Wouldn't it be more appropriate to compare wow subscribers to any ONE NcSoft game? I mean, you wouldn't lump EverQuest and EverQuest 2 together either, they are different games and people may not like one or the other.
Ah, but you missed the key phrase... they were saying Blizzard was second only to NCSoft, not WoW was second only to all of NCSoft's games combined. Blizzard, as a company is number 2 in the MMORPG bizz, which is quite a feat since they only recently started.
I fail to see how burning stacks of uncompressed-yet-lossy CDs is an improvement over just buying the CDs from Amazon.com in the first place, or how getting around DRM shows that DRM isn't a problem.
This goes back to the whole point of stores like iTunes. Cheaper songs AND cherry-picking.
I only listen to a little bit of music, but I really only want a few songs from a CD (sometimes just one). Now, I could just go out and buy the CD from Amazon but then I'm paying like $12 or something for the 1 or 2 songs. Yes, I get other songs too but I could care less about them.
Now with iTunes if I just want a particular song I pay the $0.99 for the 1 song. At the end of the day, if I want to make a CD of my favorite songs I can do so. Granted the quality wouldn't be as good as buying ALL of the cd's in my mix, but making that CD would only cost me like $12 instead of over $100.
Why should I keep paying for songs I don't like or hate? Why should I be paying so much for a CD when the record labels can make them for dirt cheap?
As for DRM, you can't get around it. The record labels will NEVER allow the legal sale of their music without it, so something needs to be added. Apple's DRM isn't that bad and there are ways to get around it if you really want to.
I'm embarassed to say I never bothered looking it up as I leave it at the default levels. However, I always assume it removed the jitteriness from the movement of a mouse so your movements would be more smooth/fluid.
Not to pick nits, but Metal Gear and Final Fantasy were originally NINTENDO titles....
Agreed.
But most of the Snake's popularity comes from "Metal Gear Solid" and beyond, which were pioneered on Sony consoles. His Nintendo days were less-than-stellar, but Solid really put him in the spotlight.
As for Final Fantasy, yeh I remember playing that back in the day. However, I was speaking as to how most of the FF games have been Sony games, including the very popular ones. Heck, I could see them putting "Yuna" there eventually (for popularity alone).
Sony is great and they have some original characters, but compared to Nintendo they haven't been around that long.
The first ones to go onto the "Walk" are characters, games, and persons that helped make modern gaming what it is today. Heck, any gamer (old or young) know who Mario and Link are and are at least familiar with Pong.
Sony's stuff will come in soon. Besides, if the first entries were Metal Gear's Snake and Final Fantasy, it would look like they were just patting themselves on the back instead of being true to gaming. Start with the earlier popular stuff and move on from there
"plus I dont' have to worry about the RIAA." just the DRM that only lets you use iTunes/iPOD instead.
Sure I'm being forced to use iTunes, but that doesn't bother me much. I find it to be a decent player and music management system. And since I only use Windows and OSX, it doesn't affect me too much. And if I need an mp3 made of it, there are ways (though some methods result in loss of quality).
It's kind of a mixed bag. Realistically, I couldn't see the record labels allowing such selling of music without some some of decent DRM. At least Apple's isn't that strict and their service doesn't require a fee like some other services.
In best to worst, these are the following scenarios. - Free music (labels are never gonna let it happen) - No DRM, cheap songs (labels won't let it happen) - Portable DRM and cheap songs (could happen if Apple opens up or distributors coordinate) - Less portable DRM, cheap-ish songs (iTunes) - Strict or time-limited DRM - Monthly fee
I've been using iTunes for a while now, paying $.99 USD a song. So, a low price 5 cents that would be welcome.
My music needs are small, resulting in like 1 or 2 songs a month. iTunes is so much less of a hassle than P2P, plus I dont' have to worry about the RIAA.
I toyed with getting a powerbook last year but ultimately I went with an HP model because they let me choose what I wanted in it. Apple has a policy where it is their way or the highway.
If you were talking about a Desktop I could understand, but a laptop?
