That's a stretch. And when you consider that Sega is a player in the arcade machine market, and several of those machines used the same chip as the Dreamcast, it makes it a long stretch. --
In an effort to confirm this story, SegaWeb immediately contacted Sega of America's Heather Hawkins. Her response to the news was, and I quote, "Yeah, I'll have more for you on the story as soon as Microsoft buys us out and we begin distributing GameCube games to small Scandinavian countries." When pressed for clarification, she responded, "Well, the story was just like all the other ones out there. OK?," and terminated the conversation.
Hi gang,
We'll be putting out a stuffy official statement later today, but I knew
things would be going crazy on here about all the rumors, so I wanted to hop
on really quick and let you guys know that we have absolutley in no way made
any announcement to support all the rumors that are flying around. The
statement we'll be putting out later today reinforces our total dedication
to Dreamcast and Dreamcast technology moving forward, and our commitment to
you- the Dreamcast community. This a case of rumor after rumor piling up
into a big snowball.com that's been rolling along for over a year now.
Anyhow, look for a statement later today...
It's a catch-22 situation. The more money you have, the easier it is to generate more. Marketting is one thing that isn't 100% critical to getting the product out there, so it's one thing that can be dropped in an already bad situation. --
It's too bad the Slashdot summary makes it sound as if the news is 100% certain, even though nearly all of the articles linked take time to mention that Sega has denied the news as rumor.
It's almost as if the Slashdot crew was just trying to generate page hits. Oh wait... --
Yes, I've brought this up several times, each time I've been modded down.
Most people don't see it as a problem because... Slashdot has exclusive editorial control over its stories, and Andover has exclusive control over the advertisements. So no two-faced stuff going on really. Maybe hypocritical in that CmdrTaco is making money that comes from DC somewhere down the line, but it unrelated enough and it's such a small percentage of the ads that he probably manages to find a way to sleep at night. --
1) They're not up-front and completely open about it. Most people (esp. non-geeks) have certain expectations when dealing with banner ads, and doubleclick does something more, without informing them. While not illegal, people like it a lot more when companies refrain doing unexpected things to them.
2) The privacy intrusions aren't equitable. In other words, they get to see 10% more of what we do, but we don't get to see 10% more of what they do. This is one proposed standard that I've seen for deciding if a privacy intrusion is acceptable, and it scales nicely to the Transparent Society. But in the monetary sense, it might be equitable, in that the site gets money for violating your privacy, and in turn, you get more costly services for free. *shrug*
3) They've tried to make the information personally identifiable before, so why should we trust them with our data? I expect that soon, a company will emerge that will properly anonymize such information and still target ads, and will eventually be accepted by the public as a good thing (in that companies can respond to desires more quickly, so consumers get what they want faster). Such a company will have to do everything possible to make sure that its end users trust that company, because the collected data is more easily abused than most. Doubleclick has done just the opposite. --
Similarly, but much further down the road... a cop pulls you over, suspects something, searches the trunk, finds a dead body. You just claim you replicated her, so it wasn't murder. --
Many phones have a phone book within spitting distance. This is DNS for phones...
Actually, I'd say that Google is more analogous to a phone book.
A phone book allows you to search by some name you remember, and then if there are several that match, to use the the information attached to each entry to figure out which one you want. DNS does not allow for this.
As such, Amazon-the-Bookstore finds it necessary to be THE Amazon.com even though the user might have really been looking for Amazon-rainforest-trinkets or something else. --
No, but Amazon.com isn't the complete description of the store. The complete description is more accurately and uniquely something like Amazon-USBased-Online-Bookstore. **
Since Amazon.com is still a representation and not a globally unique mark, it seems as ludicrous to litigate over Amazon.com as it seems to litigate over 208.216.182.15.
