What has me thinking is, how long before someone hacks the wiimote to use as a mouse? And then, think of the possibilities - an internet (or file explorer if you like) that you navigate with a 3d interface, using the wiimote?
I know SOMEONE is going to come up with some pretty amazing implementation of something like this. At least some gestures...
slight flick to the left, go back a page - slight flick to the right, forward a page... forward and you "zoom in" one level of heirarchy, back and you zoom back out one level? Probably someone can think of even better ways.
Run the risk of selling out? Yeah, companies hate that. (where's the rolleyes icon when I need it?)
Let me tell you something about the toy/game/videogame industry, one in which I worked at a major corp. for years...
We WANTED things to sell out. Not just for the obvious reason that if you sell all inventory, you've managed to SELL ALL YOUR INVENTORY, which is a good thing, but because the industry is driven by the HIT.
Every season each company wants to have the HIT - the Cabbage Patch Doll, the Furby, the Gameboy Advance, what have you... the item that people are fighting over in aisles to grab the last of, the game that people are buying by the dozen to sell in vans parked outside toys-r-us for a huge markup...
People are herd animals. If they hear that something is so hot, so popular, so in demand that it's hard to get one, then THEY WANT ONE. That's what drove the sales of all of the things I mentioned above. Companies DREAM of being the hot, out of stock, hard to find item of the season. They get tons of free press, they get tons of word of mouth, they get the feeding frenzy, and then even after supplies have been ramped up to more than meet any demand, they can coast on that for a good year or maybe more.
Our industry not only doesn't try NOT to have things sell out, they try to MANUFACTURE that.
I remember one year when we had the hot item of the Christmas season, there we people calling in, writing in, celebrities trying to use their fame to get one, etc... and the rumor going around was that "we had stopped making them because they were selling too much" and variations on that... "They've decreased production to try and stop the run on them." Essentially the same thing as you're saying, in a way.
I agree. Everything up until now has just pissed me off, enraged me, upset me, worried me, etc...
This latest thing just goddamned fucking SCARES me. The government tracing the phone calls of journalists to track down their sources, sources of stories that reveal questionable and possibly illegal government actions... damn. Just fucking DAMN. In America. Not some tin pot south american dictatorship, not in the USSR, but right here in the US.
It's proper to be enraged when others are being made the targets unfairly... but now WE'RE the targets.
I feel like hanging black crepe - I'm in mourning for my country.
The current Republicans in power have flat out called Douglas Feith, the leak in Watergate, a traitor for what he did, and that he should have been jailed. The current Repubs (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove) are in fact the SAME growd that was behind the nixonian mess... so it should come as no surprise.
It is now the official policy of the GOP that when they are in power, their President can break any law, and anyone attempting to reveal these crimes is a traitor.
Your analogy is partially correct, but its more like this: TV manufacturers are selling TVs, and are making a nice profit from them. Then they notice that ABC, NBC, and CBS are making good money by selling advertising, so the TV makers say "hey, give us a slice of your ad revenue!"
The networks understandably say "What, are you nuts? It's OUR money, and you're already making yours!"
So the TV makers tell the TV purchasers "The networks are bleeding us dry by not sharing their profits with us, and if they don't, well... we might just have to raise the prices of TVs. A lot. Maybe we'll even have to just rent them to you so you pay a fee each month that could really add up. Sorry, but we don't have a choice here. Better complain to those nasty networks!"
Why are they pulling such a bullshit move? Because they can. Or rather they think they can. It's up to us to show them they're wrong.
I don't know if it's the cause of my problem, but I installed that memory leak deterctor thingamajig, and so far the only leaks it's finding all come from gmail.
Actually, the new thing is to "productize" something that was always free previously.
In the old days, they sold you a door bell. If the door bell were invented now, they would sell it cheap or give it away free, and then charge you 25 cents per jingle for your "Visitor Alert Service." (Or if you're a high-volume guest-receiver, you can opt for our "Unlimited Rings Plan" for just $14.99 per month flat fee!)
Oh, and one last thing. I reserve the right to say that someone who is OK with living in a police state is kinda stupid. In fact, that's mild. I know we're living in an age when being critical of the government is not considered patriotic - I know we're living in a time when people who object to unprecedented increases in government power, Presidents who claim the law doesn't apply to them, and attacks on our civil liberties are labelled as "angry" and "rude" and "shrill."
