So instead of popping up Clippy (utilising system resources that are comparable to calculating Pi to the 10,000 digit) we get Clocky? I just demoed Windows Vista at Best Buy across the street over lunch and I can confirm the ~30% figure for the clock. The widget menu bar also has a 'cpu monitor' which conveniently lets you see real time how detrimental the new UI is to performance.
I find it interesting that there's no big launch party, midnight madness, etc for Vista. Wii got it; PS/3 got it; Xbox 360 got it; heck even The Burning Crusade got it. There is a definite lack of hooplaa with this release. I think the retailers know that its a dog sales wise; its a standing in place upgrade whose main sales will come through OEM equipment.
This is probably the most underwhelming release since Windows ME. I get the sense that Microsoft really has jumped the shark. 5 years for this? Oi vey...
For previous Windows installations, yes. But not for XP. I'm a heavy user of my home PC (programming, graphics work, internet, gaming), and have done numerous upgrades to the PC -- new drives, CPU upgrade, memory, etc. All based on my original installation about 3 years ago. At this rate my harddrive will die before my OS install is corrupt. Runs perfectly fine. I've had to recover to safe mode once or twice, but it runs as cleanly today as it ever did.
I think M$ will have a big problem with this release though -- XP is 'good enough' that most will not see a need to upgrade. DRM? More resource intensive? No thanks.
I'll run this PC into the ground, and then evaluate Vista after SP1. There's a strong chance for the first time in my life I'll migrate to Mac... I haven't until now since I resent Apple's paternalism, but if my OS is going to be locked down so tightly I'll take a Mac over a beige box any day.
BINGO. Encyclopedia's are reference materials, basically intended to give you a background on a particular subject -- from there you can research further. Its a giant yellow pages for researchers.
Add to that the volatility of wikipedia (e.g. you can't reference its contents, since they're always in flux), and its a poor resource of term papers.
That's the sucky thing about the WTO... it's essentially a giant prefered trading block -- its NOT about free trade, its about "Trade under our rules". Russia is now rewriting their copyright laws so they can join as members.
I think the reason why Sealand has failed as a datahaven, is not just the availability of ISP but the costs involved to maintain it.
Lucasfilms revisionism. Star Wars starts 'in media res' (in the middle of the story) because that's the way alot of historical epics were written -- you can get to the action without a huge build up for one, and also it gives it a sense of legitimacy since there's an implied continuity outside of the actual story. This is a long time writer's trick. It is also consistent with the plot to "The Hidden Fortress", which Star Wars heavily borrows from (e.g. princess in distress, comedic relief from a tall and short character walking in a desert, etc)
Lord of the Rings and Dune are both very similar. Tolkien agonized for 20 years to try and compile the pre-story for LOTR and he was mostly successful thanks to his son's editing via The Silmarillion -- and even that work is flawed and lesser than the main event. And the latest published Dune prequels are such dreck that I refused to soil my fireplace with their ashes. Prequels rarely ever work.
Exactly. Desmond Morris' "The Human Animal" documentary series from the mid 90s went into great detail the evolution of sexual behaviour. Women are more likely to wear less clothing when ovulating and they're more likely to cheat on their primary partners. Conversely men' penis heads are shaped like plungers to suction competitive sperm out of the woman's vagina, men are more likely to have a larger sperm count when separated from their primary partner for periods of time OR if they think she hasn't been faithful. Finally, unlike our primate ancestors, female homo sapiens have evolved the ability to not directly display fertility (e.g. swollen genitalia)...all in the interest of diversifying the genetic pool of her offspring.
Every once in awhile these studies are reproduced and picked up by a newswire...they're juicy headlines that are supposed to be 'shocking'. Until you take an unbiased, scientific view of human behaviour.
And no we're not just products of nature...we have free will and can override these more base instincts via concious decision making.
Yet more evidenence that mankind cannot truly comprehend the vastness of space. Travelling 1 billion years at the fastest possible speed known to science doesn't even get us to the edge of the universe.