Actually, it's now more accurately Amazon-USBased-Online-Bookstore-cum-Electronics-To ys-Music-DVD-Auction-Used-Store, but I didn't want to get into that above. --
Well, perhaps less of a technical mapping and more of a heuristic mapping? www.foobar.com... ftp.foobar.com... and with ISP's, they name their services so they can reside on the same machine, but later separate them as one service takes over the whole box... so there's ns.foobar.com and news.foobar.com and mail.foobar.com... --
Yes, I've been thinking about this a lot recently.
URL's are somewhat like phone numbers, especially since one can dial a letter string. Yet, we don't see companies suiing each other over 1-800-4-AMAZON or 1-800-PHONE-SEX.
Why not? URLs are more tied to brand image than a phone number is? IP litigation has only now become the rage? Are URLs somehow more legally protected than phone numbers?
I wonder if URLs would have had arbitrary limitations put on them... such as being 6 characters long at maximum, and 2 of the characters have to be numeric... if companies wouldn't have become so attached to a string of letters that they find it necessary to spend tremendous amounts of money to purchase or litigate. --
Re:Perception becomes reality
on
Antitrust
·
· Score: 2
(In other words, I don't think it's a matter of perception becoming reality, it's probably more a matter of healthy skepticism. But there may be a version of reality that's hidden from the average viewer. Does anyone have the scoop on such an actual not-just-suspected reality?) --
Re:Perception becomes reality
on
Antitrust
·
· Score: 2
Well, yes, it's obvious that it's much easier for Microsoft execs to incorrectly influence MSNBC stories if they chose to, than it would be for, say Oracle, to influence CNN stories. This is a reality that shouldn't be ignored or forgotten. That's why it's only a matter of trust, because they've said they won't, but there's nothing technically or legally stopping them from changing their minds.
But beyond that de-facto assumption, are there any other reasons to distrust them? Have they done any concrete actions which show that they're not trustworthy?
Because, frankly, I'm surprised that they're as trustworthy as they are. From the begining, it seemed like it was obviously a bad thing for MS and NBC to join together. And I wonder what pressures or initial conditions exist that has kept them clean, despite strong short-term pressures to act improperly. --
The only witty or telling time the movie hits home is when it jabs at Microsoft's alliance with news entities like NBC... this relationship undermines their credibility in coverage of technology-related issues.
Is there any/much evidence that MSNBC has done anything that would decrease their credibility? Other than just the image thing?
I've been very surprised by some of the anti-MS stories that have showed up on MSNBC. Or is this just a ploy? Put really obvious anti-MS stories up, but when there's something that isn't so visible but could hurt MS greatly, then don't air that one? --
Copper was chosen because it will cause the least interference with the measurements that will be made during the impact, will not leave a residue that would confuse potential future measurements, and can be made into a structurally strong impactor. In particular, all the inner shells of electrons for copper are completely filled. This means that it reacts very slowly with other elements, such as with the oxygen in cometary water, and it will end up producing relatively few bright emission lines in the spectrum of the vaporized materials. Other materials such as aluminum would produce far more and stronger emission lines (mostly due to aluminum oxides). There are only a few materials that satisfy this criterion and copper is the least expensive of them that is structurally sound. The material used to make the impactor is actually a copper alloy with about 3% beryllium to make the copper more stiff.
I'm specially curious about its new orbit; any chance that these scientists can knock it into a new trajectory which will collide with earth in about 70 years?
From Uni Maryland's FAQ (they're working with NASA on this project):
Q: If the impactor split the comet, would any debris head towards earth?
The orbit of Tempel 1 is at least 0.5 AU (about 46 million miles) from Earth's orbit at their closest points. There is absolutely no possibility of Tempel 1, the Deep Impact comet, getting near the earth. When comets fragment, the pieces also stay in orbits very similar to the orbit of the parent comet. Danger to the earth is from asteroids and comets whose orbits cross the earth's orbit. Tempel 1 never crosses the earth's orbit. The two orbits are totally separate and never cross each other. Tempel 1 can never be pulled into the earth's gravitational field at any time.
