No, a fact is a fact. That is why it is a fact, because a fact is a reflection of what is. If it were not a fact, then it would be a belief, an opinion, mere fiction. You cannot redefine what is simply by believing that it is different than it is. But it is true that much data published as fact is nothing but fiction, and the chief complaint about Wikipedia is that one cannot immediately discern which is which. On the other hand, Wikipedia doesn't claim to be an authoritative source on anything, although many people seem to assume it is because it has "pedia" in the name. This usually means that they haven't typed the word "wiki" into Wikipedia. If they did, they'd probably have a better understanding of what they are dealing with and might feel less inclined to lodge irrational complaints.
Imagine putting Halo 2 into your Xbox 360 only to have it automatically upgraded to look like Halo 3 in graphical quality.
Well, given that sales in the gaming industry have been driven by generational improvements in graphic quality, it's hard to imagine that this would be considered a good development by publishers. If I can take my four-year-old game, drop it into the latest hardware and have it look as good as something that came out last week... would I have the same motivation to buy the latest greatest? On the other hand, it might allow developers to put more effort into overall design and playability and worry less about the quality of the graphics. I dunno. But this sounds like a disruptive technology to the current way games are produced and marketed, and we know how much established business love disruptive technologies.
Re:got someone ELSE'S confirmation
on
World Firefox Day
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· Score: 1
No, that's fine. It's the new "social networking" feature of Firefox. Make new friends, etc.
And nobody's explained to me why internet gambling is worse than lottery tickets, which are just another tax on the poor and uneducated, and are actually promoted by government-funded advertising.
Because in the lottery, when a player loses the State gets to keep the money. When an online player loses, somebody else gets to keep the money: in most cases, someone in another country that isn't even paying taxes to any of our various governments. And since Americans have only so much disposable income (and because of poor Congressional and corporate decision-making there's even less of that nowadays) the Feds would much rather we spend that "extra" money here.
No, but it was a Democrat that set up the Social Security and Medicare systems and put all the money collected into the General Fund, knowing full well that it would be exploited (plundered) for other purposes by Congress.
You know, it does seem that people who are so overtly against racism are damn near as annoying as actual racists. Interestingly, I've found that many such people are, when push comes to shove, much less open-minded than they would have you believe. When I was much younger my family lived in a town with a significant percentage of upper-middle-class/rich types, many of them leaning pretty far left. I mean, these people would run their mouths all day long about the evils of bigotry and racism, how we're all equal in the eyes of God and so on ad nauseam. Kinda made me want to throw up, frankly. Anyway, it all sounded good, but just let one black family move into the area, and it became immediately obvious just how "enlightened" my neighbors really weren't.
Personally, I'd rather deal with an out-and-out in-your-face honest-to-God BIGOT than a hypocrite. At least then, you know where you stand.
Well, I think you're missing the point. I, for one, still have a lot of great sex ahead of me, and missing out on all that over a slight misunderstanding about the nature of the Universe would just piss me off.
But if you're really buying a license they should be willing to replace your destroyed content for a nominal "replacement fee" after all you still OWN the license.
How much do you want to bet that the "license" (and I use the term very loosely) specifically exempts them from any and all responsibility for replacement? License terms can be anything the vendor wants, and if the license says that you are only allowed to use the game on the console for which it was purchased, you're S.O.O.L, and it serves you right if you give them any money. Now, that wouldn't bother me quite as much if the game only cost five bucks... for forty, fifty, sixty or more dollars a pop I would simply not be interested. I still think it's a terrible idea for all concerned.
The entertainment industry in general has been completely unwilling to replace anything for any reason, because they reason that if they replace it for free you won't buy a replacement. Logical enough, if you don't care about your customer base hating your guts and feeling ripped off. Should Sony (or anyone else) implement such restrictions I'll not be buying their products, that's for sure.