Maybe it's condescending and "shrill" to object to these things and call the apologists for them kinda stupid. if so, I accept that label. Moreover, I damn well hope many more people become "condescending" and "shrill."
And you know what? I think that people who criticize others as condescending for thinking that people who would happily let the government closely monitor the movements and activities of all of its individual citizens are kinda stupid, are themselves kinda stupid.
Go ahead, Sparky, have the last word. I'm sure it will be a doozy. Here's some ammo: I think people who are apologists for rape are kinda being thoughtless fools. What does that make me? Arrogant? Uncivil?
Fancy equals Olive fucking Garden? Uhhh... no. OliveGarden/Chilis/Outhouse Steakback/TGI Ruby Tuesday's is not fancy... they are shit.
I'm a cheap-ass when it comes to... well, everything... but you aren't going to impress ANYONE except maybe your cousin from Tennessee by taking them to Olive Garden. For about the same, maybe a little bit more, you can find a non-chain place with a snobbish name like "le Metro" or something. Doesn't have to be expensive, can just be "trendy" and where all the artsy fucks hang out.
And yes, I know we're getting way off fucking topic, go ahead and mod me down, I've got karma to burn.
um.... not a single one of your suggestions would be cheap. Soyuz? Well, if you leave off the habitation module leaving only the rentry module, and reduce your crew size from what we want, and then invest billions to recreate the monstrous N1 booster, then... um...
Scramjets? Nuclear thermal? everything else you mention??? Sure, they would be good things to pursue on their own merits, but they would ALL be extremely expensive to develop. Saying they would be cheaper is like saying in 1970 "the Space Shuttle will be cheaper than expendables because you don't have to throw it away each time."
They said that, and of course they were laughably wrong.
I found a little drink I've concocted that I love, and it's totally healthy.
Get some sparkling mineral water, toss some ice in a tumbler, put about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of powdered ginger in it, then pour in the bubbly water.
Delicious. Has a nice ginger bite, but not sicky sweet like gingerale.... and even makes the tummy feel good. No calories. Good for you.
need caffeine? Fine - drink this and take a freaking caffeine pill.
I think it's clear that the name was a brilliant move. Why? Because it got EVERYBODY talking about this machine - not just the people who were already talking about the revolution and are now complaining, but the story and controversy got people and press who had never even mentioned the revolution into the buzz. The buzz it created has been incredible, and that translates into sales. I haven't seen a piece of consumer electronics get this much mainstream (not gaming) press since the ipod was introduced, and before that the imac.
PR-wise, the name change has been a phenominal success.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh man that's HAWT!!! No tan lines on that ring finger... I'm getting wood!
ok, rather than taking it, I left it.
15 minutes ago, I took a shit. I am concerned that I may be sued becuase of course, there was no income involved for the RIAA.
I know SOMEONE is going to come up with some pretty amazing implementation of something like this. At least some gestures...
slight flick to the left, go back a page - slight flick to the right, forward a page... forward and you "zoom in" one level of heirarchy, back and you zoom back out one level? Probably someone can think of even better ways.
Car accidents kill even more people than that. When do we get to start torturing bad drivers?
Let me tell you something about the toy/game/videogame industry, one in which I worked at a major corp. for years...
We WANTED things to sell out. Not just for the obvious reason that if you sell all inventory, you've managed to SELL ALL YOUR INVENTORY, which is a good thing, but because the industry is driven by the HIT.
Every season each company wants to have the HIT - the Cabbage Patch Doll, the Furby, the Gameboy Advance, what have you... the item that people are fighting over in aisles to grab the last of, the game that people are buying by the dozen to sell in vans parked outside toys-r-us for a huge markup...
People are herd animals. If they hear that something is so hot, so popular, so in demand that it's hard to get one, then THEY WANT ONE. That's what drove the sales of all of the things I mentioned above. Companies DREAM of being the hot, out of stock, hard to find item of the season. They get tons of free press, they get tons of word of mouth, they get the feeding frenzy, and then even after supplies have been ramped up to more than meet any demand, they can coast on that for a good year or maybe more.
Our industry not only doesn't try NOT to have things sell out, they try to MANUFACTURE that.
I remember one year when we had the hot item of the Christmas season, there we people calling in, writing in, celebrities trying to use their fame to get one, etc... and the rumor going around was that "we had stopped making them because they were selling too much" and variations on that... "They've decreased production to try and stop the run on them." Essentially the same thing as you're saying, in a way.
Boy did we get a chuckle out of that.