The Deep Impact impactor will just scratch the surface of the comet making a relatively small crater compared to the size of the comet. Even if the comet were to be extremely fragile and break apart, the pieces would still be in the same orbit and would never come close to the earth's orbit.
As far as the effect on the orbit goes... well, the copper cylinder weighs 500kg and will be going 20,000 mph at the time of impact (source). And I guess I don't know the inertia of the comet, or the angle of impact. But from this picture, it looks like the comet will be pushed away from earth. But I guess if that brings it much closer to some other body, the orbit could change further? --
The copper cylinder will weigh 500kg / 1,100 pounds, and will carry a camera and an infrared spectrometer. The targetted comet is Comet 9P/Tempel 1. --
nobody thinks of the BIG picture, every little minutia is debated on it's own merits ONLY
The same thing happens with politicians. If there's pre-existing laws that aren't being enforced, congress will happily create new legislation that does the same thing, just so they can tell their constituents that they're working hard. --
Same deal with the places in Vegas, no? The company doesn't want to get a reputation of screwing people over, so they don't set the odds too low, or the customers go to the casino across the street? --
Slashdot Mirror
What part of "plans for the dreamcast are huge and long term" indicates that they'll confirm the rumors any day now?
--
That's a stretch. And when you consider that Sega is a player in the arcade machine market, and several of those machines used the same chip as the Dreamcast, it makes it a long stretch.
--
1) It's the only next-gen console out with a library of good games
2) the games are new and different, not yet-another-FPS
--
- In an effort to confirm this story, SegaWeb immediately contacted Sega of America's Heather Hawkins. Her response to the news was, and I quote, "Yeah, I'll have more for you on the story as soon as Microsoft buys us out and we begin distributing GameCube games to small Scandinavian countries." When pressed for clarification, she responded, "Well, the story was just like all the other ones out there. OK?," and terminated the conversation.
http://boards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=2267626&r--
It's a catch-22 situation. The more money you have, the easier it is to generate more. Marketting is one thing that isn't 100% critical to getting the product out there, so it's one thing that can be dropped in an already bad situation.
--
It's almost as if the Slashdot crew was just trying to generate page hits. Oh wait...
--
Well, as Daily Radar reports, the japanese newspaper that had the story is one of the most respected news journals there.
--
Most people don't see it as a problem because... Slashdot has exclusive editorial control over its stories, and Andover has exclusive control over the advertisements. So no two-faced stuff going on really. Maybe hypocritical in that CmdrTaco is making money that comes from DC somewhere down the line, but it unrelated enough and it's such a small percentage of the ads that he probably manages to find a way to sleep at night.
--
2) The privacy intrusions aren't equitable. In other words, they get to see 10% more of what we do, but we don't get to see 10% more of what they do. This is one proposed standard that I've seen for deciding if a privacy intrusion is acceptable, and it scales nicely to the Transparent Society. But in the monetary sense, it might be equitable, in that the site gets money for violating your privacy, and in turn, you get more costly services for free. *shrug*
3) They've tried to make the information personally identifiable before, so why should we trust them with our data? I expect that soon, a company will emerge that will properly anonymize such information and still target ads, and will eventually be accepted by the public as a good thing (in that companies can respond to desires more quickly, so consumers get what they want faster). Such a company will have to do everything possible to make sure that its end users trust that company, because the collected data is more easily abused than most. Doubleclick has done just the opposite.
--
Similarly, but much further down the road... a cop pulls you over, suspects something, searches the trunk, finds a dead body. You just claim you replicated her, so it wasn't murder.
--
Actually, I'd say that Google is more analogous to a phone book.
A phone book allows you to search by some name you remember, and then if there are several that match, to use the the information attached to each entry to figure out which one you want. DNS does not allow for this.
As such, Amazon-the-Bookstore finds it necessary to be THE Amazon.com even though the user might have really been looking for Amazon-rainforest-trinkets or something else.