More generally, these corporations don't really seem to grasp that the value of the entertainment media and software we buy doesn't revolve entirely around jacking a shiny plastic disc into our own personal player (that one and only player that they seem to assume all of us have, would ever want, or should ever be allowed to own.) Squeezing out the ability to share our new acquisitions with friends and family may seem like a good idea from a financial perspective, and in the short term it probably is. A longer view would tell them that removing the social value from their offerings is going to cost them plenty.
This really isn't only about the money, or the law, as much as the media corporations would like you to believe. It is about control, control of distribution, and control of usage. They feel that they have the right to dictate where and how we can buy their products and, even more destructively, how we can use them. Interestingly, copyright law (at least, copyright law that existed up 'til the time when they paid to have it rewritten) did not provide for this. The law granted us a fair amount of control in terms of how we use the media we purchase. That's been largely eliminated for most people, in terms of both copyright law and technological measures. And so we are boldly going where no man has ever wanted to go.
They might, however, purchase OSX at a reasonable price (that is, lower than Windows!).
Actually, higher than Windows. Much higher. Remember that the Macintosh has a level of perceived value, even among those who have never used a Mac (maybe especially among those) that is phenomenal for a personal computer company, and that Steve Jobs would be a fool to throw away. Shipping OSX for PC-compatibles at less than the cost of Windows would cheapen the name and lose a lot of the elitism that drives the entire Macintosh market. No, if Apple ever does sell OSX on the open market unbundled from Mac hardware, I predict that it will be priced substantially higher than Windows, and I further predict that there will be a landrush of people trying to buy it. I'd be one of them. Apple has no need to play the discount game right now, but give Microsoft a few more years to play catch-up, and Apple may very well wish that it had released OSX for the PC market a bit sooner.
Oh, I agree... I was just trying to point out that investment in space isn't intrinsically wasteful, even if you're a nation with a lot of poor people.
No I didn't. Modern OSes support font scaling and anti-aliasing, both of which benefit from high resolution. The fact that it has more pixels than other similar-sized displays still means the display should be more readable, not less.
Well, military applications aside, the truth of the matter is that satellites of all kinds have had a tremendous positive impact on economies and populations the world over. Communications, weather-monitoring, resource exploitation, scientific research... no, I can't fault India for trying to use near-space to its advantage. Why not... everyone else is. Besides, if you want to alleviate issues of social networking and education (two big steps towards improving living conditions in general) advanced communications are important. Satellite technology is one way to get that, and given the size and population of India, I would rather think that building out surface infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive, at least in the near term. Hell, it took the United States decades and billions of dollars to put a phone in every house, and I don't think India wants to wait that long.
Large nuclear and coal-fired power plants don't get switched on and off like light bulbs in order to "fill in" when the wind isn't blowing or the Sun isn't shining. These are positively enormous machines that are require complicated processes to start up and shut down, and suffer some risk when doing so. You don't turn one off unless you have a really good reason. The converse will likely be true: the major plants will operate at capacity while any alternative power sources connected to the grid will serve to level the load. Solar electric, if widely implemented, would help ease the air conditioning load of major population centers when they most need it during the day. But I'm not holding my breath.
I have the feeling that America is not going to be the nation leading the charge to a non-fossil-fueled global economy. Oh sure, we may come up with the tech: we're good at that. What we are not good at doing, from a Federal perspective, is sustaining any kind of massive long-term effort in any meaningful way. Even once we come up with something that will work, something to replace petroleum for power production, what are the chances that any such economic development program will survive past the next Administration? It's not the kind of thing you can accomplish in two Presidential terms.
... a classic case of PEBKAC [Problems Exists Between Keyboard and Chair].
At work we often term such malfunctions a "mouse driver problem." Oddly enough, most people seem to accept that as an adequately technological explanation, even though you're really saying they're too stupid to use a computer.
Slashdot Mirror
No, a fact is a fact. That is why it is a fact, because a fact is a reflection of what is. If it were not a fact, then it would be a belief, an opinion, mere fiction. You cannot redefine what is simply by believing that it is different than it is. But it is true that much data published as fact is nothing but fiction, and the chief complaint about Wikipedia is that one cannot immediately discern which is which. On the other hand, Wikipedia doesn't claim to be an authoritative source on anything, although many people seem to assume it is because it has "pedia" in the name. This usually means that they haven't typed the word "wiki" into Wikipedia. If they did, they'd probably have a better understanding of what they are dealing with and might feel less inclined to lodge irrational complaints.
