You still end up with global causality violation if an object can communicate outside its light cone.
Perhaps a knowledgable phycisist can clarify: is the light cone thingy a fundamental rule necessary to make our current theories work, or is it merely a consequence following from the fact that our current theories generally do not allow for faster-than-light travel? If the latter, a warp drive wouldn't "violate" any causality rule.
I noticed that the number 4 candidate on the list of the Dutch party GroenLinks has practically the same ideas (and priorities) as the Pirate Party. I voted for him, but unfortunately GroenLinks only got 3 seats (which is still a pretty good result).
Isn't GroenLinks part of a European coalition, though? That's the real question for the Pirate party as well: will they join a coalition? Because as a small party, their influence will be extremely limited, as they will have little time on the Floor of parliament, little access to funds for staff, and they will not be asked to sit in any of the committees that form the heart of the legislative side of Europe, together with the full-time lobbyists wining and dining these committees, of course. Their influence will pretty much be limited to voting Aye or Nay on stuff.
ps. I voted Libertas. I consider the other Dutch parties to be either pet projects of privileged but misguided hobbyists (most left/green parties), part of an established political nomenclatura looking for cushy pre-retirement jobs (most centre/right wing parties), or parties of raving lunies, and not of the funny or harmless variety (you can probably guess one such party, but there are two...). Color me cynical, but I don't think privacy and piracy are really European issues, and Europe as bigger fish to fry, such as transparancy and accountability of government, of which there is precious little currently.
If a known algorithm produces the encrypted password, why can't that algorithm be "reversed" to produce the original password in the first place? Algorithms follow a set of logical instructions.
Some mathematical instructions are easy to execute, but are very hard or non-deterministic to reverse. A simple example: take two (large) numbers x and y, and keep them secret. Multiply them and call the result z. Easy, right? And it is also easy to check if any two numbers are equal to the secret x and y, by comparing their product against z (of course there might be more products that match z in this example). However, if you only know the number z, it will be a lot harder to work out what the numbers x and y are.
in other words, this trains the user to be more careful with their finger placements. It isn't magic (like standard rollover logic in keyboards), it's behavioral modification.
Exactly, and it just might work. They recently pulled a similar bevavioral trick in my apartment's car park: instead of painting white lines to separate the car slots, they painted grey rectangles on each space, more or less the width of a car so that there's seemingly a lot more dead space between slots. The result? I notice that people park their cars much more neatly now, and it's now rare to find a car parked so close you can't open your door anymore, even though each car still has the same space as before.
But perhaps Microsoft expects people to play online, a console for people with no real friends.
The Wii aside, it seems consoles are already heading in this direction. I was rather disappointed at the number of decent head-to-head or co-op games using split screen on the newer consoles. Instead, many games seem to have gone the way of one-player-per-console, playing online.
Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want.
The guy does have a point.
However, I have seen precious little from the entertainment business to meet this demand. Shopping for music online has become somewhat better, with reasonable prices, good selection and less DRM. But online movies? There's few choices there, if any. And the focus is still very much on DRM and/or streaming (the Pay-per-view model that they love so much), as evidenced by recently emerged standards such as HDMI and Bluray.
Many consumers are willing to pay for content. Especially if they get a better product by paying: encoding and compression rate to order, and no DRM. I want to select the quality, easily download the file, and then be able to play it on any of my PCs, my iPhone, and on my TV using a media streaming device. Guess what? Pirates are offering the better product, as things stand today. AllofMP3 let me select encoding and compression, and movies are generally available in various levels of quality, if you take the time to look for them. The movies provided by pirates can be played anywhere, anytime. Pirated movie downloads offer more convenience even than physical Blurays; perhaps Michael should start to understand why that is, and think about ways to offer a competitive product.
My advice: open an online store for movies, offer various download types (for starters: DVD, 720p and 1080p HD, perhaps also lowres files for PSP or iPhone), encode in formats that are generally accepted as the standard (just use what the pirates use), do not require any special players or software (so that the files can be viewed on any device), and do not add any DRM.
