"Sure, the television executives put them *on the air* to trick people into watching commercials, but behind the shows themselves were people who actually cared about creating quality entertainment. To equate all television to the level of "just there to sell you stuff" is to cheapen the artistic vision of people like Gene Rodenberry, J. Michael Strascynski, and Joss Whedon to the level of the garbage sitcoms and reality shows that litter the rest of the television airwaves"
Not at all. The point I was getting at wasn't to put them in the same category as Will and Grace or Normal Ohio, the point was that those shows are there to get you to make money. Every single one of those shows was developed to be put on TV. Each one had a 'bible' describing the setting and the characters for the writers to follow. Each one was developed to fit around the standard television format. Each one had goals in mind to keep the audience in tune with it. (Jeri Ryan's appearance as 7 of 9 comes to mind...) Etc.
What Roddenberry, Whedon, Strascynski, etc did was raise the bar by providing higher quality entertainment. I seriously doubt any of those dudes would take what I said as an insult. (If I phrased it poorly, I'd certainly apologize to each of them for that.) But the fact is that they weren't creating works of art, they were using their artistic visions to improve the quality of their programming. Kudos to them. However, at the end of the day, their work was made available because it was profitable.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. I'm an over zealous Nintendo fan boy. As much as I admire their work (particularly Mr. Miyamoto's...) It's quite clear that they are in business to make money. Their goal isn't for me to have fun, it's for me to pay them money because I'm having fun. Nintendo wants me to buy games, Paramount wants me to watch the commercials that accompany Star Trek. Simple.
I don't block ads. I block annoyances, such as popups. I don't mind the ads. I certainly prefer them to having to pay subscription fees. Then again, ads these days are far less annoying than they were 3 or 4 years ago. Heck, I even find the occasional thinkgeek ad interesting. I don't think advertising is automatically evil. I can understand being against the annoyance, but I've seen so many extreme views here that are really quite obnoxious. "Even though these ads are what is keeping this site I enjoy so much alive, I'm blocking them because of the principal of it." Yeah, right. If you were really operating on principals, you'd pay the fair price for viewing the site. Sadly, this sort of attitude doesn't earn as much karma around here.
For those of you that think all ads are evil, I have some random bits of info for you to read:
- I have my dream job right now because of a community site supported by ads. It is a massive site that is expensive to run simply because of the sheer number of users. I know others that can tell a similar story.
- Slashdot, an ad driven site, has provided me and LOTS of others many many hours of entertainment. (admittedly, it's the extreme twerps that provide the most entertainment for me.)
- Serenity, the movie trailer that lots of Slashdots tripped overthemselves to get, is an ad intended to get you to spend $8+ at the local theater.
- Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and even Futurama were made for the expressed purpose of tricking you into watching commercials.
- Any time you get excited by the latest processor or the newest video card or even the whoop-de-shit gaming system coming out, you're hearing about it because of advertising. Despite popular belief, there's really not that much difference between news and advertising.
Anyway, I'm done ranting. Moving on to a more constructive topic: I think advertising services are missing a critical component here. Opera had it right for a while. Way back in version 5, they actually used a.gif based ad instead of Google's text based ads. They had comics rotating through the ads. I found myself glancing up there regularly so I could catch the latest comic. I miss that. In that sense, it was more like TV. The ads became tolerable because I was being rewarded with content. Fair enough. I think some would-be cartoonists could make an interesting living, there. I think this is the right idea. Unfortunately, most sites try to play it as though the content they're providing is enough. Pity, really. Tripping over ads is not the way to keep your userbase. That's what drives people to block the ads. I can certainly understand that. Heck, even TV isn't immune to this. Lost is very hard to watch without a PVR. Tone it down, dudes.
"It would be very irresponsible to develop this weapon without clear data on what effect it has on wildlife."
