These people were offered on average $1.7 million for (again, on average).1 acres of land.
and yet they refused to sell for a large sum of money. this is riverfront property we're talking about, so smaller offers would probably not be considered "fair compensation," especially for the person who was born there in their home in 1918 and lived there all their life. (nytimes, but no reg req'd, not sure why) How do you tell that person that any amount is "fair."
We're not talking about taking someone's home and property to build a hospital, firestation, courthouse, etc. (all of which could be located in a more cost effective location, which would impact fewer people) We're talking about a development group who want to build a riverside hotel, office building, and "other commercial activities" to improve the tax base, create jobs, and enhance the quality of life. What happens when/if these businesses fail to "revitalize" the city. They cannot give back what they are taking. Will they then decide they need a few more lots down the river to build a riverside casino to "improve the tax base and create jobs" which will help the floundering hotel, and the dismal office building by housing the "main office" of the casino and all the new patrons it attracts.
I just can't believe that this has happened, and as a generally conservative person I was initially surprised to see how the vote went down with the generally liberal members voting in favor of the ruling. It makes sense after thinking about it - the conservatives did not side with the development group and commercial interests and instead upheld the constitution by voting for private ownership. It's just hard to believe how there are five (5) members of the high court who blindly ignored the consitution by hiding behind a meager "we're not better to determine what is 'beneficial' for the new london community" retort. Who says the NLDC is better than the homeowners to know what's best for the community?
I just can't even find the words to express how fucked-up this ruling is. It made me so mad I actually submitted it as a story to slashdot: 2005-06-23 19:19:33 Your Property is Perfect - for a Riverfront Hotel (Politics,The Courts) (rejected)
Of course, the story that got accepted was more succinct than my writeup, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying this: I never submit stories - I never get worked up enough to care that much, and I don't even live in Connecticut! In fact I currently reside in Utah where a law was recently passed to specifically prevent eminent domain to be used for private development of any type.
One more article/page from before the ruling that is interesting reading I came across while looking into this.
Still can't figure out why they'd want to produce less units though, unless they figure it would be better to undershoot and have a higher demand for a smaller number of units than to overshoot and glut the market, but if true that also wouldn't sound too good once you decyphered the market-speak.
The market-speak is seems pretty clear to me:
"Companies go bankrupt with too much stock - even companies like Sony," he commented, "but never with too little. We will continue to be cautious... But we will do whatever we can [for retailers]. It costs UKP 8 to airfreight a PS2 to Europe - we airfreighted three million of them in last year, and we'll do that again if we have to."
And, it's a $200 mobo in a $100 case with a $60 hard drive and $100 worth of RAM.
Plus a $400 processor. Maybe $30-50 for some kind of optical drive?
Would they take a loss on each machine at $499? Perhaps a little, but it would be small.
small? wtf? Ok, so I go to dell to try and find the cheapest 3.6GHz Pentium 4 machine and I see that dimensions don't support anything near that, so the precision 380 line which starts at $649 has an option for $580 to upgrade to a 3.6GHz processor. That's $1229 for the non-math majors out there. There is no way this apple development machine comes in anywhere near your $499 price point - not with the processor it sports.
* Brand new biometric-enabled Product Activation process which gives you up to 30 days to make 1 simple visit to your local Red Cross or nearby Hospital (no first born necessary.) This new feature will ensure you have a Microsoft Genuine Product!
The article was all about the technology- that is the comparison. The Sony guy was saying that the Xbox 360 technology was aimed at the PS2. When in fact, the technology in the original Xbox was superior with the technology in the PS2.
