All the summaries I've read so far indicate little, if anything, that wasn't already known.
If anyone has a link to an analysis of what information released that hadn't been previous revealed, please post it.
This seems like non-story and the CIA gets no points from me. "Yes, we really did all the lousy shit you already figured out we did and we promise not to do it again." Yeah, right.
You didn't really think that Oscar Mayer invented the word did you?
Google Earth... If you can't travel, at least browse a bit.
I admit it's occasionally amusing when you stumble across a foreign word that sounds funny or means something else in your language, but this is ridiculous.
But, I suppose I should be thankful that it wasn't the University of Phuket (Thailand, and there probably isn't one).
I've thought about this a lot lately and I've come to a conclusion that is essentially in agreement with the article.
I don't really want a lot of fictional reality in my games these days. There was a time when I did, (paper & early computer RPGs) but I've since decided that many of these games take up way too much time for no real payoff. I think they can be as bad a drug habit for some folks and I am somewhat disturbed by the proliferation of MMORPGs. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for these games and they can be fun, but I doubt it's a good thing when adults start spending a majority of their time in these worlds.
MMORPGs aside, even other genres are putting heavy doses of 'fictional reality' in their games. Take the new Test Drive Unlimited game for example. You choose an avatar at the beginning of the game and psuedo-roleplay the character. No thank you. I just want to drive fast cars. You can leave all that crap out and just have the races and I'd be happier. The story lines in the Need for Speed Underground series were annoying and unnecessary as well. It's ME driving. I don't give a crap about the story or the other characters... I just like to win races. Yes it's nice to have a series of races in a big competition but I don't require any back story.
The most 'fictional reality' I can take these days is that found in a single player FPS, and it's rare that I actually finish those. I much prefer a quick, visceral, multi-player FPS match, which plays more like a sporting event than anything else. No fictional characters and no emotional involvement with any fictional reality.
As for mobile gaming... I like straight forward puzzle games or things like pinball, breakout, etc.. No Final Fantasy or Zelda for me, thanks.
What's really important to me personally is that the actual game mechanics are fun and that the real me is the protagonist. Perhaps I pretend that I'm in WWII running around shooting Nazis, or in a space station running around shooting aliens, but it's still ME doing the running around & shooting. I'm not pretending to be someone else and I don't really care what the setting or the story is as long as the game mechanics are good.
If you buy Vista (and at most places and on most new machines that's pretty much all you can get if you are shopping for a Windows OS) you also get A LICENSE TO RUN XP.
Yes... The Vista license is backwards compatible. (Actually... I'm not entirely sure if this is true for OEM or retail purchases but it's definitely true for VLK purchases. It doesn't really matter... all the retail purchasers I know are treating it as such.)
So it makes sense for businesses (and possibly end users) to buy Vista. It lets them run XP for pretty much the same price and gives them the the option to upgrade to Vista should it ever become palatable.
That said... every single one of the ten or 15 people I know who have bought PCs with Vista have replaced it with XP.
I also know of many companies that made major Vista volume purchases simply because they needed more XP licenses. They have no intention what-so-ever of actually running Vista any time soon but they do retain the option.
Me neither. I haven't even seen a working Wii demo or kiosk, though I noticed today that my local Fry's finally has a PS3 kiosk.
I was actually going to buy a Wii a few months ago after reading all the rave reviews, but I couldn't find one. Nobody could tell me when they would get a shipment in, and everyone suggested I keep calling back every day to see if any had arrived. No Thank You.
Ended up buying something else and since then my desire for a Wii has waned. Perhaps when the Wii's next killer game comes along I'll take another look, but I'm over it for now.
I've been a customer for about 1.5 years and I'm downloading about 2GB per day, minimum. (Newsbin says I've downloaded over a terabyte in less than a year from newsgroups alone)
No complaints or throttling yet.
I'm an internet only customer (no cable tv) and 99% of my family's video & music consumption comes from the net.
