$4 per gallon would be about right, a little under cost per gallon in most other countries (Britain, Europe, etc) for gasoline (around $5 per gallon globally).
$4 per gallon with a car which gets 50 mpg works out to 12.5 miles per dollar. To get that figure from a Cadilac Escalade (12 mpg) gasoline would need to cost under $1 per gallon. Raise your hand if you think that gasoline will ever cost less than $1 per gallon in the United States again.
The market is over-hyped. I could be in a store, about to plunk down $50 for game A, when I see an amazing ad promising how incredibly awesome game B is going to be... coming in 3 months. I put Game A back on the shelf, looking forward to game B, which gets delayed, feature-hacked, and released with bugs, so I don't get that one either. Some time later I go back and have game C in my hands, about to plunk down $50, when I see an amazing ad promising how incredibly awesome game D is going to be...
yet another reason I went the the GameCube (aside from Zelda, Mario, Resident Evil, Metroid, etc). Microsoft and Sony have too much of my money already. Not that Nintendo is a bastion of freedom or anything.
maybe if the game "new" wasn't $50 I wouldn't be so likely to wait 6 months to get the "used" at $20. because since I'm waiting anyway after the release (no way I'm paying $50) I might as well wait after the first few rounds of "used" pricing: $45, $40, $35... until it drops down about as low as it will go. The only game I buy at or near release is the NHL series from EA Sports, because I want to be playing all NHL season long.
But I still haven't picked up a few of the "really really good" games of 2003 and early 2004 yet. I'm ready to raid the bargain bin, heck, I'll wait until the next generation of consoles comes out and they start showing up at Wal-Mart new at 3-for-$20 or something. $50 games... the bloody console is $100 new (gamecube).
But I can see how this is a vicious cycle for the game developers and I hope they can come up with a solution which both gets us good games and keeps them in business. Maybe that solution is $35 games new, combined with giving resellers the ability to make a little more profit from their shelf space from their new games.
The other problem is that, especially now with 3 consoles in addition to the PC, there are just sooooo many good games. And I only play 1 at a time, 2 tops, and that 1 is usually the latest NHL game, so that leaves 1 slot every few months (I only play a few hours a week at most) which is quickly snapped up by the really excellent games (Zelda, Metroid, Eternal Darkness, upcoming Resident Evil 4, etc).
Not to mention that (on PC at least) there are more and more high-quality free games, like the America's Army games for example.
Also - if it's so close, why would they put out Zelda for the "dying" GameCube platform? Wouldn't it make sense to hold off and make it a killer launch title for the N5?
great, give them ideas why don't you. while they're at it, they could take metroid prime 2, resident evil 4, star fox, and save them for the N5 launch as well.
Stay on your meds. Period. Think you "feel better"? Stay on your meds. Think you "aren't yourself anymore"? Stay on your meds. There will be any number of temptations to skip doses, to stop taking them, including financial, emotional, and of course the disease itself could manifest itself in a desire to stop taking them. Don't listen. "Being yourself" can become a raving lunatic, no matter how "better" you feel at the moment.
That is, of course, if you don't want to have schitzofrenic episodes. If you want them, get off the meds. Otherwise, if you want to live a "normal" life without such episodes, stay on your meds. Given the option of having some of being "normal" and having schitzofrenia, make up your own decision based on the kind of life and mind you want.
Growing up I lived and breathed Star Wars. I'd hang upside-down from the jungle gym and try really really hard to get a stick to fly from the ground to my hand like Luke getting his lightsaber when he's hanging upside down in the cave at the beginning of Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi was the zen master to whom we all aspired. I hated the Ewoks, though, just as I later hated Jar-Jar.
But I still found things to enjoy in Episode I. Sure, you had midichlorians and other stupid stuff, bad child acting and just bad acting in general from some of the principals. But you also had Darth Freakin' Maul, double-lightsaber and all, dueling about and kicking double Jedi ass (until his ridiculous, not-believable demise). You had Liam Neeson giving a very solid performance as Obi-Wan's mentor.
And I still found things to enjoy in Episode II. Sure, you had more Jar-Jar "meesa want" and more boring imperial senate nonsense, and more wooden acting from some of the principals. But you also had Jango Fett, and in the end Yoda goes ape-shit on Christopher Lee. Yeah it was ridiculous and half of me wanted to laugh at the scene... but the other half was too busy going "HOLY SH!T LOOK AT YODA GO."