Maybe in the sense that possibly they can do less damage to the wildlife without sacrificing effectiveness of the defense system. However, human life does take precedence over wildlife. You can think ill of me if you like, but it's not like we're running around firing torps at each other because we're trying out for a Mountain Dew commercial.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind in the slightest if my cell phone offered a better gaming experience. Thing is, though, I'm not looking to replace my DS. Rather, my phone is with me at times when the rest of my toys aren't. Sometimes I find myself in a position with time to kill. It's for that reason I'm grateful that my phone has a net connection. Yeah, okay, it's not the same as a $4,000 laptop running a 10 gigabit internet connection, but it also doesn't cost me a ton of pocket space either.
That said, I at least agree that gaming isn't really the direction to go with these things. As much as I love for phones to 'do more', I wish they'd go in the PDA direction instead of the Game Boy direction. One of the things I loved about my 3650 is that it effectively killed my desire to use a PocketPC. More more more.
"Ooh, I need to make a correction. I'd rather have my film, both negatives and positives or slides, than a digital file. With the film I can always print them out, or scan them if I want a digital file. Actually, as I don't have a darkroom or access to one right now, when I turn in film for processing I almost always order a cd as well."
I can understand that, man. The huge benefit there is that you have the originals to work from. I like my stuff digital, but as an artist I can understand wanting the highest quality one around.:)
"No, I am accusing you of it troll. If you consider attacking an entire community based on someone asking a legitimate question then you are a troll. You sidestepped the question and whined."
Heh. Right. I can play this game, too. "You never had a rebuttal against my point. Instead, you sidestepped it and tried to attack me personally!!" TROLL! TROLL TROLL! Heh. BTW, it actually is okay for me to comment on people's posts, even though you took personal offense to what I said.
"As for your little treatise about people being biased, well yes, of coures people are, as you've shown in your post by sidestepping the question and whining about the entire community."
I love it. "I'll only admit you're right if I can be insulting with it." Ah, but *I* am the troll and *I* am childish.
"If you're going to make a point about people showing an unfair bias agaiunst Microsoft I suggest you find someone that's making an unfair or incorrect statement about Microsoft to attach it to."
I did, actually. Others saw it, you missed it. Let's be frank: You felt insulted by my comment and you hoped to discredit me. That's why you didn't have a real rebuttal to my point. That's why you've found it so important to try to label me things like childish, whiny, and troll. That's why you're wiggling around all over the place trying to nail me on something hoping you can hold your head high. That's why you're committing the acts you're accusing me of.
I am not the least bit threatened by your approach here. If anything, you're demonstrating exactly what I was talking about. "What? He's not putting down Microsoft? He's a whining Apologist!" You cannot even try to accept what I said. You're already waaaay too defensive for that. "You're whining, whining, whining!" We both know that you didn't choose that word because that's what you think. You're hoping I'll respond to it. You want another shot at me. You're hoping I'll say something you can argue with. "But I guess you don't mind being childish, whiny and wrong... you are a troll after all." You can try denying it, but that was a challenge. All the little debate perpetuating quips. Fun fun fun.:)
Okay, this is the end of my post. So what'll happen next is you'll try the "but you didn't answer the questioN!' bit again and try to claim victory. I predict you'll say 'whining' again hoping that the sheer repetition of it will get me mad or something. You'll likely call me a troll again and cook up a half-assed rationalization for that. And, if the pattern holds, it'll make you look silly as well. You'll try to take the high road acting as though you're behaving any better than you're claiming I am. Yadda yadda yadda.
Welp, I'm bored today, so feel free to kick off another round of "DEFEND... YOUR... HONOR--or--or--or!"
"If you print then you don't have just a digital file, the print is hardcopy. And that was my point, I'd rather have a hardcopy than just a digital file."
Not intending to be argumentative or anything, but the reason I'd prefer to have the digital file is because I find the hard copies inconvenient. They require storage space. Kinda scary when compared to simply burning a backup CD or uploading files to a webserver. The hardcopy would be more valuable to me if I spent much time where I wasn't near a computer, but honestly, I just don't live that sort of life. Computer at home, computer at work, stuff centralized on the net so I can hit it anywhere, etc. I've also moved a few times and lost a few hardcopy photos in the process.
"As far as uploading to share, what if one of the people being shared with doesn't have internet access, or even a computer?"
