Because that would be the equivalent of letting you wait to buy car insurance until you had already had an accident.
It would be actually be worse because health coverage is more than just insurance, and portions of the premiums go toward preventative care to help avoid worse scenarios.
The first person shooter was invented the first time someone picked up a rock. It was refined with squirt guns with many revisions in between. Id just helped move it to a computer.
Ebay didn't invention auctions. Paypal didn't invent currency. Id didn't invent chasing imaginary creatures with imaginary firearms.
You're being foolish. Tigers are released against enemies wielding raspberries. For the banana wielder though, a 16-ton weight has been shown to be effective.
If I was professional it would be a lot easier to justify. I've been trying, but as a mere enthusiast I haven't been able to yet. Awesome bit of equipment though, and niche gear comes at a price.
Actually looking at the possibility of the Surface Pro 2, and Wacom have a Windows tablet coming out too. Size is the biggest downside of all these unfortunately.
Replying to myself. Some of the just announced Sony Flips might work well. A little worried because I think Sony is building their own custom digitizer/pen.
A specialized use case, but I would like one for digital art. It would be required to be fairly powerful, run a full PC operating system, and have a built in digitizer. Also, I would expect it to work well in a laptop format with a convertible/detachable/wireless keyboard.
"How would you carry that around?" Carrying around is easy, put it an a backpack or messenger bag, 15-17" laptops are not a new thing.
"How the hell would you hold it?" I normally wouldn't. As a laptop it would be used as any other laptop. As a tablet it would primarily normally be used on my lap, or on a desk/table using a kickstand, portable stand, or less portable docking station depending on location.
"Not that much of this will matter to the increasingly Randian crowd on Slashdot."
Oh, please. You know that if a worker just shows a little initiative, and works hard on the twinkie production line, they will be rewarded with wage increases and promotions until they are able to join elite non moocher society./s
I believe the expectation is that pro users prefer to stack external bays on their desk? This design doesn't look to be very well thought out in terms of upgrading and repairing.
"I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want."
Um... Windows 8 has its issues, but this is actually a use case that it's almost perfect for. It boots quickly to a screen with 1 big square icon for each of your games, which will launch the game when clicked on. You'd need to remove a few icons initially, but then you'd be set and could organize your games into whatever order or groupings you want.
No, you don't pay an actual hourly labor rate at a mechanic. You just don't realize how your bill is determined. For any given repair, the time is determined by an industry standard table. You are billed for the job and the parts, not the actual amount of time the labor took.
1. A default password is a default password, and should be assumed to be public knowledge. 2. A complicated default password will accidentally trick user into thinking it is more secure than admin/1234. For example, you have already been tricked. 3. If the device is reset to factory default, the password won't be easily remembered, so a device may be stranded in a default or even unusable state until the owner can find the password via documentation, help-desk, or internet database of default passwords.
A partial fix that is sometimes used, is to give each individual device a separate password, and include this password inside the packaging or attached via sticker. This is somewhat more secure but can lead to problems itself. The user may keep the password, and the password may not be truly unique, or may be guessable. If the password is damaged/lost, the device may be rendered unusable if reset to its default state.
It can impact him by having an effect on the rest of the industry. EA may license the technology they use so that it gets used more broadly in other products. EA is very big, so they might decide to go buy a company that makes a competing product he likes and then shutter the product. They may buy a company and then add the features he dislikes to product that makes it unusable for him.
Basically, products are not released into a vacuum and practices that are bad for the customer can spread through the industry if they are included in products that do well. This is a very simple observation that people seem to frequently miss.
While directly taking money away isn't a solution in this case(it certainly can be in the case of dangerously bad products), the desire to do more than simply be quiet is understandable. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you see a problem that you think may spread; you complain, you voice your opinion, and you try to convince people to agree with you. That is how you work to get things changed.
"Why does it cost 10s of millions to make a game? I've seen indie games like minecraft or terarria or...."
Good games, but simple, with relatively little in the way of 3rd party or artistic assets.
The costs ramp up when you start developing a game that requires a combination of teams of artists, recording engineers, voice actors, etc... High end graphics are going to require dedicated teams too. Moving from high to bleeding edge graphics are going to require even more trained people and the development new techniques. You also may need to pay to license vehicles, locations, teams, people, and/or characters. If you are a large company you may need to localize it for the various countries its selling in so you don't do something like accidentally use "spastic" in a kids game being sold in the UK.
What about digital content in collectors editions? It generally comes on all the discs, but requires activation only included with the collector's edition packaging. Frequently, some or all of this becomes available as DLC for a charge.
Slashdot Mirror
Because that would be the equivalent of letting you wait to buy car insurance until you had already had an accident.
It would be actually be worse because health coverage is more than just insurance, and portions of the premiums go toward preventative care to help avoid worse scenarios.
The first person shooter was invented the first time someone picked up a rock. It was refined with squirt guns with many revisions in between. Id just helped move it to a computer.