Well, that was one line in the article. And much of the article focused on technology, true, but you'll notice some of it is focused on people's perceptions of technology and performance, and how numbers stack up. For instance - "People probably won't be able to understand the difference between PS3 and Xbox 360 if the spec charts are just lined up." Now consider that he could be spouting 2.xTB vs 1.xTB and trying to convince you the PS3 is superior - twice as powerful. Instead he's saying the numbers don't mean as much as the final on screen result. This was one of the points of my post, eh? The other points were ancillary but pointing out that this one thing *technology* even if it is superior does not mean success - xbox I'm looking at you. I never said the xbox was less powerful than the PS2, and while you think Kutaragi did, I think he was saying xbox2 was targeting the PS2 in the sense that it was still trying to outdo the PS2 in the same way the xbox1 did, but that PS3 will be a different beast. It remains to be seen whether that beast will be too different for developers to make good use of. Again like my previous final point and I think the same point Kutaragi was making - It's all speculation until we see the real goods, and from the sound of it, no one was showing real goods at E3 - although MS was the closest which makes sense since they are planning to launch so much sooner than Sony or Nintendo...
Sorry that I was basing my comments on the subject at hand
Well, you have a point, but in your first post I got the impression based on your language that you were a rabid xbox fanboy the way you went off over it. Of course, not so much more than the comment by Kutaragi about the 360 targeting the ps2, but he gets paid to be a fanboy. Plus he never said specifically what "that" referred to, it was Zonk, who in his commentary made the comment that "that" probably meant "crap."
All in all a fun read. Amusing, but I'll wait to see the real things before I decide which has better technology. I admit the 3 cores in the xbox are interesting, but so far even with dual-processor systems being available on PC/Mac's for years, no one really ever writes good threaded games to make use of the extra power, since the GPU has taken over enough that the CPU isn't ususally the limiting factor... if that changes, the xbox is in good position to benefit. If not, it'll be like most dual-cpu systems runnning games today, except it'll have 2 cores sitting idle instead of just 1...
This whack job spouting Sony's poo has no interest in the actual reality as far as the technology is concerned
What does technology have to do with anything? Did you buy a 3DO back when it came out for $699? It had great technology for it's time, but that has bupkis to do with how great a system is overall. (I was seriously considering saving up for one, but after I saw how fucking bad the two zelda games were and how little other compelling *exclusive* games there were, I decided to wait. Luckily there was a better system around the corner I knew nothing about at the time)
I'm sure he STILL thinks the PS2 is a great system
The PS2 *is* a great system. Not only did it have good technology, it also has sold 2x the number of consoles as MS and Nintendo combined. It has the largest selection of games to choose from. It also has the second best selection of exclusive games available (Nintendo wins there.) It garnered the most developer support from NA, the EU *and* Japan. Overall I think all three systems from this generation are great, and I have no expectation that any of the 3 players will come up so short in the next generation that they'll be remebered fondly along with the Jaguar, 3DO, and Dreamcast as just another failed system (yeah the Dreamcast was way more sucessful than those other two, but with the stigma of having sunk Sega's hardware business, it's success is limited and arguable)
...as far as technology is concerned, the first Xbox wiped the floor with the PS2
And people will probably be saying the reverse about the PS3 and the xbox360. Who gives a shit? It's all about the games and so right now it's all about drumming up the developer support. It's the games that will sell the systems and determine who will lead the console race in the next gen. Right now I really like the xbox360's chances even if it comes out earlier and is less powerful, but it will be crucial that they get significant developer support from Japan as well this time around. Back when the xbox was still in development there was a lot of talk of support from Japan, and many companies released a title or two (but not from their top-tier) to test the waters, and most backed out as it became apparant that they would have no one to sell to in Japan. The same thing could happen this time around. They have many announcements of support from Japanese developers, but we'll see how it really pans out once they launch - that support could dry up just as quickly as it did in this generation if sales don't go favorably.
The only thing I know is that I will *eventually* own all three (the ps3 and revolution will just replace my ps2 and gamecube since they will have full backward comapatibility. the xbox360 will probably have to be an addition until I'm satisfied it's backward compatibility will run the games I already have.) But in the end I will go where the games are, and in this generation the weakest exclusive lineup is on the xbox, technology notwithstanding.
Surely, someone as educated as yourself must have something rather more important to do than picking nits about my (lack of) capitalization of the abbreviation of million...
I wonder what the percentage would be if we only accounted for metro areas like Seattle, New York, LA... while I'm sure it's nowhere near 73%, I bet it's well above 18%.
If you assume that their growth continues at that pace, the xbox division will be consistently profitable in roughly 4 years.
