I'd be happy if they simply cloned the gameplay and just updated the graphics. That would be worth a $20 donation.
Imho Road Rash was essentially perfect the way it was so it would be a shame if they messed too much with the formula. Flatout 2 was the same way; lots of fun just the way it was then another studio took over and tried too hard. The sequels never came close to the original.
According to the Microsoft pad-thingy commercials, you can create content while hand-walking across a desk or dancing as an angry cheerleader. So toughen up soldier, if they can do it you can too.
A couple thoughts: 1) $/yen has risen (devalued) 20% in the last 6 months and is on a path to hit 120 this year for a 50% gain (short). Given that the GDP of Japan is many orders of magnitude larger than the bitcoin market cap, wild currency swings are not out of the norm even in G7 countries. We've witnessed massive hyperinflation in our lifetime (Zimbabwe) and will most likely again (Japan within a couple years).
2) It could be argued that the Libor rigging scandal was more of a fundamentally dangerous problem to currencies than DDOSing an experimental currency in its infancy. The former is an insidious systemic problem that is very difficult to detect, let alone fix. The latter can be solved through expanding the number of market makers and therefore stabilize price discovery over time.
Regarding the need, imvho it has the potential to solve the micropayments problem. At this point it's almost impossible to charge for anything less than a dollar unless you're processing a large number of transactions. The fees and discount rate of credit card transactions is simply too high. With bitcoins there can be a transaction fee, but the "friction" is essentially zero. Meaning that if you want to send the equivalent of a penny for access to an article, it's as simple as clicking a few buttons in the bitcoin client or sending an email (see coinapult).
Beyond that I don't see being used as a basis for large value transactions like mortgages. Even when adoption becomes widespread enough and the exchange rate stabilizes. But for sites that rely on advertising, it's a really interesting idea to try charging for content then converting to fiat cash at the end of the day (or simply paying for overhead costs directly in bitcoins, no dollars involved).
Seems like payday loan and those "cash quick" places would be logical businesses to start offering bitcoin sales, assuming they could get enough inventory. Since not all users of the currency will care about anonymity, simply buying them for speculation or online use would be worth a 5-10% transaction fee. There's been a lot of press lately in magazines like Forbes which will catch the attention of Joe Public (and further fueling the BTC-USD bubble).
Do you understand what the purpose of a radio telescope is? How it is tuned to receive frequencies emanating from many light years away? And the frequency of those em waves can't be changed unless you somehow go back in time and fundamentally alter the laws of physics?
Maybe I'm missing some obscure humor in your posts. Pray, do tell.
Facebook is an advertising company. Their product is highly granular, per-user demographics and profiles. That product is based on information gathered from tracking their users' posts, relationships, browsing history and basically any info they can get their hands on (raw materials). The product is then sold to their customers; anyone who does a targeted media buy on their site, as well as advertisers and marketing firms.
Without the raw materials, Facebook would not be a for-profit venture and their stock would be worthless. You can argue semantics that they're not blatantly selling the info. But the info is getting sold in some fashion, it's their business plan and clear as day in the original prospectus filed with the SEC.
Or put it this way; we don't know what Plan B should be, but the benchmark for measuring its success is pretty simple. Whatever it takes to be able to tell AT&T, Time Warner, Windstream, etc. to go fuck themselves sideways and really mean it. Like we do when selecting a supermarket. Real competition (municipal broadband included) without pricing collusion would allow that.
The implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
Worse than that, Skype always shows the same caller id for spam calls. Which means tracking anybody down would involve entering Microsoft's terrain. If the telcos can't do what you describe then imagine the horror of adding Skype to the mix.
With VOIP becoming more prevalent, the scams are getting more creative. For example I got a call the other day with a Skype caller id. It was Microsoft calling to inform me that my computer was infected and will shut down after 24 hours. Intrigued, I went along to see how the scam worked.
Long story short, this was a scheme to manually infect Windows boxes with a trogan. No joke. They read off a Windows key and directed me to a logmein url to download the payload. Next was installing remote login software, so it was more than just click on the.exe infection. Even though I booted an xp image on vmworkstation, I didn't want to bother with snapshotting and actually letting them go ahead to see what the endgame was. So that was the end of it after I hung up and blacklisted Skype through my voip account. But serious brownie points to them, for both balls and ingenuity.
Btw, they were even prepared for the "I'm on the do not call list" response..."Sir did you legally buy Windows?" (yes) "Well then we have done business before so let me help you fix the problem. First open Internet Explorer..."
