> Now, as for why computers exacerbate that problem...well, that I am not really clear on.
Perhaps because computers provide ample ways of wasting time that offer little intellectual stimulation... And yet parents may think that letting kids sit in front of computers is better/easier than trying to get them involved into any organized activities.
Sure, kids could be reading Wikipedia, but they're more likely surfing YouTube, etc.
We could rewind this conversation to ~50 years ago and talk about the influence of television on kids.
Pretty close to 0%, I'd guess. Until cellphones really start to eat Nintendo's lunch, I don't expect them to go there. Though Iwata-san did mention that Apple was starting to become a threat. So not this time around, but the next iteration will be interesting.
Perhaps this is precisely why they are adding features to their portable gaming system to differentiate it from what other portable platforms can do. 3D, dual screens, always-on gaming connectivity, stylus input, long gaming battery life, connectivity to console games,...
The answer is both, but only some of the objects may pop out, while most will be behind the screen (note it is game/movie designer dependent).
If you can imagine the two viewing frustums of your eyes with respect to the screen, only objects that lie in the intersection of these two frustums will have a marked 3D effect. Since the intersection volume is much smaller above the screen than below it, that makes it harder for objects to pop out, unless they're right in the middle.
Also, you will be most comfortable viewing objects that are at the depth of the screen, since that's where you focus distance is adjusted to. Trying to look at nearer objects is difficult, because your eyes will want to focus at a closer distance (and converge more as well), but the image presentation is not correct for this (you must always focus at the screen's distance, and the convergence is only computed for a fixed distance). Looking at further objects isn't as bad, since you don't have to adjust as much (both focus & convergence) to see them, so the disparity vs. what is presented is less extreme.
That remains to be seen. Thus far, Xbox 360 hard drives have had custom firmware, preventing you from using standard ones without flashing the firmware first.
Many motherboards I've seen have a jumper than controls whether or not banks of USB ports get power when the computer is sleeping (S3). In addition, there is a BIOS setting that describes the HW sleep mode (S1 or S3) used when the software requests sleep. (In S1, a lot of stuff is still on, while in S3, much more stuff is really off.)
In addition to that, the amount of power the MB (and thus USB stuff) can draw while in sleep mode depends upon what the power supply provides when it is "sleeping" (how much "standby" power).
So indeed there are lots of variables in play here.
And technically, the Xbox 360 doesn't charge controllers over USB when it is off either. It's just that, if you request it to turn itself off while charging, it stays on, just turning off the display, until the controllers are charged.
"Bring out your dead!" "Here's one. Nine pence." "I'm not dead!" "What?" "Nothing. Here's your nine pence." "I'm not dead!" "Here - he says he's not dead." "Yes he is!" "I'm not!" "He isn't." "Well, he will be soon. He's very ill." "I'm getting better!" "No you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."...
You just need to take a look at Yahoo's comment system to see how much incredibly worse things can be.
I'm not even talking about the quality of the comments themselves, which make your average Slashdot troll look like a PhD in comparison.
Still, though, I think comment systems in general need lots of improvement. One idea I have is weighted tags: allow tags to be added to comments, along with +/- buttons to allow others to alter the weight of the tags. Then, design the display system to let you filter or arrange content based on tag weights that you care about.
Of course, there's always lots of details to work out, such as how to keep the taggers/raters honest (or at least prevent too much abuse).
Once such a system is made, it needs to become viral and replace all the lame comment systems out there.
Mod parent up. The biggest limitation is the amount of RAM. Sure, 128MB may be fine for certain limited applications, but it'll be the bottleneck for any decent web browsing or any kind of multitasking. I think 256MB may be the bare minimum for comfortable web browsing, mostly based on the fact that any device I've used with only 128MB seemed to just fall a bit short of being really usable. Perhaps someone with a 192MB device (T-Mobile G1?) can chime in with their experience.
Why decide based on either/or? Go for "and": 3 screens, all huge!!!
As far as bezels go, it shouldn't be much more distracting than the A-pillars of your car. If you want to eliminate them, you can set up projectors and align them.
And that's called extrapolation to the point of irrelevance.
It's one thing to say "Let's go out Friday night" (versus asking "Would you like to go out sometime?"); it's something completely different to threaten and force someone to do something they don't want to do. If someone turns down your suggestion, you don't have a right to force the issue.