So, nine years to become profitable sounds good to you? And how many more beyond that will it take just make back what they've already lost over the last ~5 years? (R&D began well before launch remember...) What makes you think that growth rate from one quarter's results will hold over 4 years? Is growth always positive, and if so, where's my Microsoft Bob?
It will be interesting to see how those figures change after xbox2 launches; they've got to be dumping a fair amount of money into R&D for that unit...
Interesting that you assume a) they will have no R&D after they launch (what, no xbox 3?) and b) the xbox2 launch will be immediately good for the bottom line (xbox1 launched losing an estimated $120-150 per unit sold, we have no idea about pricing for xbox2 yet, but you would hope they learned their lesson the first time around - luckily since they print their own money, they were easily able to shake off the losses unlike Sega)
Basically, this article comes as absolutely no surprise to me. In fact I basically summarized it over two months ago. $84 million profit in one quarter versus the billions lost in the others is not a win. Until E3 shows me different, I'll still be betting on MS to place or show in the next generation.
that would mean each exibit takes up an average of 6.75 city blocks!
That sounds about right. I hear Sony's booth will take up nearly 500 city blocks itself, and will have it's own police force (there is talk of succession, and incorporating their own city)
But that's nothing. Microsoft had to reserve nearly 750 city blocks, almost entirely attributable to the gi-normous size of their consoles. But they're going with it and adopting the slogan 'Bigger is Better.' One banner bearing the slogan will stretch across 29 city blocks alone (you'll need to stand about 6 city blocks away to take it all in at once.)
Ah, but I always thought you could have more than 5 computers play a protected track - as long as you are streaming (or sharing as iTunes calls it). If you copy the music file to another computer, you need to authorize it - and that is limited to 5 total.
Nope. If someone is streaming songs from you, it will pop up and ask them to authorize their computer to play the DRM'd tracks when it hits the first one.
However, iTunes and iTMS come as a package deal and cannot be separated. Therefore, I lump them together.
I don't see why you say this - yes, iTunes is the only authorized way to buy music from iTMS. But Quicktime (and therefore any app that uses Quicktime to play media) on a computer authorized to play ITMS music, will play downloaded iTMS music. You don't have to use iTunes after you've bought the music. Any other music AAC/mp3 can be played by any app that supports the formats. The one thing has nothing to do with the other. Playing music/streaming music/buying music, these are not tied to each other.
But I know what you mean - Apple created the best integrated environment for buying/playing/streaming/transfering to portable devices, and it really sucks when features of that environment are reduced (I do recall saying I did not like these changes), but at the same time this limitation has nothing at all to do with DRM or iTMS, and you just happened to be the lucky 100th person I've seen blame this limitation on iTMS DRM - I just finally couldn't keep my mouth shut and had to say something...
The thing is, this restriction doesn't much hurt DRM tracks, as you can't have more than 5 computers authorized to play them anyway - you could never exceed this limitation with DRM only tracks, and anyone not authorized can't play your DRM tracks at all anyway. So this is effectively a limitation for non-DRM music only... (which only makes the limitation suck that much harder - at least in my opinion)
Third was changing from 5 concurrent listeners to 5 different listeners per day.
I was under the impression that this has nothing to do with iTMS, this is an iTunes restriction whether the streams are iTMS DRM AAC, non-DRM AAC, or mp3. I'm not saying I like the change - I don't, not even a bit, but then I don't much use streaming (except to an AP Express hooked to my stereo) so it really won't affect how I use it. Although, I'm not sure about this idea I had, but people already use tunneling to get around the local subnet restriction, wouldn't this get around the restriction by making all users look like they're coming from 1 ip?
Anyway, the point is this restriction has nothing to do with DRM or iTMS, yet everyone seems to be parroting the same line about iTMS or DRM causing this restriction. I feel like I'm watching a bunch of lemmings...
So that after two years you can "PLuS" your Xbox 2 with a dual-core and new GPU.
So, the xbox has been out for just over 3 years and has sold like 18m worldwide - lets assume the xbox 2 does similar business, so they've shipped 12m xbox2's in two years then they release this dual-core+gpu upgrade for what..$99, $149?
