The iPhone was introduced 3 years ago. For 20 years there wasn't anything like an iPhone, now every phone out there is an iPhone look alike. It is so pervasive that people can't even remember what phones were like before the iphone.
As a matter of fact, I do. My old Nokia 3595 had actual physical buttons, changeable faceplates, customizable ringtones, an alarm clock, calendar, to-do list, SMS, and even rudimentary internet capabilities. It also weighed less than an iPhone, survived miscellaneous abuse that would destroy an iPhone several times over (including drops onto concrete and even a short dunk in a swimming pool), and also went about 5x as long between charges.
So not only do I remember what phones were like before the iPhone, there are days when I PREFER those times...
It all boils down to greed. First, they pocket the money given to them for building out their infrastructure. Now, they see Netflix/Hulu/etc becoming more popular than their overpriced VOD services.
My guess is they ultimately want to start raising their overage fees. The reasoning (internally, of course) will be something along the lines of, "Fine...you want to shrink our profits by choosing the better & cheaper streaming alternatives? Well now you're going to be paying us more in overages than you save by not giving us your money in the first place!"
Now in public, they will try to spin this as a win for "fairness" and being able to provide "quality services that customers demand" or some other such bullshit...
And this is why I'd love to see more companies providing nothing but a connection to the internet. No phone companies, no cable companies, no other vested interests trying to stifle what you do on your connection because it competes with the other offerings they want to shove down your throat.
I just now got the notification in my email (literally about 30 seconds ago). This was on the Playstation Blog WELL over 24 hours ago, and I'm only just now getting a notification (which states the exact same thing). There is no excuse for taking this long.
I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.
Sadly, I know how this is going to turn out. There will be a class-action suit in which Sony is fined heavily. But the vast majority of the money will go to some shark lawyer, and the only thing the people affected by this will receive is a free 1-month subscription to PSN+. Actually, I'll be surprised if they even give us that much.
If this DOES go class-action, I will definitely be on the lookout for my notice to opt out. If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence, I want to retain my full legal right to bring my own suit against Sony where they will be required to provide me with credit monitoring and credit fraud protection. I'm sorry, but a boilerplate "we're sorry" and some token gesture are NOT going to cut it here.
For a more in-depth review that includes benchmarks and photos that weren't taken out on mom's patio table, Anandtech did a pretty good write-up. I'm even being so kind as to include a link to the printer-friendly version with everything on the same page.
I agree that fusion is our best hope, but it too is nuclear power. However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant that nuclear power from fission is the stopgap.
Other than that, I also have a theory in which I think that right now, they might be working on HL3, and just skip the whole Episode 3.
Then again, pure speculation of course.
I remember hearing a while back that Valve was referring to Episodes 1-3 as "Half-Life 3" internally. But wouldnt HL3 be 1.5-Life (or 1/8-Life)?
You take a pill to cure baldness, ostensibly because you find your lack of hair hampers your ability to get laid. But after taking the pills you end up with a full head of hair and maybe even a woman because of it, and you're unable to perform?
Seems like you're damned if you do, damned if you dont...
How does this differ from warrant-less searches of anything else when crossing US Borders (pockets, glove box, trunk, luggage, etc)?
They're searching your glovebox/trunk/pockets on-site and not taking them hundreds of miles away on the vague promise that you MIGHT get them back someday. They're not searching those things out of sight where they could tamper with personal information or plant evidence.
Say someone is travelling on business. They have their laptop "randomly searched". Now say Joe Borderpatrol happens to have a buddy working for this guy's competitors. How much do you think that company would pay to have a look at this traveller's electronic equipment? I'm not one for conspiracy, but corporations do some rather foul stuff in the name of increasing profits.
If they want to succeed in the mobile market, they can't afford to be lazy when it comes to Android development. As it is, the Android version of Words With Friends is nothing but a shoddy port of the iPhone title. It's bloated, slow, has no real options, push notifications seldom work (if at all), chews through your battery life like it's a Sega GameGear even when running just the background service (God help you if you leave the actual interface running), and it doesn't even use the menu button properly (read; at all)...
If this is what they're bringing to the mobile market, no thank you.
I assume THIS will suffice for payment? I do, however, expect them to return the proper amount of change to me. If they are not able to handle denominations this large, then I will assume the debt to be null and void as it has been proven the funds are available, but they are refusing to take the money.
Well, if it's measuring intra-ocular pressure, it's likely not recording much data. Figure a date and time stamp and lets say 5 digits for the IOP measurement itself (15.517, for example). Store that in a CSV file and you're going to end up with something around 22 bytes. If you take a measurement every 15 minutes, you're looking at 96 per day, or 672 per week. That leaves you 14,784 bytes of data, or roughly 14.4 kilobytes.