As far as whom to go out with, that's a different topic altogether. Beautiful people are everywhere, and you should never settle for beauty alone. Finding compatibility in terms of shared values and things you like to do is important if you're looking for a "real" relationship. But you should not assume that beauty and compatibility are mutually exclusive.
Stop asking. Start telling. Well, maybe start by telling jokes, then tell what you want. You'll be more likely to get it that way (as opposed to asking).
My main complaint about the Chumby is that the user interface isn't ready for prime time. It's like it was designed to do the job, barely. It seems like little thought was given to polishing it and making it user friendly. It just requires far too many button (touch-screen) presses to get it to do what you want it to do.
On the flip side, the UI is just a flash download that you could replace with your own, in theory.
First off, both of us are "wrong" in that we didn't qualify our percentages (10% of what?).
Next, you are pointing to a corner case and trying to suggest that it invalidates the general argument.
Let's start over. The known data is how many people bought the game and the total number of people using the game. We also think we know the total number of iphone users and jailbreakers.
The common mistaken assumption is that the difference between game users and actual sales is the number of lost sales due to piracy. But that's obviously not the case, since if pirates could not get the game for free, a large percentage of them would not bother to purchase the game at all.
There is no known data regarding how many pirates would have bought the game if it were un-pirate-able. The best you can do is to assume that the pirates would have purchased the game at a similar rate as the public at large. If you had such data to start with, the whole argument would be moot.
Now, we don't know exactly what percentage of the total users are pirates. But we can place an upper bound on the figure, since (as far as we know), piracy requires a jail-broken phone (in this case). That figure is given as 10% of total iphone users.
So if you want to calculate an upper limit on "lost" sales, you need to take (1) the limit of the number of people who could possibly have pirated the game and multiply it by (2) the expected rate of sales. The first variable is 10% of total iphone users. The second variable is thus far undefined; I'll come back to that in just a second.
Your point is that those two variables may not be independent (that somehow the app might be more desirable to jailbreakers). That might be the case for certain apps, but it's unlikely to be the case for your typical game. But if it is the case, then yes, you are correct, the equation needs adjustment. But in the more likely case...
The expected rate of sales therefore ought to be something like actual sales / (total iphone users - pirates). Again, we don't know the total number of pirates, so we can substitute in the number of jailbreakers as a limit (even though it's in the denominator, it's being subtracted, so therefore the limit still applies). Given that jailbreakers is only 10% of total users, being off here won't make a big difference in the expected sale percentage.
So putting the two variables together we have [10% * total iphone users] * [actual sales / (total iphone users - foo)]. With foo being small, this simplifies to approx 10% * actual sales.
I don't see the article as saying that the figure *is* 10%, but rather *is at most* 10%.
In other words, it's not saying that all jailbreakers are pirates, but rather that the number of pirates is less than or equal to the number of jailbreakers, which seems to be a valid statement.
In other words, if the application were somehow completely copy-protected, the largest number of new customers that you'd get is limited by the 10% that are potentially affected by this change.
Of course, the potential new sales from this change depends upon the correlation between jailbreakers/non-jailbreakers and who actually wants the app. If these are independent, then it's valid to say that overall sales wouldn't increase by 10% based upon this change alone.
I think the original article makes a valid point. It says that the customer base consists of: * 90% of people who must either buy the product or not buy it. * 10% of people who may buy it, not buy it, or pirate it. --------- = 100% of customers who could possibly use the product It assumes that customers [really, iphones] buy/pirate the product once at most.
So, based upon this, the group of customers who pirate your product is *at most* 10% of the total customer base. In other words, if this 10% group did not have the pirate option, then the most that your sales can increase [due to this factor alone] is by 10%. This is a ceiling, not an exact value. The exact value is unknown, but the whole point is that it is an error to look at the number of pirated copies and assume that each one is a lost sale. Of course, your sales may increase beyond 10%, but not by making your product pirate-proof.
Your analogies don't apply, since your percentages express different things.
Slashdot Mirror
Botnets and Google are the first things that came to my mind when I read "a million cores and beyond".
Perhaps the first AI to come alive will be very good at stealing money from your bank accounts.
Only because they haven't installed the lasers yet...
> Now, as for why computers exacerbate that problem...well, that I am not really clear on.
Perhaps because computers provide ample ways of wasting time that offer little intellectual stimulation...
And yet parents may think that letting kids sit in front of computers is better/easier than trying to get them
involved into any organized activities.
Sure, kids could be reading Wikipedia, but they're more likely surfing YouTube, etc.
