From intro: "The best business oriented tech support in our area charges $95/hour for hardware repair and $135/hour for software support. Options for home based PCs are quite limited here. Geek Squad (yuk!) charges outrageous prices."
From khakipuce"But what I really found was there was not really enough work to make it pay, for every business there are half a dozen friends-of-friends who will do it for free, or a beer, or whatever."
"I would then explain the options and that fact I wanted paying - "But you haven't fixed it"; "Well I think the only way to fix it is to reinstall...". Getting paid on those calls was tough."
Sometimes when people want to start a small business out of their home, they think established businesses charge way too much and so come up with a drastically lower number and believe they'll do fine. I've seen a couple of friends do it, and I was tempted to do it myself a long time ago.
Established businesses charge more because they need to advertise to make sure there's enough work to make it all worthwhile. They need to pay for the vehicle and accountant and paperclips, expenses some small home-business people just absorb. Insurance can be costly - what if you knock over a vase or step on Fluffy's tail while opening up someone's computer case? Then there are the calls that don't/won't pay; the calls that do pay have to cover for the ones that don't, the good times have to pay for the bad times.
By going for very low pricing, you're turning yourself into a commodity and you're going to attract people who are more concerned about price than real quality or special skills. This is a difficult market to operate in, and a difficult way to make real profits.
That article says "We definitely had a difficult time stressing 8 cores in the Mac Pro". It doesn't say they couldn't max them out. Just looking at the CPU monitor graphic in the F article one can see they did max out the CPU.
Just about everyone agrees that this isn't "hacking", but here it has been called "chopping off URLs" and a dozen other things. The proper term for this (which I haven't seen in any posts so far) is "directory browsing". It is countered with the simple method of ensuring every directory has an index page which, if it doesn't actually have content, then is either a redirect to a different page, or contains a simple message, such as "no directory browsing".
Many of the posts I have read here discuss the men who responded to the ad and what they should have/have not expected. Perhaps Fortuny is getting off lightly in these comments because a man posing as a woman on the internet is one of the oldest clichés going, and it no longer surprises anyone. Fortuny posed as a submissive woman. If he did this on the street or a nightclub, more people would suggest he has a personal problem. What makes this deceitful behaviour acceptable on the internet?
Perhaps some people believe that the internet is an inherently deceitful environment, and rationalise that everyone should be aware of that, and therefore victims have nobody to blame but themselves. If such an inherently deceitful environment were the case, then again the problem would be the deceit itself, not the victims' gullibility.
"The more people understand that giving away personal information in an insecure environment is actually deeply stupid, the better for us all in the long term."
The problem here isn't giving away information, but someone fraudulently gathering the information and believing they are free to do with it as they wish. In many cases of deceit, it is too easy to blame the victims, but they are just that: victims. Would you accept the rape of a woman because it teaches society a lesson about walking down dark alleys at night?
(Having mentioned deceit and privacy, I expect that someone may point out that some of the victim's were married, which makes them deceitful. Their behaviour is not an issue here, it is the behaviour of Fortuny that is on the table. Exposing philanderers, weirdos or losers does not excuse Fortuny's actions, and it is not up to Fortuny to decide what kind of punishment they are to receive.)
"Globalization is a reality. If you are still thinking that your local country offers the only market for your job, you are probably watching too much TV and consuming too much sugary fat, and in my opinion not travelling often, nor far and wide, enough.
My advice to the new globalist thinker: Travel far and wide and don't bother fooling yourself into thinking you ever actually 'own' a house (it owns you). Go nomad. "
You forget the human element. Repeated relocation comes at the cost of close friends, family, relationships. Work isn't everything to everyone.
As for jobs and markets, just because westerners are offered jobs with companies in developing countries, that doesn't necessarily mean those companies operate to western standards of output. Different cultures have differing business management styles, and they have a drastic effect on productivity. These can also be extremely frustrating environments for westerners to work in.
"The cost of living in India would be lower than the home country + comparable wages = ability to save."
Westerners who have lived in developing countries know this is not entirely true.
If you're an "average" local living in average conditions, your cost of living will be lower than an "average" person in North America, but if you want to live at western standards (house in a nice neighbourhood, car, big TV, stereo, washer dryer etc.) then expect to pay the same or more for the products/services you want. In a developing country, public transport may not even be an option; a car could be an absolute necessity, and therefore an unavoidable expense. To live at western standards you probably won't see many savings in your expenses over actually being in the west.
On the other side of the coin, you could probably afford such luxuries as a live-in housekeeper.
Depending on where you live, there may be savings from low or non-existent income taxes. You could come out a bit ahead from this.