There's not much you can do with a laptop anyway; just the RAM (which you can still get from 3rd parties like Crucial.com). You are allowed to customize a Powerbook online (different size/speed of hard drives, blue tooth, wireless, CPU, etc), and as far as I know that's as far as you can go with most other companies. The big difference is that companies like Dell and HP have more models, so yu can choose a chassis and CPU that fits you better than the 2 that are offered for PowerBooks.
The only thing I can think of what you're talking about is you're forced to use their wireless card or bluetooth. That is annoying, especially if you're like me and just re-use the same wireless card on new / replacement PC notebooks, but with the PowerBook you have to use Mac hardware (which you could cannibalize from another PowerBook if you had one I guess).
As for the service pack thing, no. 10.1 -> 10.2 is a different animal. The service packs are 10.1.1, 10.1.2, etc, so they're in much the same respect as SP1 or SP2 for WinXP.
The confusing part is that Apple doesn't want to move away from the "OS X" name, I guess because it "sounds cool" to them. So, each new OS is just OS X 10.y. While the difference between 10.2 and 10.3 isn't as noticeable as Win2k to WinXP, that's mostly because XP went with a completely new UI (if chosen). Each OS X version usually has a lot of changes under the hood.
Also, a full version of MacOSX is rather cheap compared to the full version of Windows.
Sueing their fansites is exactly the behavior I would expect from Apple.
I won't argue with the closed proprietary-ness of the company and their tech.
However, they're not suing the fansite to be a bunch of jerks, they want to know who the source is. The information was too accurate to have been guessed (so the theory goes), so chances are it came from some inside information.
This isn't a BIG deal, but all of the employees involved signed an NDA, and let me tell you from someone that works for a big company that NDA's are taken extremely seriously. Violate one, and you're up the creek without a canoe, let alone a paddle.
They wnat the name of the violater (if there is one). They're going a little far to find him or her, but I can't totally blame them. If a person doesn't take an NDA seriously and leaks info, then you have a problem. Because not only did they leak the info once, but they could do so again and to a competitor instead of a fansite.
Therapy isn't always a solution, sometimes it's at best a band-aid. I'm not saying I entirely agree with the death penalty (mixed feelings), let alone with 16 or 17 year olds, but Therapy isn't going to help in all cases.
One could make the argument that for someone to commit cold-blooded murder (as opposed to self-defense, heat-of-the-moment, or greed) that there HAS to be something wrong with them; after all it's just so morally devient. But does this really mean that some therapy sessions twice a week and a prescription for valium is going to do anything for them?
It's possible that a kid could be a sociopath and thus pretty much beyond help. I'm not saying he/she deserves to die, but a life-sentence or some other long-term sentence (20 years, etc) might be appropriate.
Sure, many criminals can be rehabilitated and change while in prison; I'm not saying once a bad seed always a bad seed. And those that have issues should definately seek help.
Ozma plays an electric guitar version of the Zelda Theme, but it's only... ok.
However, they do a kick-butt version of the Gameboy tetris music! I usually listen to it a few times a week.
The Comcast cable by me offers a DVR box for like an extra $5 USD a month. It's a replacement digital TV box that has a hard drive and what-not on it. You still get the OnDemand content if you want, or you can record your own.
I'm pretty sure with that, you can record digital channes (from 150 to 400 by me), and the dual-tuner models should be out soon (so you can record 1 show and watch another).
I used a friend's, and while it's definately no Tivo, it's not... bad. I'd still prefer it if Tivo was still in the running.
GPL only applies to redistributing the software/information-system that uses it.
Most companies use it as an in-house database. Maybe it hosts something for a web page, maybe it holds non-sensitive information to query against, etc. In this case, they're free to use MySQL for, well, free.
They've been pushing this for so long, that they can't look back now. Yes, the Pentium M's perform great, but they're still only around 1.7 GHz.
While that out-performs P4's with MUCH higher clock-speeds, what are they going to say? Buy this CPU, it's 1.7GHz! Joe Sixpack would say "But I can buy this here Penteeyum Four with 4 GHz... 4 is better than 1.7."
AMD has been rating their CPUs on performance to keep competitive with Intel's. If anything, Intel will have to follow their lead and do the same if they really want to push the Pentium M's to the masses.
I didn't say (or mean to say) the parking lot was empty. Simply that they fly through the openings and ziz-zag aruond without stopping to cut across the lot of a small shopping area in a small town (grocery store, drug store, etc).