Considering that this is probably what most people will be doing in the not to distant future, I really can't see ISPs continuing to penalize or cut customers off for what may be considered excessive usage at this moment in time.
I agree that most certs are generally meaningless to most tech savvy people. I would never rely on a cert as an indicator of ability and would probably be suspicious. But... if one were, say, to go into business as a "Home Network Specialist" the average, not so technically inclined customer might feel comforted to see some sort of certification on your business card.
Given that the market shows promise and I that can probably handle most of the tech involved with my eyes closed, I am seriously consider dropping out of the corporate rat race and starting up a little business helping normal people with the tech they have at home. May take the test myself just for marketing purposes.
I think part of the fun of backpacking is not taking everything with you -- it's about seeing how well you can live without luxuries. Hear hear!!!!
Take the minimum you need. It's less stressful too.
Get an old Handspring Visor PDA, one of the monochrome ones that run a AAA batteries.
Seriously. These are the best PDAs to backpack around the world with. (And I assume by 'backpack' you mean cheaply and off the beaten path) Look on Ebay or Craig's list for a monchrome Visor. You can probably get them cheap these days. I've got two. They're my old standby and have been around the world several times. More useful on long trips than any thing else, and I'm a gadget freak who travels a lot.
They're simple Palm OS devices that run on AAA batteries, available anywhere. They can run for weeks on a set with heavy use. I load mine up with games and books which seriously lightens my load. It may not sound like reading a book on one of these things would be practical, but you quickly get used to it. These are great for passing the time on long bus/train/plane rides. You can also take notes, check time, keep contacts, etc... all the basics. No net connectivity though.
Get a backup cartridge so you can quickly dupe the entire device and restore in case the devices malfunctions and you lose data (on one occasion I had to completely reset mine to factory defaults to get it working). Back up occasionally if you're entering data and keep the device & back up cartridge separate in case of loss. (one in pack, one in pocket....) I'd bring two Visors if it's a long trip, keep the separate and periodically sync them by backing up the up-to-date one and restoring it on your backup Visor.
If net connectivity is a requirement take a USB Stick along with you with a set of decent standalone apps to suit your needs and then hit internet cafes. You will find them every where. Take two (and dupe them) if you're worried about loss.
An Ipod or other large capacity MP3 player would be nice but there's a high theft risk and you've got a recharging problem. If you want music, find a cheapo flash device that runs on AA or AAA batteries and takes SD cards or similar. They exist.
A laptop is way more trouble than it's worth and will probably not make it back.
I'm not a cell phone person so I won't recommend one... in fact I'd recommend not taking one for a real adventure.
A camera is essential so get a small digital one and an extra battery if you take alot of pics. I recommend the Canon Elphs as very durable and they take decent pictures. With cheap 2-4 GB cartridges and the ability to preview & delete, you probably can get by without external storage.
It's always tempting to bring a game console but again, you have a recharging problem and people will kill you for these in certain places. The Visors palm os games are sufficiently engaging and its not a particularly flashy or sought after device.
Travel as light as you can! Keep valuables separated so you don't lose everything at once should things go badly.
Well.... On 3 out of 4 desktop systems I've tried, power management, especially standby, is horribly broken. Standby worked fine under XP on all 4 systems.
Yeah... he seems to have got it backwards, here he is discussing the average user's experience w/vista:
"They will rarely notice the limitations, because they are not the sort of people who download films from the net or try to make copies of their DVDs."
It's my understanding that these are exactly the people who will notice the limitations. They are the ones who will try to play legit DRM'ed media through (unknown to most of them) insecure channels and have the audio/video quality degraded.
Those of us downloading DRM free content shouldn't have this problem.
Not that I'm upgrading to Vista anytime soon....... I see absolutely no compelling reason for, and many reasons against. It cracks me up that the some of the most touted features by MS, Sidebar and Search, have been available for XP, free, from Google (and others) for over a year.... with an arguably better implementation.