We could rewind this conversation to ~50 years ago and talk about the influence of television on kids.
Pretty close to 0%, I'd guess. Until cellphones really start to eat Nintendo's lunch, I don't expect them to go there.
Though Iwata-san did mention that Apple was starting to become a threat.
So not this time around, but the next iteration will be interesting.
Perhaps this is precisely why they are adding features to their portable gaming system to differentiate it from what other portable platforms can do. ...
3D, dual screens, always-on gaming connectivity, stylus input, long gaming battery life, connectivity to console games,
ie, a stereo camera would work if the lenses were positioned correctly (requiring the same precision as positioning your own eyes).
The answer is both, but only some of the objects may pop out, while most will be behind the screen (note it is game/movie designer dependent).
If you can imagine the two viewing frustums of your eyes with respect to the screen, only objects that lie in the intersection of these two frustums will have a marked 3D effect. Since the intersection volume is much smaller above the screen than below it, that makes it harder for objects to pop out, unless they're right in the middle.
Also, you will be most comfortable viewing objects that are at the depth of the screen, since that's where you focus distance is adjusted to. Trying to look at nearer objects is difficult, because your eyes will want to focus at a closer distance (and converge more as well), but the image presentation is not correct for this (you must always focus at the screen's distance, and the convergence is only computed for a fixed distance). Looking at further objects isn't as bad, since you don't have to adjust as much (both focus & convergence) to see them, so the disparity vs. what is presented is less extreme.
That remains to be seen. Thus far, Xbox 360 hard drives have had custom firmware, preventing you from using standard ones without flashing the firmware first.
Many motherboards I've seen have a jumper than controls whether or not banks of USB ports get power when the computer is sleeping (S3). In addition, there is a BIOS setting that describes the HW sleep mode (S1 or S3) used when the software requests sleep. (In S1, a lot of stuff is still on, while in S3, much more stuff is really off.)
In addition to that, the amount of power the MB (and thus USB stuff) can draw while in sleep mode depends upon what the power supply provides when it is "sleeping" (how much "standby" power).
So indeed there are lots of variables in play here.
And technically, the Xbox 360 doesn't charge controllers over USB when it is off either. It's just that, if you request it to turn itself off while charging, it stays on, just turning off the display, until the controllers are charged.
"Bring out your dead!" ...
"Here's one. Nine pence."
"I'm not dead!"
"What?"
"Nothing. Here's your nine pence."
"I'm not dead!"
"Here - he says he's not dead."
"Yes he is!"
"I'm not!"
"He isn't."
"Well, he will be soon. He's very ill."
"I'm getting better!"
"No you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."
You just need to take a look at Yahoo's comment system to see how much incredibly worse things can be.
I'm not even talking about the quality of the comments themselves, which make your average Slashdot troll look like a PhD in comparison.
Still, though, I think comment systems in general need lots of improvement. One idea I have is weighted tags: allow tags to be added to comments, along with +/- buttons to allow others to alter the weight of the tags. Then, design the display system to let you filter or arrange content based on tag weights that you care about.
Of course, there's always lots of details to work out, such as how to keep the taggers/raters honest (or at least prevent too much abuse).
Once such a system is made, it needs to become viral and replace all the lame comment systems out there.
Mod parent up. The biggest limitation is the amount of RAM. Sure, 128MB may be fine for certain limited applications, but it'll be the bottleneck for any decent web browsing or any kind of multitasking. I think 256MB may be the bare minimum for comfortable web browsing, mostly based on the fact that any device I've used with only 128MB seemed to just fall a bit short of being really usable. Perhaps someone with a 192MB device (T-Mobile G1?) can chime in with their experience.
Why decide based on either/or? Go for "and": 3 screens, all huge!!!
As far as bezels go, it shouldn't be much more distracting than the A-pillars of your car.
If you want to eliminate them, you can set up projectors and align them.
And that's called extrapolation to the point of irrelevance.
It's one thing to say "Let's go out Friday night" (versus asking "Would you like to go out sometime?"); it's something completely different to threaten and force someone to do something they don't want to do. If someone turns down your suggestion, you don't have a right to force the issue.
As far as whom to go out with, that's a different topic altogether. Beautiful people are everywhere, and you should never settle for beauty alone. Finding compatibility in terms of shared values and things you like to do is important if you're looking for a "real" relationship. But you should not assume that beauty and compatibility are mutually exclusive.
Stop asking. Start telling. Well, maybe start by telling jokes, then tell what you want.
