I used to work at a company that was funded by a billionaire. It was essentially a little project for his son to play with and learn about business. We installed internet kiosks around Manhattan.
the thing failed because they had all the money they wanted. They got Kiosks that cost about 6,000 a piece, when the average kiosk made less than $20 a day. They also didn't get a plan with any ISP, so they were paying to install the lines in the venues, and paying full price for those lines.
If there had been less free cash flowing around, it would have forced the company to think smarter. Instead its about to go belly up.
Bubba Ho-Tep is the best damn film I've seen in a long time. An instant cult classic.
Basic plot: Elvis and a black JFK take on a 10,000 year old mummy from Egypt. It's also got a great explination for Elivs's life, times, and thoughts on fame.
See this movie. Hopefully it will make it to DVD sometime soon.
This is a lot like a little mini-bubble.
The big problem is that so many people are hoping on this bandwagon, consumers are not going to know where to turn. Apple will probably come out on top of the pile, as they have the recognition and the coolness factor at the moment.
However, consumers stand to become very, very confused in the fray. I for one can't keep track of who has a music service and who does not anymore. Consumers will get overwhelmed by the choice. Hell, the more companies that come out to play. the better it could be for Apple as more and more people turn to the popularity/ease of the store.
Still, there is not a lot of profit there. Again, thanks to the RIAA eating a chunk of the money that Apple is taking in.
And I suppose that's the real reason it will fail if it does- the RIAA still taking too much of the money to make it feasible. Unless you are trying to push another product, online music sales are going to be a tough business to enter.
I'm sure it will all wind up being digital, but there will be those die-hard people that will never change. (Like Charlie Chaplan refused to use films with sound, and didn't think it was an appropriate art form.)
However, the nature of a print totally changes. It's a big deal to have an original print of a photo, one that's done from the negative. How is this going to effect the monetary value of the photos?
For the record, I didn't RTFA. It might be answered in the article. (At least I'm honest.)
Bush is just trying to get the Slashdot vote! He knows that us nerds will be all a twitter with the release of Return of the King that day! He's going to try to win us all over.
I also know for a fact that he's going to give the moon speech while dressed like Gandolf.
Agreed. I cringe when I have to play an FPS on a console... it's nearly impossible to aim while you are moving.
I don't think that a design for a controller would have to be "radically" different though. You just need a more ergonomic design that lets two or more fingers on the left hand hit keys, and then a tiny track ball for the right thumb, and a couple of buttons for fingers on the right hand to fire guns. It would be a pain in the ass to learn, but it would be a compact, console friendly answer to the keyboard and mouse... they take up a fair amount of room.
Wow, this can now simulate how boring it is to play baseball.
That was my first reaction, too. Baseball is our national pass-time because so much damn time passes when you play/watch it.
The thing that I always liked about baseball video games (I do like the game) is that you can cut to the chase of batting/pitching. You always get to do all the fun stuff. I can't imagine how fucking boring it would be to stand as a right fielder for inning after inning and NOT do anything.
MMOs are just a way to make more money for game companies.
I grew up in Maine. The state is really, really small. I live in New York now, and anytime I meet someone from Maine, I find that I'm normally connected to them by 1 degree of separation.
I also grew up in a small town. News there travels very, very fast. (I was 11 years old and I gave a kid the finger as I got off a school bus... my mother knew about it when I walked in the door 15 minutes later). It does not matter if the news is true, either. Once a piece of gossip gets out, it spreads faster than a celebrity sex video on the internet.
Although I am a big advocate for privacy, I think this might in same cases help the sex offenders. If their crimes are easily accessible to the public, it helps stop the wild stories that could evolve around them. Yes, what these people were convicted of is TERRIBLE, but it's nothing compared to what a town full of gossipers can do with a nugget of near-truth.
Living as a convicted sex offender is a difficult thing, but hopefully this will keep some of the smaller towns in Maine in perspective so that these individuals can be reintroduced to society.
The above is a very weighted statement. I seriously welcome varying viewpoints, but please don't flame me for being open minded.
Also who can deny the lush beautiful landscapes that NZ provided.
Seriously. A friend of mine spent 6 months in Antarctica at a US research base (he only had an internet connection when a communications satellite was overhead... I think 8 hours a day or something) and then spent 6 months in NZ just traveling around... his photos were amazing, and I half expected to see Gandolf riding a horse in the distance. I would LOVE to go there some day, except I hear it's hard to get into the country sometimes.
I think my favorite memory from 1984 was waking up January 1st and realizing I didn't have a TV in my house that I had to exercise in front of ever morning before going to work at the ministry.
A TMO is not really a bad idea...
I was in the Beta for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Although they want it to be an MMO, I think it could work really well if you had fewer people on a server.
Then you could have people hosting games on their own boxes... why not create an MMO style game where the server-side portion is designed to run on a single box?
I don't play MMOs, so I don't know if it's feasible... anyone else know?
I'm not 100% sure if my timeline is correct but I remember there being parallels to the movie effect when the game came out
You are right. There were even references to The matrix Slow-mo in Maz Payne... in the end there are a couple of bad guys talking about how "All the cool movies make the action slow down... what do they call it.. oh yeah, Bullet Time."
