Amen to that. I owned a Nokia several years back, but their designs totally fell behind everyone else. Now their entire phone design and construction scheme makes me wonder if their target customer group are the blind and deaf. Not only are their designs horrible, but the phone itself sucks when compared to others out there.
This seems to be the order of the day with mobile phones. The latest models from Samsung look and feel like a Fisher Price My First Cell Phone than something you'd actually want to carry around with you. A fellow I work with bought one, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's looks and feels like the cheapest phone imaginable. My first comment was that he accidentally bought the non-working plastic display version.
Currently, I'm using a Motorola v60. It's made of metal (anodized aluminum) and is extremely solid in its construction. The only crummy thing about it is the antenna, which I had to get replaced (but they replaced it with a version that is more resistant to breaking). It can get the internet and do email, blah blah... but the key thing is that it's also a fantastic phone. I get great reception and sound, and never hear people complain about the quality of my signal. Sure you can't take an MPEG4 movie with it to email to your buddies while you listen to MP3s, but it's a great PHONE.
This patenting of ideas that are just naive bundles of existing concepts just blows me away... STOP THE INSANITY!
Excuse me, but I patented Insanity Stopping several years ago. If you'd like, I can provide you with some licensing agreement documents for your review...
Oh I'm not saying it's hard evidence of anything. The findings and theories thus far are very interesting and certainly warrant further studies. It just seems nowadays that whenever stories like this appear, the zealots out there start getting a little anxious.
Anyone consider that this might spark up an evolution vs creation debate? I mean not like evolution needed any more supporiting theories/proof, but there are some people out there that can't accept anything.
Why TSO does not appeal to me
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm one of those who refuses to give The Sims Online the time of day, much less monthly dues. That's not to say I'm opposed to paying monthly dues, I'm currently playing Neocron (a frickin awesome game). The idea of waking up in the morning, going to work, and coming home just to load up TSO and do essentially the same thing doesn't turn my crank. I can get my socializing fix from friends, family, IRC or IM, and I don't have to put more money into EA's pocket to do it.
That being said, I do play MMOGs as I said above. Yes there's a socializing aspect there, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to battle mutants and warbots in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with Deux Ex style character management than go to the gym in the game and pedal my ass off to up stats. Better to do that IRL than in game anyway.
That was a pretty good summation of the problem with the Shuttle
Problem with the shuttle, or a problem with us? Technology isn't an issue, it's the willingness to apply it properly. I'm sure if NASA had the funding when it needed it we might be looking at a newer vehicle system, or an entirely overhauled shuttle system by now, one that's safe(r) then the aging things we're launching up today. Hell, we'd probably already have at the very LEAST final stage plans to put people on Mars.
The quote you give above is a great one. It also indicates what I think is a fundamental shift in human thinking. The decades it encompasses are a time of great inspired acts and forward thinking, towards aerodynamics and space exploration. At the moment, we're all engrossed with cloning, genetic research, and killing ourselves. Don't kid yourself, we're making as big strides in those area as the first airplane and manned spaceflight back then.
Big surprise here. It's called double-dipping, studios have been doing it since DVDs first came out. Look at "Men in Black". There's a regular version (DD5.1), regular version (DD5.1 + DTS), double disc edition (DD5.1) and double disc edition (DD5.1 + dts). If that isn't the worst case scenario, I don't know what is.
How do they get away with this? Simple: it works. People buy newer editions, and as long as something sells well enough they'll continue to keep it up. The day everyone learns not to buy the same movie more than once, we'll no longer be treated like morons by the studios this way.
Forgive my ignorance, I don't use Linux for gaming. I game on consoles and my other PC with an OS that is less favorable to the/. masses. Anyway, are there actual stores where you can BUY games for Linux, or are they only primarily available from online sources?
Sorry, are you going to the same IGN I go to? Ad-laden biased IGN? There's been numerous occasions when I've read a preview for a game there (after closing the eighty pages of interstials, flash ads and popups) that lauded the game as being the next best thing. Then the review ON IGN going on about how the game is a massive disappointment. Sorry, but IGN's more of a marketing spin machine than anything else.