It's one thing if it's near-empty and you can just go straight or barely have to adjust course. You don't have to worry about too much and can see everything coming. Heck, even I do that.
It's another when there are cars all over the place, you don't see more than 2 openings side-by-side to drive through in each lane, other cars are driving down the lanes, and people are walking around with their groceries.
25 aint fast, but considering there are obstacles all over the place, is no straight-line-path because of fairly full lot, people and kids around; all without tapping the brakes is not exactly safe for others.
I was at an intersection that also happened to be a railroad crossing (the pattern was like an astrix; 2 streets crossing at a right angle, with a railroad going through at 45 degrees). The train was coming through, so obviously both streets had the red light. When the train finally passed, it was me one 1 street, and a cadillac on the other.
My light turns green (that street always turns green after the train, and I had a witness to back me up). So I go, and almost get T-Boned by the cadillac full of elderly men and women. They got all angry and rolled down the windows to yell at the "young-en." Meanwhile, I turn my head and see that I was correct, I had the green and they had the red. There was no arguing with them, so I said to hell with it and drove off.
Even the other person in the car said we had the green, and the lights are so long at that intersection it's sickening... so it's not like it could have changed while they were yelling at us.
I have great respect for the elderly; my grandparents lived with me for most of my life (until I was 20). And I'm not saying all elderly are bad drivers as I've driven with some that were good, but there are a lot out there that aren't great at all, and god forbid anyone tell them that maybe they shouldn't be driving. The worst part is, they don't realize it and nobody in their family has "the heart" to say that it's dangerous for others when they're on the road.
Things I often witness - A granny will just drift to the other lane even if someone's next to her. No turn signal either.
- Running a stop sign (not a rolling stop, but just go through like it was nothing).
- Flying (fast) through a parking lot, while not using the lanes. Just going through the parking spaces the entire length of the lot at like 25 MPH.
- STOP in the middle of a busy street for no reason so they can put on their glasses.
I believe some ThinkPads still come with the eraser-nub. It acts like a miny-joystick, and is actually decent once you get used to it. But many have tapping as well, so I definately suggest disabling that.
My old laptop (Dell Inspiron 3700) had both Trackpad and thumbstick. And even though the drivers were buggy, you could set it to use both or just one of them. I wound up turning off the trackpad because these bear-claws I call hands kept tapping it while I was playing Half-Life.
The other nice thing AT&T and other offer is the ability to call your Skype account from any regular phone.
Skype is currently working on this feature (SkypeIn), but I don't know if I'd use it.
I mostly got it for the occasional international call I have to make. They're not often (once every 2 or 3 months), but can last for 2 hours when they do occur. Skype lets me call them for dirt cheap and I don't need a monthly fee.
If I needed it more, I'd consider someone else so I could get a phone number.
Up until now, the OS X version was in beta (I don't know about Linux). They released version 1.0 today (at least of OS X), so it's finally officially released.
I was under the impression sawdust fires had to do with the particulate matter in the air and not the air's temperatures.
For an experiment, start your stove. Take some powder (cocoa mix or sawdust), and lightly sprinkle it over the flame. The fire will flare up to almost your fingers.
If done in a small contained space, it will result in an explosion. And it only takes a small flame or spark to ignite this. Our middle-school teacher supposedly put a hole in the ceiling one year (at another school) demonstrating this fact.
but this being a state school, the campus security are real cops.
State. Our area was it's in precinct, so they were real cops (guns and all). They loved to keep reminding us this.
However, they were in cahoots with the RA's. The "fire alarm" was on the whole time; the premise being that if the fire alarm's one we're all supposed to be out of there. And, of course, the cops and firemen were more than willing to enforce it because they were sick of doing this every night as well. They wanted the jerks as well.
The other buildings (ie, student center) were closed for the evening except for the other dorms. However, they told the front desk not to let anyone unless their badge said they belonged there (we had different stickers for each dorm).
So, it was a sucky night. And, of course by the time I got back in I was so wide awake from freezing my juevos off that I stayed up the rest of the night.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but you missed the key phrase... they were saying Blizzard was second only to NCSoft, not WoW was second only to all of NCSoft's games combined. Blizzard, as a company is number 2 in the MMORPG bizz, which is quite a feat since they only recently started.