My phone can store 32 gigabytes in the space roughly equivalent to a fingernail. That means the storage density on something like this is really quite low in comparison to what we have today (yes, the whole thing is in that tiny package, but I still doubt the storage area is smaller than 0.04% the area of an SD-micro card). No, the really interesting bit is the fact that they can make something that small and still keep it from causing a really nasty infection.
A fast A9 is similar to an entry level Pentium 4 machine. That isn't enough to be on PC-replacement level just yet.
In what universe is that not enough? When I first started college, I pieced together a system with a Pentium III, half a gig of RAM, and a GeForce 2. In addition to the obscene amounts of Q3A and Counter-Strike I played, it was also more than capable of handling Windows 2000, Apache, VisualStudio, Mathematica, NetWare (stupid math dept. network drop-boxes for assignments), an FTP server, Photoshop, Premiere, and even (*gasp*) play movies! That ACTUAL PC handled my workload nicely, so something on a P4 level would be MORE than enough for the vast majority of people who just want email and internet out of a computer. It's amazing how well older hardware runs when you aren't saddling it with Aero/Compiz/Finder/Whatever.
My current Android phone has enough power to enable 3D graphics on a similar scale as Q3 or CS, it plays any movie format I throw at it, has an office suite, and even runs Photoshop, Skype, and TeamViewer. So how again are modern phones not powerful enough to replace PC's? When you answer, please remember that we're talking about the kind of PC required by the overwhelming majority of society (email, facebook, word processing, pictures, etc).
Bottom line, a modern phone is a handheld computer that you can call people with. And if you want to think back to the "glory days", the AGC used on the Apollo missions was considered a "real computer", and today's phones could emulate that entire system without breaking a sweat...
small special effects company trying to prove itself
While Zoic Studios may be small, I'd say they've proven themselves several times over BEFORE District 9. Here's just a quick list of what they've worked on, starting from 2003 and going forward.
If we produce better products or produce them more efficiently, we make the company more money...
Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!
All fine and good unless you live in a place similar to mine. Incinerating your own trash is illegal. Oh yes, and to make sure you're not tempted to do so, the convenience of weekly trash pickup is mandatory. And the sole company that services my area seems to change every couple of years.
AT&T should make setting up a password the first thing you do on your voicemail. Set it initially to say, the last 4 digits of your account #, then change it from there. The current process is as follows:
Slashdot Mirror
As a matter of fact, I do. My old Nokia 3595 had actual physical buttons, changeable faceplates, customizable ringtones, an alarm clock, calendar, to-do list, SMS, and even rudimentary internet capabilities. It also weighed less than an iPhone, survived miscellaneous abuse that would destroy an iPhone several times over (including drops onto concrete and even a short dunk in a swimming pool), and also went about 5x as long between charges.
So not only do I remember what phones were like before the iPhone, there are days when I PREFER those times...
It all boils down to greed. First, they pocket the money given to them for building out their infrastructure. Now, they see Netflix/Hulu/etc becoming more popular than their overpriced VOD services.
My guess is they ultimately want to start raising their overage fees. The reasoning (internally, of course) will be something along the lines of, "Fine...you want to shrink our profits by choosing the better & cheaper streaming alternatives? Well now you're going to be paying us more in overages than you save by not giving us your money in the first place!"
Now in public, they will try to spin this as a win for "fairness" and being able to provide "quality services that customers demand" or some other such bullshit...
And this is why I'd love to see more companies providing nothing but a connection to the internet. No phone companies, no cable companies, no other vested interests trying to stifle what you do on your connection because it competes with the other offerings they want to shove down your throat.
I just now got the notification in my email (literally about 30 seconds ago). This was on the Playstation Blog WELL over 24 hours ago, and I'm only just now getting a notification (which states the exact same thing). There is no excuse for taking this long.
But are arbitration clauses even valid in cases of gross negligence and witholding vital information needed to prevent financial damages?
Don't forget the legal fees incurred (both from Sony's lawyers AND having to pay the legal fees for every claim they lose).
I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.
Sadly, I know how this is going to turn out. There will be a class-action suit in which Sony is fined heavily. But the vast majority of the money will go to some shark lawyer, and the only thing the people affected by this will receive is a free 1-month subscription to PSN+. Actually, I'll be surprised if they even give us that much.
If this DOES go class-action, I will definitely be on the lookout for my notice to opt out. If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence, I want to retain my full legal right to bring my own suit against Sony where they will be required to provide me with credit monitoring and credit fraud protection. I'm sorry, but a boilerplate "we're sorry" and some token gesture are NOT going to cut it here.