I still buy CDs. RARELY, but I still do. The last CD I bought was Conjure One's debut, and as far as CDs go this one was well worth buying at full price. It's a rare case where 95%+ of the music on the disc is excellent. For the others, I'm more apt to download the songs than shell out the full price for the disc. The cost to satisfaction ratio just too low for most releases.
Now, I use a portable minidisc recorder/player to cut my own mixes of CDs I own, as well as MP3s I download. My PREFERENCE is to make mixes with CD because of the quality of the end result. Now, if I buy a CD that has copy protection on it that makes it so I can't cut a copy to a MD, I'm going to return it, asafp. It's a defective, broken product that I won't shell my money out for.
The same goes for any online music retailer that purports to sell downloadable versions of music with heaps upon heaps of restrictions on how I use it. If I pay money for a CD, a song, or an MP3 I want to be able to record a mix MD with that product. IF they can provide a cost effective service for me to get music and use it how I want to, then this is an excellent idea and maybe we should take a look at it for what it is without as much bias. However I'll wait until the service is active and has decent music to grab before passing final judgement.
Yes, but try to convince the middlemen to do that. That's like telling the oil companies to pack it up because their business is killing the environment. I wish it were possible to snap fingers and have it be so, but it's a bit more complex than that (unfortunately!).
Euroseti said something about multiple sources...
on
SOHO Strikes Back
·
· Score: 1
... saw the same thing. At least in that video they released. What's stupid is (and this has been said before) that they haven't released all their images in unaltered form to the public, SHOWING that comparison. If say three sources saw the same thing, from different orbits, and that object was shown to be moving in weird ways over time then I'd start to be intrigued by what they're saying. But until then I'm going to chalk it up to image over-enhancement on their part, and a primary motivation to make a quick buck off the findings.
I'm impressed. I got in when they released it and played it until they airborne add on was released. At the time a LOT of people were playing it. However, BF1942 came out around that time (the demo) and a shitload of people vacated AA to play that. With so many good games having been released since that time it's surprising anyone has time to play AA at all (especially since UT2003's come out). Anyway, just an observation. I'm wondering what the actual number of active users playing AA is now.
Of course he didn't read the article, because if he had he would never have posted his idiotic opinion. It's also worth nothing, that other moron moderated his post to insightful obviously didn't read the article either. Where's that meta-moderator link...
I'm wondering if such efforts exist out there for hacking the PS2. If not, why not, and why not on the same scale as the X-Box? Is it JUST the Microsoft angle that makes the X-Box such a target? Sony could be considered to be a market dominator along the Microsoft line. Is it the fact the X-Box ships with a hard drive and network card perhaps, and the PS2 doesn't? I'm wondering if PS2 hacking efforts will start showing up once the network adaptor catches on and the unit gets a hard drive.
I mean if all you're using it for is as a media player or an emulator I suppose it's easier to code for a unit that's essentially a PC. But wouldn't the PS2 be more of a challenge? And in that, I think the end result would be a LOT more impressive (that's not to say the the X-Box efforts are not impressive!).
I disagree (big surprise). For many, familiarity IS a reason to stay with a product. Perhaps not for you, me, and others, but for most it's a driving factor. I use my parents as an example, but freqently this is the case at the corporate level as well.
So does my iBook, so does my OpenBSD system, so does my Linux system. What's your point?
You talk about "training" not about "ease of use". Like it or not, no GUI system (no, not even Mac OS X) is intuitive and has to be learnt. So your parents first exposure to computers was probably a W32 system. No wonder they like WinXP. They would like Win2000 or WinNT4 as well. (Note that I leave out W9x because you specified "stable")
I for one find the "ease of use" of XP terrible: they changed *everything* *again*, compared to Win2000. Of course, I'm just not trained to use WinXP
Yeah, so your point's the same as mine then. It's easier to use that which you are familiar with, in turn Windows has its place in the market and can be beneficial to certain users than other OSs. You could have just said "I agree" instead of spouting a bunch of "all of my computers run on-Microsoft software" rhetoric.