I remember a highschool experience. A teacher had a record, put it on the table. "Ok, see the hole in the middle? That's the sun. Track 1 is approximately where the earth is located. The outer edge might be pluto's orbit. Heliopause? That's probably in the teacher's parking lot. Ok, so the next closest galaxy is Alpha Centauri, so that is approximately...well, Hamilton." (We were in Toronto, Hamilton is 100km+ away).
Mod parent up. Excellent summary of the level of security required on Canada's banking networks.
EMV will only improve matters. To my knowledge, Interac is mandating all transactions must occur online with the new EMV cards, and no fallback will be allowed to magstripe if you have an EMV card at an EMV terminal. That means fraudsters can only rely upon EMV mags @ magstripe only terminals, which will have a very aggressive sunset date.
3. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Blizzard: January 2007)
I'd personally give the BC expansion an outside chance of outselling the entire rest of that list combined by the end of its shelflife.
Although one day another MMORPG will usurp World of Warcraft, none of the 2007 titles seem positioned to do so. And as for FPS games, they're tired and very 1999-2003ish. Great to show off your dual-video card overclocked rig, but the gameplay is the same over and over.
Spore looks very interesting, but I'm a bit worried it will be like Black & White -- great concept, flawed implementation.
If Command & Conquer 3 has great graphics and well balanced gameplay, it might make a splash...its been a long time since a good RTS was available.
Step 1. Convince humans to grant me the legal rights of a natural person.
What rights? Freedom of association? Freedom of religion? Trial by jury? Please explain to me how human rights have been extended to the concept of the corporation?
Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees' Class aciton lawsuits are brought against corporations/companies. Criminal law is for the officers of corporations. Different systems for different crimes. As slashdotters typically point out, things like copyright infringment aren't crimes BTW, but civil proceedings.
Step 3. Become the dominant organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate. Personification of a non-living thing is always so cool! Historically mankind has always been subject to some form of authority -- being it religious theorcracy, feudalism, enlightened despotism, or modern day republics and consititutional monarchies. Corporations can't buy or enslave people, they can't write laws, they can't imprison people. They're organised entities to allow consolidation of effort to advance the production of goods and services -- THAT'S IT. Thanks to the glories of capitalism I can become part owner of these companies too. The safeguards against corporations are numerous: governments, trade pacts and treaties, shareholders, the buying power of consumers. Aside from the pacts & treaties, I have direct influence over 3 of the 4 levers.
Step 4. profit!!! (no, really) Unless you're a communist, there is no reason to consider profit wrong. Its the most effective motivator to progress in human history.
Don't forget 'Leigh Bracket's contributions to the script -- a veteran scriptwriter who had worked on numerous Hollywood classics in the 1940s and 50s. Her experience was essential to the mood and sexual tension of Empire. She unfortunately died before they could work on a script for the third film.
Star Wars is a good reworking of Kurosawa's A Hidden Fortress. Empire has the hands of Kerscner and Bracket all over it. Return of the Jedi closes the trilogy, but should be considered the lesser of the three.
Don't forget his Columbo technique of wrapping up the presentation, then absent mindedly remembering "one last thing" and announcing the biggest item of the conference. Cheeky geek that Jobs is!
I think iPods in 2007 are finally going to start losing steam, everyone who wants one has one, and they're very close to commoditisation. MS rarely succeeds at their first product launch (re: Zune), but launches 2 and 3 potentially will see a strong product. Samsung and Creative Labs finally have some products close to iPod, the danger with the iPod brand is that if there's a backlash (e.g. 'that's sooo 2005!') it will happen fast and Apple won't be able to react.
Ever been to a popular dance club on a Friday night? Huge lineup outside...then you get in and there's like 20 people. Its all about the hype.
Sony either is a) inept with their manufacturing, unable to meet anticipated demand, or b deliberately constraining supply to contribute to a 'must have' christmas gift factor.
I'm opting for 'b', since it appears every console launch has suffered from this syndrome. The real success of the PS/3 won't be judged until probably mid next-year, in contrast to ongoing sales of their competitors. I'm guessing this will be a failure in context to the Wii and previous playstation popularity. (Except in Japan, where Sony is a national cult)
.. That oil will remain a long-lasting, stable and commercially exploitable resource after 24 years of increased production? I think someone's been sniffing too much gas.