Modup. Ting is fantastic for what they do (very low priced usage-based plans) but it's too heavily locked into Sprint for what the article submitter wants. It's basically Sprint opening up their network to capture more price-sensitive customers, but still retains the downside of ESNs. My Galaxy III bill is about $12/mo for text + voice, but to me it's worth the trade-off because I don't use much capacity.
One of the nicest things about Ting (and other MVNOs) is that it puts pressure on At&t, Verizon and T-mobile to start opening up their networks too. (Except for the iPhone of course; none of them want to lose that $80/mo, 2yr lock-in customer.)
Let's cut him some slack. After all he did "save a bus load of children from a burning building", per organic search result #9 for "guy hingston bankrupt" (YRMV).
In your rush to vent your anonymous rage against Linux, you failed to notice one thing. The person you accused of being a "fucking nerd dickhead" for posting the solution (period3)...is the same as the person who posted the problem (period3)...
1) There's quality of life issues that really do offset the low cost of living. Weather, education, entertainment, etc. It's hard to explain but over time it begins to have a significant impact on one's psyche. (Btw, I'm speaking as a transplant from a blue state to a red state years ago.)
2) Perhaps this is due to some local licensing issues? There have been a number of articles on Arstechnica detailing how various telecos have been trying to quash local municipal broadband. Don't know what the agreements between cable/telco and the KS City gov't look like, but I'll bet it's a nasty stew of exclusions accumulated over the years. Protecting business customers would be especially important because they are less likely to churn and more of a profit center. Again, just speculating.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be happy if they simply cloned the gameplay and just updated the graphics. That would be worth a $20 donation.
Imho Road Rash was essentially perfect the way it was so it would be a shame if they messed too much with the formula. Flatout 2 was the same way; lots of fun just the way it was then another studio took over and tried too hard. The sequels never came close to the original.
According to the Microsoft pad-thingy commercials, you can create content while hand-walking across a desk or dancing as an angry cheerleader. So toughen up soldier, if they can do it you can too.
A couple thoughts:
1) $/yen has risen (devalued) 20% in the last 6 months and is on a path to hit 120 this year for a 50% gain (short). Given that the GDP of Japan is many orders of magnitude larger than the bitcoin market cap, wild currency swings are not out of the norm even in G7 countries. We've witnessed massive hyperinflation in our lifetime (Zimbabwe) and will most likely again (Japan within a couple years).
2) It could be argued that the Libor rigging scandal was more of a fundamentally dangerous problem to currencies than DDOSing an experimental currency in its infancy. The former is an insidious systemic problem that is very difficult to detect, let alone fix. The latter can be solved through expanding the number of market makers and therefore stabilize price discovery over time.
Slight variation, I sent the goatse text to myself after having an angry conversation with my mom. I feel much better now.
Regarding the need, imvho it has the potential to solve the micropayments problem. At this point it's almost impossible to charge for anything less than a dollar unless you're processing a large number of transactions. The fees and discount rate of credit card transactions is simply too high. With bitcoins there can be a transaction fee, but the "friction" is essentially zero. Meaning that if you want to send the equivalent of a penny for access to an article, it's as simple as clicking a few buttons in the bitcoin client or sending an email (see coinapult).
Beyond that I don't see being used as a basis for large value transactions like mortgages. Even when adoption becomes widespread enough and the exchange rate stabilizes. But for sites that rely on advertising, it's a really interesting idea to try charging for content then converting to fiat cash at the end of the day (or simply paying for overhead costs directly in bitcoins, no dollars involved).
Holy crap that's brilliant.
Seems like payday loan and those "cash quick" places would be logical businesses to start offering bitcoin sales, assuming they could get enough inventory. Since not all users of the currency will care about anonymity, simply buying them for speculation or online use would be worth a 5-10% transaction fee. There's been a lot of press lately in magazines like Forbes which will catch the attention of Joe Public (and further fueling the BTC-USD bubble).
I find that there's a huge difference between refreshed and "yucky" right around the 20 minute threshold.
Fifteen minutes is ideal but timing it exactly is obviously difficult (i.e. setting an alarm without knowing what time you actually doze off).
That's funny, insightful and informative all rolled up into one. Kudos.
Do you understand what the purpose of a radio telescope is? How it is tuned to receive frequencies emanating from many light years away? And the frequency of those em waves can't be changed unless you somehow go back in time and fundamentally alter the laws of physics?
