OK. No maths behind this either but... Hydrogen under atmospheric pressure is not a great fuel in terms of rocket boosting. So we need to do something to put some pressure into that baloon - but remember, the more pressure the more density the less bouancy so the less lift - so we need to apply the pressure once we're up there.
We also need to apply it quickly - so we dont drop like a stone.
We also need some oxygen to burn with the H2 - not much of that up there... so we need to carry that too. Unless...
Unless we don't bother burning it we just 'untie the balloon' and let the H2 squirt out in a controlled manner...
We'll have 1 atmosphere pressure in the balloon, and 1/10th atmosphere outside so we have 9/10 atmosphere of pressure. So we need to work out the thrust that that can be turned into.
This is useless, but I'll post anyway in the good slashdot tradition!
There is a documented link between low level noise and hearing and stress levels in those spending long times exposed to them.
The hum of a fan, whatever it is cooling, is often at a level that you might strain to hear clearly. It is these levels that can cause hearing strain. This is similar to eye strain when you need glasses and can give you monster headaches.
Many articles in New Scientist, among others, have covered this - normally relating to office environments.
Symptoms can be migranes, and a persistant ringing / humming sound when you are in a silent room / trying to sleep. Its worth checking out if you feel any of these because the long term stress levels can be harmful.
I don't know if its a problem for babies - but I know the effects are magnified many fold if you are exposed for long periods, i.e. all night. So I wouldn't leave the machine on 24/7 even if the baby doesn't seem bothered by it 'just in case'.
Hydrogen is not really a fuel as such, in the way that Oil, Gas or Wood are fuels - because you have to use some other fuel to produce it.
Hydrogen is best thought of as a way to transport energy to places where you can't make it on the spot efficiently, or in sufficient quantities.
For example, the average suburban house has enough sunlight and wind to cater for all its energy needs. If we make solar and wind capture more efficient, every garage could have a small 'charger' cracking Hydrogen and storing it for the car.
A similar idea is being researched for Mars projects (using CO and O2, but the same principle). This allows an ongoing process (powered by the sun for the martian experiment) to generate useful amounts of transportable 'fuel'.
By turning the energy model on its head, away from the current 'few big power stations' model to 'millions of tiny power stations' model we not only get better efficiency but less polluting powerstations because they are in EVERYONES back yard.
Hydrogen has a role to play, so might CO. But this is no fuel of the future - the fuel of the future is the sun and the wind.
If you find a job you love you'll never work another day in your life!
Bollocks! I loved my job 3 years ago, then about a year ago it started to get me down, it was mundane. It was all the things you express here.
So I quit, and did something else. I started a company with what little money I had so that I could do smaller jobs, for varied clients, keeping the interest alive. I could just have easily taken a different job, or gone back to school - the point is I CHANGED.
It worked, its fun again, now that the worst of the financial worries are (touch wood) over. I'm back to having a job I love.
The truth is that you need to find a job you love every couple of years - or just accept that your days will be spent grunting along with the rest of them, while at night! at night you turn into the mega world changing shag fest that you always wanted to be.
So stop NOW, dont even finish the year - pick something else and do THAT. NOW. TODAY, well - take the weekend to think it over then do it on Monday!
Every week you stay where you are increases your stress levels - and puts you nearer your grave!
TV isn't a right. Your correct,/.ers tend to object to advertising and branding on TV. We are less bothered about paying for stuff - just look at the sheer number of DVDs that/.ers have bought in relation to SW and the Matrix alone!
The problems arise when you pay for a channel and they STILL subject you to bright logos during programs. Most Sky channels in the UK, even the pay ones, and especially the sports channels, have prominent logos.
If I have to pay for TV thats fine - but I shouldn't have to pay AND watch commercials AND have product placement AND have all the shows sponsored by something AND have a stupid logo burning a whole in my screen.
I can even see that big X when I watch the news;-)
Indeed. AMD need a clear message to send out to people.
"60% the cost, 90% the performance"
Pretty much as fast, a heapload cheaper. They are not going to be 'the fastest' long term in the foreseeable, but they ARE pretty much up there now.