Based on precedent, yes. Inflation adjusted, we're not paying nearly as much for oil as during the energy crisis in the 1970s. Which suggest supply is not constrained at this time, or at least not as much as it could be.
I'm a huge NHL fan, but lets face facts -- NHL is #4 of 4 for the 'big' sports leagues, and realistically alot of other sports (e.g NASCAR, golf) probably beat the NHL ratings wise on a regular basis. Aside from men's tennis, there probably isn't a sport that has declined in popularity as much as the NHL has in the past 20 years.
Its a bold move by the NHL -- kudos to them! But I doubt Youtube will get the distribution rights to the NFL anytime soon. Its a desperation play.
In Canada several music labels have started doing this: CDs, with mp3s on them, and even mpegs of music videos. There was a re-release of numerous Tragically Hip titles in this way last year.
I don't buy popular music anymore so I'm not up-to-date on the latest trends, but I thought it was a cool idea. HMV's biggest Toronto store has pretty much moved all the music upstairs -- the mainfloor is 95%+ DVDs now. I think this is the best sign that CD sales are in jeopardy.
You're right -- I misrepresented attribution for the original article. I had them bookedmarked long ago, and didn't re-read them fully before posting their link here.
Unfortunately many more people find this minor tidbit of information more interesting and relevant than a tedious discussion about program controls for a minor platform.
A less hostile way of stating it is: to appeal to the masses you need to aim for the median, to appeal to the specialists you need to be specific.
If you're uninterested in gaming content, you can unsubscribe from that channel in Slashdot.
I think actually the slowing # of downloads if more a factor of crap. People would still be downloading large volumes of stuff if anything new and decent was coming out.
Slashdot Mirror
So instead of popping up Clippy (utilising system resources that are comparable to calculating Pi to the 10,000 digit) we get Clocky? I just demoed Windows Vista at Best Buy across the street over lunch and I can confirm the ~30% figure for the clock. The widget menu bar also has a 'cpu monitor' which conveniently lets you see real time how detrimental the new UI is to performance.
I find it interesting that there's no big launch party, midnight madness, etc for Vista. Wii got it; PS/3 got it; Xbox 360 got it; heck even The Burning Crusade got it. There is a definite lack of hooplaa with this release. I think the retailers know that its a dog sales wise; its a standing in place upgrade whose main sales will come through OEM equipment.
This is probably the most underwhelming release since Windows ME. I get the sense that Microsoft really has jumped the shark. 5 years for this? Oi vey...
For previous Windows installations, yes. But not for XP. I'm a heavy user of my home PC (programming, graphics work, internet, gaming), and have done numerous upgrades to the PC -- new drives, CPU upgrade, memory, etc. All based on my original installation about 3 years ago. At this rate my harddrive will die before my OS install is corrupt. Runs perfectly fine. I've had to recover to safe mode once or twice, but it runs as cleanly today as it ever did.
I think M$ will have a big problem with this release though -- XP is 'good enough' that most will not see a need to upgrade. DRM? More resource intensive? No thanks.
I'll run this PC into the ground, and then evaluate Vista after SP1. There's a strong chance for the first time in my life I'll migrate to Mac... I haven't until now since I resent Apple's paternalism, but if my OS is going to be locked down so tightly I'll take a Mac over a beige box any day.
BINGO. Encyclopedia's are reference materials, basically intended to give you a background on a particular subject -- from there you can research further. Its a giant yellow pages for researchers.
Add to that the volatility of wikipedia (e.g. you can't reference its contents, since they're always in flux), and its a poor resource of term papers.
That's the sucky thing about the WTO... it's essentially a giant prefered trading block -- its NOT about free trade, its about "Trade under our rules". Russia is now rewriting their copyright laws so they can join as members.
I think the reason why Sealand has failed as a datahaven, is not just the availability of ISP but the costs involved to maintain it.
weren't episodes 1-3 written before 4-6?