I can't speak for most, but I don't have a member of the family that doesn't have a net connection.
" I see no difference between apologists and whiners that assume the entire character of someone based on asking a simple question they don't have an answer to."
What's amazing is that you probably don't realize the ironic hilarity of that statement. "I can't stand all those apologists that make assumptions about the entire character of somebody." Way to put your foot into your mouth, genius. Heh.
"I wouldn't know, you have yet to make a point that had anything to do with the subject or contradict what I said to you in the first place."
Haha! And now the conversation comes to a complete circle! That's rich. I'm not allowed to expect a rebuttal, but no no no, when the debate fails to go your way, suddenly it's required of me. I must have really struck a sensitive nerve with my original post. Feeling a little insecure, are we?
"Learn to tell the difference between someone making a reasonable and realistic point about a subject and someone bashing Microsoft or people are just going to asssume you're a troll."
Are you giving me advice, or are you telling me something you just learned the hard way? I ask because this started with you not being able to tell the difference between a realistic point and a troll, but I'm under the distinct impression that you're actually trying to accuse me of it. (... and then claim you're one who seeks truth. Heh.)
Feel free to dig yourself in a little deeper. (or you could act like the truth seeker you claim to be and actually try to understand what I'm saying, perhaps ask a few questions for clarification, but I doubt your personal biases will actually let you listen to somebody who may not say what you want to hear.)
"Ah, so they all offer the convenience of a photo album you can just grab off the bookshelf and leaf through? I don't think so."
Um, yeah, actually they do, and then some. My gf has her photos up on a gallery she can (and does) share with people. Also, those books get damaged and decay. It's a click away from a bookmark. No biggie. Add photos? No prob! No need to deal with photo developing or printing. [UPLOAD] *click*.
"For things like mp3 players and cellphones, it's really useless unless you're completely lazy or hate charging wires with a passion."
You really don't need to hate the wires with a passion. All you need is for two ore more rechargable items to stay on to of. Right now in my house, I have a digital camera, 2 cell phones, two mp3 players, a PocketPC, Nintendo DS, and two laptops. Can you imagine what it'd look like to have all these chargers on one outlet? Having a pad you could just lay your rechargables on would be considerably more convenient.
"You must not have kids if you think that paper photos are chasing the dinosaurs."
You're right. I don't have kids. My gf has a nephew she's quite proud of. She wants to keep her photos backed up, so digital is far more convenient for her.
I'll happily admit that I may be missing a key ingredient here as you're implying, but I still stand by why I said. Heck, I remember when my uncle got his fist digital camera shortly after the birth of his first grandson. He immediately bought an app that rotates through all of his photos and plasters them up on the wallpaper. I see the photos all the time, but he's only actually printed a small handful of them. His laptop is with him at all times, as are his photos.
"Seriously, you're paying for 1 thing -- privacy. Scratch that, you're also paying for convienence. How much $$ in gas do you burn driving to the store, then driving back to pick it up? That's a distance * 4 cost if you're doing nothing else. What's the time cost involved? Hey, how much do you make an hour vs. how long you spend driving? There are many advantages to home printing."
Erm maybe. However, I'd have to drive 600 miles to make up for the cost of just the printer itself.
That said, I have to wonder why home printing is all that popular in the first place. Me personally, I keep and view all my photos etc on my computer. My girlfriend puts all her favorite photos onto her website with a neat freebie gallery app she downloaded. Neither of us are terribly interested in hard copies of photos. I can't help but think over the next few years, more will feel this way. Maybe I'm narrow minded, but I think this particular market is doomed to die in the not too distant future. Between cell phones, PDAs, e-paper, and iPods with fancy-ass screens, the benefits of hard copied prints are diminishing in the face of digital convenience.
"IMHO, Sony are very unlikley to release the SDK to the public (at a resonable price) anytime soon"
They won't. They're losing money on the system and making it up through the sale of games. They want people buying PSPs to play the games they make royalties off of. In some ways it's sad, in some ways it's understandable. Can't say I agree much with their business model, but they did pack a lot of hardware into that price range.