Heck, even the more "manual" parts of computer sciences (computer repair, sysadmin, help desk) won't be outsourced because someone has to plug in the cable, change the RAM, swap out HDs, etc.
Those jobs were not outsourced abroad, but look at what happened. A lot of local tech jobs were deemed not to be "core business" and got outsourced to firms specialised in such services. As a computer or software guy, suddenly you find yourself going from being an employee valued for your individual contribution while working for one firm, to working for a service company in a thoroughly commoditized role of "widget x specialist, grade 2", a role fraught with procedures and guidelines that aim to carefully bleach any individual contribution out of the work. And when you've been hammered into shape for that role, you will find that you are easily replaced with another drone just like you, which is also reflected in your pay I might add.
It is the same in other industries. The lunchroom chef at my previous employer complained that his once fun job had turned into something bad, after his employer decided to grant the lunchroom operation to a catering firm. He too now has to work to standards and according to company procedures, taking his individual contribution out of it. And is his job more secure? His former bosses had gone through the trouble of finding *him*, their lunchroom chef, and were pleased with the results. Now, he is just employee #123 for McLargeHuge CaterCorp, easily replaced with anyone meeting the minimum requirements.
Personally, I've found some satisfaction going freelance in IT instead of being one of the drones, but I notice that it is harder to find work for an oddball like myself. Even when a company finds it has a need for my particular skills, they have trouble getting the purchase order past Procurement because my profile doesn't really fit any of the 5 or so templates for IT people. And actually... the fact that my combination of skills isn't something offered by the regular agencies, the fact that I am an individual rather than a Grade 2 Systems Engineer, is what gives Procurement misgivings. For all their talk of what their companies are about, the truth of the matter is that companies as a whole are very much set up to hire resources rather than people. Specialised job agencies can provide those resources, but offer poor job sequrity, poor training and poor careers to their staff.
With that said, I also know a few people working freelance as plumbers and electricians. They are susceptible to changes in demand, but if they are careful and save against such bad times, they still make a decent living. In good times they pull in a deal more then I ever did as a salaried IT guy with a degree, so they ought to be able to save enough.
This is how it works in many countries; there's this idea that whenever something bad happens, someone or something must be to blame. The kid in this case would be held blameless... he is the victim. The parents? They are as much a victim as the kid, who in their right mind would suggest that they might be bad parents? Especially since it's often the parents starting the crusade to assign blame. The school? Possibly... but when there are games involved, it is so much easier to blame those. After all, many games are violent. They are also mostly produced by big faceless corporations who make money and are thus both morally and financially attractive targets.
I'm not aware of claims made against game companies for death or damages supposedly "caused by games", but it's waiting to happen.
Exquisite graphics, interesting quests with voice acted interactions, mature content. All this fell apart once you left the noob area.
It is clear that a lot of love went into the noob area, and the quests outside the main storyline indeed lack voiceover. But the game really doesn't "fall apart" outside the noob zone. I saw this comment from a few reviewers, who probably levelled a character out of Tortage and then got disappointed by the Cimmerian village or Tarantia, before writing their review. I just don't think there is much truth to it.
And the notorious 10k ping problem. It became totally unplayable. I left. Did they ever get that 10k ping issue fixed?
Fixed. As well as the other client stability issues. There's a few players still struggling with this or that problem, but most people play pretty much trouble-free these days.
I tried it the first month, then cancelled. I know they've done a lot of upgrades since then, but I don't think they will ever replace World of Warcraft for most people, including me.
What is the reason you cancelled? Lack of content (unlikely, after just 1 month of playing), bugs and stability, the unusual combat system, lack of depth (very unlikely if WoW is your baseline for comparison), lack of groups or friends, PvP/ganking, poor quests and storyline, or something else?