Ebay didn't invention auctions. Paypal didn't invent currency. Id didn't invent chasing imaginary creatures with imaginary firearms.
You're being foolish. Tigers are released against enemies wielding raspberries. For the banana wielder though, a 16-ton weight has been shown to be effective.
If I was professional it would be a lot easier to justify. I've been trying, but as a mere enthusiast I haven't been able to yet. Awesome bit of equipment though, and niche gear comes at a price.
Actually looking at the possibility of the Surface Pro 2, and Wacom have a Windows tablet coming out too. Size is the biggest downside of all these unfortunately.
Replying to myself.
Some of the just announced Sony Flips might work well. A little worried because I think Sony is building their own custom digitizer/pen.
A specialized use case, but I would like one for digital art. It would be required to be fairly powerful, run a full PC operating system, and have a built in digitizer. Also, I would expect it to work well in a laptop format with a convertible/detachable/wireless keyboard.
"How would you carry that around?"
Carrying around is easy, put it an a backpack or messenger bag, 15-17" laptops are not a new thing.
"How the hell would you hold it?"
I normally wouldn't. As a laptop it would be used as any other laptop. As a tablet it would primarily normally be used on my lap, or on a desk/table using a kickstand, portable stand, or less portable docking station depending on location.
"Not that much of this will matter to the increasingly Randian crowd on Slashdot."
Oh, please. You know that if a worker just shows a little initiative, and works hard on the twinkie production line, they will be rewarded with wage increases and promotions until they are able to join elite non moocher society. /s
It wasn't fashionable to have a power button on the visible side? Also not fashionable on the top I suppose.
Amiga, maybe?
[P.S. This is was going to be my reply even BEFORE I saw your username.]
I believe the expectation is that pro users prefer to stack external bays on their desk? This design doesn't look to be very well thought out in terms of upgrading and repairing.
But doesn't secret sound much more devious and worthy of giving clicks to?
"I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want."
Um... Windows 8 has its issues, but this is actually a use case that it's almost perfect for. It boots quickly to a screen with 1 big square icon for each of your games, which will launch the game when clicked on. You'd need to remove a few icons initially, but then you'd be set and could organize your games into whatever order or groupings you want.
Try loading a page that hasn't changed for years.
I will offer as my suggestion, the Space Jam movie homepage:
http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm
No, you don't pay an actual hourly labor rate at a mechanic. You just don't realize how your bill is determined. For any given repair, the time is determined by an industry standard table. You are billed for the job and the parts, not the actual amount of time the labor took.
http://www.howtodothings.com/automotive/how-labor-charges-are-calculated
That would be a bad idea.
1. A default password is a default password, and should be assumed to be public knowledge.
2. A complicated default password will accidentally trick user into thinking it is more secure than admin/1234. For example, you have already been tricked.
3. If the device is reset to factory default, the password won't be easily remembered, so a device may be stranded in a default or even unusable state until the owner can find the password via documentation, help-desk, or internet database of default passwords.
A partial fix that is sometimes used, is to give each individual device a separate password, and include this password inside the packaging or attached via sticker. This is somewhat more secure but can lead to problems itself. The user may keep the password, and the password may not be truly unique, or may be guessable. If the password is damaged/lost, the device may be rendered unusable if reset to its default state.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Texas already has a direct tax on computing services.
"they should definitely do it somewhere in Texas "
Texas already directly taxes computing services.
You take them if you are car camping, not when backpacking.
Apparently it rewards them well enough that they prefer using it over distributing for themselves.
It can impact him by having an effect on the rest of the industry. EA may license the technology they use so that it gets used more broadly in other products. EA is very big, so they might decide to go buy a company that makes a competing product he likes and then shutter the product. They may buy a company and then add the features he dislikes to product that makes it unusable for him.
Basically, products are not released into a vacuum and practices that are bad for the customer can spread through the industry if they are included in products that do well. This is a very simple observation that people seem to frequently miss.
While directly taking money away isn't a solution in this case(it certainly can be in the case of dangerously bad products), the desire to do more than simply be quiet is understandable. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you see a problem that you think may spread; you complain, you voice your opinion, and you try to convince people to agree with you. That is how you work to get things changed.
"Why does it cost 10s of millions to make a game? I've seen indie games like minecraft or terarria or...."
Good games, but simple, with relatively little in the way of 3rd party or artistic assets.
The costs ramp up when you start developing a game that requires a combination of teams of artists, recording engineers, voice actors, etc... High end graphics are going to require dedicated teams too. Moving from high to bleeding edge graphics are going to require even more trained people and the development new techniques. You also may need to pay to license vehicles, locations, teams, people, and/or characters. If you are a large company you may need to localize it for the various countries its selling in so you don't do something like accidentally use "spastic" in a kids game being sold in the UK.
What about digital content in collectors editions? It generally comes on all the discs, but requires activation only included with the collector's edition packaging. Frequently, some or all of this becomes available as DLC for a charge.
So... a subset?
Agreed.