"If you're not enjoying what you're doing, why are you doing it?"
Food on the table, mainly.
In any event, I think questions like this are more helpful for management than they are for programmers or anybody else with a similar profession. The article uses the word 'fun', but in practice, I think 'importance' is a more interesting term. (Maybe they're not all that dissimilar?) Constantly changing directions in order to meet arbitrary deadlines or "chasing money" is a real morale killer. Working with well laid plan knowing that you're boring work is going to pay off into an interesting product, that's a lot more interesting. It's important.
Eh I think I'm mainly just stating the obvious here. When I hear stories of companies like EA demanding tons of unpaid overtime to meet an arbitrary deadline, it seems to me that even the 'fun' parts of asset building turn into a curse real fast. It's not fun to try to shortcut your way to the finish line with the concern that one of those shortcuts will come back and nip your hinder.
"Another question would be how secure would it be to even consider using swap space on someone else's hard drive? Think about it...your entire program's memory could be swapped out, without notice, including any sensitive information stored in there such as passwords and encryption keys and such."
Isn't that equivalent to saying "Your house isn't very secure. Somebody with a bulldozer could easily get in."...?
No no, I'm not trying to use the time dis-honored method of using faulty metaphores to shoot your point down. Rather, I really am asking a question here. Wouldn't it take somebody with a snazzy computer mind and the right tools to actually go in and retrieve useful information? Wouldn't they have to know precisely what they're looking for to actually obtain that data? In that case, would it really be all that likely you'd fall victim to something like that?
Whether I'm right or wrong, seems to me the best solution to this problem is to not rely on a computer you're not in control of to be secure. I have a hard time imagining students in school, for example, lots of students in school keeping dangerous info on these drives. The simple fact that they could lose the drive, in most cases, would be enough to keep these people in line.
"Anyone remember that retarded "rotary dial" interface on the 3650? Yeah, well, here's more from the same people who brought you that piece of crap..."
I had one of these and I have no idea what you're bitching about. I mistyped numbers far less often with the 3650 than I do with the traditional clamshell phone I have now. The main reason for this is that the radial design allowed for more space in between the buttons.
"OH, gee, it looks different! I could never get used to that!! Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch..."
"Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got"
Well, a couple of things sprung to mind after reading the Slashdot summary. (Nah, didn't read the article. I'm tired.) First, why are they looking at surveys when they could look at the total games sold in the last few years? I'm under the impression that console game sales have been going way way up over the last 10 years. Gaming is becoming more mainstream. It is reasonable to expect that the more people climbing on board that the more diluted their interest is going to be across the board. Sadly, because their numbers are based on percentage, I think they're measuring that dillution more than they are the true interest in games. To put it another way: Back in 95 when I was in high school, gaming wasn't as popular. There were kids that played games entirely too much, and the rest barely played them at all. These days, I think more teenagers are getting games, but not all of them are buying up huge collection of games like the hardcore gamers do. So even though more games have been sold, the number of games per person is possibly going down.
On the other hand, there's another big difference between the mid 90's and today: The ubiquity of the internet. I think that if I had grown up with IM with my fellow classmates, I would have spent more time doing that than playing games. I can see the 'hanging out with my friends on-line' bit being more important than playing games. Heck, that'd even explain the increased spending on clothes etc.
So.. eh.. I dunno. I agree the numbers probably aren't being used correctly. I'm just not sure if the conclusion is wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
It was CGTalk.com. :)
"Sure, the television executives put them *on the air* to trick people into watching commercials, but behind the shows themselves were people who actually cared about creating quality entertainment. To equate all television to the level of "just there to sell you stuff" is to cheapen the artistic vision of people like Gene Rodenberry, J. Michael Strascynski, and Joss Whedon to the level of the garbage sitcoms and reality shows that litter the rest of the television airwaves"
Not at all. The point I was getting at wasn't to put them in the same category as Will and Grace or Normal Ohio, the point was that those shows are there to get you to make money. Every single one of those shows was developed to be put on TV. Each one had a 'bible' describing the setting and the characters for the writers to follow. Each one was developed to fit around the standard television format. Each one had goals in mind to keep the audience in tune with it. (Jeri Ryan's appearance as 7 of 9 comes to mind...) Etc.