However, in some countries (those in the Gulf region, for example), foreigners are not allowed to buy property. Rent for a nice villa or apartment is as high or higher than what you would pay in Europe/N-Am. If you're paying a mortgage, at least your expenses are adding to your equity, but when you pay rent, that money is gone. This rent is like a defacto tax on foreigners because it is unavoidable, but instead of the money going to the government, it goes directly to the local who owns the property you live in.
If you have children, expect to pay for them to go to school.
Healthcare, especially healthcare which is to western standards, is another expense to keep in mind.
Taking part in leisure activities means more expenses; public recreation facilities which are normal in the west aren't normal in developing countries. Private clubs provide sports facilities, clean beaches etc. etc.
By living in a developing country, a western professional will probably enjoy a nice lifestyle, but to do so means that savings likely won't be much greater than they would be in the west. Obviously, one can do without many of these expenses, live more like the average locals do and save money, but one can also save money in the west by living a much simpler lifestyle. Many people who work overseas do so for the experience.
"French newspaper L'Equipe reported on Wednesday that the French national lottery Française des Jeux has started legal action against the company Unibet.com. In France, betting and gambling is illegal except for the national lottery, horse races managed by PMU and casinos, and Française des Jeux argues that Unibet.com makes business on French territory even if it is based elsewhere. The Belgian national lottery, Lotto, reportedly also considers a lawsuit."
Unibet is "Licensed and regulated by laws in the UK and in Malta".
According to you and others there is a duty to perform a role and fulfill obligations to somebody so they will make more tv shows.
Why should I have to work so hard to make a positive impression on someone who is trying to sell something to me? There are some mixed up priorities here. We're talking about entertainment here, not religion (although I do realise we are talking about sci-fi fans). I want to see new shows, not an endless parade of reruns.
Next: wouldn't high numbers watching reruns of old shows only tell advertisers that they can continue to get away with broadcasting reruns? If nobody watched, then perhaps that would send a signal that people are finally sick of watching endless hours of Star Trek, Andromeda and other reruns and new product is required.
Sci-fi fans' habit of watching the same shows time and again can work against their own best interests. The false expectations derived from propping up shows with false viewership as you suggest will only lead to producers and advertisers being disappointed again in the future, further eroding the development of new sci-fi product.
Finally, what if fans took all that time spent watching reruns, got a second job and mailed the extra pay to the producers, instead of watching the same shows over and over? I think this would be a more productive use of fans' time and sense of obligation.
I really enjoy good sci-fi, but I will not watch anything which is sci-fi just for the sake of it being sci-fi. I am more interested in a quality piece of entertainment than in indulging the genre itself.
I watched a bit of Firefly because it was hyped so much, but to be honest I thought it was just as clichéd as 95% of the rest of the sci-fi tv shows/movies out there and I gave up on it. Perhaps it was marginally better or marginally more imaginative than most shows, but when a genre's fans start celebrating slight improvements or changes as if they were quantum leaps of imagination, then I think there is a problem.
Besides Firefly itself, sci-fi fans keep looking backwards (which funnily enough goes against the premise of being a sci-fi fan), and sinking more and more time and money into the old standards like Star Wars and Star Trek. Think about this; Star Trek/Wars are still at the pinnacle of sci-fi creativity, and they are 40 and 30 years old respectively. At what point do Star Trek/Wars become inherently too old? By its nature, sci-fi shouldn't be stuck in the same creative rut as the western movie genre is. How long will it be until really new ideas surface?
Sci-fi publishing is in marginally better shape with some creative ideas being presented, but there doesn't seem to be the same crossover from printed fiction to cinema in sci-fi the way there is in mainstream fiction. Why is this? Do sci-fi fans read?
For myself, an important part of sci-fi is imagination, and sci-fi tv/movies are no longer imaginative (there is some product which has imaginative concepts but suffers from poor plot/production/other dismal flaws). Sci-fi is a sick animal with its head up its ass, eating its own shit, proclaiming how delicious and nutritious it is. I would think more sci-fi fans would look forward to the day when something fresh comes along.
"I dont think we are going to get any good AI until it has some method of "learning""
That would be great, but in the meantime other approaches are available. Going back several years, Unreal Tournament had the capability of customising individual bots' gameplay style with several different parameters beyond mere difficulty levels, and I found that this was very much worth the effort. A large library of custom characters could be saved, and they could be selected randomly to add unpredictability to gameplay with bots. If you notice one bot is an idiot (or unbeatable), you can adjust that specific character.
Admittedly I am not a super-hardcore gamer, but I have played several different titles. UT is the only game I have seen this bot customisation feature in.
"Is this the 'way of the future' for PC titles? Will games powered by specific pieces of hardware become the norm?"