Maybe I'm missing some obscure humor in your posts. Pray, do tell.
They would except flux capacitors would cause interference too.
Facebook is an advertising company. Their product is highly granular, per-user demographics and profiles. That product is based on information gathered from tracking their users' posts, relationships, browsing history and basically any info they can get their hands on (raw materials). The product is then sold to their customers; anyone who does a targeted media buy on their site, as well as advertisers and marketing firms.
Without the raw materials, Facebook would not be a for-profit venture and their stock would be worthless. You can argue semantics that they're not blatantly selling the info. But the info is getting sold in some fashion, it's their business plan and clear as day in the original prospectus filed with the SEC.
and no language really escapes big O
Agreed, it sounds like my wife is screaming in 10 languages combined at that particular moment.
Or put it this way; we don't know what Plan B should be, but the benchmark for measuring its success is pretty simple. Whatever it takes to be able to tell AT&T, Time Warner, Windstream, etc. to go fuck themselves sideways and really mean it. Like we do when selecting a supermarket. Real competition (municipal broadband included) without pricing collusion would allow that.
The implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
Worse than that, Skype always shows the same caller id for spam calls. Which means tracking anybody down would involve entering Microsoft's terrain. If the telcos can't do what you describe then imagine the horror of adding Skype to the mix.
With VOIP becoming more prevalent, the scams are getting more creative. For example I got a call the other day with a Skype caller id. It was Microsoft calling to inform me that my computer was infected and will shut down after 24 hours. Intrigued, I went along to see how the scam worked.
Long story short, this was a scheme to manually infect Windows boxes with a trogan. No joke. They read off a Windows key and directed me to a logmein url to download the payload. Next was installing remote login software, so it was more than just click on the .exe infection. Even though I booted an xp image on vmworkstation, I didn't want to bother with snapshotting and actually letting them go ahead to see what the endgame was. So that was the end of it after I hung up and blacklisted Skype through my voip account. But serious brownie points to them, for both balls and ingenuity.
Btw, they were even prepared for the "I'm on the do not call list" response..."Sir did you legally buy Windows?" (yes) "Well then we have done business before so let me help you fix the problem. First open Internet Explorer..."
He answered that in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1YiDN8MT9w
Agree that Zork was influential but, in fairness, Colossal Cave was its progenitor.
Modup. Ting is fantastic for what they do (very low priced usage-based plans) but it's too heavily locked into Sprint for what the article submitter wants. It's basically Sprint opening up their network to capture more price-sensitive customers, but still retains the downside of ESNs. My Galaxy III bill is about $12/mo for text + voice, but to me it's worth the trade-off because I don't use much capacity.
One of the nicest things about Ting (and other MVNOs) is that it puts pressure on At&t, Verizon and T-mobile to start opening up their networks too. (Except for the iPhone of course; none of them want to lose that $80/mo, 2yr lock-in customer.)
From what I hear, Californians smoke a joint before doing anything. Which would necessarily include paying taxes...so maybe it really is surreal?
Nah, you got 'carrier lost' because your mom tried dialing the upstairs phone.
Let's cut him some slack. After all he did "save a bus load of children from a burning building", per organic search result #9 for "guy hingston bankrupt" (YRMV).
http://www.zgeek.com/guy-hingston-saved-a-bus-load-of-children-from-a-burning-building/
Makes one wonder if, on a large scale, this technique could be used by reputation companies to dilute negative results during a streisand event.
In your rush to vent your anonymous rage against Linux, you failed to notice one thing. The person you accused of being a "fucking nerd dickhead" for posting the solution (period3)...is the same as the person who posted the problem (period3)...
Heh.
Those are good points. But I'd add:
1) There's quality of life issues that really do offset the low cost of living. Weather, education, entertainment, etc. It's hard to explain but over time it begins to have a significant impact on one's psyche. (Btw, I'm speaking as a transplant from a blue state to a red state years ago.)
2) Perhaps this is due to some local licensing issues? There have been a number of articles on Arstechnica detailing how various telecos have been trying to quash local municipal broadband. Don't know what the agreements between cable/telco and the KS City gov't look like, but I'll bet it's a nasty stew of exclusions accumulated over the years. Protecting business customers would be especially important because they are less likely to churn and more of a profit center. Again, just speculating.
I'm getting tired of the Nazi phrase. Let's cut to the chase and simply call it what it is: "Grammar Dick".
In that scenario, Taco Bell would get the death penalty.