ill suited to the task, and/or can (and often do) solve simple problems at the cost of creating much more complicated problems. This is readily apparent in a plethora of "business" software. One model is used to suit a given set of tasks, and then "modified" to perform specific functions based on customer request. The customer often ends up with a "solution" which is more expensive and time consuming than what they were doing to begin with . In many cases, the software engineer's "solution" is a hackneyed effort that costs more to "maintain" (a topic which is also addressed in the essay) than a proper effort by a knowledgeable programmer would have cost in the long run. The customer or owner is, in real terms, poorer for the experience, despite the fact that he saved money in the short term by hiring a "software engineer."
In essence, his argument can be summed up as "the real shortcut is to do it right the first time." In this case "doing it right" means using fully-trained programmers who understand that "saving" something is a user-level concept, and means that understanding how to create black-box programming modules is the best way to know when and how to implement them. How can you know whether a given objective is complicated or simple unless you understand how the machine works? Sorting a list might seem like a complicated task on the outset, but learning binary trees and bubble sorts shows that it's a fairy simple operation for a logic machine. Voice recognition might sound easy to someone with no experience in programming (after all, dogs can do it), but it's a fairly difficult task for a machine. Those are somewhat extreme examples, implying complete ignorance in the latter case, but the issue becomes even more compelling when you get into less cut-and-dry tasks.
Personally, I feel that real-world results trump theory any day, and I don't have enough experience to say who is right.. I see plenty of real-world scenarios in w
Personally I could do without the "horror" game genre.
When effective, it creates an atmosphere in which I'd rather just turn off the game than endure an hours-long exercise in maintaining stress levels.
When ineffective, it creates an atmosphere in which I'd rather just turn off the game than endure an hours-long exercise in maintaining wakefulness.
In other words, I already have a job.
I don't have a time machine, but I'd be happy to sell you stock in my time machine company!! (Although you'll probably still wish you had a time machine after you buy my stock).
Comparing system requirements without taking into account the time between releases is like ending a sentence with a
Since I very rarely* see a bluescreen in Vista, I'm going to go ahead and suggest you try testing your RAM and HD, although I'm leaning more toward the latter since you state that the problem gets worse the longer you use it AFTER a fresh install. To me, that suggests that you're gradually encroaching on bad sectors which are intermittently returning corrupted data.
* I get blue screens on my POS laptop, but then again, Linux freezes on it too, which brings us back to hardware issues.
LOL! Well.. good luck, I hope she's worth it, and with any luck the wife will never find out about her. Don't forget to burn the receipts!
Maybe Stereotypical power mom "Lynette" should stop spoiling her progeny and covering up their crimes, stop micromanaging her husband, and stop being an overall bitch. Just because you had cancer doesn't give you a license to screw up everyone else's life too.
I mean, uh.. wait, what? Lynette who?
Don't kid yourself, whippersnapper. We were on to you the moment you confused a crochet hook with a knitting needle. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for Precious, Mittens, Donner, Blitzen, Happy, Grumpy, Abby, Scabby, Blooper, Dancing Queen, and Colonel McCain to try on their new sweaters.
Karma whoring linky here.
But is it a part of our culture because it has intrinsic value and meaning, or because we're a consumerist society which finds value and culture in whatever corporations are selling? I tend to believe it's less of the former, and more of the latter. We say we want Mickey Mouse to be free, but if he was, he'd be a stupid mouse, just like Paul Bunyan is a stupid lumberjack, and Babe is a stupid Blue Ox. Godzilla, King Kong, and Han Solo would lose their value if there wasn't a concerted effort to preserve it, and an incentive to do so.
And if those things really have cultural value, then does it really matter who is preserving it? Whether it's the artist, or the distributor, or Michael Jackson with his Beatles library? Isn't that secondary to the fact that it is being preserved?
I believe there is some validity to the idea that once there's no longer a corporate force marketing these "properties," they lose much of their allure. And I think that speaks more to our susceptibility to marketing than it does to any intrinsic value of the products themselves.
I don't disagree that copyright laws are overly broad and excessive in length (although this particular case is actually a trademark issue, as noted above), but I don't necessarily buy the argument that these things are part of our culture, (at least not for any reason other than the fact that they were successfully marketed), or that we are being deprived of their potential value by tying it up in IP law. I think if we had fewer and freer IP regulations, it would force companies to produce more innovative and compelling content for the very reason that as soon as the copyright expired, the products' value would be diluted, and the market would be saturated by anyone who could create a webpage or punch out a lunchbox.
Clearly you've never seen an easter egg hunt. It's like when people get frustrated with videogames, except instead of controllers, there's aborted chickens flying around.
Seriously, teaching children to be "good sports" is like trying to teach a dog not to sniff assholes. What can you do, really? You can't be honest.. "look honey, I know you're upset that you only got 3 eggs, but to be fair you looked like a retard out there. You could have picked up like 700 eggs in the time it took you to figure out that there were no eggs hiding under your feet, and that a 6' vertical jump is simply impossible for a 3 year old. Next time pick up the fucking eggs that are right next to you and let the other kids waste time seeing who can fall out of a tree the fastest."
The only thing you can really do is shove them in a room (if you have one available) until they learn that antisocial behavior results in social seclusion, although clearly some people never learn.
Anyway, this is getting OT, so in conclusion: you should keep your passwords in a safe-deposit box, keep a key with your estate trustee, and instruct the bank not to let them in unless you're dead. Unless you have kids, in which case I'm going with the OP's suggestion. Turnabout is fair play after all.
Perhaps they noticed that Google's definition of beta seems to be slightly different than everybody else's.
Hmm.. I'm pretty sure I'd run the breakfast/laundry/precog browser in the background, and use the one I really like for the actual browsing. These aren't women after all, therefore the odds that they would "accidentally" shrink your laundry or poison your breakfast out of jealousy are substantially lower.
If you count Firefox, then now.