More questions:
Will game developers be willing to optimise their games for people own specific gaming computers containing this hardware only and ignore "average" gamers with "average" computers? Or will games be made for both scenarios, and if so, how different would gameplay be on different hardware? Will exclusively optimised games be very expensive to justify an ROI from a smaller market?
I am curious about how sales to Europe compare to sales within North America. In comparing sales, it's not just numbers I am thinking of but who is buying; average people looking for a practical tool vs rich people looking for a toy, comparisons of institutional buyers, etc.
My questions come from the differences in lifestyle and culture, and imagining that Segways would not only be more useful in the existing European infrastructure, but more readily accepted there. Am I right or wrong? Who can sate my curiosity?
"The reference to bullying witnesses into perjury has to do with the RIAA's lawyers' conduct in Motown v. Nelson, a Michigan case in which a 15 year old witness testified to conduct by the RIAA's lawyers which might be construed that way"
I'm familiar with the accusation, but my point is that it is only an accusation, and Ars is not presenting both sides of the story.
An accusation is not undeniable proof - it is one side of the story. Ars presents this accusation as the final word of truth in the matter. There is more to a court case than one piece of evidence, and heralding only the evidence or arguments seen as favourable to one's own interests is bias and favouritism. There is another accusation from the other side of the courtroom, one of criminal conspiracy, which is not being presented at all. It seems there has been no final ruling on this matter, and good journalism would point that out and present both sides of the story, which Ars is not doing.
Once again (as I have reminded several responders), I am not raising the issue of who is right or wrong in the ongoing RIAA lawsuits, but rather how it is being presented as news. Reporters and publishers have a code of ethics to live up to, but not all who present news seem to make an effort to abide by those ethics.
Several people have posted responses to my original comment, but they all discuss the behaviour of the RIAA, not the bias of Ars' journalism. This bias is so blatant and over-the-top that I don't think anyone could possibly deny that Ars is guilty of this.
There is no "proof" of perjury through bullying", only a claim of such acts, and the court has not ruled on the accusation. The accusations of one side of a lawsuit do not constitute proven fact or "reality", despite Ars reporting it as such. One side claims perjury, the other claims criminal conspiracy, but there is no reporting of that side of the argument here, is there? I still claim overwhelming bias by Ars.
"Did you notice the green words "bullying witnesses into perjury" it was a link to the relevant article."
I saw the green words. Did you read the article?
The article is a story outlining the accusations of one side of a legal dispute. This suit has not been ruled on, but Ars is reporting it as undeniable fact. Until ruled on, the accusations of the Nelsons bear as much weight as the accusations of the RIAA - they are reporting one side as being absolute truth and the other as absolute evil.
My point is that Ars is practicing shoddy, biased journalism. I am not debating the merits of the RIAA's actions.
My original post is not about what the RIAA has or hasn't done, but about how Ars is reporting the facts. Their skew and bias is incredible.
Besides that, the perjury accusation is a serious one, and has not been ruled on. It is an accusation from one side of a legal case, and that is all. The accusations of one side cannot be taken as gospel while the other side is rejected out of hand.
What you have said is not what the Ars reporter said, and that is the part of the point of my original post. I am not debating the rights and wrongs of the RIAA's action, but the way which Ars is reporting the story. Perjury is a very serious offense, and so a statement that anybody is bullying anybody else into perjury is a very serious statement. Not providing evidence or background, or playing with words to imply different meanings, is irresponsible and demonstrates shoddy work and on the part of Ars.
The other part of the point of my post was not who is right or wrong in RIAA lawsuits, but the obvious journalistic bias on the part of Ars.
"Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans..."
Setting aside my personal opinions about the RIAA's actions (and yours), I find this one line to show an incredible amount of bias. But wait; there's more!
"That case aside, the RIAA's history doesn't inspire much confidence in its ability to objectively examine what could be a piece of crucial evidence."
"Neither plaintiffs or defendants are objective parties in a legal dispute."...and apparently not Ars News item either.
"When one of the parties has a history of bullying witnesses into perjury and is seemingly incapable of admitting they were wrong and clearing the names of those they wrongfully accused, it becomes even more crucial." Wow, that is an incredible accusation; bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves? Were they bullied into lying in the RIAA's favour or in their own favour? If they lied in their own favour, why would the RIAA bully them into doing this? If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?
Much more insight from Ars into this accusation would be very interesting.
Even with courts providing "balance", this is a difficult area for the rights of accused to be respected. Hopefully Cathy Fordham's excesses were an exception, but the irreversible fallout from this one person's manipulation demonstrates how carefully the justice system must handle such cases.