Maybe some people just have trouble "getting into" the game. I have had the same problem with WoW, I tried it a few times, gave up after a few months every time. And I am still not sure why. The quests were ok, combat was a bit bland but I am not that much into game mechanics anyway, crafting sucks but then again, it does in every game since SWG. Maybe the graphics or the setting just didn't do it or me. And I can imagine that other people might fail to be grabbed by AoC. For those who quit because of stability issues: the software has been vastly improved, and very few people still have serious issues. DX10 has some problems, but it is still in the beta stage.
I've played AoC for a year now, since launch. Personally I agree with the other poster who called AoC the MMO with the most potential. The graphics are gorgeous (if you have a good rig), the classes and gameplay are interesting, quests are generally fun to do, the atmosphere is conducive to roleplaying, and if you pick the right server for your own particular playstyle, you'll probably find a good community. After eliminating the client bugs last fall, the team has been working on extending the content, and delivered a few great patches with another huge one just around the corner. The game director seems to know what he is on about, and the way things are going I expect to be playing for another year.
The one thing I miss is depth. By that I mean the stuff that goes beyond PvP / PvE content, such as a complex crafting system, player housing (and decorating), social clothing (think RP), etc. I do hope they will be adding some of that in the coming year.
I don't know... so far, research indicates that any test will at some point cause death in rats. I've never read conclusions like "tests indicate that the rats live on just fine throughout the experiments".
Costs just a little less than a kindle 2, less memory, no keyboard, smaller screen, fewer features. No idea how many book titles will be available for it.
Why on earth would you want to have a keyboard on an ebook reader?
I don't see (nor want to see) ebook readers evolve into my "I have everything I need on the go"-device. Cellphones are doing a pretty good job filling that role; ebook readers are an extra device to take along to read books (and have lots of books stored to choose from). The most important thing I look for in a reader is: as large a screen as possible, in a package a small as possible, approaching the size of a regular paperback. That precludes physical keyboards, unless it is really thin and folds/slides away. I want something with a comfortable screen size that is still easy to carry with me in my coat pocket, without requiring a pouch or bag.
The Iliad reader comes close... it's just a tad too bulky still, and it's way too expensive. But if I could have my choice of what is currently available, that would be it.
Also, I would argue against the idea that WoW has had a huge effect on the MMO genre. It has brought MMOs into the mainstream market, and certainly, other MMO producers will take a look at what Blizzard did and does to make it a success. But in the end I think MMO producers have come away with very little ideas from looking at WoW. I think WoW's initial success had a lot to do with an attractive franchise that hit the market at a very opportune time. After that, inertia took over. WoW was hardly a game changer, and its influence on subsequent games is a lot less than might appear at first glance.
The BATF tried to stop all amateur rocketry beyond the toy size but they lost the lawsuit.
Why did they? Although with a name like that... Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, they sound like a unpleasant group of killjoys. Or is it a suggestion for a shopping list?
There's enough of that to "reward" you for playing. But of course, that's all spaced out over a lot of tedium. Most people playing WoW are bored most of the time they're on it.
That's an interesting notion, but I think it is only a small part of the puzzle. Different people play MMOs for different reasons, but one important element is the social aspect, don't overlook that.
Sitting in a bar knocking back beers by yourself is boring. Weeding the garden is boring. But do it together with a friend or two and suddenly it's a great way to spend a few hours. Same for MMOs: grinding for gold and resources is boring (though it can be therapeutic in a way...), but if you get to chat with your guild mates at the same time, you're having fun anyway. And unlike games such as Counterstrike, MMOs give you ample time to have a chat, and do something meaningful (in game context) together at the same time.
In a nutshell, it was always MS deciding to abandon support for "older" systems that should convince people they "want" the new system. They tried the same stunt with Vista, by not offering DirectX10 support for XP. It fizzled because neither people nor industry cared.
True, except that will change. DX10 is still relatively new, there are a few games that use it and even fewer that use it well. But that'll change. Gamers may not go through the hassle of upgrading their current box from XP to Vista (gotta love the Windows way of upgrading: you get to reinstall *everything* you've ever installed).