If I bought a PIII 600 or 700 back a while it makes NO difference now, they are both old machines way behind the curve. 20%, even 30% better performance is only desirable at the time. Pretty soon the machines are seen as roughly equivalent as they both start to offer less than half the performance of new machines.
This is a more complex message than 'FASTEST' but a whole lot more useful
I can find nothing to disagree with in the above piece - however...
This iarguement eventually leads to the conclusion that commercial software development would cease immediately were it not for dumb ass users willing to swallow this kind of treatment.
My concern at that is simply - how does open source, coded for free, working bug free software get written if no one is being paid to write software 'during the day'??
Also, some commercial software IS worthy. I dislike MS, but macromedia do some fine software, Dreamweaver couldn't, I suspect, have arisen from an open source project.
indeed!
This is why little companies should STAY little companies, or be broken out into little companies if they were originally part of a big company.
The whole movie industry stinks - but their products, occassionally, don't.
Pixar=Disney=Cant give them money.
BUT - the last 5 seconds of the monsters inc trailer is the funniest thing I've seen in YEARS - no... wait... EVER!
Whats a guy to do?? I dunno - Im going to have to either wait for it to be on free to air TV or sneak into the movies for the first time since I was 13.
Reading some of the comments to my post I recall a straightforward test that I came across a few years back, which is so fundamental to my decisions that I forget about it - if that makes sense.
Imagine you have to shake the hand with the guy that made, sold, designed, grew, engineered this item - could you look him in the eye knowing what he was paid, what his working conditions are like, how he lives.
If you shop in WalMart the chances are the answer to that question, unless your some white supremecist twat, will be 'NO'. If the answer is no, don't shop there.
If that makes me a smug, self serving, jerk then so be it - but I know I'm not contributing to kids having shitty lives in Malaysia or Thailand. And I know that I value their right to a proper life as much as I value a kid in Glasgow, Paris, New York or Sidney.
It is easy to dismiss this because it happens far away in another country, but the events of September 11th should have given us a heads-up that we need to pay close attention to the poorer parts of the world if we are to avoid our own destruction.
Yeah - fuck em unless they're likely to try and fuck you back!
great attitude!
Personally I subscribe to the 'treat others as you would have them treat you' philosophy even if they dont have a hope of hitting back.
The problem with globalisation, or capitalisation, or anything is that people do not apply common sense when purchasing.
When I buy a bag of coffee grounds I automatically go for the fairtrade bag as I know the grower gets more money than the Kenco bag.
When I buy apples I buy British ones, not South African, as it makes no sense, to me, to kart apples half way round the world when we grow perfectly good ones at home.
When I buy clothes I try to establish where they were made before buying - and buy only from reputable manufacturers.
I'm not saying this is easy, theres not a label on Nikes saying 'sweat shop and child labour likely used to make these', but come on, if we don't buy the products the practices don't make them money.
I object to Time-Warner-AOL so I don't go to see films, I don't buy magazines or videos by that company if I can avoid it (I buy Fortune - shoot me!).
I buy 90% of my food from local, often farm, shops. It costs me a couple of extra hours a month in shopping time, and maybe 10% more. I don't drink Coke, I dont eat McD.
Apply a little common sense. If you think something is wrong have principles. Its not the companies that are at fault - its the man in the street for letting it happen.
I subscribe to New Scientist and a few other general science journals, which have articles on this sort of thing from time to time. Being on paper I can't dig out references too quickly.
My first proper PC to live in the lounge was a VERY noisy P100. What I did, and what I'd suggest, was build a cabinet around the machine and lag it with soundproofing foam (or bubble wrap - works just about as well - just looks dodgy).
Its not perfect, but it cuts down on noise amazingly. Just make sure you have vents on the back of the box for airflow so you don't burn your house down when the thing overheats.
I'm sitting at work typing this, before everyone else gets in, and the hum is awful if I turn off the tunes.
Don't quote me on this, but I THINK 'noise holidays' can be important. i.e. if your at your machine 14 hours a day 6/7 days a week that is MANY times worse for you than 7 hours a day 5 days a week. And even an hour of proper silence can greatly reduce stress levels - thats not peculiar to low level noise, thats true of everyone, and it works great - you feel fantastic after an hour in a quiet room - awake.