What Roddenberry, Whedon, Strascynski, etc did was raise the bar by providing higher quality entertainment. I seriously doubt any of those dudes would take what I said as an insult. (If I phrased it poorly, I'd certainly apologize to each of them for that.) But the fact is that they weren't creating works of art, they were using their artistic visions to improve the quality of their programming. Kudos to them. However, at the end of the day, their work was made available because it was profitable.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. I'm an over zealous Nintendo fan boy. As much as I admire their work (particularly Mr. Miyamoto's...) It's quite clear that they are in business to make money. Their goal isn't for me to have fun, it's for me to pay them money because I'm having fun. Nintendo wants me to buy games, Paramount wants me to watch the commercials that accompany Star Trek. Simple.
I don't block ads. I block annoyances, such as popups. I don't mind the ads. I certainly prefer them to having to pay subscription fees. Then again, ads these days are far less annoying than they were 3 or 4 years ago. Heck, I even find the occasional thinkgeek ad interesting. I don't think advertising is automatically evil. I can understand being against the annoyance, but I've seen so many extreme views here that are really quite obnoxious. "Even though these ads are what is keeping this site I enjoy so much alive, I'm blocking them because of the principal of it." Yeah, right. If you were really operating on principals, you'd pay the fair price for viewing the site. Sadly, this sort of attitude doesn't earn as much karma around here.
.gif based ad instead of Google's text based ads. They had comics rotating through the ads. I found myself glancing up there regularly so I could catch the latest comic. I miss that. In that sense, it was more like TV. The ads became tolerable because I was being rewarded with content. Fair enough. I think some would-be cartoonists could make an interesting living, there. I think this is the right idea. Unfortunately, most sites try to play it as though the content they're providing is enough. Pity, really. Tripping over ads is not the way to keep your userbase. That's what drives people to block the ads. I can certainly understand that. Heck, even TV isn't immune to this. Lost is very hard to watch without a PVR. Tone it down, dudes.
For those of you that think all ads are evil, I have some random bits of info for you to read:
- I have my dream job right now because of a community site supported by ads. It is a massive site that is expensive to run simply because of the sheer number of users. I know others that can tell a similar story.
- Slashdot, an ad driven site, has provided me and LOTS of others many many hours of entertainment. (admittedly, it's the extreme twerps that provide the most entertainment for me.)
- Serenity, the movie trailer that lots of Slashdots tripped overthemselves to get, is an ad intended to get you to spend $8+ at the local theater.
- Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and even Futurama were made for the expressed purpose of tricking you into watching commercials.
- Any time you get excited by the latest processor or the newest video card or even the whoop-de-shit gaming system coming out, you're hearing about it because of advertising. Despite popular belief, there's really not that much difference between news and advertising.
Anyway, I'm done ranting. Moving on to a more constructive topic: I think advertising services are missing a critical component here. Opera had it right for a while. Way back in version 5, they actually used a
"It would be very irresponsible to develop this weapon without clear data on what effect it has on wildlife."
Maybe in the sense that possibly they can do less damage to the wildlife without sacrificing effectiveness of the defense system. However, human life does take precedence over wildlife. You can think ill of me if you like, but it's not like we're running around firing torps at each other because we're trying out for a Mountain Dew commercial.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind in the slightest if my cell phone offered a better gaming experience. Thing is, though, I'm not looking to replace my DS. Rather, my phone is with me at times when the rest of my toys aren't. Sometimes I find myself in a position with time to kill. It's for that reason I'm grateful that my phone has a net connection. Yeah, okay, it's not the same as a $4,000 laptop running a 10 gigabit internet connection, but it also doesn't cost me a ton of pocket space either.
That said, I at least agree that gaming isn't really the direction to go with these things. As much as I love for phones to 'do more', I wish they'd go in the PDA direction instead of the Game Boy direction. One of the things I loved about my 3650 is that it effectively killed my desire to use a PocketPC. More more more.