Not only that, but Vista's standby & hibernate modes don't work properly on nearly all of the >= 1 year old hardware I've tried it on (about 4 systems). I suppose this could technically be the hardware's fault but... damn it, XP could suspend/resume on these systems just fine.
I've had to turn off standby & hibernate on my 2.8 GHz Xeon work machine because neither work right in Vista, which I've been testing for a month or so. I'm sucking up way more power than I did with XP.
From the outside, these users appear identical. Supposedly, Microsoft has a contract with one of them and not the other, but they don't even know. You can't even determine who agreed to the EULA and who didn't without an audit! But the Linux user, even according to the most rabid Microsoft apologist, never agreed to a Microsoft EULA or a BSA audit. Windows phones home for updates so it seems entirely possible that Microsoft can determine that only 1 PC is running Windows. I'd be really surprised, given the # of WGA updates, if every XP box doesn't have a unique identifier from which MS can determine how many unique Windows installations are using the same Volume License Key.
They're autonomous so they don't actually need to communicate at all to fly. It seems to me that a minimal amount of data would need to be exchanged to obtain necessary control over one. (go here, go there, do this, come back...)
You could do that with a SMS.
I would assume the majority of the bandwidth would be used to send back information... like video. Which may answer my own question...
Still for basic control... why would dedicated spectrum be needed?
Microsoft releases a new CLI for Windows (Powershell 1.0 available as of yesterday. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell for more info) yet they've rejected that story at least twice and post trolls like this instead.
Yeah... it's confusing. Depending on where you right click, and what mode the player is in, you get different options. It's NOT clear where you should be clicking to get to certain things.
I don't like it. Not to mention, my parents won't, in a million years, figure out how to use it properly.
Granted... there is a "show classic menus options." Just turn it on.
They did the same thing to Windows Explorer in Vista. Gonna take some time to get used to it. I don't see how it can be considered easier to use.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd mod you up If I hadn't posted already.
... where Lauren Turner is working next month. My affinity towards things Google hinges on it.
Google might want to consider changing their motto to "We pander to anyone that can pay". It's slightly less misleading.
Anyone know if they have a defense industry advertising blog? I'd love to see that one.
All the summaries I've read so far indicate little, if anything, that wasn't already known. If anyone has a link to an analysis of what information released that hadn't been previous revealed, please post it. This seems like non-story and the CIA gets no points from me. "Yes, we really did all the lousy shit you already figured out we did and we promise not to do it again." Yeah, right.
You didn't really think that Oscar Mayer invented the word did you?
Google Earth... If you can't travel, at least browse a bit.
I admit it's occasionally amusing when you stumble across a foreign word that sounds funny or means something else in your language, but this is ridiculous.
But, I suppose I should be thankful that it wasn't the University of Phuket (Thailand, and there probably isn't one).
I've thought about this a lot lately and I've come to a conclusion that is essentially in agreement with the article.
I don't really want a lot of fictional reality in my games these days. There was a time when I did, (paper & early computer RPGs) but I've since decided that many of these games take up way too much time for no real payoff. I think they can be as bad a drug habit for some folks and I am somewhat disturbed by the proliferation of MMORPGs. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for these games and they can be fun, but I doubt it's a good thing when adults start spending a majority of their time in these worlds.
MMORPGs aside, even other genres are putting heavy doses of 'fictional reality' in their games. Take the new Test Drive Unlimited game for example. You choose an avatar at the beginning of the game and psuedo-roleplay the character. No thank you. I just want to drive fast cars. You can leave all that crap out and just have the races and I'd be happier. The story lines in the Need for Speed Underground series were annoying and unnecessary as well. It's ME driving. I don't give a crap about the story or the other characters... I just like to win races. Yes it's nice to have a series of races in a big competition but I don't require any back story.
The most 'fictional reality' I can take these days is that found in a single player FPS, and it's rare that I actually finish those. I much prefer a quick, visceral, multi-player FPS match, which plays more like a sporting event than anything else. No fictional characters and no emotional involvement with any fictional reality.