Personally, I have an XP box and an Linux box. They both have their uses for what I use computers for, and I use them both a lot.
Like it or not, there ARE advantages to running Microsoft OS's, depending on on the user, the environment, and the uses. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully supportive of non-MS OS's (innovation is good, yadda yadda), but my parents, for instance, love Windows XP's ease of use and stability. (Yes, stability, when you boot it, read some email, browse the net for recipes and shut it down it's pretty stable)
I know it sucks, but high tech ain't cheap. Never has been, never will be. Shit, I could do with a Palm Vx, but they don't sell those anymore since they'd be like 50 bucks in stores if they were still there. No profit there. Old models are phased out, new ones brought in with more useless features at a higher price. Ain't consumer electronics fun!:)
On the other hand, if you buy a PDA to listen to music there's something wrong with you. With all the MP3 players out there you should be able to find one at a quarter the price that suits your needs. Personally, I use a portable MD recorder for my music. I fucking LOVE that thing.
Probably because they'd be huge and heavy. The only thing worthwhile using would be maybe the microdrives from IBM (I think it was IBM, someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong). They're tiny, large capacity, and extraordinarily expensive. Hence, nobody would buy the handhelds. That sucks because I'm with you, a HD based handheld would make a lot of sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen to that. I owned a Nokia several years back, but their designs totally fell behind everyone else. Now their entire phone design and construction scheme makes me wonder if their target customer group are the blind and deaf. Not only are their designs horrible, but the phone itself sucks when compared to others out there.
Currently, I'm using a Motorola v60. It's made of metal (anodized aluminum) and is extremely solid in its construction. The only crummy thing about it is the antenna, which I had to get replaced (but they replaced it with a version that is more resistant to breaking). It can get the internet and do email, blah blah... but the key thing is that it's also a fantastic phone. I get great reception and sound, and never hear people complain about the quality of my signal. Sure you can't take an MPEG4 movie with it to email to your buddies while you listen to MP3s, but it's a great PHONE.
If my computer starts slowing down, will my CD-ROM accept a slice of ham for my PC to eat up to gain its strength back?
Excuse me, but I patented Insanity Stopping several years ago. If you'd like, I can provide you with some licensing agreement documents for your review...
... it might be a simple mistake.
Oh I'm not saying it's hard evidence of anything. The findings and theories thus far are very interesting and certainly warrant further studies. It just seems nowadays that whenever stories like this appear, the zealots out there start getting a little anxious.
Anyone consider that this might spark up an evolution vs creation debate? I mean not like evolution needed any more supporiting theories/proof, but there are some people out there that can't accept anything.
That being said, I do play MMOGs as I said above. Yes there's a socializing aspect there, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to battle mutants and warbots in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with Deux Ex style character management than go to the gym in the game and pedal my ass off to up stats. Better to do that IRL than in game anyway.
Problem with the shuttle, or a problem with us? Technology isn't an issue, it's the willingness to apply it properly. I'm sure if NASA had the funding when it needed it we might be looking at a newer vehicle system, or an entirely overhauled shuttle system by now, one that's safe(r) then the aging things we're launching up today. Hell, we'd probably already have at the very LEAST final stage plans to put people on Mars.
The quote you give above is a great one. It also indicates what I think is a fundamental shift in human thinking. The decades it encompasses are a time of great inspired acts and forward thinking, towards aerodynamics and space exploration. At the moment, we're all engrossed with cloning, genetic research, and killing ourselves. Don't kid yourself, we're making as big strides in those area as the first airplane and manned spaceflight back then.
How do they get away with this? Simple: it works. People buy newer editions, and as long as something sells well enough they'll continue to keep it up. The day everyone learns not to buy the same movie more than once, we'll no longer be treated like morons by the studios this way.
Forgive my ignorance, I don't use Linux for gaming. I game on consoles and my other PC with an OS that is less favorable to the /. masses. Anyway, are there actual stores where you can BUY games for Linux, or are they only primarily available from online sources?