"Ooh, I need to make a correction. I'd rather have my film, both negatives and positives or slides, than a digital file. With the film I can always print them out, or scan them if I want a digital file. Actually, as I don't have a darkroom or access to one right now, when I turn in film for processing I almost always order a cd as well."
:)
I can understand that, man. The huge benefit there is that you have the originals to work from. I like my stuff digital, but as an artist I can understand wanting the highest quality one around.
"No, I am accusing you of it troll. If you consider attacking an entire community based on someone asking a legitimate question then you are a troll. You sidestepped the question and whined."
:)
... YOUR... HONOR--or--or--or!"
Heh. Right. I can play this game, too. "You never had a rebuttal against my point. Instead, you sidestepped it and tried to attack me personally!!" TROLL! TROLL TROLL! Heh. BTW, it actually is okay for me to comment on people's posts, even though you took personal offense to what I said.
"As for your little treatise about people being biased, well yes, of coures people are, as you've shown in your post by sidestepping the question and whining about the entire community."
I love it. "I'll only admit you're right if I can be insulting with it." Ah, but *I* am the troll and *I* am childish.
"If you're going to make a point about people showing an unfair bias agaiunst Microsoft I suggest you find someone that's making an unfair or incorrect statement about Microsoft to attach it to."
I did, actually. Others saw it, you missed it. Let's be frank: You felt insulted by my comment and you hoped to discredit me. That's why you didn't have a real rebuttal to my point. That's why you've found it so important to try to label me things like childish, whiny, and troll. That's why you're wiggling around all over the place trying to nail me on something hoping you can hold your head high. That's why you're committing the acts you're accusing me of.
I am not the least bit threatened by your approach here. If anything, you're demonstrating exactly what I was talking about. "What? He's not putting down Microsoft? He's a whining Apologist!" You cannot even try to accept what I said. You're already waaaay too defensive for that. "You're whining, whining, whining!" We both know that you didn't choose that word because that's what you think. You're hoping I'll respond to it. You want another shot at me. You're hoping I'll say something you can argue with. "But I guess you don't mind being childish, whiny and wrong... you are a troll after all." You can try denying it, but that was a challenge. All the little debate perpetuating quips. Fun fun fun.
Okay, this is the end of my post. So what'll happen next is you'll try the "but you didn't answer the questioN!' bit again and try to claim victory. I predict you'll say 'whining' again hoping that the sheer repetition of it will get me mad or something. You'll likely call me a troll again and cook up a half-assed rationalization for that. And, if the pattern holds, it'll make you look silly as well. You'll try to take the high road acting as though you're behaving any better than you're claiming I am. Yadda yadda yadda.
Welp, I'm bored today, so feel free to kick off another round of "DEFEND
"If you print then you don't have just a digital file, the print is hardcopy. And that was my point, I'd rather have a hardcopy than just a digital file."
Not intending to be argumentative or anything, but the reason I'd prefer to have the digital file is because I find the hard copies inconvenient. They require storage space. Kinda scary when compared to simply burning a backup CD or uploading files to a webserver. The hardcopy would be more valuable to me if I spent much time where I wasn't near a computer, but honestly, I just don't live that sort of life. Computer at home, computer at work, stuff centralized on the net so I can hit it anywhere, etc. I've also moved a few times and lost a few hardcopy photos in the process.
"As far as uploading to share, what if one of the people being shared with doesn't have internet access, or even a computer?"
I can't speak for most, but I don't have a member of the family that doesn't have a net connection.
"Your whining?"
:)
Thanks for proving my point.
" I see no difference between apologists and whiners that assume the entire character of someone based on asking a simple question they don't have an answer to."
What's amazing is that you probably don't realize the ironic hilarity of that statement. "I can't stand all those apologists that make assumptions about the entire character of somebody." Way to put your foot into your mouth, genius. Heh.
"I wouldn't know, you have yet to make a point that had anything to do with the subject or contradict what I said to you in the first place."
Haha! And now the conversation comes to a complete circle! That's rich. I'm not allowed to expect a rebuttal, but no no no, when the debate fails to go your way, suddenly it's required of me. I must have really struck a sensitive nerve with my original post. Feeling a little insecure, are we?