As for mobile gaming... I like straight forward puzzle games or things like pinball, breakout, etc.. No Final Fantasy or Zelda for me, thanks.
What's really important to me personally is that the actual game mechanics are fun and that the real me is the protagonist. Perhaps I pretend that I'm in WWII running around shooting Nazis, or in a space station running around shooting aliens, but it's still ME doing the running around & shooting. I'm not pretending to be someone else and I don't really care what the setting or the story is as long as the game mechanics are good.
If you buy Vista (and at most places and on most new machines that's pretty much all you can get if you are shopping for a Windows OS) you also get A LICENSE TO RUN XP.
Yes... The Vista license is backwards compatible. (Actually... I'm not entirely sure if this is true for OEM or retail purchases but it's definitely true for VLK purchases. It doesn't really matter... all the retail purchasers I know are treating it as such.)
So it makes sense for businesses (and possibly end users) to buy Vista. It lets them run XP for pretty much the same price and gives them the the option to upgrade to Vista should it ever become palatable.
That said... every single one of the ten or 15 people I know who have bought PCs with Vista have replaced it with XP.
I also know of many companies that made major Vista volume purchases simply because they needed more XP licenses. They have no intention what-so-ever of actually running Vista any time soon but they do retain the option.
Me neither. I haven't even seen a working Wii demo or kiosk, though I noticed today that my local Fry's finally has a PS3 kiosk.
I was actually going to buy a Wii a few months ago after reading all the rave reviews, but I couldn't find one. Nobody could tell me when they would get a shipment in, and everyone suggested I keep calling back every day to see if any had arrived. No Thank You.
Ended up buying something else and since then my desire for a Wii has waned. Perhaps when the Wii's next killer game comes along I'll take another look, but I'm over it for now.
I've been a customer for about 1.5 years and I'm downloading about 2GB per day, minimum. (Newsbin says I've downloaded over a terabyte in less than a year from newsgroups alone)
No complaints or throttling yet.
I'm an internet only customer (no cable tv) and 99% of my family's video & music consumption comes from the net.
Considering that this is probably what most people will be doing in the not to distant future, I really can't see ISPs continuing to penalize or cut customers off for what may be considered excessive usage at this moment in time.
I agree that most certs are generally meaningless to most tech savvy people. I would never rely on a cert as an indicator of ability and would probably be suspicious. But... if one were, say, to go into business as a "Home Network Specialist" the average, not so technically inclined customer might feel comforted to see some sort of certification on your business card.
Given that the market shows promise and I that can probably handle most of the tech involved with my eyes closed, I am seriously consider dropping out of the corporate rat race and starting up a little business helping normal people with the tech they have at home. May take the test myself just for marketing purposes.
Very Good Advice.
Your friends and relatives are going to love you when you subject them to 5000 photos of Scotland....
Unless, perhaps, you are a proff. Photographer on a shoot?
Get an old Handspring Visor PDA, one of the monochrome ones that run a AAA batteries.
Seriously. These are the best PDAs to backpack around the world with. (And I assume by 'backpack' you mean cheaply and off the beaten path) Look on Ebay or Craig's list for a monchrome Visor. You can probably get them cheap these days. I've got two. They're my old standby and have been around the world several times. More useful on long trips than any thing else, and I'm a gadget freak who travels a lot.
They're simple Palm OS devices that run on AAA batteries, available anywhere. They can run for weeks on a set with heavy use. I load mine up with games and books which seriously lightens my load. It may not sound like reading a book on one of these things would be practical, but you quickly get used to it. These are great for passing the time on long bus/train/plane rides. You can also take notes, check time, keep contacts, etc... all the basics. No net connectivity though.
Get a backup cartridge so you can quickly dupe the entire device and restore in case the devices malfunctions and you lose data (on one occasion I had to completely reset mine to factory defaults to get it working). Back up occasionally if you're entering data and keep the device & back up cartridge separate in case of loss. (one in pack, one in pocket....) I'd bring two Visors if it's a long trip, keep the separate and periodically sync them by backing up the up-to-date one and restoring it on your backup Visor.