I don't care if I'm called "Soft" or whatever for actually admitting what most people seem to be too up-tight, too wannabe Goth, too whatever to admit: I LIKE THE STAR WARS MOVIES.
Get over yourselves. Write your own damn universe of characters and make your own damn movies about them. Leave Lucas alone. Yeah some of it is crap, most of the acting is horrible... but there are some fun things in there and I personally can't wait to see how it all "begins/ends" with Episode III.
So there. I've said it. Call me a poser, fanboy, whatever. At least I'm not a little whiny arrogant "my sh!t smells better than yours" film critic or one of these ever-popular "I hate everything" kids of today.
Except that if there was a gamecube release I'd buy it. I can always use more physical activity, and some XBox-owning friends swear by DDR for fitness.
Seriously, it's kind of silly to use a particular editor just because of its ubiquity. One can be familiar enough with vi to use it (grudgingly) in an emergency, while still using something more pleasant in non-emergencies.
Well as for myself and many others, vi is the something more pleasant than every other editor. However I'm happy to admit that there are "diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks" and you can feel free to download whatever editor you want. Just be certain that the engineers who put together "minimal" distributions aren't going to be including all these other editors, and that the tool they deem best for their job, vi, is going to be included.
Feel free to make your own minimal distributions which are based on joe or another editor, and start catering to what is truly a niche market -- the people who want no-frills, nuts and bolts UNIX installations are the same people who prefer vi to other editors.
That said, if the sysadmin allows it feel free to install joe or pico or whatever editors fit into your quota.
I had bought about 20 itunes songs, when my laptop windows xp install corrupted and I had to reinstall. I re-installed iTunes, but since my machine had been unbootable, I could not un-authenticate (that same machine!) before, and so now I'm down to 2 machines I can use for those iTunes songs.
Unless PlayFair is the fastest encoder/decoder of AAC which currently exists, I think the only thing it does is decrypt the M4P file using the valid key. Decoding to WAV (or CD) and then encoding back to AAC (or other format) is lossy compared to the original (already lossy M4P). PlayFair is not lossy (compared to original M4P).
Imagine how cool it would be if the Cube had more LAN-enabled games (think system link) which could be tunnelled -- or better yet if this "internet system link" was actually supported out-of-the-box. I don't care about the whys and wherefores, I just want to be able to play Mario Kart a little bit faster with friends across town over the internet.
It was strange to read a "network support is not important for GC" rant from a person who links to their MUD in their.sig!
Don't recommend research. The next outsourcing wave will be materials research, genetics research, pharmaceutical research, etc, as profits from the current American researchers' labor are used to build research facilities overseas.
It's "free" to import a pharmaceutical formula, plastics formula and process, or genetic sequence.
Robots will operate the plants which produce these products. I suggest getting into robot repair and maintenance, or design. Robotics will be produced in the States simply because it will be more expensive to import them.
Think about it, even reporters, lawyers and medical work is being outsourced to other countries.
Which is why we should tariff the import of intellectual property. Businesses want their intellectual property protected just as if it were actual physical property (DMCA, copyright law, patent law, etc), but they import intellectual property in the form of code, legal advice, chemical formulas, genetics research, etc, into the country without paying any value-based tariff.
Either it's property or it isn't. If it is, keep your copyright and patent laws, and pay up when you bring this property into the United States just as you would if you brought a truck load of goods. If it isn't, then say goodbye to its legal protection, and finally say hello to inexpensive AIDS medication, "legal" pirate operations for CD and DVD sales, etc.
He're the best question to ask a CEO who is considering an outsourcing program:
What effect will the outsourcing trend have on your company in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
The problem with outsourcing is that it seems to be sacrificing long-term business strategy for short-term financial gains. I've yet to hear many informative responses to the above question beyond "we don't know, we just need to cut costs now".
If IBM outsources its work to foreign countries, its non-jobless employees will no longer be buying $20K-$30K cars from GM, Honda, Ford, etc. And so GM, Honda, Ford, etc, will buy less services, software, and hardware from IBM.