Yes, it's called "Google".
... virtualization is essentially free wherever you might want to use it.
Then again, first hit is always free.
Imagine putting Halo 2 into your Xbox 360 only to have it automatically upgraded to look like Halo 3 in graphical quality.
... would I have the same motivation to buy the latest greatest? On the other hand, it might allow developers to put more effort into overall design and playability and worry less about the quality of the graphics. I dunno. But this sounds like a disruptive technology to the current way games are produced and marketed, and we know how much established business love disruptive technologies.
Well, given that sales in the gaming industry have been driven by generational improvements in graphic quality, it's hard to imagine that this would be considered a good development by publishers. If I can take my four-year-old game, drop it into the latest hardware and have it look as good as something that came out last week
No, that's fine. It's the new "social networking" feature of Firefox. Make new friends, etc.
Slashdotters have friends! Granted, most of them are invisible.
To me, this is a clear signs of Linux finally making a long expected breakthrough into common desktops.
To me, this is a clear sign that those two hardware sites just happened to think that reviewing them under Linux was cool.
To quote Gollum: "What did he say?"
how do I patch it back in?
And nobody's explained to me why internet gambling is worse than lottery tickets, which are just another tax on the poor and uneducated, and are actually promoted by government-funded advertising.
Because in the lottery, when a player loses the State gets to keep the money. When an online player loses, somebody else gets to keep the money: in most cases, someone in another country that isn't even paying taxes to any of our various governments. And since Americans have only so much disposable income (and because of poor Congressional and corporate decision-making there's even less of that nowadays) the Feds would much rather we spend that "extra" money here.
No, but it was a Democrat that set up the Social Security and Medicare systems and put all the money collected into the General Fund, knowing full well that it would be exploited (plundered) for other purposes by Congress.
Not being a partisan here, I actually voted for Clinton.
Oh. I'm sorry.
You know, it does seem that people who are so overtly against racism are damn near as annoying as actual racists. Interestingly, I've found that many such people are, when push comes to shove, much less open-minded than they would have you believe. When I was much younger my family lived in a town with a significant percentage of upper-middle-class/rich types, many of them leaning pretty far left. I mean, these people would run their mouths all day long about the evils of bigotry and racism, how we're all equal in the eyes of God and so on ad nauseam. Kinda made me want to throw up, frankly. Anyway, it all sounded good, but just let one black family move into the area, and it became immediately obvious just how "enlightened" my neighbors really weren't.
Personally, I'd rather deal with an out-and-out in-your-face honest-to-God BIGOT than a hypocrite. At least then, you know where you stand.
Hey ... we don't serve your kind here.
Well, I think you're missing the point. I, for one, still have a lot of great sex ahead of me, and missing out on all that over a slight misunderstanding about the nature of the Universe would just piss me off.
But if you're really buying a license they should be willing to replace your destroyed content for a nominal "replacement fee" after all you still OWN the license.
... for forty, fifty, sixty or more dollars a pop I would simply not be interested. I still think it's a terrible idea for all concerned.
How much do you want to bet that the "license" (and I use the term very loosely) specifically exempts them from any and all responsibility for replacement? License terms can be anything the vendor wants, and if the license says that you are only allowed to use the game on the console for which it was purchased, you're S.O.O.L, and it serves you right if you give them any money. Now, that wouldn't bother me quite as much if the game only cost five bucks
The entertainment industry in general has been completely unwilling to replace anything for any reason, because they reason that if they replace it for free you won't buy a replacement. Logical enough, if you don't care about your customer base hating your guts and feeling ripped off. Should Sony (or anyone else) implement such restrictions I'll not be buying their products, that's for sure.