And one final thing DONT SLEEP NEXT TO A HUMMING MACHINE. How many of us did THAT as students??
Stress levels associated with low level background sounds are shocking. It can have real physical effects on your heart etc...
If you work in a quiet environment and you hear a humming noise constantly then PUT THE RADIO ON or something. This will drown out the lower level noise with something your brain can understand and filter out. If you don't hear anything your either deaf, or your brain is doing a good filter job.
The scenario is roughly analagous to tinitus, though usually not as serious, where your brain is struggling to make sense of the white noise and 'strains itself'. You end up in a constant state of low level panic because you don't know what is happenning around you.
But... any game like this is going to be a HUGE compromise with the salesmen wanting realism, and the army wanting propoganda and secrecy.
I don't imagine I know 2% of whats actually going on in afgahnistan right now. So I don't suppose the Army will divulge much of anything to a public release. They may share technology in simulation terms, but thats not the interesting stuff - the interesteing stuff is knowing all the new tech they actually have on the ground.
But yeah, if you want a driving game you involve McLaren, if you want a golf game you involve Tiger, and if you want a war game you involve the army.
I've still got a stack of these in the loft! I should eBay them!
Suggested Change to IP Laws
on
Ultima Revived
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
While IP laws are intended to protect the holder, there is a good arguement for changes to protect the consumers interests.
Wherever a significant consumer group is NOT being served by an IP holder there should be a legal process by which the IP defaults AWAY from the holder following a period of non-exploitation.
Scenario: Publisher X withdraws GameX from the market, and stops supporting players. A player registers this fact with a register for a small fee (call it $30, just to stop the jokers, to make sure it matters). Following a period, perhaps 2 years, if the company has made no significant moves to make the IP available to the paying public it defaults out to the public domain. Simple.
Company X will argue that it could be working on the new version during those 2 years and this sucks. But, any decent games company will continue to support its user base while the new game is coming along - drip feeding us patches, upgrade packs, new terrains.
Similarly, any other software that starts to die could be openned up after a couple of years of non-exploitation or when the company went bust. Doesn't mean they have to release the code - just that they cant sue your arse if you copy them / take inspiration.
It would be nice to see somebody port a NES or SNES emulator to this platform. I could conceivably stick in a CD with every NES game known to man on it and play Excitebike till my thumbs fall off!
This is exactly what we all want - a decent games machine, with a stack of games, coming along with a bit of kit as standard. Even if Nuon came with a handful of b&w GAMEBOY games as demos it would excite people more than the dross thats there just now.
Sony should bundle the original PS with all their kit, DVD players, TiVos, anything that points at a TV. Put a handful of PS games on a few DVDs and away you go!
Or they should licence the old SNES and Genesis from Nintendo (yeah right!) and SEGA and put EVERY GAME EVER on a CD. That would be a neat little freebie with your new $300 DVD wouldn't it?
You have a community of people, you are well known, take advantage of it
This is the truest thing on/. all year. You guys have a bunch of relatively wealthy young dudes and dudettes coming on here everyday. Give me something to buy while Im here that I want, and am willing to pay for.
I go to the coffee shop for a natter, while Im there I buy coffee. I come here for a natter, but you don't have any coffee - you must have SOMETHING worth selling.
Do an ASK SLASHDOT about this! What, as well as an eBay or a geek dating service would people pay for??
Re:Paying for _community_ content?
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If you take the Salon analogy your on track, however, I think a better analogy is the coffee shop.
I don't go to the coffee shop to drink coffee, I go to have a natter with some pals. I find their company more valuable than the environs, but WITHOUT the environs we would be unable to meet up during the day as there would be nowhere to go.
In order to make use of the facility we buy coffee. Or beer in a Pub. We also choose the nicest available place to have coffee, and sometimes pay extra to sit there - but thats cool - thats a free market!
Now, maybe my analogy sucks - but thats how I see the web. ALL of my favoured sites operate on community originated content. But some sucker has to provide the coffee shop for us to meet in. Why shouldn't the Gunters of this world make a bean or two.
Personally, I don't mind if Taco etc make a good whack of cash, so long as they make sure this thing stays good. But then, if they don't we all bugger off and their back to being sad lonely spods!;-)
Which immediately shows you to not have been a fan of his work for as long as you might think
No Need!