As with the death penalty, how many wrongful convictions are we willing to tolerate? What is more important; harsh punishment for the guilty or keeping the innocent free?
Is this the mandatory apple post? Perhaps, but I don't think of myself as a shill.
Having said that, I bought a 12" powerbook three years ago (almost to the day) and it has been solid from a hardware POV (well, software too). What has impressed me most is the keyboard - it is very nice for a portable. Personally, I suspect all the negative publicity apple got recently over hardware problems in portables was blown out of proportion.
I haven't dropped the machine except when in my well-padded bag (and then only two or three serious knocks), but it has been picked up by the lid/screen more than once and suffered no damage (my boss's boss did this - I nearly had a heart attack each time and tried to keep it away from him). The screen is 1028x768, and still has no dead pixels. The machine is solidly made, and gives a firm "thud" when placed on a table - no buzz or rattle from loose fittings.
This laptop has always been used heavily every single day (except when I'm on holiday). The machine can get hot and the fans are a bit loud, but I have the processor running near/at max a lot every day. Despite such intense usage, the only hardware failure I had was the original hard drive, which went after a year and a half.
On the downside, battery performance is nowhere near your ideal (although what comp has such specs?) and the batteries have "gone bad" and lost lifespan - after about a year and a half I need a replacement. My second one is losing noticeable lifespan now and will be replaced soon.
This portable is from near the end of the run for the first generation 12"machines from apple. I got the new product early enough to be nervous about "v1 curse" but late enough that I think the bugs were ironed out. Still, admittedly I was fairly sceptical when I bought this machine, but it was a compromise based on needs vs budget. "Very pleasantly surprised" describes how much I have liked this machine. The size is very nice. I don't even know if apple still offers a 12" pro book, but I will certainly consider buying another when replacement time finally comes.
a day late and a dollar short
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"Saudi Arabia has been a member for less than a year, and Kuwait has been since 1995"
I meant to say they are members of the WTO... and are therefore bound by its treaties and agreements, including intellectual property protection.
At what point did I indicate an all or nothing choice?
Of course Wikipedia content has value. However, having some oversight and organisation would help it immensely. However, in the 2.0 world, Wikipedia is a much different animal than a digg or myspace. Wikipedia has its own content, while a site like digg is only a source for finding other sources' content.
In comparing digg to/. or fark, those in favour of digg believe that having users control contributions and having every submission go live, rather than editors "arbitrarily" deciding which stories make the front page is supposed to be superior. However, design-by-committee is well known for being inefficient. How is having a committee of everyone decide which stories are most interesting better than having someone educated and possessing insight and experience in a particular area make that choice? I would rather choose a source whose editors I am comfortable with and trust and have them filter out all the crap, rather than having to wade though the hundreds of stories which go up on digg each day.
There are thousands of blogs, thousands of youtube videos and thousands of myspace pages, but how do I know which ones would be interesting to me? All that information is overloading me! It would take ages for me to wade through all the flotsam and jetsam out there - how about a site where people with similar interests as mine can suggest sites or stories, and an editor with similar interests as mine, but with training and experience, picks and chooses the most interesting ones? (btw, I'm describing/. and all the slash-sites already out there)
Re:Cleopatra, Queen of De Nial
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I have not lived in Iraq, but I did live in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. They definitely have copyright law. Kuwait's can be found on a pdf on a government website somewhere (I've read it in the past - sorry, no time for googling right now). Saudi Arabia has been a member for less than a year, and Kuwait has been since 1995. They are therefore bound by its rules, which includes provisions on intellectual property. There is little to no enforcement however, as I indicated in my previous post. Eventually pressure will be applied though; there is only so much pressure to go around, and China is getting most of that right now.
As for Iraq and this story in particular, to what extent are US soldiers bound by US law while serving overseas? I believe US military personnel are still immune from Iraqi law. Are US personnel in Iraq only answerable to US military law?
"In the beginning, of course, it benefited greatly from its openness, but now it's time for editors to start provided more focused guidance.
And lo, hopefully the deathknell of web 2.0 has been rung. I have been predicting that it won't be long until the overload of simply way too much unfocused content on sites like digg or myspace will quickly wear people out and remind everyone of the benefits of having professionals provide editing and focusing of information. Having someone provide oversight and separate the wheat from the chaff is a service, a value-add. Maybe somebody brilliant at some dot-com will think of it and believe it's a new idea, patent it and call it web 3.0.
Web 2.0 tried to sell the lack of editing and focus as a value-add, but I think it goes against what people really want (as opposed to what they say they want - the phenomenon recognised in marketing). Wiki leads the way again.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but this is "Trusted Reviews" - if we can't trust them, then who can we trust?