However, when people buy a new rig and are offered the choice between XP and Vista, they are already increasingly choosing Vista because of DX10. If MS delivers on its promise of a faster and better Windows 7 (my current experience with the Beta shows they are delivering just that), even more people will be convinced to select the newer OS for their new machines.
Send them a letter telling them to "go to hell", using those exact words. I replied to them thusly, as well as to the "Stichting Reprorecht", a foundation that has the authority to collect IP fees on material such as books and magazines being copied for business purposes. I've never heard from them since, even though you are right that they actually empowered to collect those fees. Sadly we have no such thing as congressmen to write to about this, but if you know any politician involved in this stuff, write to them.
I remember an interesting case involving BUMA, an organisation similar to SENA and the PRS. The band U2 visited the Netherlands and gave a performance for some charity. They were subsequently charged by BUMA to pay royalties for publicly performing their own music. And of course they'll never see a penny of those royalties; these foundations can deduct overhead from the royalties paid out, and they are masters at Hollywood accoutning.
Windows & is supposed to be for regular PCs. The last thing I, or anyone I know, is for touchscreen capabilities.
I, for one, am waiting for usable touchscreen technology to find its way into "regular" PCs. I'd love to have a keyboard-and-mouse-less flat panel computer in the kitchen or the living room, for light browsing, looking at photo's, ordering pizza, that sort of stuff. Think a supersized iPhone, on a pedestal or even hand-held. HP already have one in their line-up if I'm not mistaken. And with Windows 7 having a native capability to deal with touch screens will probably make for better quality of touchscreen support.
The iPhone gets it wrong as well from time to time. Most notably in the email app, where you can scroll the list of emails up and down, or wipe across a mail to bring up a delete button. If I try to scroll, it always does. But if I try to wipe an email, half the time it thinks I want to scroll. Oh, and don't get me started on the times the iPhone thinks it's being rotated sideways and goes into landscape mode, when I am merely placing it flat on the desk.
But seriously, I've yet to come across a device with a touch screen that is as responsive and accurate as the iPhone's. Once you get used to that, other devices feel clumsy and sluggish. Especially that MS big ass table; I've played around with it for a bit, but it is hardly ready for any serious use.
This whole system is already irrational trying to fit it into mathematical categories to me just sounds ridiculous
The easy solution: management will make their own jobs exempt from this mathematical scrutiny, since their job is "fundamentally different" from everybody else's. They've already done so for training, career paths and renumeration schemes...
Cell phone contracts should be made illegal outright, the way they are in parts of Europe
What part of Europe would that be? What is illegal in some parts of Europe is an exclusive deal between a telco and a phone manufacturer, i.e. what Apple did with the iPhone.
In many parts of Europe, you can get great deals once your contract expires. I got a one-year contract with a nice subsidy on my iPhone, and when the year is up I can switch to a so-called "sim only" contract, which offers vastly reduced rates. That is not because of regulation, but because of capitalism and competition.
Nothing bad ever happened. If I got hurt, I learned my lesson and didn't repeat what I did.
And you were a better man (or boy) for it. It's called growing up... and that's another side effect of this nanny state, best summed up by a sig I saw on Slashdot the other day: "While trying to child-proof the world, we are neglecting the more important task of world-proofing the child".
No, showing the cops evidence and then saying "gee, I didn't mean to show you that, you can't use that evidence" is forbidden, for pretty obvious reasons
But he didn't show the encrypted stuff in the first place, not in unencrypted form anyway.
I suppose the conversation went more like this:
"Can we have a look at your laptop, sir?"
- "Of course, go right ahead officer"
"What is in this encrypted folder, sir?"
- "I'm sorry but that's private"
It seems silly to claim that the guy gave up his rights just because he agreed to the cops having a peek at the files on his laptop that he did not consider private. Or should he have contacted his lawyer right away, and given a written statement to the effect that the cops can look at unencryoted files but that he does not in any way shape or form waives the right to claim the 5th, etc, etc? Because we all know how well that sort of attitude sits with nosey cops who have the right to deny you entry or impound your laptop on a whim.