This goes back to the whole point of stores like iTunes. Cheaper songs AND cherry-picking.
I only listen to a little bit of music, but I really only want a few songs from a CD (sometimes just one). Now, I could just go out and buy the CD from Amazon but then I'm paying like $12 or something for the 1 or 2 songs. Yes, I get other songs too but I could care less about them.
Now with iTunes if I just want a particular song I pay the $0.99 for the 1 song. At the end of the day, if I want to make a CD of my favorite songs I can do so. Granted the quality wouldn't be as good as buying ALL of the cd's in my mix, but making that CD would only cost me like $12 instead of over $100.
Why should I keep paying for songs I don't like or hate? Why should I be paying so much for a CD when the record labels can make them for dirt cheap?
As for DRM, you can't get around it. The record labels will NEVER allow the legal sale of their music without it, so something needs to be added. Apple's DRM isn't that bad and there are ways to get around it if you really want to.
Isn't that what "Mouse Smoothing" does?
I'm embarassed to say I never bothered looking it up as I leave it at the default levels. However, I always assume it removed the jitteriness from the movement of a mouse so your movements would be more smooth/fluid.
Agreed.
But most of the Snake's popularity comes from "Metal Gear Solid" and beyond, which were pioneered on Sony consoles. His Nintendo days were less-than-stellar, but Solid really put him in the spotlight.
As for Final Fantasy, yeh I remember playing that back in the day. However, I was speaking as to how most of the FF games have been Sony games, including the very popular ones. Heck, I could see them putting "Yuna" there eventually (for popularity alone).
Not that surprising...
Sony is great and they have some original characters, but compared to Nintendo they haven't been around that long.
The first ones to go onto the "Walk" are characters, games, and persons that helped make modern gaming what it is today. Heck, any gamer (old or young) know who Mario and Link are and are at least familiar with Pong.
Sony's stuff will come in soon. Besides, if the first entries were Metal Gear's Snake and Final Fantasy, it would look like they were just patting themselves on the back instead of being true to gaming. Start with the earlier popular stuff and move on from there
Sure I'm being forced to use iTunes, but that doesn't bother me much. I find it to be a decent player and music management system. And since I only use Windows and OSX, it doesn't affect me too much. And if I need an mp3 made of it, there are ways (though some methods result in loss of quality).
It's kind of a mixed bag. Realistically, I couldn't see the record labels allowing such selling of music without some some of decent DRM. At least Apple's isn't that strict and their service doesn't require a fee like some other services.
In best to worst, these are the following scenarios.
- Free music (labels are never gonna let it happen)
- No DRM, cheap songs (labels won't let it happen)
- Portable DRM and cheap songs (could happen if Apple opens up or distributors coordinate)
- Less portable DRM, cheap-ish songs (iTunes)
- Strict or time-limited DRM
- Monthly fee
I've been using iTunes for a while now, paying $.99 USD a song. So, a low price 5 cents that would be welcome.
My music needs are small, resulting in like 1 or 2 songs a month. iTunes is so much less of a hassle than P2P, plus I dont' have to worry about the RIAA.
If you were talking about a Desktop I could understand, but a laptop?
There's not much you can do with a laptop anyway; just the RAM (which you can still get from 3rd parties like Crucial.com). You are allowed to customize a Powerbook online (different size/speed of hard drives, blue tooth, wireless, CPU, etc), and as far as I know that's as far as you can go with most other companies. The big difference is that companies like Dell and HP have more models, so yu can choose a chassis and CPU that fits you better than the 2 that are offered for PowerBooks.
The only thing I can think of what you're talking about is you're forced to use their wireless card or bluetooth. That is annoying, especially if you're like me and just re-use the same wireless card on new / replacement PC notebooks, but with the PowerBook you have to use Mac hardware (which you could cannibalize from another PowerBook if you had one I guess).
As for the service pack thing, no. 10.1 -> 10.2 is a different animal. The service packs are 10.1.1, 10.1.2, etc, so they're in much the same respect as SP1 or SP2 for WinXP.