More generally, these corporations don't really seem to grasp that the value of the entertainment media and software we buy doesn't revolve entirely around jacking a shiny plastic disc into our own personal player (that one and only player that they seem to assume all of us have, would ever want, or should ever be allowed to own.) Squeezing out the ability to share our new acquisitions with friends and family may seem like a good idea from a financial perspective, and in the short term it probably is. A longer view would tell them that removing the social value from their offerings is going to cost them plenty.
This really isn't only about the money, or the law, as much as the media corporations would like you to believe. It is about control, control of distribution, and control of usage. They feel that they have the right to dictate where and how we can buy their products and, even more destructively, how we can use them. Interestingly, copyright law (at least, copyright law that existed up 'til the time when they paid to have it rewritten) did not provide for this. The law granted us a fair amount of control in terms of how we use the media we purchase. That's been largely eliminated for most people, in terms of both copyright law and technological measures. And so we are boldly going where no man has ever wanted to go.
Despite unrest in the gaming community over this technology, the company has repeatedly stated they have no plans to use it in the PS3.
In other words, the gaming community is upset because Sony says that it isn't planning to use this technology.
They might, however, purchase OSX at a reasonable price (that is, lower than Windows!).
Actually, higher than Windows. Much higher. Remember that the Macintosh has a level of perceived value, even among those who have never used a Mac (maybe especially among those) that is phenomenal for a personal computer company, and that Steve Jobs would be a fool to throw away. Shipping OSX for PC-compatibles at less than the cost of Windows would cheapen the name and lose a lot of the elitism that drives the entire Macintosh market. No, if Apple ever does sell OSX on the open market unbundled from Mac hardware, I predict that it will be priced substantially higher than Windows, and I further predict that there will be a landrush of people trying to buy it. I'd be one of them. Apple has no need to play the discount game right now, but give Microsoft a few more years to play catch-up, and Apple may very well wish that it had released OSX for the PC market a bit sooner.
Oh, I agree ... I was just trying to point out that investment in space isn't intrinsically wasteful, even if you're a nation with a lot of poor people.
No I didn't. Modern OSes support font scaling and anti-aliasing, both of which benefit from high resolution. The fact that it has more pixels than other similar-sized displays still means the display should be more readable, not less.
Well, military applications aside, the truth of the matter is that satellites of all kinds have had a tremendous positive impact on economies and populations the world over. Communications, weather-monitoring, resource exploitation, scientific research ... no, I can't fault India for trying to use near-space to its advantage. Why not ... everyone else is. Besides, if you want to alleviate issues of social networking and education (two big steps towards improving living conditions in general) advanced communications are important. Satellite technology is one way to get that, and given the size and population of India, I would rather think that building out surface infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive, at least in the near term. Hell, it took the United States decades and billions of dollars to put a phone in every house, and I don't think India wants to wait that long.
You're a better bomb than I, Gunga Din.
Large nuclear and coal-fired power plants don't get switched on and off like light bulbs in order to "fill in" when the wind isn't blowing or the Sun isn't shining. These are positively enormous machines that are require complicated processes to start up and shut down, and suffer some risk when doing so. You don't turn one off unless you have a really good reason. The converse will likely be true: the major plants will operate at capacity while any alternative power sources connected to the grid will serve to level the load. Solar electric, if widely implemented, would help ease the air conditioning load of major population centers when they most need it during the day. But I'm not holding my breath.
I have the feeling that America is not going to be the nation leading the charge to a non-fossil-fueled global economy. Oh sure, we may come up with the tech: we're good at that. What we are not good at doing, from a Federal perspective, is sustaining any kind of massive long-term effort in any meaningful way. Even once we come up with something that will work, something to replace petroleum for power production, what are the chances that any such economic development program will survive past the next Administration? It's not the kind of thing you can accomplish in two Presidential terms.
... a classic case of PEBKAC [Problems Exists Between Keyboard and Chair].
At work we often term such malfunctions a "mouse driver problem." Oddly enough, most people seem to accept that as an adequately technological explanation, even though you're really saying they're too stupid to use a computer.
My apologies.