"Learn to tell the difference between someone making a reasonable and realistic point about a subject and someone bashing Microsoft or people are just going to asssume you're a troll."
Are you giving me advice, or are you telling me something you just learned the hard way? I ask because this started with you not being able to tell the difference between a realistic point and a troll, but I'm under the distinct impression that you're actually trying to accuse me of it. (... and then claim you're one who seeks truth. Heh.)
Feel free to dig yourself in a little deeper. (or you could act like the truth seeker you claim to be and actually try to understand what I'm saying, perhaps ask a few questions for clarification, but I doubt your personal biases will actually let you listen to somebody who may not say what you want to hear.)
"Ah, so they all offer the convenience of a photo album you can just grab off the bookshelf and leaf through? I don't think so."
Um, yeah, actually they do, and then some. My gf has her photos up on a gallery she can (and does) share with people. Also, those books get damaged and decay. It's a click away from a bookmark. No biggie. Add photos? No prob! No need to deal with photo developing or printing. [UPLOAD] *click*.
"For things like mp3 players and cellphones, it's really useless unless you're completely lazy or hate charging wires with a passion."
You really don't need to hate the wires with a passion. All you need is for two ore more rechargable items to stay on to of. Right now in my house, I have a digital camera, 2 cell phones, two mp3 players, a PocketPC, Nintendo DS, and two laptops. Can you imagine what it'd look like to have all these chargers on one outlet? Having a pad you could just lay your rechargables on would be considerably more convenient.
I wouldn't call it useless or extreme.
"I'm not sure. I'm still in the dark about this matter."
Some people are so dim witted.
"Albert Einstein died in 1955.
Oh.. you meant the other one.. Baby Einstein, right?"
Um, no. You see, I used a couple of words in my post that you might have found somewhat interesting. They were would and have.
"The "article" on the blog this story points to is full of "may" "could have" "possibly" and other weasle-word disclaimers. Nothing to see here."/i.
Yeah. It's too bad this story wasn't about Microsoft. We'd have so much more to talk about!
"You must not have kids if you think that paper photos are chasing the dinosaurs."
You're right. I don't have kids. My gf has a nephew she's quite proud of. She wants to keep her photos backed up, so digital is far more convenient for her.
I'll happily admit that I may be missing a key ingredient here as you're implying, but I still stand by why I said. Heck, I remember when my uncle got his fist digital camera shortly after the birth of his first grandson. He immediately bought an app that rotates through all of his photos and plasters them up on the wallpaper. I see the photos all the time, but he's only actually printed a small handful of them. His laptop is with him at all times, as are his photos.
"Seriously, you're paying for 1 thing -- privacy. Scratch that, you're also paying for convienence. How much $$ in gas do you burn driving to the store, then driving back to pick it up? That's a distance * 4 cost if you're doing nothing else. What's the time cost involved? Hey, how much do you make an hour vs. how long you spend driving? There are many advantages to home printing."
Erm maybe. However, I'd have to drive 600 miles to make up for the cost of just the printer itself.
That said, I have to wonder why home printing is all that popular in the first place. Me personally, I keep and view all my photos etc on my computer. My girlfriend puts all her favorite photos onto her website with a neat freebie gallery app she downloaded. Neither of us are terribly interested in hard copies of photos. I can't help but think over the next few years, more will feel this way. Maybe I'm narrow minded, but I think this particular market is doomed to die in the not too distant future. Between cell phones, PDAs, e-paper, and iPods with fancy-ass screens, the benefits of hard copied prints are diminishing in the face of digital convenience.
..im on A SUPERSOOOOOONIC PLANE right now....
...yyooouuu caaAAAANNN TEEELLLLLL Byyyyy theee.....
... dddooopppppleeRRR EFFECT ON mmmmyyy teeexxxxxttttt....
"IMHO, Sony are very unlikley to release the SDK to the public (at a resonable price) anytime soon"
They won't. They're losing money on the system and making it up through the sale of games. They want people buying PSPs to play the games they make royalties off of. In some ways it's sad, in some ways it's understandable. Can't say I agree much with their business model, but they did pack a lot of hardware into that price range.