So, 10% of people buy one so now you have 1.2m xbox2+ users and 10.8m xbox2 users... quick, you're a developer and you want to sell as many games as possible, which set of users do you target? no, not 1.2m, you target the whole 12m by developing for the lowest common demoninator.
About the only product that has ever made the leap from upgrade add-on to standard fare was the dual-shock controller, but even that had to be made a standard pack in to get widespread developer support for it.
Think there's a difference between a controller and a cpu-gpu/hardware upgrade? See: memory upgrade for n64, sega 32x add-on, ps2 hard drive. It doesn't work.
I wonder, though, if one of these counts as an activation for iTunes
I would assume these phones would count more like an iPod - authorizing and linking to only 1 computer at a time, but until they are released it's all just speculation.
... and can you guess the reason why that quarter was profitable? Can you say Halo 2 (quick, what's 4.2 million x $50)
Unless MS has another Halo 2 coming out, the next quarter will go back in the red or maybe be around break even, but it will not even be close to $84 million again which pales in comparison to the money MS has sunk into the xbox over the last 3 years. (another poster cited an almost $300 million loss same quarter 1 year ago - I'm too lazy to go look it up and link to it, though.)
He made a mistake in saying $349, I think he meant $348 plus tax for 100 iTMS songs ($0.99 ea) playing on his iPod mini - think about it, you'll figure it out.
Those are *Japanese* hardware sales numbers - thus you now understand why when people post that the x-box is dead in Japan, they really aren't kidding. The worldwide numbers show the x-box with about 10% more total sales than the gamecube, though, which is because of last year, but almost certainly owes much of that sucess to ex-mac developer Bungie - if not for them, MS would certainly not have been able to compete in the USA or Europe either - because of them MS finally had a single quarter of profits (no matter how small) instead of losses from the x-box division. It will be interesting to see if they slip back into the red, or if Halo 2 will be able to keep them in the black for another quarter.
You've got to be kidding me. Paying a fee to play on privately owned servers implies no right to assemble (or any other 'rights' for that matter.) Statehood? Give me a break, it's a freakin' game! If you don't like the rules, you have an option - quit - vote with your pocketbook.
ok, you know a joke just isn't as funny when it has to be explained, but sometimes it has to be explained so the person whose head it flew over figures out no malice was intended...
For over 6 years, there has been a popular mac troll about a designer trying to copy a 17 meg file which is taking over 20 minutes on his PowerMac 9600 at work, and that the same thing would be done in 2 minutes on his 'old' 486 pc at home.
I seem to remember the troll containing the phrase 'an exercise in frustration' - so you see when the original poster used that phrase about use of the mac at work being an exercise in frustration, the reply of 'stop trying to copy that 17 meg file' is inherently funny - get it... it's *funny*, "stop trying to copy..."
I fully support this theory of lubricating the fault line by pumping - it seems the added benefit of releasing pressure build-up is nothing to scoff at either. The fact that government officials might notice significant tremors while the pumping is going on disturbs me to no end though - I didn't think the tremors would be that significant!
Can anyone here verify this theory - oh, wait, nevermind. This IS slashdot, afterall.
So not counting ~86k kerry votes is an error in favor of Bush.
RTFA, or just keep talking out your ass. In Palm Beach County there were apparently 88,000 more votes (more votes = already counted) than voters, when they were at 98% of precincts reporting. Now that they are at 100%, they revealed that most of those votes came from absentee ballots - the number of absentee ballots went up from about 49k to 141k or so. When that update happened, there were an additional 1543 votes counted in the presidential race (not for the incumbent, as you assumed). Of those 1543 new votes, about 600 were for Bush and 950 were for Kerry (simple subtraction between the old numbers and the new), which was the same ratio as the orginal 550k votes at just under 40% Bush, just over 60% Kerry.
Slashdot Mirror
These people were offered on average $1.7 million for (again, on average) .1 acres of land.
and yet they refused to sell for a large sum of money. this is riverfront property we're talking about, so smaller offers would probably not be considered "fair compensation," especially for the person who was born there in their home in 1918 and lived there all their life. (nytimes, but no reg req'd, not sure why) How do you tell that person that any amount is "fair."