Who's going to be left to buy the products these companies are trying to sell when the jobs which are left pay minimum wage or little more? You don't drop $35K on a new SUV when you're making $10/hr or less. You buy a used Civic for $5K. You don't take a $2K vacation to Florida, booked through some travel agency, flown on a US Airline, stay in a nice hotel. You take a cheap vacation to which you drive your used Civic and spend little on these fancy travel services. You don't buy a bunch of expensive electronics, you buy a used TV from the pawn shop.
Long-term, outsourcing of high-paying jobs to cut short-term costs is going to destroy American businesses. I'd love to hear an answer which convinces me otherwise.
sweet. it was 'game of the month' for March 2004 and so I guess missing it by a month isn't too bad. thanks for the heads up, looks like a pretty good GBA game.
unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available at either Best Buy or Circuit City... or EB Games...
In fact, the publisher, Destination Software lists it in their "Coming Soon!" section. So this is less of a "miss" by me, and more of a "they aren't even selling it yet" by them.
But huzzah! The Wade Hixton game website links directly to the Game Stop product page, so yes, it can be bought! (Strange that the "EB Games" link takes you to the GameStop page...
For classic games, how about Ultima II, III, and IV (Apple IIe). Lakers vs. Celtics (Apple II). Dr. J vs. Larry Bird 1-on-1 (Apple II). Thexder (Apple IIgs).
But my number-1 wanted port for the GBA must be... the original RBI Baseball (NES) and add linked play for head-to-head action.
How about: Contra (NES) (2-player link), X-Men (Genesis) (4-player link on this one!).
And how about a -real- port of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (NES).
there was a research project which apparently was successful in reading some unspoken thoughts, by "listening" to the nerve synapses near the vocal chords.
Slashdot Mirror
$4 per gallon would be about right, a little under cost per gallon in most other countries (Britain, Europe, etc) for gasoline (around $5 per gallon globally).
$4 per gallon with a car which gets 50 mpg works out to 12.5 miles per dollar. To get that figure from a Cadilac Escalade (12 mpg) gasoline would need to cost under $1 per gallon. Raise your hand if you think that gasoline will ever cost less than $1 per gallon in the United States again.
The market is over-hyped. I could be in a store, about to plunk down $50 for game A, when I see an amazing ad promising how incredibly awesome game B is going to be... coming in 3 months. I put Game A back on the shelf, looking forward to game B, which gets delayed, feature-hacked, and released with bugs, so I don't get that one either. Some time later I go back and have game C in my hands, about to plunk down $50, when I see an amazing ad promising how incredibly awesome game D is going to be...
I didn't say it was "the" reason. I said it was "a" reason, along with a list of good game franchises which was the main reason.
And I am glad not to be your parent, having to listen to my kid complain to me how they want Santa to bring them Halo 2.
Voting Nader is obviously not voting "not Bush.".
yet another AC with a brain. nice. you might enjoy The Fork in the Road: A Political Morality Play in One Act over on K5.
yet another reason I went the the GameCube (aside from Zelda, Mario, Resident Evil, Metroid, etc). Microsoft and Sony have too much of my money already. Not that Nintendo is a bastion of freedom or anything.
maybe if the game "new" wasn't $50 I wouldn't be so likely to wait 6 months to get the "used" at $20. because since I'm waiting anyway after the release (no way I'm paying $50) I might as well wait after the first few rounds of "used" pricing: $45, $40, $35 ... until it drops down about as low as it will go. The only game I buy at or near release is the NHL series from EA Sports, because I want to be playing all NHL season long.
But I still haven't picked up a few of the "really really good" games of 2003 and early 2004 yet. I'm ready to raid the bargain bin, heck, I'll wait until the next generation of consoles comes out and they start showing up at Wal-Mart new at 3-for-$20 or something. $50 games... the bloody console is $100 new (gamecube).
But I can see how this is a vicious cycle for the game developers and I hope they can come up with a solution which both gets us good games and keeps them in business. Maybe that solution is $35 games new, combined with giving resellers the ability to make a little more profit from their shelf space from their new games.
The other problem is that, especially now with 3 consoles in addition to the PC, there are just sooooo many good games. And I only play 1 at a time, 2 tops, and that 1 is usually the latest NHL game, so that leaves 1 slot every few months (I only play a few hours a week at most) which is quickly snapped up by the really excellent games (Zelda, Metroid, Eternal Darkness, upcoming Resident Evil 4, etc).