I was just showing off that I had a Falcon! I too remember the old Grid Runner - my mate Paul had a Vic 20 - but I had to wait until my C64 to own my own Minter games. He was the reason I bought an ST instead of an Amiga as revenge of the mutant camels was.. well.. great!
This is at once the coolest and saddest of guys. I've been a fan of his for longer than I care to mention - his games were the only good thing about my Atari Falcon030 (I went all out and got the 56Mb HD version!!!).
But, thats the problem, he only ever develops for crappy hardware no one actually owns! Anyone know why!!!
I personally feel that to argue that derivative work is somehow... Bad... is a bit off the mark. Every major art movement in history has been based on a group of artists feeding off each other in a certain vein producing work that looks similar when compared to the establishment, but with significant differences.
I love my 'iMac' kettle. Its a kettle, but it has an iMac 'feel' about it. It's great! Personally, I feel the kettle designer guy that saw an iMac and thought 'I can do that to a kettle!' was inspired!
Lexus tries to make their cars look like Mercedes. Everyone knows this - everyone that owns a Lexus would like a Mercedes if they are honest - they just can't afford the 40% extra for one. But why shouldn't they be able to enjoy something like a Mercedes for less? This is democratic design in action - Apple has improved the world by making Aqua so pretty - lets all nick it and enjoy it in cheaper forms! Increase the peace! Spread the joy!
And to argue that Apple will stop innovating if everyone gets to copy it is like argueing Mercedes will stop making cars because Lexus is getting close! Apple exists because it innovaties and enough people will pay the premium for Macs because they are prettier.
Almost every reference to MS in/. is concerned with the monopolistic practices of the company.
Are any of Microsofts business units NOT involved in these practices? Seriously! MS is a big company, you're always going to be able to pick out stuff like this which is absolutely absurdly monopolistic.
Slashdot Mirror
SPECULATION WARNING!!!
OK. No maths behind this either but... Hydrogen under atmospheric pressure is not a great fuel in terms of rocket boosting. So we need to do something to put some pressure into that baloon - but remember, the more pressure the more density the less bouancy so the less lift - so we need to apply the pressure once we're up there.
We also need to apply it quickly - so we dont drop like a stone.
We also need some oxygen to burn with the H2 - not much of that up there... so we need to carry that too. Unless...
Unless we don't bother burning it we just 'untie the balloon' and let the H2 squirt out in a controlled manner...
We'll have 1 atmosphere pressure in the balloon, and 1/10th atmosphere outside so we have 9/10 atmosphere of pressure. So we need to work out the thrust that that can be turned into.
This is useless, but I'll post anyway in the good slashdot tradition!
Just image a webcam kitty!!!! Oh the FUN you could have with that!
There is a documented link between low level noise and hearing and stress levels in those spending long times exposed to them.
The hum of a fan, whatever it is cooling, is often at a level that you might strain to hear clearly. It is these levels that can cause hearing strain. This is similar to eye strain when you need glasses and can give you monster headaches.
Many articles in New Scientist, among others, have covered this - normally relating to office environments.
Symptoms can be migranes, and a persistant ringing / humming sound when you are in a silent room / trying to sleep. Its worth checking out if you feel any of these because the long term stress levels can be harmful.
I don't know if its a problem for babies - but I know the effects are magnified many fold if you are exposed for long periods, i.e. all night. So I wouldn't leave the machine on 24/7 even if the baby doesn't seem bothered by it 'just in case'.
Hydrogen is not really a fuel as such, in the way that Oil, Gas or Wood are fuels - because you have to use some other fuel to produce it.
Hydrogen is best thought of as a way to transport energy to places where you can't make it on the spot efficiently, or in sufficient quantities.
For example, the average suburban house has enough sunlight and wind to cater for all its energy needs. If we make solar and wind capture more efficient, every garage could have a small 'charger' cracking Hydrogen and storing it for the car.
A similar idea is being researched for Mars projects (using CO and O2, but the same principle). This allows an ongoing process (powered by the sun for the martian experiment) to generate useful amounts of transportable 'fuel'.