The confusing part is that Apple doesn't want to move away from the "OS X" name, I guess because it "sounds cool" to them. So, each new OS is just OS X 10.y. While the difference between 10.2 and 10.3 isn't as noticeable as Win2k to WinXP, that's mostly because XP went with a completely new UI (if chosen). Each OS X version usually has a lot of changes under the hood.
Also, a full version of MacOSX is rather cheap compared to the full version of Windows.
I won't argue with the closed proprietary-ness of the company and their tech.
However, they're not suing the fansite to be a bunch of jerks, they want to know who the source is. The information was too accurate to have been guessed (so the theory goes), so chances are it came from some inside information.
This isn't a BIG deal, but all of the employees involved signed an NDA, and let me tell you from someone that works for a big company that NDA's are taken extremely seriously. Violate one, and you're up the creek without a canoe, let alone a paddle.
They wnat the name of the violater (if there is one). They're going a little far to find him or her, but I can't totally blame them. If a person doesn't take an NDA seriously and leaks info, then you have a problem. Because not only did they leak the info once, but they could do so again and to a competitor instead of a fansite.
Therapy isn't always a solution, sometimes it's at best a band-aid. I'm not saying I entirely agree with the death penalty (mixed feelings), let alone with 16 or 17 year olds, but Therapy isn't going to help in all cases.
One could make the argument that for someone to commit cold-blooded murder (as opposed to self-defense, heat-of-the-moment, or greed) that there HAS to be something wrong with them; after all it's just so morally devient. But does this really mean that some therapy sessions twice a week and a prescription for valium is going to do anything for them?
It's possible that a kid could be a sociopath and thus pretty much beyond help. I'm not saying he/she deserves to die, but a life-sentence or some other long-term sentence (20 years, etc) might be appropriate.
Sure, many criminals can be rehabilitated and change while in prison; I'm not saying once a bad seed always a bad seed. And those that have issues should definately seek help.
Ozma plays an electric guitar version of the Zelda Theme, but it's only... ok. However, they do a kick-butt version of the Gameboy tetris music! I usually listen to it a few times a week.
The Comcast cable by me offers a DVR box for like an extra $5 USD a month. It's a replacement digital TV box that has a hard drive and what-not on it. You still get the OnDemand content if you want, or you can record your own.
I'm pretty sure with that, you can record digital channes (from 150 to 400 by me), and the dual-tuner models should be out soon (so you can record 1 show and watch another).
I used a friend's, and while it's definately no Tivo, it's not... bad. I'd still prefer it if Tivo was still in the running.
Unfortunately, not only will big business change the constitution to allow slaves, but they'll make it it illegal for them to marry.
jk
GPL only applies to redistributing the software/information-system that uses it.
Most companies use it as an in-house database. Maybe it hosts something for a web page, maybe it holds non-sensitive information to query against, etc. In this case, they're free to use MySQL for, well, free.
Their problem is the megahertz myth...
They've been pushing this for so long, that they can't look back now. Yes, the Pentium M's perform great, but they're still only around 1.7 GHz.
While that out-performs P4's with MUCH higher clock-speeds, what are they going to say? Buy this CPU, it's 1.7GHz! Joe Sixpack would say "But I can buy this here Penteeyum Four with 4 GHz... 4 is better than 1.7."
AMD has been rating their CPUs on performance to keep competitive with Intel's. If anything, Intel will have to follow their lead and do the same if they really want to push the Pentium M's to the masses.
Which PowerBook are you using?
I remember trying a 12" PowerBook at the Apple store, and was disgusted with how hot it got. It was horrible.
I later bought myself a 15" Al Powerbook w/ 1.25Hz CPU. I've felt it get mildly warm, but never hot. Then again, I don't use it on my lap often.
I didn't say (or mean to say) the parking lot was empty. Simply that they fly through the openings and ziz-zag aruond without stopping to cut across the lot of a small shopping area in a small town (grocery store, drug store, etc).
It's one thing if it's near-empty and you can just go straight or barely have to adjust course. You don't have to worry about too much and can see everything coming. Heck, even I do that.
It's another when there are cars all over the place, you don't see more than 2 openings side-by-side to drive through in each lane, other cars are driving down the lanes, and people are walking around with their groceries.