Not to mention that (on PC at least) there are more and more high-quality free games, like the America's Army games for example.
Also - if it's so close, why would they put out Zelda for the "dying" GameCube platform? Wouldn't it make sense to hold off and make it a killer launch title for the N5?
great, give them ideas why don't you. while they're at it, they could take metroid prime 2, resident evil 4, star fox, and save them for the N5 launch as well.
Konami does sell a PC version of DDR, you can even download a free trial version.
Stay on your meds. Period. Think you "feel better"? Stay on your meds. Think you "aren't yourself anymore"? Stay on your meds. There will be any number of temptations to skip doses, to stop taking them, including financial, emotional, and of course the disease itself could manifest itself in a desire to stop taking them. Don't listen. "Being yourself" can become a raving lunatic, no matter how "better" you feel at the moment.
That is, of course, if you don't want to have schitzofrenic episodes. If you want them, get off the meds. Otherwise, if you want to live a "normal" life without such episodes, stay on your meds. Given the option of having some of being "normal" and having schitzofrenia, make up your own decision based on the kind of life and mind you want.
agree with everything you said except the bit about watching "Enterprise". I have some shame :)
Growing up I lived and breathed Star Wars. I'd hang upside-down from the jungle gym and try really really hard to get a stick to fly from the ground to my hand like Luke getting his lightsaber when he's hanging upside down in the cave at the beginning of Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi was the zen master to whom we all aspired. I hated the Ewoks, though, just as I later hated Jar-Jar.
But I still found things to enjoy in Episode I. Sure, you had midichlorians and other stupid stuff, bad child acting and just bad acting in general from some of the principals. But you also had Darth Freakin' Maul, double-lightsaber and all, dueling about and kicking double Jedi ass (until his ridiculous, not-believable demise). You had Liam Neeson giving a very solid performance as Obi-Wan's mentor.
And I still found things to enjoy in Episode II. Sure, you had more Jar-Jar "meesa want" and more boring imperial senate nonsense, and more wooden acting from some of the principals. But you also had Jango Fett, and in the end Yoda goes ape-shit on Christopher Lee. Yeah it was ridiculous and half of me wanted to laugh at the scene... but the other half was too busy going "HOLY SH!T LOOK AT YODA GO."
I don't care if I'm called "Soft" or whatever for actually admitting what most people seem to be too up-tight, too wannabe Goth, too whatever to admit: I LIKE THE STAR WARS MOVIES.
Get over yourselves. Write your own damn universe of characters and make your own damn movies about them. Leave Lucas alone. Yeah some of it is crap, most of the acting is horrible... but there are some fun things in there and I personally can't wait to see how it all "begins/ends" with Episode III.
So there. I've said it. Call me a poser, fanboy, whatever. At least I'm not a little whiny arrogant "my sh!t smells better than yours" film critic or one of these ever-popular "I hate everything" kids of today.
That's when you log off and unplug your computer from the net, maybe move, get a different ISP, change MAC addresses... etc...
Except that if there was a gamecube release I'd buy it. I can always use more physical activity, and some XBox-owning friends swear by DDR for fitness.
Seriously, it's kind of silly to use a particular editor just because of its ubiquity. One can be familiar enough with vi to use it (grudgingly) in an emergency, while still using something more pleasant in non-emergencies.
Well as for myself and many others, vi is the something more pleasant than every other editor. However I'm happy to admit that there are "diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks" and you can feel free to download whatever editor you want. Just be certain that the engineers who put together "minimal" distributions aren't going to be including all these other editors, and that the tool they deem best for their job, vi, is going to be included.
Feel free to make your own minimal distributions which are based on joe or another editor, and start catering to what is truly a niche market -- the people who want no-frills, nuts and bolts UNIX installations are the same people who prefer vi to other editors.
That said, if the sysadmin allows it feel free to install joe or pico or whatever editors fit into your quota.
Does anyone else recognize Slashdotters by their sigs more often than their user names?
No.
as a question...