By turning the energy model on its head, away from the current 'few big power stations' model to 'millions of tiny power stations' model we not only get better efficiency but less polluting powerstations because they are in EVERYONES back yard.
Hydrogen has a role to play, so might CO. But this is no fuel of the future - the fuel of the future is the sun and the wind.
If you find a job you love you'll never work another day in your life!
Bollocks! I loved my job 3 years ago, then about a year ago it started to get me down, it was mundane. It was all the things you express here.
So I quit, and did something else. I started a company with what little money I had so that I could do smaller jobs, for varied clients, keeping the interest alive. I could just have easily taken a different job, or gone back to school - the point is I CHANGED.
It worked, its fun again, now that the worst of the financial worries are (touch wood) over. I'm back to having a job I love.
The truth is that you need to find a job you love every couple of years - or just accept that your days will be spent grunting along with the rest of them, while at night! at night you turn into the mega world changing shag fest that you always wanted to be.
So stop NOW, dont even finish the year - pick something else and do THAT. NOW. TODAY, well - take the weekend to think it over then do it on Monday!
Every week you stay where you are increases your stress levels - and puts you nearer your grave!
TV isn't a right. Your correct, /.ers tend to object to advertising and branding on TV. We are less bothered about paying for stuff - just look at the sheer number of DVDs that /.ers have bought in relation to SW and the Matrix alone!
;-)
The problems arise when you pay for a channel and they STILL subject you to bright logos during programs. Most Sky channels in the UK, even the pay ones, and especially the sports channels, have prominent logos.
If I have to pay for TV thats fine - but I shouldn't have to pay AND watch commercials AND have product placement AND have all the shows sponsored by something AND have a stupid logo burning a whole in my screen.
I can even see that big X when I watch the news
Indeed. AMD need a clear message to send out to people.
"60% the cost, 90% the performance"
Pretty much as fast, a heapload cheaper. They are not going to be 'the fastest' long term in the foreseeable, but they ARE pretty much up there now.
If I bought a PIII 600 or 700 back a while it makes NO difference now, they are both old machines way behind the curve. 20%, even 30% better performance is only desirable at the time. Pretty soon the machines are seen as roughly equivalent as they both start to offer less than half the performance of new machines.
This is a more complex message than 'FASTEST' but a whole lot more useful
I can find nothing to disagree with in the above piece - however...
This iarguement eventually leads to the conclusion that commercial software development would cease immediately were it not for dumb ass users willing to swallow this kind of treatment.
My concern at that is simply - how does open source, coded for free, working bug free software get written if no one is being paid to write software 'during the day'??
Also, some commercial software IS worthy. I dislike MS, but macromedia do some fine software, Dreamweaver couldn't, I suspect, have arisen from an open source project.
indeed!
This is why little companies should STAY little companies, or be broken out into little companies if they were originally part of a big company.
The whole movie industry stinks - but their products, occassionally, don't.
Pixar=Disney=Cant give them money.
BUT - the last 5 seconds of the monsters inc trailer is the funniest thing I've seen in YEARS - no... wait... EVER!
Whats a guy to do?? I dunno - Im going to have to either wait for it to be on free to air TV or sneak into the movies for the first time since I was 13.
Reading some of the comments to my post I recall a straightforward test that I came across a few years back, which is so fundamental to my decisions that I forget about it - if that makes sense.
Imagine you have to shake the hand with the guy that made, sold, designed, grew, engineered this item - could you look him in the eye knowing what he was paid, what his working conditions are like, how he lives.
If you shop in WalMart the chances are the answer to that question, unless your some white supremecist twat, will be 'NO'. If the answer is no, don't shop there.
If that makes me a smug, self serving, jerk then so be it - but I know I'm not contributing to kids having shitty lives in Malaysia or Thailand. And I know that I value their right to a proper life as much as I value a kid in Glasgow, Paris, New York or Sidney.
It is easy to dismiss this because it happens far away in another country, but the events of September 11th should have given us a heads-up that we need to pay close attention to the poorer parts of the world if we are to avoid our own destruction.
Yeah - fuck em unless they're likely to try and fuck you back!
great attitude!
Personally I subscribe to the 'treat others as you would have them treat you' philosophy even if they dont have a hope of hitting back.