We're not talking about taking someone's home and property to build a hospital, firestation, courthouse, etc. (all of which could be located in a more cost effective location, which would impact fewer people) We're talking about a development group who want to build a riverside hotel, office building, and "other commercial activities" to improve the tax base, create jobs, and enhance the quality of life. What happens when/if these businesses fail to "revitalize" the city. They cannot give back what they are taking. Will they then decide they need a few more lots down the river to build a riverside casino to "improve the tax base and create jobs" which will help the floundering hotel, and the dismal office building by housing the "main office" of the casino and all the new patrons it attracts.
I just can't believe that this has happened, and as a generally conservative person I was initially surprised to see how the vote went down with the generally liberal members voting in favor of the ruling. It makes sense after thinking about it - the conservatives did not side with the development group and commercial interests and instead upheld the constitution by voting for private ownership. It's just hard to believe how there are five (5) members of the high court who blindly ignored the consitution by hiding behind a meager "we're not better to determine what is 'beneficial' for the new london community" retort. Who says the NLDC is better than the homeowners to know what's best for the community?
I just can't even find the words to express how fucked-up this ruling is. It made me so mad I actually submitted it as a story to slashdot:
2005-06-23 19:19:33 Your Property is Perfect - for a Riverfront Hotel (Politics,The Courts) (rejected)
Of course, the story that got accepted was more succinct than my writeup, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying this: I never submit stories - I never get worked up enough to care that much, and I don't even live in Connecticut! In fact I currently reside in Utah where a law was recently passed to specifically prevent eminent domain to be used for private development of any type.
One more article/page from before the ruling that is interesting reading I came across while looking into this.
I need a chill pill....
The market-speak is seems pretty clear to me:
And, it's a $200 mobo in a $100 case with a $60 hard drive and $100 worth of RAM.
Plus a $400 processor. Maybe $30-50 for some kind of optical drive?
Would they take a loss on each machine at $499? Perhaps a little, but it would be small.
small? wtf? Ok, so I go to dell to try and find the cheapest 3.6GHz Pentium 4 machine and I see that dimensions don't support anything near that, so the precision 380 line which starts at $649 has an option for $580 to upgrade to a 3.6GHz processor. That's $1229 for the non-math majors out there. There is no way this apple development machine comes in anywhere near your $499 price point - not with the processor it sports.
New feature list for Longhorn:
* Brand new biometric-enabled Product Activation process which gives you up to 30 days to make 1 simple visit to your local Red Cross or nearby Hospital (no first born necessary.) This new feature will ensure you have a Microsoft Genuine Product!
Thanks for upgrading!
I guess maybe your didn't RTFA
Really? bad guess....
The article was all about the technology- that is the comparison. The Sony guy was saying that the Xbox 360 technology was aimed at the PS2. When in fact, the technology in the original Xbox was superior with the technology in the PS2.
Well, that was one line in the article. And much of the article focused on technology, true, but you'll notice some of it is focused on people's perceptions of technology and performance, and how numbers stack up. For instance - "People probably won't be able to understand the difference between PS3 and Xbox 360 if the spec charts are just lined up." Now consider that he could be spouting 2.xTB vs 1.xTB and trying to convince you the PS3 is superior - twice as powerful. Instead he's saying the numbers don't mean as much as the final on screen result. This was one of the points of my post, eh? The other points were ancillary but pointing out that this one thing *technology* even if it is superior does not mean success - xbox I'm looking at you. I never said the xbox was less powerful than the PS2, and while you think Kutaragi did, I think he was saying xbox2 was targeting the PS2 in the sense that it was still trying to outdo the PS2 in the same way the xbox1 did, but that PS3 will be a different beast. It remains to be seen whether that beast will be too different for developers to make good use of. Again like my previous final point and I think the same point Kutaragi was making - It's all speculation until we see the real goods, and from the sound of it, no one was showing real goods at E3 - although MS was the closest which makes sense since they are planning to launch so much sooner than Sony or Nintendo...