25 aint fast, but considering there are obstacles all over the place, is no straight-line-path because of fairly full lot, people and kids around; all without tapping the brakes is not exactly safe for others.
Then you should see what I've had to deal with.
My favorite one was on a "Bingo" night...
I was at an intersection that also happened to be a railroad crossing (the pattern was like an astrix; 2 streets crossing at a right angle, with a railroad going through at 45 degrees). The train was coming through, so obviously both streets had the red light. When the train finally passed, it was me one 1 street, and a cadillac on the other.
My light turns green (that street always turns green after the train, and I had a witness to back me up). So I go, and almost get T-Boned by the cadillac full of elderly men and women. They got all angry and rolled down the windows to yell at the "young-en." Meanwhile, I turn my head and see that I was correct, I had the green and they had the red. There was no arguing with them, so I said to hell with it and drove off.
Even the other person in the car said we had the green, and the lights are so long at that intersection it's sickening... so it's not like it could have changed while they were yelling at us.
I have great respect for the elderly; my grandparents lived with me for most of my life (until I was 20). And I'm not saying all elderly are bad drivers as I've driven with some that were good, but there are a lot out there that aren't great at all, and god forbid anyone tell them that maybe they shouldn't be driving. The worst part is, they don't realize it and nobody in their family has "the heart" to say that it's dangerous for others when they're on the road.
Things I often witness
- A granny will just drift to the other lane even if someone's next to her. No turn signal either.
- Running a stop sign (not a rolling stop, but just go through like it was nothing).
- Flying (fast) through a parking lot, while not using the lanes. Just going through the parking spaces the entire length of the lot at like 25 MPH.
- STOP in the middle of a busy street for no reason so they can put on their glasses.
I believe some ThinkPads still come with the eraser-nub. It acts like a miny-joystick, and is actually decent once you get used to it. But many have tapping as well, so I definately suggest disabling that.
My old laptop (Dell Inspiron 3700) had both Trackpad and thumbstick. And even though the drivers were buggy, you could set it to use both or just one of them. I wound up turning off the trackpad because these bear-claws I call hands kept tapping it while I was playing Half-Life.
Good luck.
The other nice thing AT&T and other offer is the ability to call your Skype account from any regular phone.
Skype is currently working on this feature (SkypeIn), but I don't know if I'd use it.
I mostly got it for the occasional international call I have to make. They're not often (once every 2 or 3 months), but can last for 2 hours when they do occur. Skype lets me call them for dirt cheap and I don't need a monthly fee.
If I needed it more, I'd consider someone else so I could get a phone number.
Up until now, the OS X version was in beta (I don't know about Linux). They released version 1.0 today (at least of OS X), so it's finally officially released.
Yeh, their supplier really screwed the pooch with the G4's, which is why they've since changed.
However, the G5 was mega-popular. Everyone I knew wanted one, even MS zealots (that hated anything not MS).
The speed, the sexiness, and the 64-bit... they road a storm with that one.
Me, G4 is good enough (for now). My PowerBook runs fine (though not as snappy as my main dev machine). But OS X more than makes up for that.
I was under the impression sawdust fires had to do with the particulate matter in the air and not the air's temperatures.
For an experiment, start your stove. Take some powder (cocoa mix or sawdust), and lightly sprinkle it over the flame. The fire will flare up to almost your fingers.
If done in a small contained space, it will result in an explosion. And it only takes a small flame or spark to ignite this. Our middle-school teacher supposedly put a hole in the ceiling one year (at another school) demonstrating this fact.
State. Our area was it's in precinct, so they were real cops (guns and all). They loved to keep reminding us this.
However, they were in cahoots with the RA's. The "fire alarm" was on the whole time; the premise being that if the fire alarm's one we're all supposed to be out of there. And, of course, the cops and firemen were more than willing to enforce it because they were sick of doing this every night as well. They wanted the jerks as well.
The other buildings (ie, student center) were closed for the evening except for the other dorms. However, they told the front desk not to let anyone unless their badge said they belonged there (we had different stickers for each dorm).
So, it was a sucky night. And, of course by the time I got back in I was so wide awake from freezing my juevos off that I stayed up the rest of the night.