The problem with globalisation, or capitalisation, or anything is that people do not apply common sense when purchasing.
When I buy a bag of coffee grounds I automatically go for the fairtrade bag as I know the grower gets more money than the Kenco bag.
When I buy apples I buy British ones, not South African, as it makes no sense, to me, to kart apples half way round the world when we grow perfectly good ones at home.
When I buy clothes I try to establish where they were made before buying - and buy only from reputable manufacturers.
I'm not saying this is easy, theres not a label on Nikes saying 'sweat shop and child labour likely used to make these', but come on, if we don't buy the products the practices don't make them money.
I object to Time-Warner-AOL so I don't go to see films, I don't buy magazines or videos by that company if I can avoid it (I buy Fortune - shoot me!).
I buy 90% of my food from local, often farm, shops. It costs me a couple of extra hours a month in shopping time, and maybe 10% more. I don't drink Coke, I dont eat McD.
Apply a little common sense. If you think something is wrong have principles. Its not the companies that are at fault - its the man in the street for letting it happen.
Dont let Bush trash Alaska. Seriously. Don't!
More info HERE.
This bridge doesnt look too good in the photos to date, anyone got links to more detailed ones?
I subscribe to New Scientist and a few other general science journals, which have articles on this sort of thing from time to time. Being on paper I can't dig out references too quickly.
My first proper PC to live in the lounge was a VERY noisy P100. What I did, and what I'd suggest, was build a cabinet around the machine and lag it with soundproofing foam (or bubble wrap - works just about as well - just looks dodgy).
Its not perfect, but it cuts down on noise amazingly. Just make sure you have vents on the back of the box for airflow so you don't burn your house down when the thing overheats.
I'm sitting at work typing this, before everyone else gets in, and the hum is awful if I turn off the tunes.
Don't quote me on this, but I THINK 'noise holidays' can be important. i.e. if your at your machine 14 hours a day 6/7 days a week that is MANY times worse for you than 7 hours a day 5 days a week. And even an hour of proper silence can greatly reduce stress levels - thats not peculiar to low level noise, thats true of everyone, and it works great - you feel fantastic after an hour in a quiet room - awake.
And one final thing DONT SLEEP NEXT TO A HUMMING MACHINE. How many of us did THAT as students??
Stress levels associated with low level background sounds are shocking. It can have real physical effects on your heart etc...
If you work in a quiet environment and you hear a humming noise constantly then PUT THE RADIO ON or something. This will drown out the lower level noise with something your brain can understand and filter out. If you don't hear anything your either deaf, or your brain is doing a good filter job.
The scenario is roughly analagous to tinitus, though usually not as serious, where your brain is struggling to make sense of the white noise and 'strains itself'. You end up in a constant state of low level panic because you don't know what is happenning around you.
Seriously dudes - fan noise, the new RSI!
But... any game like this is going to be a HUGE compromise with the salesmen wanting realism, and the army wanting propoganda and secrecy.
I don't imagine I know 2% of whats actually going on in afgahnistan right now. So I don't suppose the Army will divulge much of anything to a public release. They may share technology in simulation terms, but thats not the interesting stuff - the interesteing stuff is knowing all the new tech they actually have on the ground.
But yeah, if you want a driving game you involve McLaren, if you want a golf game you involve Tiger, and if you want a war game you involve the army.
YS! Hurrah! Quick google turned up the Your Sinclair Rock and Roll Years - great website!
You can go through all the back issues online!
Did anyone else not buy the issue of YS that had a semi naked chick on the front.
I've still got a stack of these in the loft! I should eBay them!
While IP laws are intended to protect the holder, there is a good arguement for changes to protect the consumers interests.
Wherever a significant consumer group is NOT being served by an IP holder there should be a legal process by which the IP defaults AWAY from the holder following a period of non-exploitation.
Scenario: Publisher X withdraws GameX from the market, and stops supporting players. A player registers this fact with a register for a small fee (call it $30, just to stop the jokers, to make sure it matters). Following a period, perhaps 2 years, if the company has made no significant moves to make the IP available to the paying public it defaults out to the public domain. Simple.
Company X will argue that it could be working on the new version during those 2 years and this sucks. But, any decent games company will continue to support its user base while the new game is coming along - drip feeding us patches, upgrade packs, new terrains.