For a more in-depth review that includes benchmarks and photos that weren't taken out on mom's patio table, Anandtech did a pretty good write-up. I'm even being so kind as to include a link to the printer-friendly version with everything on the same page.
http://www.anandtech.com/print/4277
I agree that fusion is our best hope, but it too is nuclear power. However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant that nuclear power from fission is the stopgap.
I remember hearing a while back that Valve was referring to Episodes 1-3 as "Half-Life 3" internally. But wouldnt HL3 be 1.5-Life (or 1/8-Life)?
*goes back to the cave*
It was originally going to be "Curved Charged Coupled Photoreceptor"...but then someone realized that might send the wrong message...
You take a pill to cure baldness, ostensibly because you find your lack of hair hampers your ability to get laid. But after taking the pills you end up with a full head of hair and maybe even a woman because of it, and you're unable to perform?
Seems like you're damned if you do, damned if you dont...
They're searching your glovebox/trunk/pockets on-site and not taking them hundreds of miles away on the vague promise that you MIGHT get them back someday. They're not searching those things out of sight where they could tamper with personal information or plant evidence.
Say someone is travelling on business. They have their laptop "randomly searched". Now say Joe Borderpatrol happens to have a buddy working for this guy's competitors. How much do you think that company would pay to have a look at this traveller's electronic equipment? I'm not one for conspiracy, but corporations do some rather foul stuff in the name of increasing profits.
Who's to say it's not happening already?
He also finds the meatloaf to be shallow and pedantic.
If they want to succeed in the mobile market, they can't afford to be lazy when it comes to Android development. As it is, the Android version of Words With Friends is nothing but a shoddy port of the iPhone title. It's bloated, slow, has no real options, push notifications seldom work (if at all), chews through your battery life like it's a Sega GameGear even when running just the background service (God help you if you leave the actual interface running), and it doesn't even use the menu button properly (read; at all)...
If this is what they're bringing to the mobile market, no thank you.
I assume THIS will suffice for payment? I do, however, expect them to return the proper amount of change to me. If they are not able to handle denominations this large, then I will assume the debt to be null and void as it has been proven the funds are available, but they are refusing to take the money.
Well, if it's measuring intra-ocular pressure, it's likely not recording much data. Figure a date and time stamp and lets say 5 digits for the IOP measurement itself (15.517, for example). Store that in a CSV file and you're going to end up with something around 22 bytes. If you take a measurement every 15 minutes, you're looking at 96 per day, or 672 per week. That leaves you 14,784 bytes of data, or roughly 14.4 kilobytes.
My phone can store 32 gigabytes in the space roughly equivalent to a fingernail. That means the storage density on something like this is really quite low in comparison to what we have today (yes, the whole thing is in that tiny package, but I still doubt the storage area is smaller than 0.04% the area of an SD-micro card). No, the really interesting bit is the fact that they can make something that small and still keep it from causing a really nasty infection.
In what universe is that not enough? When I first started college, I pieced together a system with a Pentium III, half a gig of RAM, and a GeForce 2. In addition to the obscene amounts of Q3A and Counter-Strike I played, it was also more than capable of handling Windows 2000, Apache, VisualStudio, Mathematica, NetWare (stupid math dept. network drop-boxes for assignments), an FTP server, Photoshop, Premiere, and even (*gasp*) play movies! That ACTUAL PC handled my workload nicely, so something on a P4 level would be MORE than enough for the vast majority of people who just want email and internet out of a computer. It's amazing how well older hardware runs when you aren't saddling it with Aero/Compiz/Finder/Whatever.
My current Android phone has enough power to enable 3D graphics on a similar scale as Q3 or CS, it plays any movie format I throw at it, has an office suite, and even runs Photoshop, Skype, and TeamViewer. So how again are modern phones not powerful enough to replace PC's? When you answer, please remember that we're talking about the kind of PC required by the overwhelming majority of society (email, facebook, word processing, pictures, etc).
Bottom line, a modern phone is a handheld computer that you can call people with. And if you want to think back to the "glory days", the AGC used on the Apollo missions was considered a "real computer", and today's phones could emulate that entire system without breaking a sweat...
While Zoic Studios may be small, I'd say they've proven themselves several times over BEFORE District 9. Here's just a quick list of what they've worked on, starting from 2003 and going forward.
Most likely it would be Russian Online Federated Link (ROFL).
Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!
With a full cavity-search, probably.
This is why level 3 never got finished. With all the loose pixels, there's no way they could tighten up the graphics in time for release...
All fine and good unless you live in a place similar to mine. Incinerating your own trash is illegal. Oh yes, and to make sure you're not tempted to do so, the convenience of weekly trash pickup is mandatory. And the sole company that services my area seems to change every couple of years.
Take a look at T-Mobile's 3G coverage and see if you still have questions...