"If you're not enjoying what you're doing, why are you doing it?"
Food on the table, mainly.
In any event, I think questions like this are more helpful for management than they are for programmers or anybody else with a similar profession. The article uses the word 'fun', but in practice, I think 'importance' is a more interesting term. (Maybe they're not all that dissimilar?) Constantly changing directions in order to meet arbitrary deadlines or "chasing money" is a real morale killer. Working with well laid plan knowing that you're boring work is going to pay off into an interesting product, that's a lot more interesting. It's important.
Eh I think I'm mainly just stating the obvious here. When I hear stories of companies like EA demanding tons of unpaid overtime to meet an arbitrary deadline, it seems to me that even the 'fun' parts of asset building turn into a curse real fast. It's not fun to try to shortcut your way to the finish line with the concern that one of those shortcuts will come back and nip your hinder.
"Another question would be how secure would it be to even consider using swap space on someone else's hard drive? Think about it...your entire program's memory could be swapped out, without notice, including any sensitive information stored in there such as passwords and encryption keys and such."
...?
Isn't that equivalent to saying "Your house isn't very secure. Somebody with a bulldozer could easily get in."
No no, I'm not trying to use the time dis-honored method of using faulty metaphores to shoot your point down. Rather, I really am asking a question here. Wouldn't it take somebody with a snazzy computer mind and the right tools to actually go in and retrieve useful information? Wouldn't they have to know precisely what they're looking for to actually obtain that data? In that case, would it really be all that likely you'd fall victim to something like that?
Whether I'm right or wrong, seems to me the best solution to this problem is to not rely on a computer you're not in control of to be secure. I have a hard time imagining students in school, for example, lots of students in school keeping dangerous info on these drives. The simple fact that they could lose the drive, in most cases, would be enough to keep these people in line.
"Anyone remember that retarded "rotary dial" interface on the 3650? Yeah, well, here's more from the same people who brought you that piece of crap ..."
I had one of these and I have no idea what you're bitching about. I mistyped numbers far less often with the 3650 than I do with the traditional clamshell phone I have now. The main reason for this is that the radial design allowed for more space in between the buttons.
"OH, gee, it looks different! I could never get used to that!! Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch..."
"It shows the willingness of people to remain ignorant of so many things, and concern themselves utterly with the trivial."
... said the guy bitching on Slashdot.
"Great moments in science: Einstein discovers that time is actually money."
The great Houdini escapes a black hole!
(Ok, it wasn't about Einstein, but $10 says he would have chuckled.)
"It's not beyond the realms of possibility that it was sabotaged by those with an interest in the continued used of fossil fuels."
I wouldn't rule out Romulan involvement.
"Sounds like a weird conclusion to draw from the data they got"
Well, a couple of things sprung to mind after reading the Slashdot summary. (Nah, didn't read the article. I'm tired.) First, why are they looking at surveys when they could look at the total games sold in the last few years? I'm under the impression that console game sales have been going way way up over the last 10 years. Gaming is becoming more mainstream. It is reasonable to expect that the more people climbing on board that the more diluted their interest is going to be across the board. Sadly, because their numbers are based on percentage, I think they're measuring that dillution more than they are the true interest in games. To put it another way: Back in 95 when I was in high school, gaming wasn't as popular. There were kids that played games entirely too much, and the rest barely played them at all. These days, I think more teenagers are getting games, but not all of them are buying up huge collection of games like the hardcore gamers do. So even though more games have been sold, the number of games per person is possibly going down.
On the other hand, there's another big difference between the mid 90's and today: The ubiquity of the internet. I think that if I had grown up with IM with my fellow classmates, I would have spent more time doing that than playing games. I can see the 'hanging out with my friends on-line' bit being more important than playing games. Heck, that'd even explain the increased spending on clothes etc.
So.. eh.. I dunno. I agree the numbers probably aren't being used correctly. I'm just not sure if the conclusion is wrong.