From intro: "The best business oriented tech support in our area charges $95/hour for hardware repair and $135/hour for software support. Options for home based PCs are quite limited here. Geek Squad (yuk!) charges outrageous prices."
From khakipuce"But what I really found was there was not really enough work to make it pay, for every business there are half a dozen friends-of-friends who will do it for free, or a beer, or whatever."
"I would then explain the options and that fact I wanted paying - "But you haven't fixed it"; "Well I think the only way to fix it is to reinstall...". Getting paid on those calls was tough."
Sometimes when people want to start a small business out of their home, they think established businesses charge way too much and so come up with a drastically lower number and believe they'll do fine. I've seen a couple of friends do it, and I was tempted to do it myself a long time ago.
Established businesses charge more because they need to advertise to make sure there's enough work to make it all worthwhile. They need to pay for the vehicle and accountant and paperclips, expenses some small home-business people just absorb. Insurance can be costly - what if you knock over a vase or step on Fluffy's tail while opening up someone's computer case? Then there are the calls that don't/won't pay; the calls that do pay have to cover for the ones that don't, the good times have to pay for the bad times.
By going for very low pricing, you're turning yourself into a commodity and you're going to attract people who are more concerned about price than real quality or special skills. This is a difficult market to operate in, and a difficult way to make real profits.
That article says "We definitely had a difficult time stressing 8 cores in the Mac Pro". It doesn't say they couldn't max them out. Just looking at the CPU monitor graphic in the F article one can see they did max out the CPU.
Just about everyone agrees that this isn't "hacking", but here it has been called "chopping off URLs" and a dozen other things. The proper term for this (which I haven't seen in any posts so far) is "directory browsing". It is countered with the simple method of ensuring every directory has an index page which, if it doesn't actually have content, then is either a redirect to a different page, or contains a simple message, such as "no directory browsing".
"Prank yes, sociopathic possibly"
Many of the posts I have read here discuss the men who responded to the ad and what they should have/have not expected. Perhaps Fortuny is getting off lightly in these comments because a man posing as a woman on the internet is one of the oldest clichés going, and it no longer surprises anyone. Fortuny posed as a submissive woman. If he did this on the street or a nightclub, more people would suggest he has a personal problem. What makes this deceitful behaviour acceptable on the internet?
Perhaps some people believe that the internet is an inherently deceitful environment, and rationalise that everyone should be aware of that, and therefore victims have nobody to blame but themselves. If such an inherently deceitful environment were the case, then again the problem would be the deceit itself, not the victims' gullibility.
"The more people understand that giving away personal information in an insecure environment is actually deeply stupid, the better for us all in the long term."
The problem here isn't giving away information, but someone fraudulently gathering the information and believing they are free to do with it as they wish. In many cases of deceit, it is too easy to blame the victims, but they are just that: victims. Would you accept the rape of a woman because it teaches society a lesson about walking down dark alleys at night?
(Having mentioned deceit and privacy, I expect that someone may point out that some of the victim's were married, which makes them deceitful. Their behaviour is not an issue here, it is the behaviour of Fortuny that is on the table. Exposing philanderers, weirdos or losers does not excuse Fortuny's actions, and it is not up to Fortuny to decide what kind of punishment they are to receive.)
"Globalization is a reality. If you are still thinking that your local country offers the only market for your job, you are probably watching too much TV and consuming too much sugary fat, and in my opinion not travelling often, nor far and wide, enough.
My advice to the new globalist thinker: Travel far and wide and don't bother fooling yourself into thinking you ever actually 'own' a house (it owns you). Go nomad.
"
You forget the human element. Repeated relocation comes at the cost of close friends, family, relationships. Work isn't everything to everyone.
As for jobs and markets, just because westerners are offered jobs with companies in developing countries, that doesn't necessarily mean those companies operate to western standards of output. Different cultures have differing business management styles, and they have a drastic effect on productivity. These can also be extremely frustrating environments for westerners to work in.
"The cost of living in India would be lower than the home country + comparable wages = ability to save."
Westerners who have lived in developing countries know this is not entirely true.
If you're an "average" local living in average conditions, your cost of living will be lower than an "average" person in North America, but if you want to live at western standards (house in a nice neighbourhood, car, big TV, stereo, washer dryer etc.) then expect to pay the same or more for the products/services you want. In a developing country, public transport may not even be an option; a car could be an absolute necessity, and therefore an unavoidable expense. To live at western standards you probably won't see many savings in your expenses over actually being in the west.
On the other side of the coin, you could probably afford such luxuries as a live-in housekeeper.
Depending on where you live, there may be savings from low or non-existent income taxes. You could come out a bit ahead from this.