Sorry, are you going to the same IGN I go to? Ad-laden biased IGN? There's been numerous occasions when I've read a preview for a game there (after closing the eighty pages of interstials, flash ads and popups) that lauded the game as being the next best thing. Then the review ON IGN going on about how the game is a massive disappointment. Sorry, but IGN's more of a marketing spin machine than anything else.
Now, I use a portable minidisc recorder/player to cut my own mixes of CDs I own, as well as MP3s I download. My PREFERENCE is to make mixes with CD because of the quality of the end result. Now, if I buy a CD that has copy protection on it that makes it so I can't cut a copy to a MD, I'm going to return it, asafp. It's a defective, broken product that I won't shell my money out for.
The same goes for any online music retailer that purports to sell downloadable versions of music with heaps upon heaps of restrictions on how I use it. If I pay money for a CD, a song, or an MP3 I want to be able to record a mix MD with that product. IF they can provide a cost effective service for me to get music and use it how I want to, then this is an excellent idea and maybe we should take a look at it for what it is without as much bias. However I'll wait until the service is active and has decent music to grab before passing final judgement.
Yes, but try to convince the middlemen to do that. That's like telling the oil companies to pack it up because their business is killing the environment. I wish it were possible to snap fingers and have it be so, but it's a bit more complex than that (unfortunately!).
... saw the same thing. At least in that video they released. What's stupid is (and this has been said before) that they haven't released all their images in unaltered form to the public, SHOWING that comparison. If say three sources saw the same thing, from different orbits, and that object was shown to be moving in weird ways over time then I'd start to be intrigued by what they're saying. But until then I'm going to chalk it up to image over-enhancement on their part, and a primary motivation to make a quick buck off the findings.
I'm impressed. I got in when they released it and played it until they airborne add on was released. At the time a LOT of people were playing it. However, BF1942 came out around that time (the demo) and a shitload of people vacated AA to play that. With so many good games having been released since that time it's surprising anyone has time to play AA at all (especially since UT2003's come out). Anyway, just an observation. I'm wondering what the actual number of active users playing AA is now.
Of course he didn't read the article, because if he had he would never have posted his idiotic opinion. It's also worth nothing, that other moron moderated his post to insightful obviously didn't read the article either. Where's that meta-moderator link...
I mean if all you're using it for is as a media player or an emulator I suppose it's easier to code for a unit that's essentially a PC. But wouldn't the PS2 be more of a challenge? And in that, I think the end result would be a LOT more impressive (that's not to say the the X-Box efforts are not impressive!).
I disagree (big surprise). For many, familiarity IS a reason to stay with a product. Perhaps not for you, me, and others, but for most it's a driving factor. I use my parents as an example, but freqently this is the case at the corporate level as well.
Pardon, that should read "non-Microsoft" not "on-Microsoft". My bad.
You talk about "training" not about "ease of use". Like it or not, no GUI system (no, not even Mac OS X) is intuitive and has to be learnt. So your parents first exposure to computers was probably a W32 system. No wonder they like WinXP. They would like Win2000 or WinNT4 as well. (Note that I leave out W9x because you specified "stable") I for one find the "ease of use" of XP terrible: they changed *everything* *again*, compared to Win2000. Of course, I'm just not trained to use WinXP
Yeah, so your point's the same as mine then. It's easier to use that which you are familiar with, in turn Windows has its place in the market and can be beneficial to certain users than other OSs. You could have just said "I agree" instead of spouting a bunch of "all of my computers run on-Microsoft software" rhetoric.
Personally, I have an XP box and an Linux box. They both have their uses for what I use computers for, and I use them both a lot.
Just my 2c.
Because some people have laptops, and they may want to buy one reader instead of two, one internal for their PC and one for their laptop.
On the other hand, if you buy a PDA to listen to music there's something wrong with you. With all the MP3 players out there you should be able to find one at a quarter the price that suits your needs. Personally, I use a portable MD recorder for my music. I fucking LOVE that thing.
Probably because they'd be huge and heavy. The only thing worthwhile using would be maybe the microdrives from IBM (I think it was IBM, someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong). They're tiny, large capacity, and extraordinarily expensive. Hence, nobody would buy the handhelds. That sucks because I'm with you, a HD based handheld would make a lot of sense.