If net connectivity is a requirement take a USB Stick along with you with a set of decent standalone apps to suit your needs and then hit internet cafes. You will find them every where. Take two (and dupe them) if you're worried about loss.
An Ipod or other large capacity MP3 player would be nice but there's a high theft risk and you've got a recharging problem. If you want music, find a cheapo flash device that runs on AA or AAA batteries and takes SD cards or similar. They exist.
A laptop is way more trouble than it's worth and will probably not make it back.
I'm not a cell phone person so I won't recommend one... in fact I'd recommend not taking one for a real adventure.
A camera is essential so get a small digital one and an extra battery if you take alot of pics. I recommend the Canon Elphs as very durable and they take decent pictures. With cheap 2-4 GB cartridges and the ability to preview & delete, you probably can get by without external storage.
It's always tempting to bring a game console but again, you have a recharging problem and people will kill you for these in certain places. The Visors palm os games are sufficiently engaging and its not a particularly flashy or sought after device.
Travel as light as you can! Keep valuables separated so you don't lose everything at once should things go badly.
Bon Voyage!
Well.... On 3 out of 4 desktop systems I've tried, power management, especially standby, is horribly broken. Standby worked fine under XP on all 4 systems.
"And what father would give his little daughter a copy of the 20th-anniversary edition of The Little Mermaid with the title scrawled in Sharpie?"
This one.
To not do so would be hypocritical on my part.
The "end of the entertainment industry as we know it" does not strike me as a bad thing.
Yeah... he seems to have got it backwards, here he is discussing the average user's experience w/vista:
"They will rarely notice the limitations, because they are not the sort of people who download films from the net or try to make copies of their DVDs."
It's my understanding that these are exactly the people who will notice the limitations. They are the ones who will try to play legit DRM'ed media through (unknown to most of them) insecure channels and have the audio/video quality degraded.
Those of us downloading DRM free content shouldn't have this problem.
Not that I'm upgrading to Vista anytime soon....... I see absolutely no compelling reason for, and many reasons against. It cracks me up that the some of the most touted features by MS, Sidebar and Search, have been available for XP, free, from Google (and others) for over a year.... with an arguably better implementation.
...show them the sidebar. Oh, wait....
Not only that, but Vista's standby & hibernate modes don't work properly on nearly all of the >= 1 year old hardware I've tried it on (about 4 systems). I suppose this could technically be the hardware's fault but... damn it, XP could suspend/resume on these systems just fine.
I've had to turn off standby & hibernate on my 2.8 GHz Xeon work machine because neither work right in Vista, which I've been testing for a month or so. I'm sucking up way more power than I did with XP.
They're autonomous so they don't actually need to communicate at all to fly.
It seems to me that a minimal amount of data would need to be exchanged to obtain necessary control over one. (go here, go there, do this, come back...)
You could do that with a SMS.
I would assume the majority of the bandwidth would be used to send back information... like video. Which may answer my own question...
Still for basic control... why would dedicated spectrum be needed?
...except I couldn't get the package open.
Yeah.. I agree.
Microsoft releases a new CLI for Windows (Powershell 1.0 available as of yesterday. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell for more info) yet they've rejected that story at least twice and post trolls like this instead.
Yeah... it's confusing.
Depending on where you right click, and what mode the player is in, you get different options. It's NOT clear where you should be clicking to get to certain things.
I don't like it. Not to mention, my parents won't, in a million years, figure out how to use it properly.
Granted... there is a "show classic menus options." Just turn it on.
They did the same thing to Windows Explorer in Vista. Gonna take some time to get used to it. I don't see how it can be considered easier to use.
Politicians have a poor grasp of reality.
I second that... Make multiple versions if you have to but please keep a lean, mean, compliant version available.