I use my phone for business, most iPhone users are caught up in they hype...the follow the Jones' attitude.
Rubbish. I use my iPhone for business, where before I used to have a WM device (besides an old iPod, the iPhone is my first Apple device). When I first got the iPhone I hated the little incompatibilities with Outlook and the reliance on iTunes for synching. Actually, I still hate that... but for the rest, I found the iPhone to be vastly superior to WM phones when it comes ease of use. The GUI is fast and responsive, the on-screen keyboard is very usable even with fat fingers (and I hate the tiny physical keyboards that many phones have), and I can hold the phone in a sinlge hand and operate it with the thumb, something I somewhat surprisingly find very convenient.
It's a matter of preference, I suppose. The iPhone falls well short of full compatibility with Outlook, which is the de facto industry standard in business whether we like it or not. A big mistake on Apple's part if they are truly after the business market (as they claim to be). There's a reliance on iTunes and it only accepts Apple-approved apps, which some may object to. But the ease of use of the phone more than makes up for all that. I'll not switch back anytime soon to a WM phone.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps a knowledgable phycisist can clarify: is the light cone thingy a fundamental rule necessary to make our current theories work, or is it merely a consequence following from the fact that our current theories generally do not allow for faster-than-light travel? If the latter, a warp drive wouldn't "violate" any causality rule.
I know most people here do not bother to read articles before commenting, but you could at least have bothered to read the ./ summary...
Isn't GroenLinks part of a European coalition, though? That's the real question for the Pirate party as well: will they join a coalition? Because as a small party, their influence will be extremely limited, as they will have little time on the Floor of parliament, little access to funds for staff, and they will not be asked to sit in any of the committees that form the heart of the legislative side of Europe, together with the full-time lobbyists wining and dining these committees, of course. Their influence will pretty much be limited to voting Aye or Nay on stuff.
ps. I voted Libertas. I consider the other Dutch parties to be either pet projects of privileged but misguided hobbyists (most left/green parties), part of an established political nomenclatura looking for cushy pre-retirement jobs (most centre/right wing parties), or parties of raving lunies, and not of the funny or harmless variety (you can probably guess one such party, but there are two...). Color me cynical, but I don't think privacy and piracy are really European issues, and Europe as bigger fish to fry, such as transparancy and accountability of government, of which there is precious little currently.
Some mathematical instructions are easy to execute, but are very hard or non-deterministic to reverse. A simple example: take two (large) numbers x and y, and keep them secret. Multiply them and call the result z. Easy, right? And it is also easy to check if any two numbers are equal to the secret x and y, by comparing their product against z (of course there might be more products that match z in this example). However, if you only know the number z, it will be a lot harder to work out what the numbers x and y are.
Exactly, and it just might work. They recently pulled a similar bevavioral trick in my apartment's car park: instead of painting white lines to separate the car slots, they painted grey rectangles on each space, more or less the width of a car so that there's seemingly a lot more dead space between slots. The result? I notice that people park their cars much more neatly now, and it's now rare to find a car parked so close you can't open your door anymore, even though each car still has the same space as before.
The Wii aside, it seems consoles are already heading in this direction. I was rather disappointed at the number of decent head-to-head or co-op games using split screen on the newer consoles. Instead, many games seem to have gone the way of one-player-per-console, playing online.
The guy does have a point.
However, I have seen precious little from the entertainment business to meet this demand. Shopping for music online has become somewhat better, with reasonable prices, good selection and less DRM. But online movies? There's few choices there, if any. And the focus is still very much on DRM and/or streaming (the Pay-per-view model that they love so much), as evidenced by recently emerged standards such as HDMI and Bluray.