Sorry that I was basing my comments on the subject at hand
Well, you have a point, but in your first post I got the impression based on your language that you were a rabid xbox fanboy the way you went off over it. Of course, not so much more than the comment by Kutaragi about the 360 targeting the ps2, but he gets paid to be a fanboy. Plus he never said specifically what "that" referred to, it was Zonk, who in his commentary made the comment that "that" probably meant "crap."
All in all a fun read. Amusing, but I'll wait to see the real things before I decide which has better technology. I admit the 3 cores in the xbox are interesting, but so far even with dual-processor systems being available on PC/Mac's for years, no one really ever writes good threaded games to make use of the extra power, since the GPU has taken over enough that the CPU isn't ususally the limiting factor... if that changes, the xbox is in good position to benefit. If not, it'll be like most dual-cpu systems runnning games today, except it'll have 2 cores sitting idle instead of just 1...
This whack job spouting Sony's poo has no interest in the actual reality as far as the technology is concerned
...as far as technology is concerned, the first Xbox wiped the floor with the PS2
What does technology have to do with anything? Did you buy a 3DO back when it came out for $699? It had great technology for it's time, but that has bupkis to do with how great a system is overall. (I was seriously considering saving up for one, but after I saw how fucking bad the two zelda games were and how little other compelling *exclusive* games there were, I decided to wait. Luckily there was a better system around the corner I knew nothing about at the time)
I'm sure he STILL thinks the PS2 is a great system
The PS2 *is* a great system. Not only did it have good technology, it also has sold 2x the number of consoles as MS and Nintendo combined. It has the largest selection of games to choose from. It also has the second best selection of exclusive games available (Nintendo wins there.) It garnered the most developer support from NA, the EU *and* Japan. Overall I think all three systems from this generation are great, and I have no expectation that any of the 3 players will come up so short in the next generation that they'll be remebered fondly along with the Jaguar, 3DO, and Dreamcast as just another failed system (yeah the Dreamcast was way more sucessful than those other two, but with the stigma of having sunk Sega's hardware business, it's success is limited and arguable)
And people will probably be saying the reverse about the PS3 and the xbox360. Who gives a shit? It's all about the games and so right now it's all about drumming up the developer support. It's the games that will sell the systems and determine who will lead the console race in the next gen. Right now I really like the xbox360's chances even if it comes out earlier and is less powerful, but it will be crucial that they get significant developer support from Japan as well this time around. Back when the xbox was still in development there was a lot of talk of support from Japan, and many companies released a title or two (but not from their top-tier) to test the waters, and most backed out as it became apparant that they would have no one to sell to in Japan. The same thing could happen this time around. They have many announcements of support from Japanese developers, but we'll see how it really pans out once they launch - that support could dry up just as quickly as it did in this generation if sales don't go favorably.
The only thing I know is that I will *eventually* own all three (the ps3 and revolution will just replace my ps2 and gamecube since they will have full backward comapatibility. the xbox360 will probably have to be an addition until I'm satisfied it's backward compatibility will run the games I already have.) But in the end I will go where the games are, and in this generation the weakest exclusive lineup is on the xbox, technology notwithstanding.
What percentage of Slashdotters have seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead ?
Don't you know?
Yeah, that falls under 4Q. Sept-Dec.
<post topic="don't know" mode=pedantic+sarcastic+offtopic>
Uh, thanks for the reminder, I keep forgetting that the last quarter is the 4-month long one. Now which quarter is the short 2-month long one, again?
</post>
they really ought to spend the 59 seconds necessary to have iTunes support FLAC and OGG. Seriously, you know how many people they'd make happy?
Uh, both of you?
*ducks*
Surely, someone as educated as yourself must have something rather more important to do than picking nits about my (lack of) capitalization of the abbreviation of million...
18% isn't bad considering the logistics. The US is nearly 100x larger in area than South Korea...
s html
South Korea - http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/skorea.html
Population 48m
Area 38k sq. miles (about the size of Indiana or Kentucky)
US - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.