However, in some countries (those in the Gulf region, for example), foreigners are not allowed to buy property. Rent for a nice villa or apartment is as high or higher than what you would pay in Europe/N-Am. If you're paying a mortgage, at least your expenses are adding to your equity, but when you pay rent, that money is gone. This rent is like a defacto tax on foreigners because it is unavoidable, but instead of the money going to the government, it goes directly to the local who owns the property you live in.
If you have children, expect to pay for them to go to school.
Healthcare, especially healthcare which is to western standards, is another expense to keep in mind.
Taking part in leisure activities means more expenses; public recreation facilities which are normal in the west aren't normal in developing countries. Private clubs provide sports facilities, clean beaches etc. etc.
By living in a developing country, a western professional will probably enjoy a nice lifestyle, but to do so means that savings likely won't be much greater than they would be in the west. Obviously, one can do without many of these expenses, live more like the average locals do and save money, but one can also save money in the west by living a much simpler lifestyle. Many people who work overseas do so for the experience.
From Sept 8th news at Cyclingnews.com:
"French newspaper L'Equipe reported on Wednesday that the French national lottery Française des Jeux has started legal action against the company Unibet.com. In France, betting and gambling is illegal except for the national lottery, horse races managed by PMU and casinos, and Française des Jeux argues that Unibet.com makes business on French territory even if it is based elsewhere. The Belgian national lottery, Lotto, reportedly also considers a lawsuit."
Unibet is "Licensed and regulated by laws in the UK and in Malta".
According to you and others there is a duty to perform a role and fulfill obligations to somebody so they will make more tv shows.
Why should I have to work so hard to make a positive impression on someone who is trying to sell something to me? There are some mixed up priorities here. We're talking about entertainment here, not religion (although I do realise we are talking about sci-fi fans). I want to see new shows, not an endless parade of reruns.
Next: wouldn't high numbers watching reruns of old shows only tell advertisers that they can continue to get away with broadcasting reruns? If nobody watched, then perhaps that would send a signal that people are finally sick of watching endless hours of Star Trek, Andromeda and other reruns and new product is required.
Sci-fi fans' habit of watching the same shows time and again can work against their own best interests. The false expectations derived from propping up shows with false viewership as you suggest will only lead to producers and advertisers being disappointed again in the future, further eroding the development of new sci-fi product.
Finally, what if fans took all that time spent watching reruns, got a second job and mailed the extra pay to the producers, instead of watching the same shows over and over? I think this would be a more productive use of fans' time and sense of obligation.
I really enjoy good sci-fi, but I will not watch anything which is sci-fi just for the sake of it being sci-fi. I am more interested in a quality piece of entertainment than in indulging the genre itself.
I watched a bit of Firefly because it was hyped so much, but to be honest I thought it was just as clichéd as 95% of the rest of the sci-fi tv shows/movies out there and I gave up on it. Perhaps it was marginally better or marginally more imaginative than most shows, but when a genre's fans start celebrating slight improvements or changes as if they were quantum leaps of imagination, then I think there is a problem.
Besides Firefly itself, sci-fi fans keep looking backwards (which funnily enough goes against the premise of being a sci-fi fan), and sinking more and more time and money into the old standards like Star Wars and Star Trek. Think about this; Star Trek/Wars are still at the pinnacle of sci-fi creativity, and they are 40 and 30 years old respectively. At what point do Star Trek/Wars become inherently too old? By its nature, sci-fi shouldn't be stuck in the same creative rut as the western movie genre is. How long will it be until really new ideas surface?
Sci-fi publishing is in marginally better shape with some creative ideas being presented, but there doesn't seem to be the same crossover from printed fiction to cinema in sci-fi the way there is in mainstream fiction. Why is this? Do sci-fi fans read?
For myself, an important part of sci-fi is imagination, and sci-fi tv/movies are no longer imaginative (there is some product which has imaginative concepts but suffers from poor plot/production/other dismal flaws). Sci-fi is a sick animal with its head up its ass, eating its own shit, proclaiming how delicious and nutritious it is. I would think more sci-fi fans would look forward to the day when something fresh comes along.
"I dont think we are going to get any good AI until it has some method of "learning""
That would be great, but in the meantime other approaches are available. Going back several years, Unreal Tournament had the capability of customising individual bots' gameplay style with several different parameters beyond mere difficulty levels, and I found that this was very much worth the effort. A large library of custom characters could be saved, and they could be selected randomly to add unpredictability to gameplay with bots. If you notice one bot is an idiot (or unbeatable), you can adjust that specific character.
Admittedly I am not a super-hardcore gamer, but I have played several different titles. UT is the only game I have seen this bot customisation feature in.