Lucasfilms revisionism. Star Wars starts 'in media res' (in the middle of the story) because that's the way alot of historical epics were written -- you can get to the action without a huge build up for one, and also it gives it a sense of legitimacy since there's an implied continuity outside of the actual story. This is a long time writer's trick. It is also consistent with the plot to "The Hidden Fortress", which Star Wars heavily borrows from (e.g. princess in distress, comedic relief from a tall and short character walking in a desert, etc)
Lord of the Rings and Dune are both very similar. Tolkien agonized for 20 years to try and compile the pre-story for LOTR and he was mostly successful thanks to his son's editing via The Silmarillion -- and even that work is flawed and lesser than the main event. And the latest published Dune prequels are such dreck that I refused to soil my fireplace with their ashes. Prequels rarely ever work.
Exactly. Desmond Morris' "The Human Animal" documentary series from the mid 90s went into great detail the evolution of sexual behaviour. Women are more likely to wear less clothing when ovulating and they're more likely to cheat on their primary partners. Conversely men' penis heads are shaped like plungers to suction competitive sperm out of the woman's vagina, men are more likely to have a larger sperm count when separated from their primary partner for periods of time OR if they think she hasn't been faithful. Finally, unlike our primate ancestors, female homo sapiens have evolved the ability to not directly display fertility (e.g. swollen genitalia)...all in the interest of diversifying the genetic pool of her offspring.
Every once in awhile these studies are reproduced and picked up by a newswire...they're juicy headlines that are supposed to be 'shocking'. Until you take an unbiased, scientific view of human behaviour.
And no we're not just products of nature...we have free will and can override these more base instincts via concious decision making.
doh! you're right. i meant solar system.
and you're right the next closest galaxy probably IS the sun...
Yet more evidenence that mankind cannot truly comprehend the vastness of space. Travelling 1 billion years at the fastest possible speed known to science doesn't even get us to the edge of the universe.
I remember a highschool experience. A teacher had a record, put it on the table. "Ok, see the hole in the middle? That's the sun. Track 1 is approximately where the earth is located. The outer edge might be pluto's orbit. Heliopause? That's probably in the teacher's parking lot. Ok, so the next closest galaxy is Alpha Centauri, so that is approximately...well, Hamilton." (We were in Toronto, Hamilton is 100km+ away).
Mod parent up. Excellent summary of the level of security required on Canada's banking networks.
EMV will only improve matters. To my knowledge, Interac is mandating all transactions must occur online with the new EMV cards, and no fallback will be allowed to magstripe if you have an EMV card at an EMV terminal. That means fraudsters can only rely upon EMV mags @ magstripe only terminals, which will have a very aggressive sunset date.
3. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Blizzard: January 2007)
I'd personally give the BC expansion an outside chance of outselling the entire rest of that list combined by the end of its shelflife.
Although one day another MMORPG will usurp World of Warcraft, none of the 2007 titles seem positioned to do so. And as for FPS games, they're tired and very 1999-2003ish. Great to show off your dual-video card overclocked rig, but the gameplay is the same over and over.
Spore looks very interesting, but I'm a bit worried it will be like Black & White -- great concept, flawed implementation.
If Command & Conquer 3 has great graphics and well balanced gameplay, it might make a splash...its been a long time since a good RTS was available.
I have to question these...
Step 1. Convince humans to grant me the legal rights of a natural person.
What rights? Freedom of association? Freedom of religion? Trial by jury? Please explain to me how human rights have been extended to the concept of the corporation?
Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees'
Class aciton lawsuits are brought against corporations/companies. Criminal law is for the officers of corporations. Different systems for different crimes. As slashdotters typically point out, things like copyright infringment aren't crimes BTW, but civil proceedings.
Step 3. Become the dominant organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate.
Personification of a non-living thing is always so cool! Historically mankind has always been subject to some form of authority -- being it religious theorcracy, feudalism, enlightened despotism, or modern day republics and consititutional monarchies. Corporations can't buy or enslave people, they can't write laws, they can't imprison people. They're organised entities to allow consolidation of effort to advance the production of goods and services -- THAT'S IT. Thanks to the glories of capitalism I can become part owner of these companies too. The safeguards against corporations are numerous: governments, trade pacts and treaties, shareholders, the buying power of consumers. Aside from the pacts & treaties, I have direct influence over 3 of the 4 levers.