Re:Don't get too excited.
on
The Opus Interview
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Perhaps Outland didn't last in your local paper, but the strip itself was in business from the end of Bloom County (1989? Maybe 1991...) until 1995. There were three Outland collections, although the third book did not have enough cartoons for a full book and included some of Burke's "outtakes" from the strip.
figure about 100 strips per book, (and 50 for the last one) and only 52 strips per year, you get about 5 years worth of strips.
Opus will probably last as long as Burke wants it to... given the current state of politics that needs mocking, I think Opus will be around for awhile.
He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.
No, computers have a long way to go to beat the masters.
I was an avid chess player in high school. I played on a national level a couple of times even.
I've since stopped playing as much, but I do play from time to time. i keep a chess program on my palm pilot. Some dumb free thing I downloaded from the internet. Even when I'm concentrating on the game, I still get my ass kicked on the higher levels.
Now, i am no champion by any account. I don't think my USCF rating when above 900 ever. However, I can still beat your average Joe that I sit down to play with. I doubt any average person would do so well against the palm pilot, either.
So when people say that this is finally where computers take the advantage over humans, i have to disagree. Computers took the advantage over humans a long time ago. Now it's just icing on the cake.
mp3 was the format with highest circulation at the time napster was created hence, napster searched for mp3 files. Napster opened the digtial music market to the masses.
Although there are way, way better formats, mp3 is what people understand the best and have the most of. I don't know many people with the patience or understanding to reformat all the music they already have.
The next format to take hold will be whatever format the new music services choose to give us. Right now, AAC seems to be taking the lead.
But I think mp3 still has some life left to it. I doubt many people understand the difference, anyway.
That makes total sense. Thank you for finally answering one of those little questions that has nagged me just enough to remember the question, but not enough to actually find an answer for myself.
Why space objects need to be burnt up in the atmosphere? Is there really that much of a danger of leaving them in orbit?? Why can't Hubble (or Mir before it) be left in orbit for the time being?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Big budget does not equal great success.
I used to work at a company that was funded by a billionaire. It was essentially a little project for his son to play with and learn about business. We installed internet kiosks around Manhattan.
the thing failed because they had all the money they wanted. They got Kiosks that cost about 6,000 a piece, when the average kiosk made less than $20 a day. They also didn't get a plan with any ISP, so they were paying to install the lines in the venues, and paying full price for those lines.
If there had been less free cash flowing around, it would have forced the company to think smarter. Instead its about to go belly up.
HELLLS YEAH.
Bubba Ho-Tep is the best damn film I've seen in a long time. An instant cult classic.
Basic plot: Elvis and a black JFK take on a 10,000 year old mummy from Egypt. It's also got a great explination for Elivs's life, times, and thoughts on fame.
See this movie. Hopefully it will make it to DVD sometime soon.
This is a lot like a little mini-bubble. The big problem is that so many people are hoping on this bandwagon, consumers are not going to know where to turn. Apple will probably come out on top of the pile, as they have the recognition and the coolness factor at the moment. However, consumers stand to become very, very confused in the fray. I for one can't keep track of who has a music service and who does not anymore. Consumers will get overwhelmed by the choice. Hell, the more companies that come out to play. the better it could be for Apple as more and more people turn to the popularity/ease of the store. Still, there is not a lot of profit there. Again, thanks to the RIAA eating a chunk of the money that Apple is taking in. And I suppose that's the real reason it will fail if it does- the RIAA still taking too much of the money to make it feasible. Unless you are trying to push another product, online music sales are going to be a tough business to enter.
I'm sure it will all wind up being digital, but there will be those die-hard people that will never change. (Like Charlie Chaplan refused to use films with sound, and didn't think it was an appropriate art form.) However, the nature of a print totally changes. It's a big deal to have an original print of a photo, one that's done from the negative. How is this going to effect the monetary value of the photos? For the record, I didn't RTFA. It might be answered in the article. (At least I'm honest.)
As cool as this device is, I think I'm going to let the market for devices like this take a little more form before I start buying anything.
Bush is just trying to get the Slashdot vote! He knows that us nerds will be all a twitter with the release of Return of the King that day! He's going to try to win us all over. I also know for a fact that he's going to give the moon speech while dressed like Gandolf.
Agreed. I cringe when I have to play an FPS on a console... it's nearly impossible to aim while you are moving. I don't think that a design for a controller would have to be "radically" different though. You just need a more ergonomic design that lets two or more fingers on the left hand hit keys, and then a tiny track ball for the right thumb, and a couple of buttons for fingers on the right hand to fire guns. It would be a pain in the ass to learn, but it would be a compact, console friendly answer to the keyboard and mouse... they take up a fair amount of room.
Wow, this can now simulate how boring it is to play baseball. That was my first reaction, too. Baseball is our national pass-time because so much damn time passes when you play/watch it. The thing that I always liked about baseball video games (I do like the game) is that you can cut to the chase of batting/pitching. You always get to do all the fun stuff. I can't imagine how fucking boring it would be to stand as a right fielder for inning after inning and NOT do anything. MMOs are just a way to make more money for game companies.