Population 293m
Area 3.5m sq. miles (2.9m continental)
I wonder what the percentage would be if we only accounted for metro areas like Seattle, New York, LA... while I'm sure it's nowhere near 73%, I bet it's well above 18%.
If you assume that their growth continues at that pace, the xbox division will be consistently profitable in roughly 4 years.
So, nine years to become profitable sounds good to you? And how many more beyond that will it take just make back what they've already lost over the last ~5 years? (R&D began well before launch remember...) What makes you think that growth rate from one quarter's results will hold over 4 years? Is growth always positive, and if so, where's my Microsoft Bob?
It will be interesting to see how those figures change after xbox2 launches; they've got to be dumping a fair amount of money into R&D for that unit...
Interesting that you assume a) they will have no R&D after they launch (what, no xbox 3?) and b) the xbox2 launch will be immediately good for the bottom line (xbox1 launched losing an estimated $120-150 per unit sold, we have no idea about pricing for xbox2 yet, but you would hope they learned their lesson the first time around - luckily since they print their own money, they were easily able to shake off the losses unlike Sega)
Basically, this article comes as absolutely no surprise to me. In fact I basically summarized it over two months ago. $84 million profit in one quarter versus the billions lost in the others is not a win. Until E3 shows me different, I'll still be betting on MS to place or show in the next generation.
that would mean each exibit takes up an average of 6.75 city blocks!
That sounds about right. I hear Sony's booth will take up nearly 500 city blocks itself, and will have it's own police force (there is talk of succession, and incorporating their own city)
But that's nothing. Microsoft had to reserve nearly 750 city blocks, almost entirely attributable to the gi-normous size of their consoles. But they're going with it and adopting the slogan 'Bigger is Better.' One banner bearing the slogan will stretch across 29 city blocks alone (you'll need to stand about 6 city blocks away to take it all in at once.)
Ah, but I always thought you could have more than 5 computers play a protected track - as long as you are streaming (or sharing as iTunes calls it). If you copy the music file to another computer, you need to authorize it - and that is limited to 5 total.
Nope. If someone is streaming songs from you, it will pop up and ask them to authorize their computer to play the DRM'd tracks when it hits the first one.
However, iTunes and iTMS come as a package deal and cannot be separated. Therefore, I lump them together.
I don't see why you say this - yes, iTunes is the only authorized way to buy music from iTMS. But Quicktime (and therefore any app that uses Quicktime to play media) on a computer authorized to play ITMS music, will play downloaded iTMS music. You don't have to use iTunes after you've bought the music. Any other music AAC/mp3 can be played by any app that supports the formats. The one thing has nothing to do with the other. Playing music/streaming music/buying music, these are not tied to each other.
But I know what you mean - Apple created the best integrated environment for buying/playing/streaming/transfering to portable devices, and it really sucks when features of that environment are reduced (I do recall saying I did not like these changes), but at the same time this limitation has nothing at all to do with DRM or iTMS, and you just happened to be the lucky 100th person I've seen blame this limitation on iTMS DRM - I just finally couldn't keep my mouth shut and had to say something...
The thing is, this restriction doesn't much hurt DRM tracks, as you can't have more than 5 computers authorized to play them anyway - you could never exceed this limitation with DRM only tracks, and anyone not authorized can't play your DRM tracks at all anyway. So this is effectively a limitation for non-DRM music only... (which only makes the limitation suck that much harder - at least in my opinion)
Third was changing from 5 concurrent listeners to 5 different listeners per day.
I was under the impression that this has nothing to do with iTMS, this is an iTunes restriction whether the streams are iTMS DRM AAC, non-DRM AAC, or mp3. I'm not saying I like the change - I don't, not even a bit, but then I don't much use streaming (except to an AP Express hooked to my stereo) so it really won't affect how I use it. Although, I'm not sure about this idea I had, but people already use tunneling to get around the local subnet restriction, wouldn't this get around the restriction by making all users look like they're coming from 1 ip?
Anyway, the point is this restriction has nothing to do with DRM or iTMS, yet everyone seems to be parroting the same line about iTMS or DRM causing this restriction. I feel like I'm watching a bunch of lemmings...
So that after two years you can "PLuS" your Xbox 2 with a dual-core and new GPU.