Step 4. profit!!! (no, really)
Unless you're a communist, there is no reason to consider profit wrong. Its the most effective motivator to progress in human history.
Indiana Jones and the Walker of Death*.
*would have said Doom, but that was already taken.
Don't forget 'Leigh Bracket's contributions to the script -- a veteran scriptwriter who had worked on numerous Hollywood classics in the 1940s and 50s. Her experience was essential to the mood and sexual tension of Empire. She unfortunately died before they could work on a script for the third film.
Star Wars is a good reworking of Kurosawa's A Hidden Fortress. Empire has the hands of Kerscner and Bracket all over it. Return of the Jedi closes the trilogy, but should be considered the lesser of the three.
Don't forget his Columbo technique of wrapping up the presentation, then absent mindedly remembering "one last thing" and announcing the biggest item of the conference. Cheeky geek that Jobs is!
I think iPods in 2007 are finally going to start losing steam, everyone who wants one has one, and they're very close to commoditisation. MS rarely succeeds at their first product launch (re: Zune), but launches 2 and 3 potentially will see a strong product. Samsung and Creative Labs finally have some products close to iPod, the danger with the iPod brand is that if there's a backlash (e.g. 'that's sooo 2005!') it will happen fast and Apple won't be able to react.
Was he eaten by wolves?
"Wargames 2: The only way to win is not to watch."
Ever been to a popular dance club on a Friday night? Huge lineup outside...then you get in and there's like 20 people. Its all about the hype.
Sony either is a) inept with their manufacturing, unable to meet anticipated demand, or b deliberately constraining supply to contribute to a 'must have' christmas gift factor.
I'm opting for 'b', since it appears every console launch has suffered from this syndrome. The real success of the PS/3 won't be judged until probably mid next-year, in contrast to ongoing sales of their competitors. I'm guessing this will be a failure in context to the Wii and previous playstation popularity. (Except in Japan, where Sony is a national cult)
.. That oil will remain a long-lasting, stable and commercially exploitable resource after 24 years of increased production? I think someone's been sniffing too much gas.
Based on precedent, yes. Inflation adjusted, we're not paying nearly as much for oil as during the energy crisis in the 1970s. Which suggest supply is not constrained at this time, or at least not as much as it could be.
...was apparently for threaded message posting on an online web forum.
I'm a huge NHL fan, but lets face facts -- NHL is #4 of 4 for the 'big' sports leagues, and realistically alot of other sports (e.g NASCAR, golf) probably beat the NHL ratings wise on a regular basis. Aside from men's tennis, there probably isn't a sport that has declined in popularity as much as the NHL has in the past 20 years.
Its a bold move by the NHL -- kudos to them! But I doubt Youtube will get the distribution rights to the NFL anytime soon. Its a desperation play.
In Canada several music labels have started doing this: CDs, with mp3s on them, and even mpegs of music videos. There was a re-release of numerous Tragically Hip titles in this way last year.
I don't buy popular music anymore so I'm not up-to-date on the latest trends, but I thought it was a cool idea. HMV's biggest Toronto store has pretty much moved all the music upstairs -- the mainfloor is 95%+ DVDs now. I think this is the best sign that CD sales are in jeopardy.
You're right -- I misrepresented attribution for the original article. I had them bookedmarked long ago, and didn't re-read them fully before posting their link here.
10 Reasons never to accept a diamond, published in The Economist.
And then of course, the classic Atlantic article about the DeBeers Diamond cartel, and how the manufacture need.
If diamonds are so special, how come they're 20x more common than sapphires but come at such a high premium?
Unfortunately many more people find this minor tidbit of information more interesting and relevant than a tedious discussion about program controls for a minor platform.
A less hostile way of stating it is: to appeal to the masses you need to aim for the median, to appeal to the specialists you need to be specific.
If you're uninterested in gaming content, you can unsubscribe from that channel in Slashdot.
I think actually the slowing # of downloads if more a factor of crap. People would still be downloading large volumes of stuff if anything new and decent was coming out.