Many consumers are willing to pay for content. Especially if they get a better product by paying: encoding and compression rate to order, and no DRM. I want to select the quality, easily download the file, and then be able to play it on any of my PCs, my iPhone, and on my TV using a media streaming device. Guess what? Pirates are offering the better product, as things stand today. AllofMP3 let me select encoding and compression, and movies are generally available in various levels of quality, if you take the time to look for them. The movies provided by pirates can be played anywhere, anytime. Pirated movie downloads offer more convenience even than physical Blurays; perhaps Michael should start to understand why that is, and think about ways to offer a competitive product.
My advice: open an online store for movies, offer various download types (for starters: DVD, 720p and 1080p HD, perhaps also lowres files for PSP or iPhone), encode in formats that are generally accepted as the standard (just use what the pirates use), do not require any special players or software (so that the files can be viewed on any device), and do not add any DRM.
Those jobs were not outsourced abroad, but look at what happened. A lot of local tech jobs were deemed not to be "core business" and got outsourced to firms specialised in such services. As a computer or software guy, suddenly you find yourself going from being an employee valued for your individual contribution while working for one firm, to working for a service company in a thoroughly commoditized role of "widget x specialist, grade 2", a role fraught with procedures and guidelines that aim to carefully bleach any individual contribution out of the work. And when you've been hammered into shape for that role, you will find that you are easily replaced with another drone just like you, which is also reflected in your pay I might add.
It is the same in other industries. The lunchroom chef at my previous employer complained that his once fun job had turned into something bad, after his employer decided to grant the lunchroom operation to a catering firm. He too now has to work to standards and according to company procedures, taking his individual contribution out of it. And is his job more secure? His former bosses had gone through the trouble of finding *him*, their lunchroom chef, and were pleased with the results. Now, he is just employee #123 for McLargeHuge CaterCorp, easily replaced with anyone meeting the minimum requirements.
Personally, I've found some satisfaction going freelance in IT instead of being one of the drones, but I notice that it is harder to find work for an oddball like myself. Even when a company finds it has a need for my particular skills, they have trouble getting the purchase order past Procurement because my profile doesn't really fit any of the 5 or so templates for IT people. And actually... the fact that my combination of skills isn't something offered by the regular agencies, the fact that I am an individual rather than a Grade 2 Systems Engineer, is what gives Procurement misgivings. For all their talk of what their companies are about, the truth of the matter is that companies as a whole are very much set up to hire resources rather than people. Specialised job agencies can provide those resources, but offer poor job sequrity, poor training and poor careers to their staff.
With that said, I also know a few people working freelance as plumbers and electricians. They are susceptible to changes in demand, but if they are careful and save against such bad times, they still make a decent living. In good times they pull in a deal more then I ever did as a salaried IT guy with a degree, so they ought to be able to save enough.
This is how it works in many countries; there's this idea that whenever something bad happens, someone or something must be to blame. The kid in this case would be held blameless... he is the victim. The parents? They are as much a victim as the kid, who in their right mind would suggest that they might be bad parents? Especially since it's often the parents starting the crusade to assign blame. The school? Possibly... but when there are games involved, it is so much easier to blame those. After all, many games are violent. They are also mostly produced by big faceless corporations who make money and are thus both morally and financially attractive targets.
I'm not aware of claims made against game companies for death or damages supposedly "caused by games", but it's waiting to happen.
It is clear that a lot of love went into the noob area, and the quests outside the main storyline indeed lack voiceover. But the game really doesn't "fall apart" outside the noob zone. I saw this comment from a few reviewers, who probably levelled a character out of Tortage and then got disappointed by the Cimmerian village or Tarantia, before writing their review. I just don't think there is much truth to it.
Fixed. As well as the other client stability issues. There's a few players still struggling with this or that problem, but most people play pretty much trouble-free these days.
What is the reason you cancelled? Lack of content (unlikely, after just 1 month of playing), bugs and stability, the unusual combat system, lack of depth (very unlikely if WoW is your baseline for comparison), lack of groups or friends, PvP/ganking, poor quests and storyline, or something else?