I grew up in Maine. The state is really, really small. I live in New York now, and anytime I meet someone from Maine, I find that I'm normally connected to them by 1 degree of separation. I also grew up in a small town. News there travels very, very fast. (I was 11 years old and I gave a kid the finger as I got off a school bus... my mother knew about it when I walked in the door 15 minutes later). It does not matter if the news is true, either. Once a piece of gossip gets out, it spreads faster than a celebrity sex video on the internet. Although I am a big advocate for privacy, I think this might in same cases help the sex offenders. If their crimes are easily accessible to the public, it helps stop the wild stories that could evolve around them. Yes, what these people were convicted of is TERRIBLE, but it's nothing compared to what a town full of gossipers can do with a nugget of near-truth. Living as a convicted sex offender is a difficult thing, but hopefully this will keep some of the smaller towns in Maine in perspective so that these individuals can be reintroduced to society. The above is a very weighted statement. I seriously welcome varying viewpoints, but please don't flame me for being open minded.
Also who can deny the lush beautiful landscapes that NZ provided. Seriously. A friend of mine spent 6 months in Antarctica at a US research base (he only had an internet connection when a communications satellite was overhead... I think 8 hours a day or something) and then spent 6 months in NZ just traveling around... his photos were amazing, and I half expected to see Gandolf riding a horse in the distance. I would LOVE to go there some day, except I hear it's hard to get into the country sometimes.
I think my favorite memory from 1984 was waking up January 1st and realizing I didn't have a TV in my house that I had to exercise in front of ever morning before going to work at the ministry.
A TMO is not really a bad idea... I was in the Beta for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Although they want it to be an MMO, I think it could work really well if you had fewer people on a server. Then you could have people hosting games on their own boxes... why not create an MMO style game where the server-side portion is designed to run on a single box? I don't play MMOs, so I don't know if it's feasible... anyone else know?
I'm not 100% sure if my timeline is correct but I remember there being parallels to the movie effect when the game came out
You are right. There were even references to The matrix Slow-mo in Maz Payne... in the end there are a couple of bad guys talking about how "All the cool movies make the action slow down... what do they call it.. oh yeah, Bullet Time."
Perhaps Outland didn't last in your local paper, but the strip itself was in business from the end of Bloom County (1989? Maybe 1991...) until 1995. There were three Outland collections, although the third book did not have enough cartoons for a full book and included some of Burke's "outtakes" from the strip.
figure about 100 strips per book, (and 50 for the last one) and only 52 strips per year, you get about 5 years worth of strips.
Opus will probably last as long as Burke wants it to... given the current state of politics that needs mocking, I think Opus will be around for awhile.
that interview sucked balls. Obviously not done by Burke, but someone trying to impersonate him... at least I fucking hope so.
Wow, I must be a total weenie- I got my copy of the post today and was nearly moved to tears by the return of Opus.
I can't wait to see what's going to happen to him...
I've not RTFA, but obviously taxing email is going to work because the internet is only in America.
He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.
No, computers have a long way to go to beat the masters.
I was an avid chess player in high school. I played on a national level a couple of times even.
I've since stopped playing as much, but I do play from time to time. i keep a chess program on my palm pilot. Some dumb free thing I downloaded from the internet. Even when I'm concentrating on the game, I still get my ass kicked on the higher levels.
Now, i am no champion by any account. I don't think my USCF rating when above 900 ever. However, I can still beat your average Joe that I sit down to play with. I doubt any average person would do so well against the palm pilot, either.
So when people say that this is finally where computers take the advantage over humans, i have to disagree. Computers took the advantage over humans a long time ago. Now it's just icing on the cake.
mp3 was the format with highest circulation at the time napster was created hence, napster searched for mp3 files. Napster opened the digtial music market to the masses.
Although there are way, way better formats, mp3 is what people understand the best and have the most of. I don't know many people with the patience or understanding to reformat all the music they already have.
The next format to take hold will be whatever format the new music services choose to give us. Right now, AAC seems to be taking the lead.
But I think mp3 still has some life left to it. I doubt many people understand the difference, anyway.
That makes total sense. Thank you for finally answering one of those little questions that has nagged me just enough to remember the question, but not enough to actually find an answer for myself.
ps- I'm not lazy.
When did bully's figure out how to work a computer?
I'm sure I'll get modded Troll for this one but...
Is it really a school's responsibility to deal with this?? Would a school be held accountable if signs of a derogatory nature were put up around town?
The school should do something if the site is created on school property, but I don't know if there is anything they should have to do otherwise.
Still, this sucks. I can't begin to say how glad I am that this was not around when i was in school.
Why space objects need to be burnt up in the atmosphere? Is there really that much of a danger of leaving them in orbit?? Why can't Hubble (or Mir before it) be left in orbit for the time being?
...the similarities between the Second Life logo and the Journey Cloths from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst? Anyone have any insight on that one?
It's still made of green cheese, right?