You'll be more likely to get it that way (as opposed to asking).
Get off my lawn! Damn kids ruinin' everything!
a tractor beam. Hey, as long as you start with "if only", you might as well go for the ultimate lazy man's solution.
Of course, you might want some shields with that too.
My main complaint about the Chumby is that the user interface isn't ready for prime time. It's like it was designed to do the job, barely. It seems like little thought was given to polishing it and making it user friendly. It just requires far too many button (touch-screen) presses to get it to do what you want it to do.
On the flip side, the UI is just a flash download that you could replace with your own, in theory.
First off, both of us are "wrong" in that we didn't qualify our percentages (10% of what?).
Next, you are pointing to a corner case and trying to suggest that it invalidates the general argument.
Let's start over. The known data is how many people bought the game and the total number of people using the game. We also think we know the total number of iphone users and jailbreakers.
The common mistaken assumption is that the difference between game users and actual sales is the number of lost sales due to piracy. But that's obviously not the case, since if pirates could not get the game for free, a large percentage of them would not bother to purchase the game at all.
There is no known data regarding how many pirates would have bought the game if it were un-pirate-able. The best you can do is to assume that the pirates would have purchased the game at a similar rate as the public at large. If you had such data to start with, the whole argument would be moot.
Now, we don't know exactly what percentage of the total users are pirates. But we can place an upper bound on the figure, since (as far as we know), piracy requires a jail-broken phone (in this case). That figure is given as 10% of total iphone users.
So if you want to calculate an upper limit on "lost" sales, you need to take (1) the limit of the number of people who could possibly have pirated the game and multiply it by (2) the expected rate of sales. The first variable is 10% of total iphone users. The second variable is thus far undefined; I'll come back to that in just a second.
Your point is that those two variables may not be independent (that somehow the app might be more desirable to jailbreakers). That might be the case for certain apps, but it's unlikely to be the case for your typical game. But if it is the case, then yes, you are correct, the equation needs adjustment. But in the more likely case...
The expected rate of sales therefore ought to be something like actual sales / (total iphone users - pirates). Again, we don't know the total number of pirates, so we can substitute in the number of jailbreakers as a limit (even though it's in the denominator, it's being subtracted, so therefore the limit still applies). Given that jailbreakers is only 10% of total users, being off here won't make a big difference in the expected sale percentage.
So putting the two variables together we have [10% * total iphone users] * [actual sales / (total iphone users - foo)]. With foo being small, this simplifies to approx 10% * actual sales.
I don't see the article as saying that the figure *is* 10%, but rather *is at most* 10%.
In other words, it's not saying that all jailbreakers are pirates, but rather that the number of pirates is less than or equal to the number of jailbreakers, which seems to be a valid statement.
In other words, if the application were somehow completely copy-protected, the largest number of new customers that you'd get is limited by the 10% that are potentially affected by this change.
Of course, the potential new sales from this change depends upon the correlation between jailbreakers/non-jailbreakers and who actually wants the app. If these are independent, then it's valid to say that overall sales wouldn't increase by 10% based upon this change alone.
I think the original article makes a valid point. It says that the customer base consists of:
* 90% of people who must either buy the product or not buy it.
* 10% of people who may buy it, not buy it, or pirate it.
---------
= 100% of customers who could possibly use the product
It assumes that customers [really, iphones] buy/pirate the product once at most.
So, based upon this, the group of customers who pirate your product is *at most* 10% of the total customer base. In other words, if this 10% group did not have the pirate option, then the most that your sales can increase [due to this factor alone] is by 10%. This is a ceiling, not an exact value. The exact value is unknown, but the whole point is that it is an error to look at the number of pirated copies and assume that each one is a lost sale. Of course, your sales may increase beyond 10%, but not by making your product pirate-proof.
Your analogies don't apply, since your percentages express different things.
A "webcam" is typically a USB camera you attach to your PC to do web (video) conferencing.
An "IP cam" is what you're thinking of, which attaches directly to the internet without a separate host.
Now, someone will probably follow up and tell me that "IP cam" is an overloaded term as well.
You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.
(but seriously, though, there's a tuna pear: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tuna )
If safety is only considered after (expensive) accidents happen, then we're not very safe.
I think we're on the same page, except with respect to the meaning of "regulation".
I think it's ridiculous beyond belief that lawmakers regularly pass bills containing a thousand pages of legalese without really understanding what's in them. I support the idea of requiring that laws be read in congress before they can be voted upon.