Maybe some people just have trouble "getting into" the game. I have had the same problem with WoW, I tried it a few times, gave up after a few months every time. And I am still not sure why. The quests were ok, combat was a bit bland but I am not that much into game mechanics anyway, crafting sucks but then again, it does in every game since SWG. Maybe the graphics or the setting just didn't do it or me. And I can imagine that other people might fail to be grabbed by AoC. For those who quit because of stability issues: the software has been vastly improved, and very few people still have serious issues. DX10 has some problems, but it is still in the beta stage.
I've played AoC for a year now, since launch. Personally I agree with the other poster who called AoC the MMO with the most potential. The graphics are gorgeous (if you have a good rig), the classes and gameplay are interesting, quests are generally fun to do, the atmosphere is conducive to roleplaying, and if you pick the right server for your own particular playstyle, you'll probably find a good community. After eliminating the client bugs last fall, the team has been working on extending the content, and delivered a few great patches with another huge one just around the corner. The game director seems to know what he is on about, and the way things are going I expect to be playing for another year.
The one thing I miss is depth. By that I mean the stuff that goes beyond PvP / PvE content, such as a complex crafting system, player housing (and decorating), social clothing (think RP), etc. I do hope they will be adding some of that in the coming year.
I don't know... so far, research indicates that any test will at some point cause death in rats. I've never read conclusions like "tests indicate that the rats live on just fine throughout the experiments".
Why on earth would you want to have a keyboard on an ebook reader?
I don't see (nor want to see) ebook readers evolve into my "I have everything I need on the go"-device. Cellphones are doing a pretty good job filling that role; ebook readers are an extra device to take along to read books (and have lots of books stored to choose from). The most important thing I look for in a reader is: as large a screen as possible, in a package a small as possible, approaching the size of a regular paperback. That precludes physical keyboards, unless it is really thin and folds/slides away. I want something with a comfortable screen size that is still easy to carry with me in my coat pocket, without requiring a pouch or bag.
The Iliad reader comes close... it's just a tad too bulky still, and it's way too expensive. But if I could have my choice of what is currently available, that would be it.
Also, I would argue against the idea that WoW has had a huge effect on the MMO genre. It has brought MMOs into the mainstream market, and certainly, other MMO producers will take a look at what Blizzard did and does to make it a success. But in the end I think MMO producers have come away with very little ideas from looking at WoW. I think WoW's initial success had a lot to do with an attractive franchise that hit the market at a very opportune time. After that, inertia took over. WoW was hardly a game changer, and its influence on subsequent games is a lot less than might appear at first glance.
Why did they? Although with a name like that... Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, they sound like a unpleasant group of killjoys. Or is it a suggestion for a shopping list?
That's an interesting notion, but I think it is only a small part of the puzzle. Different people play MMOs for different reasons, but one important element is the social aspect, don't overlook that.
Sitting in a bar knocking back beers by yourself is boring. Weeding the garden is boring. But do it together with a friend or two and suddenly it's a great way to spend a few hours. Same for MMOs: grinding for gold and resources is boring (though it can be therapeutic in a way...), but if you get to chat with your guild mates at the same time, you're having fun anyway. And unlike games such as Counterstrike, MMOs give you ample time to have a chat, and do something meaningful (in game context) together at the same time.
True, except that will change. DX10 is still relatively new, there are a few games that use it and even fewer that use it well. But that'll change. Gamers may not go through the hassle of upgrading their current box from XP to Vista (gotta love the Windows way of upgrading: you get to reinstall *everything* you've ever installed).
However, when people buy a new rig and are offered the choice between XP and Vista, they are already increasingly choosing Vista because of DX10. If MS delivers on its promise of a faster and better Windows 7 (my current experience with the Beta shows they are delivering just that), even more people will be convinced to select the newer OS for their new machines.
Send them a letter telling them to "go to hell", using those exact words. I replied to them thusly, as well as to the "Stichting Reprorecht", a foundation that has the authority to collect IP fees on material such as books and magazines being copied for business purposes. I've never heard from them since, even though you are right that they actually empowered to collect those fees. Sadly we have no such thing as congressmen to write to about this, but if you know any politician involved in this stuff, write to them.