Similarly, any other software that starts to die could be openned up after a couple of years of non-exploitation or when the company went bust. Doesn't mean they have to release the code - just that they cant sue your arse if you copy them / take inspiration.
It would be nice to see somebody port a NES or SNES emulator to this platform. I could conceivably stick in a CD with every NES game known to man on it and play Excitebike till my thumbs fall off!
This is exactly what we all want - a decent games machine, with a stack of games, coming along with a bit of kit as standard. Even if Nuon came with a handful of b&w GAMEBOY games as demos it would excite people more than the dross thats there just now.
Sony should bundle the original PS with all their kit, DVD players, TiVos, anything that points at a TV. Put a handful of PS games on a few DVDs and away you go!
Or they should licence the old SNES and Genesis from Nintendo (yeah right!) and SEGA and put EVERY GAME EVER on a CD. That would be a neat little freebie with your new $300 DVD wouldn't it?
Certainly more fun that NUON!
You have a community of people, you are well known, take advantage of it
/. all year. You guys have a bunch of relatively wealthy young dudes and dudettes coming on here everyday. Give me something to buy while Im here that I want, and am willing to pay for.
This is the truest thing on
I go to the coffee shop for a natter, while Im there I buy coffee. I come here for a natter, but you don't have any coffee - you must have SOMETHING worth selling.
Do an ASK SLASHDOT about this! What, as well as an eBay or a geek dating service would people pay for??
If you take the Salon analogy your on track, however, I think a better analogy is the coffee shop. ;-)
I don't go to the coffee shop to drink coffee, I go to have a natter with some pals. I find their company more valuable than the environs, but WITHOUT the environs we would be unable to meet up during the day as there would be nowhere to go.
In order to make use of the facility we buy coffee. Or beer in a Pub. We also choose the nicest available place to have coffee, and sometimes pay extra to sit there - but thats cool - thats a free market!
Now, maybe my analogy sucks - but thats how I see the web. ALL of my favoured sites operate on community originated content. But some sucker has to provide the coffee shop for us to meet in. Why shouldn't the Gunters of this world make a bean or two.
Personally, I don't mind if Taco etc make a good whack of cash, so long as they make sure this thing stays good. But then, if they don't we all bugger off and their back to being sad lonely spods!
Which immediately shows you to not have been a fan of his work for as long as you might think
.. well.. great!
No Need!
I was just showing off that I had a Falcon! I too remember the old Grid Runner - my mate Paul had a Vic 20 - but I had to wait until my C64 to own my own Minter games. He was the reason I bought an ST instead of an Amiga as revenge of the mutant camels was
This is at once the coolest and saddest of guys. I've been a fan of his for longer than I care to mention - his games were the only good thing about my Atari Falcon030 (I went all out and got the 56Mb HD version!!!).
But, thats the problem, he only ever develops for crappy hardware no one actually owns! Anyone know why!!!
I personally feel that to argue that derivative work is somehow ... Bad ... is a bit off the mark. Every major art movement in history has been based on a group of artists feeding off each other in a certain vein producing work that looks similar when compared to the establishment, but with significant differences.
I love my 'iMac' kettle. Its a kettle, but it has an iMac 'feel' about it. It's great! Personally, I feel the kettle designer guy that saw an iMac and thought 'I can do that to a kettle!' was inspired!
Lexus tries to make their cars look like Mercedes. Everyone knows this - everyone that owns a Lexus would like a Mercedes if they are honest - they just can't afford the 40% extra for one. But why shouldn't they be able to enjoy something like a Mercedes for less? This is democratic design in action - Apple has improved the world by making Aqua so pretty - lets all nick it and enjoy it in cheaper forms! Increase the peace! Spread the joy!
And to argue that Apple will stop innovating if everyone gets to copy it is like argueing Mercedes will stop making cars because Lexus is getting close! Apple exists because it innovaties and enough people will pay the premium for Macs because they are prettier.
Almost every reference to MS in /. is concerned with the monopolistic practices of the company.
Are any of Microsofts business units NOT involved in these practices? Seriously! MS is a big company, you're always going to be able to pick out stuff like this which is absolutely absurdly monopolistic.