"Is this the 'way of the future' for PC titles? Will games powered by specific pieces of hardware become the norm?"
More questions:
Will game developers be willing to optimise their games for people own specific gaming computers containing this hardware only and ignore "average" gamers with "average" computers? Or will games be made for both scenarios, and if so, how different would gameplay be on different hardware? Will exclusively optimised games be very expensive to justify an ROI from a smaller market?
I am curious about how sales to Europe compare to sales within North America. In comparing sales, it's not just numbers I am thinking of but who is buying; average people looking for a practical tool vs rich people looking for a toy, comparisons of institutional buyers, etc.
My questions come from the differences in lifestyle and culture, and imagining that Segways would not only be more useful in the existing European infrastructure, but more readily accepted there. Am I right or wrong? Who can sate my curiosity?
"The reference to bullying witnesses into perjury has to do with the RIAA's lawyers' conduct in Motown v. Nelson, a Michigan case in which a 15 year old witness testified to conduct by the RIAA's lawyers which might be construed that way"
I'm familiar with the accusation, but my point is that it is only an accusation, and Ars is not presenting both sides of the story.
An accusation is not undeniable proof - it is one side of the story. Ars presents this accusation as the final word of truth in the matter. There is more to a court case than one piece of evidence, and heralding only the evidence or arguments seen as favourable to one's own interests is bias and favouritism. There is another accusation from the other side of the courtroom, one of criminal conspiracy, which is not being presented at all. It seems there has been no final ruling on this matter, and good journalism would point that out and present both sides of the story, which Ars is not doing.
Once again (as I have reminded several responders), I am not raising the issue of who is right or wrong in the ongoing RIAA lawsuits, but rather how it is being presented as news. Reporters and publishers have a code of ethics to live up to, but not all who present news seem to make an effort to abide by those ethics.
Several people have posted responses to my original comment, but they all discuss the behaviour of the RIAA, not the bias of Ars' journalism. This bias is so blatant and over-the-top that I don't think anyone could possibly deny that Ars is guilty of this.
There is no "proof" of perjury through bullying", only a claim of such acts, and the court has not ruled on the accusation. The accusations of one side of a lawsuit do not constitute proven fact or "reality", despite Ars reporting it as such. One side claims perjury, the other claims criminal conspiracy, but there is no reporting of that side of the argument here, is there? I still claim overwhelming bias by Ars.
"Did you notice the green words "bullying witnesses into perjury" it was a link to the relevant article."
I saw the green words. Did you read the article?
The article is a story outlining the accusations of one side of a legal dispute. This suit has not been ruled on, but Ars is reporting it as undeniable fact. Until ruled on, the accusations of the Nelsons bear as much weight as the accusations of the RIAA - they are reporting one side as being absolute truth and the other as absolute evil.
My point is that Ars is practicing shoddy, biased journalism. I am not debating the merits of the RIAA's actions.
My original post is not about what the RIAA has or hasn't done, but about how Ars is reporting the facts. Their skew and bias is incredible.
Besides that, the perjury accusation is a serious one, and has not been ruled on. It is an accusation from one side of a legal case, and that is all. The accusations of one side cannot be taken as gospel while the other side is rejected out of hand.
What you have said is not what the Ars reporter said, and that is the part of the point of my original post. I am not debating the rights and wrongs of the RIAA's action, but the way which Ars is reporting the story. Perjury is a very serious offense, and so a statement that anybody is bullying anybody else into perjury is a very serious statement. Not providing evidence or background, or playing with words to imply different meanings, is irresponsible and demonstrates shoddy work and on the part of Ars.
The other part of the point of my post was not who is right or wrong in RIAA lawsuits, but the obvious journalistic bias on the part of Ars.
"Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans..."
...and apparently not Ars News item either.
Setting aside my personal opinions about the RIAA's actions (and yours), I find this one line to show an incredible amount of bias. But wait; there's more!
"That case aside, the RIAA's history doesn't inspire much confidence in its ability to objectively examine what could be a piece of crucial evidence."
"Neither plaintiffs or defendants are objective parties in a legal dispute."
"When one of the parties has a history of bullying witnesses into perjury and is seemingly incapable of admitting they were wrong and clearing the names of those they wrongfully accused, it becomes even more crucial." Wow, that is an incredible accusation; bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves? Were they bullied into lying in the RIAA's favour or in their own favour? If they lied in their own favour, why would the RIAA bully them into doing this? If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?
Much more insight from Ars into this accusation would be very interesting.
Cathy Fordham showed how it is done, and how the "system" in Ontario is not prepared to reverse itself when its assumptions are wrong.