--
Since Amazon.com is still a representation and not a globally unique mark, it seems as ludicrous to litigate over Amazon.com as it seems to litigate over 208.216.182.15.
Actually, it's now more accurately Amazon-USBased-Online-Bookstore-cum-Electronics-T
--
Well, perhaps less of a technical mapping and more of a heuristic mapping? www.foobar.com... ftp.foobar.com... and with ISP's, they name their services so they can reside on the same machine, but later separate them as one service takes over the whole box... so there's ns.foobar.com and news.foobar.com and mail.foobar.com...
--
URL's are somewhat like phone numbers, especially since one can dial a letter string. Yet, we don't see companies suiing each other over 1-800-4-AMAZON or 1-800-PHONE-SEX.
Why not? URLs are more tied to brand image than a phone number is? IP litigation has only now become the rage? Are URLs somehow more legally protected than phone numbers?
I wonder if URLs would have had arbitrary limitations put on them... such as being 6 characters long at maximum, and 2 of the characters have to be numeric... if companies wouldn't have become so attached to a string of letters that they find it necessary to spend tremendous amounts of money to purchase or litigate.
--
(In other words, I don't think it's a matter of perception becoming reality, it's probably more a matter of healthy skepticism. But there may be a version of reality that's hidden from the average viewer. Does anyone have the scoop on such an actual not-just-suspected reality?)
--
But beyond that de-facto assumption, are there any other reasons to distrust them? Have they done any concrete actions which show that they're not trustworthy?
Because, frankly, I'm surprised that they're as trustworthy as they are. From the begining, it seemed like it was obviously a bad thing for MS and NBC to join together. And I wonder what pressures or initial conditions exist that has kept them clean, despite strong short-term pressures to act improperly.
--
Is there any/much evidence that MSNBC has done anything that would decrease their credibility? Other than just the image thing?
I've been very surprised by some of the anti-MS stories that have showed up on MSNBC. Or is this just a ploy? Put really obvious anti-MS stories up, but when there's something that isn't so visible but could hurt MS greatly, then don't air that one?
--
--
From Uni Maryland's FAQ (they're working with NASA on this project):
- Q: If the impactor split the comet, would any debris head towards earth?
As far as the effect on the orbit goes... well, the copper cylinder weighs 500kg and will be going 20,000 mph at the time of impact (source). And I guess I don't know the inertia of the comet, or the angle of impact. But from this picture, it looks like the comet will be pushed away from earth. But I guess if that brings it much closer to some other body, the orbit could change further?The orbit of Tempel 1 is at least 0.5 AU (about 46 million miles) from Earth's orbit at their closest points. There is absolutely no possibility of Tempel 1, the Deep Impact comet, getting near the earth. When comets fragment, the pieces also stay in orbits very similar to the orbit of the parent comet. Danger to the earth is from asteroids and comets whose orbits cross the earth's orbit. Tempel 1 never crosses the earth's orbit. The two orbits are totally separate and never cross each other. Tempel 1 can never be pulled into the earth's gravitational field at any time.
The Deep Impact impactor will just scratch the surface of the comet making a relatively small crater compared to the size of the comet. Even if the comet were to be extremely fragile and break apart, the pieces would still be in the same orbit and would never come close to the earth's orbit.
--
The copper cylinder will weigh 500kg / 1,100 pounds, and will carry a camera and an infrared spectrometer. The targetted comet is Comet 9P/Tempel 1.
--
The same thing happens with politicians. If there's pre-existing laws that aren't being enforced, congress will happily create new legislation that does the same thing, just so they can tell their constituents that they're working hard.
--
Same deal with the places in Vegas, no? The company doesn't want to get a reputation of screwing people over, so they don't set the odds too low, or the customers go to the casino across the street?
--
Don't they know that good will always win over evil?
--
(but only when it affects their wallets)
--
Well, their stock symbol is LNUX. If you want, you can blame VA for taking that symbol, and thus causing confusion. *shrug*
--