I remember an interesting case involving BUMA, an organisation similar to SENA and the PRS. The band U2 visited the Netherlands and gave a performance for some charity. They were subsequently charged by BUMA to pay royalties for publicly performing their own music. And of course they'll never see a penny of those royalties; these foundations can deduct overhead from the royalties paid out, and they are masters at Hollywood accoutning.
I, for one, am waiting for usable touchscreen technology to find its way into "regular" PCs. I'd love to have a keyboard-and-mouse-less flat panel computer in the kitchen or the living room, for light browsing, looking at photo's, ordering pizza, that sort of stuff. Think a supersized iPhone, on a pedestal or even hand-held. HP already have one in their line-up if I'm not mistaken. And with Windows 7 having a native capability to deal with touch screens will probably make for better quality of touchscreen support.
The iPhone gets it wrong as well from time to time. Most notably in the email app, where you can scroll the list of emails up and down, or wipe across a mail to bring up a delete button. If I try to scroll, it always does. But if I try to wipe an email, half the time it thinks I want to scroll. Oh, and don't get me started on the times the iPhone thinks it's being rotated sideways and goes into landscape mode, when I am merely placing it flat on the desk.
But seriously, I've yet to come across a device with a touch screen that is as responsive and accurate as the iPhone's. Once you get used to that, other devices feel clumsy and sluggish. Especially that MS big ass table; I've played around with it for a bit, but it is hardly ready for any serious use.
The easy solution: management will make their own jobs exempt from this mathematical scrutiny, since their job is "fundamentally different" from everybody else's. They've already done so for training, career paths and renumeration schemes...
What part of Europe would that be? What is illegal in some parts of Europe is an exclusive deal between a telco and a phone manufacturer, i.e. what Apple did with the iPhone.
In many parts of Europe, you can get great deals once your contract expires. I got a one-year contract with a nice subsidy on my iPhone, and when the year is up I can switch to a so-called "sim only" contract, which offers vastly reduced rates. That is not because of regulation, but because of capitalism and competition.
And you were a better man (or boy) for it. It's called growing up... and that's another side effect of this nanny state, best summed up by a sig I saw on Slashdot the other day: "While trying to child-proof the world, we are neglecting the more important task of world-proofing the child".
But he didn't show the encrypted stuff in the first place, not in unencrypted form anyway.
I suppose the conversation went more like this:
"Can we have a look at your laptop, sir?"
- "Of course, go right ahead officer"
"What is in this encrypted folder, sir?"
- "I'm sorry but that's private"
It seems silly to claim that the guy gave up his rights just because he agreed to the cops having a peek at the files on his laptop that he did not consider private. Or should he have contacted his lawyer right away, and given a written statement to the effect that the cops can look at unencryoted files but that he does not in any way shape or form waives the right to claim the 5th, etc, etc? Because we all know how well that sort of attitude sits with nosey cops who have the right to deny you entry or impound your laptop on a whim.
Rubbish. I use my iPhone for business, where before I used to have a WM device (besides an old iPod, the iPhone is my first Apple device). When I first got the iPhone I hated the little incompatibilities with Outlook and the reliance on iTunes for synching. Actually, I still hate that... but for the rest, I found the iPhone to be vastly superior to WM phones when it comes ease of use. The GUI is fast and responsive, the on-screen keyboard is very usable even with fat fingers (and I hate the tiny physical keyboards that many phones have), and I can hold the phone in a sinlge hand and operate it with the thumb, something I somewhat surprisingly find very convenient.
It's a matter of preference, I suppose. The iPhone falls well short of full compatibility with Outlook, which is the de facto industry standard in business whether we like it or not. A big mistake on Apple's part if they are truly after the business market (as they claim to be). There's a reliance on iTunes and it only accepts Apple-approved apps, which some may object to. But the ease of use of the phone more than makes up for all that. I'll not switch back anytime soon to a WM phone.