I had bought about 20 itunes songs, when my laptop windows xp install corrupted and I had to reinstall. I re-installed iTunes, but since my machine had been unbootable, I could not un-authenticate (that same machine!) before, and so now I'm down to 2 machines I can use for those iTunes songs.
Any way to fix this?
Unless PlayFair is the fastest encoder/decoder of AAC which currently exists, I think the only thing it does is decrypt the M4P file using the valid key. Decoding to WAV (or CD) and then encoding back to AAC (or other format) is lossy compared to the original (already lossy M4P). PlayFair is not lossy (compared to original M4P).
The MC response wasn't just better, it was, dare I say, "priceless".
Imagine how cool it would be if the Cube had more LAN-enabled games (think system link) which could be tunnelled -- or better yet if this "internet system link" was actually supported out-of-the-box. I don't care about the whys and wherefores, I just want to be able to play Mario Kart a little bit faster with friends across town over the internet.
.sig!
It was strange to read a "network support is not important for GC" rant from a person who links to their MUD in their
Don't recommend research. The next outsourcing wave will be materials research, genetics research, pharmaceutical research, etc, as profits from the current American researchers' labor are used to build research facilities overseas.
It's "free" to import a pharmaceutical formula, plastics formula and process, or genetic sequence.
Robots will operate the plants which produce these products. I suggest getting into robot repair and maintenance, or design. Robotics will be produced in the States simply because it will be more expensive to import them.
Think about it, even reporters, lawyers and medical work is being outsourced to other countries.
Which is why we should tariff the import of intellectual property. Businesses want their intellectual property protected just as if it were actual physical property (DMCA, copyright law, patent law, etc), but they import intellectual property in the form of code, legal advice, chemical formulas, genetics research, etc, into the country without paying any value-based tariff.
Either it's property or it isn't. If it is, keep your copyright and patent laws, and pay up when you bring this property into the United States just as you would if you brought a truck load of goods. If it isn't, then say goodbye to its legal protection, and finally say hello to inexpensive AIDS medication, "legal" pirate operations for CD and DVD sales, etc.
He're the best question to ask a CEO who is considering an outsourcing program:
What effect will the outsourcing trend have on your company in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
The problem with outsourcing is that it seems to be sacrificing long-term business strategy for short-term financial gains. I've yet to hear many informative responses to the above question beyond "we don't know, we just need to cut costs now".
If IBM outsources its work to foreign countries, its non-jobless employees will no longer be buying $20K-$30K cars from GM, Honda, Ford, etc. And so GM, Honda, Ford, etc, will buy less services, software, and hardware from IBM.
Who's going to be left to buy the products these companies are trying to sell when the jobs which are left pay minimum wage or little more? You don't drop $35K on a new SUV when you're making $10/hr or less. You buy a used Civic for $5K. You don't take a $2K vacation to Florida, booked through some travel agency, flown on a US Airline, stay in a nice hotel. You take a cheap vacation to which you drive your used Civic and spend little on these fancy travel services. You don't buy a bunch of expensive electronics, you buy a used TV from the pawn shop.
Long-term, outsourcing of high-paying jobs to cut short-term costs is going to destroy American businesses. I'd love to hear an answer which convinces me otherwise.
sweet. it was 'game of the month' for March 2004 and so I guess missing it by a month isn't too bad. thanks for the heads up, looks like a pretty good GBA game.
unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available at either Best Buy or Circuit City... or EB Games...
In fact, the publisher, Destination Software lists it in their "Coming Soon!" section. So this is less of a "miss" by me, and more of a "they aren't even selling it yet" by them.
But huzzah! The Wade Hixton game website links directly to the Game Stop product page, so yes, it can be bought! (Strange that the "EB Games" link takes you to the GameStop page...
At $19.99 I'm definitely picking this up!
For classic games, how about Ultima II, III, and IV (Apple IIe). Lakers vs. Celtics (Apple II). Dr. J vs. Larry Bird 1-on-1 (Apple II). Thexder (Apple IIgs).
But my number-1 wanted port for the GBA must be... the original RBI Baseball (NES) and add linked play for head-to-head action.
How about: Contra (NES) (2-player link), X-Men (Genesis) (4-player link on this one!).
And how about a -real- port of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (NES).
there was a research project which apparently was successful in reading some unspoken thoughts, by "listening" to the nerve synapses near the vocal chords.