This latest thing just goddamned fucking SCARES me. The government tracing the phone calls of journalists to track down their sources, sources of stories that reveal questionable and possibly illegal government actions... damn. Just fucking DAMN. In America. Not some tin pot south american dictatorship, not in the USSR, but right here in the US.
It's proper to be enraged when others are being made the targets unfairly... but now WE'RE the targets.
I feel like hanging black crepe - I'm in mourning for my country.
It is now the official policy of the GOP that when they are in power, their President can break any law, and anyone attempting to reveal these crimes is a traitor.
The networks understandably say "What, are you nuts? It's OUR money, and you're already making yours!"
So the TV makers tell the TV purchasers "The networks are bleeding us dry by not sharing their profits with us, and if they don't, well... we might just have to raise the prices of TVs. A lot. Maybe we'll even have to just rent them to you so you pay a fee each month that could really add up. Sorry, but we don't have a choice here. Better complain to those nasty networks!"
Why are they pulling such a bullshit move? Because they can. Or rather they think they can. It's up to us to show them they're wrong.
I don't know if it's the cause of my problem, but I installed that memory leak deterctor thingamajig, and so far the only leaks it's finding all come from gmail.
In the old days, they sold you a door bell. If the door bell were invented now, they would sell it cheap or give it away free, and then charge you 25 cents per jingle for your "Visitor Alert Service." (Or if you're a high-volume guest-receiver, you can opt for our "Unlimited Rings Plan" for just $14.99 per month flat fee!)
Doesn't work for me. I have done that and firefox STILL creeps up to 300 meg with only one or two windows open.
at least JetBlue has the free directv, etc.... so you can put on some headphones and drown out the phone chatter.
Maybe it's condescending and "shrill" to object to these things and call the apologists for them kinda stupid. if so, I accept that label. Moreover, I damn well hope many more people become "condescending" and "shrill."
And you know what? I think that people who criticize others as condescending for thinking that people who would happily let the government closely monitor the movements and activities of all of its individual citizens are kinda stupid, are themselves kinda stupid.
Go ahead, Sparky, have the last word. I'm sure it will be a doozy. Here's some ammo: I think people who are apologists for rape are kinda being thoughtless fools. What does that make me? Arrogant? Uncivil?
And even with some life experience, most if not all people are still kinda stupid at least about some things.
I was kinda stupid when I was 18 too.
Thanks! I'll be right over to install some cameras in your shower. :)
I'm a cheap-ass when it comes to... well, everything... but you aren't going to impress ANYONE except maybe your cousin from Tennessee by taking them to Olive Garden. For about the same, maybe a little bit more, you can find a non-chain place with a snobbish name like "le Metro" or something. Doesn't have to be expensive, can just be "trendy" and where all the artsy fucks hang out.
And yes, I know we're getting way off fucking topic, go ahead and mod me down, I've got karma to burn.
Hey, the model III is. like MODERN. I still have a Model I, serial number in the low 2000's. Also a Wang VS Mini.
Scramjets? Nuclear thermal? everything else you mention??? Sure, they would be good things to pursue on their own merits, but they would ALL be extremely expensive to develop. Saying they would be cheaper is like saying in 1970 "the Space Shuttle will be cheaper than expendables because you don't have to throw it away each time."
They said that, and of course they were laughably wrong.
Get some sparkling mineral water, toss some ice in a tumbler, put about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of powdered ginger in it, then pour in the bubbly water.
Delicious. Has a nice ginger bite, but not sicky sweet like gingerale.... and even makes the tummy feel good. No calories. Good for you.
need caffeine? Fine - drink this and take a freaking caffeine pill.
Harvey R. Ball invented the yellow smiley in 1963 for a life insurance company. He was paid $45.
Yeah, right after I typed this i thought of the wrist band idea - I wouldn't be surprised to see someone come out with one.
The game heats up, your palms start to sweat.
You drop back to pass... where is your receiver?!?! BLITZ!!! You're going to be sacked, where's your damned receiver?!?!?!
There he is!!!! He's open!!! NOW!!! PASS NOW!!!!
you reflexively jerk your hand forward to pass - the controller slips out of your hand, and right through the fragile glass of your new plasma screen.
Two weeks later, after replacing your TV, you decide to play some Wii tennis...
The buzz it created has been incredible, and that translates into sales. I haven't seen a piece of consumer electronics get this much mainstream (not gaming) press since the ipod was introduced, and before that the imac.
PR-wise, the name change has been a phenominal success.