So, the xbox has been out for just over 3 years and has sold like 18m worldwide - lets assume the xbox 2 does similar business, so they've shipped 12m xbox2's in two years then they release this dual-core+gpu upgrade for what..$99, $149?
So, 10% of people buy one so now you have 1.2m xbox2+ users and 10.8m xbox2 users... quick, you're a developer and you want to sell as many games as possible, which set of users do you target? no, not 1.2m, you target the whole 12m by developing for the lowest common demoninator.
About the only product that has ever made the leap from upgrade add-on to standard fare was the dual-shock controller, but even that had to be made a standard pack in to get widespread developer support for it.
Think there's a difference between a controller and a cpu-gpu/hardware upgrade? See: memory upgrade for n64, sega 32x add-on, ps2 hard drive. It doesn't work.
I wonder, though, if one of these counts as an activation for iTunes
I would assume these phones would count more like an iPod - authorizing and linking to only 1 computer at a time, but until they are released it's all just speculation.
$84 million last quarter.
... and can you guess the reason why that quarter was profitable? Can you say Halo 2 (quick, what's 4.2 million x $50)
Unless MS has another Halo 2 coming out, the next quarter will go back in the red or maybe be around break even, but it will not even be close to $84 million again which pales in comparison to the money MS has sunk into the xbox over the last 3 years. (another poster cited an almost $300 million loss same quarter 1 year ago - I'm too lazy to go look it up and link to it, though.)
He made a mistake in saying $349, I think he meant $348 plus tax for 100 iTMS songs ($0.99 ea) playing on his iPod mini - think about it, you'll figure it out.
Those are *Japanese* hardware sales numbers - thus you now understand why when people post that the x-box is dead in Japan, they really aren't kidding. The worldwide numbers show the x-box with about 10% more total sales than the gamecube, though, which is because of last year, but almost certainly owes much of that sucess to ex-mac developer Bungie - if not for them, MS would certainly not have been able to compete in the USA or Europe either - because of them MS finally had a single quarter of profits (no matter how small) instead of losses from the x-box division. It will be interesting to see if they slip back into the red, or if Halo 2 will be able to keep them in the black for another quarter.
You've got to be kidding me. Paying a fee to play on privately owned servers implies no right to assemble (or any other 'rights' for that matter.) Statehood? Give me a break, it's a freakin' game! If you don't like the rules, you have an option - quit - vote with your pocketbook.
ok, you know a joke just isn't as funny when it has to be explained, but sometimes it has to be explained so the person whose head it flew over figures out no malice was intended...
For over 6 years, there has been a popular mac troll about a designer trying to copy a 17 meg file which is taking over 20 minutes on his PowerMac 9600 at work, and that the same thing would be done in 2 minutes on his 'old' 486 pc at home.
I seem to remember the troll containing the phrase 'an exercise in frustration' - so you see when the original poster used that phrase about use of the mac at work being an exercise in frustration, the reply of 'stop trying to copy that 17 meg file' is inherently funny - get it... it's *funny*, "stop trying to copy..."
oh, screw it, I give up...
I fully support this theory of lubricating the fault line by pumping - it seems the added benefit of releasing pressure build-up is nothing to scoff at either. The fact that government officials might notice significant tremors while the pumping is going on disturbs me to no end though - I didn't think the tremors would be that significant!
Can anyone here verify this theory - oh, wait, nevermind. This IS slashdot, afterall.
So not counting ~86k kerry votes is an error in favor of Bush.
RTFA, or just keep talking out your ass. In Palm Beach County there were apparently 88,000 more votes (more votes = already counted) than voters, when they were at 98% of precincts reporting. Now that they are at 100%, they revealed that most of those votes came from absentee ballots - the number of absentee ballots went up from about 49k to 141k or so. When that update happened, there were an additional 1543 votes counted in the presidential race (not for the incumbent, as you assumed). Of those 1543 new votes, about 600 were for Bush and 950 were for Kerry (simple subtraction between the old numbers and the new), which was the same ratio as the orginal 550k votes at just under 40% Bush, just over 60% Kerry.