Even with courts providing "balance", this is a difficult area for the rights of accused to be respected. Hopefully Cathy Fordham's excesses were an exception, but the irreversible fallout from this one person's manipulation demonstrates how carefully the justice system must handle such cases.
As with the death penalty, how many wrongful convictions are we willing to tolerate? What is more important; harsh punishment for the guilty or keeping the innocent free?
Is this the mandatory apple post? Perhaps, but I don't think of myself as a shill.
Having said that, I bought a 12" powerbook three years ago (almost to the day) and it has been solid from a hardware POV (well, software too). What has impressed me most is the keyboard - it is very nice for a portable. Personally, I suspect all the negative publicity apple got recently over hardware problems in portables was blown out of proportion.
I haven't dropped the machine except when in my well-padded bag (and then only two or three serious knocks), but it has been picked up by the lid/screen more than once and suffered no damage (my boss's boss did this - I nearly had a heart attack each time and tried to keep it away from him). The screen is 1028x768, and still has no dead pixels. The machine is solidly made, and gives a firm "thud" when placed on a table - no buzz or rattle from loose fittings.
This laptop has always been used heavily every single day (except when I'm on holiday). The machine can get hot and the fans are a bit loud, but I have the processor running near/at max a lot every day. Despite such intense usage, the only hardware failure I had was the original hard drive, which went after a year and a half.
On the downside, battery performance is nowhere near your ideal (although what comp has such specs?) and the batteries have "gone bad" and lost lifespan - after about a year and a half I need a replacement. My second one is losing noticeable lifespan now and will be replaced soon.
This portable is from near the end of the run for the first generation 12"machines from apple. I got the new product early enough to be nervous about "v1 curse" but late enough that I think the bugs were ironed out. Still, admittedly I was fairly sceptical when I bought this machine, but it was a compromise based on needs vs budget. "Very pleasantly surprised" describes how much I have liked this machine. The size is very nice. I don't even know if apple still offers a 12" pro book, but I will certainly consider buying another when replacement time finally comes.
"Saudi Arabia has been a member for less than a year, and Kuwait has been since 1995"
I meant to say they are members of the WTO... and are therefore bound by its treaties and agreements, including intellectual property protection.
At what point did I indicate an all or nothing choice?
/. or fark, those in favour of digg believe that having users control contributions and having every submission go live, rather than editors "arbitrarily" deciding which stories make the front page is supposed to be superior. However, design-by-committee is well known for being inefficient. How is having a committee of everyone decide which stories are most interesting better than having someone educated and possessing insight and experience in a particular area make that choice? I would rather choose a source whose editors I am comfortable with and trust and have them filter out all the crap, rather than having to wade though the hundreds of stories which go up on digg each day.
/. and all the slash-sites already out there)
Of course Wikipedia content has value. However, having some oversight and organisation would help it immensely. However, in the 2.0 world, Wikipedia is a much different animal than a digg or myspace. Wikipedia has its own content, while a site like digg is only a source for finding other sources' content.
In comparing digg to
There are thousands of blogs, thousands of youtube videos and thousands of myspace pages, but how do I know which ones would be interesting to me? All that information is overloading me! It would take ages for me to wade through all the flotsam and jetsam out there - how about a site where people with similar interests as mine can suggest sites or stories, and an editor with similar interests as mine, but with training and experience, picks and chooses the most interesting ones? (btw, I'm describing
I have not lived in Iraq, but I did live in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. They definitely have copyright law. Kuwait's can be found on a pdf on a government website somewhere (I've read it in the past - sorry, no time for googling right now). Saudi Arabia has been a member for less than a year, and Kuwait has been since 1995. They are therefore bound by its rules, which includes provisions on intellectual property. There is little to no enforcement however, as I indicated in my previous post. Eventually pressure will be applied though; there is only so much pressure to go around, and China is getting most of that right now.
As for Iraq and this story in particular, to what extent are US soldiers bound by US law while serving overseas? I believe US military personnel are still immune from Iraqi law. Are US personnel in Iraq only answerable to US military law?
"In the beginning, of course, it benefited greatly from its openness, but now it's time for editors to start provided more focused guidance.
And lo, hopefully the deathknell of web 2.0 has been rung. I have been predicting that it won't be long until the overload of simply way too much unfocused content on sites like digg or myspace will quickly wear people out and remind everyone of the benefits of having professionals provide editing and focusing of information. Having someone provide oversight and separate the wheat from the chaff is a service, a value-add. Maybe somebody brilliant at some dot-com will think of it and believe it's a new idea, patent it and call it web 3.0.
Web 2.0 tried to sell the lack of editing and focus as a value-add, but I think it goes against what people really want (as opposed to what they say they want - the phenomenon recognised in marketing). Wiki leads the way again.