This only matters once they reach capacity. If the bandwidth now being used by YouTube was otherwise going to be idle, then they would gain nothing by not using it. Since they already have the fiber in place, and since at least some of it is idle, and since AFAIK it doesn't cost any more to use bandwidth on the lines they already have, have paid for, and are already maintaining, I would think their cost should be very close to 0.
I use Pandora all the time. I paid the yearly fee and use the app on my computer as well as on my iPhone. One of the main reasons I bought an iPhone was because at the time Pandora didn't have an app for Blackberry. I've discovered a lot of music through the use of Pandora that I most likely would have never heard otherwise. I don't listen to the radio. Haven't watched any of the so called music channels on tv in years, not that they play music anymore though. Have I heard anything on Pandora that belongs to Warner Bros? I dunno. But if I have, if some of the music I've bought because I first heard it on Pandora and really liked it belongs to them, then they've made more money thanks to Pandora than just the advertising revenue. Pandora is a music discovery service. I put in what I like and it suggests other music which I then buy. Who is the moron at WB that doesn't understand that customers won't buy what they don't know about?
With no 3G I suddenly don't want one. I love my iPhone and thought this would be great for watching videos and surfing on the couch, but I also want to take it places where I don't have wifi and in the modern age, most things you do require the internet. Seems silly to not include that.
At one friends house, I can get signal and download apps while my friend can't even though we are using seemingly identical 3gs iPhones. Anywhere in my house, on my wifi, he gets full bars while I can be sitting right next to my router and have it drop to just one bar. I typically get better wifi reception from outside than I do inside, while for him it's generally the opposite.
Just for the record, my iPhone is in an Otter Box case while his is not cased, and I still get much better reception at his house. And no, not his first iPhone 3gs... last one had the same issue for him. And I know other people with iPhones and it always seems like wherever we are, someone will have signal issues while someone else will have great signal... but it varies on who will have the better signal.
I actually recode all of my downloaded tracks to 128k mp3 files to save space. My ears really don't hear a difference between this and the original files most of the time and it saves a lot of disk space. I have 43,000 songs in my library and as it is they take up quite a bit of space. Plus I stream my library to my iPhone and with the lower bit rate that works better. I'm sure at some point I'll probably wish I had higher quality files but I started this collection years ago and so far it's worked just fine for me.
What choice do they have? Re-theme the rides/attractions? Not likely. That would cost even more and would confuse people. They may not be happy having to pay Disney but they'll still do it.
When is the last time TPB or any other torrent site took anything back? You never hear of that. Oh, this movie I downloaded the other night was deleted from my downloads folder... apparently TPB didn't have the rights to distribute it! Not gonna happen. And yes, I know TPB isn't distributing the actual files but you get my point. When piracy is easier than acquiring something by legitimate means, you are increasing the likelihood that the item will be pirated. The legitimate means obviously can't compete on price so they have to offer better quality, easier acquisition, or something else along those lines.
Yucca isn't going to open. All these years and dollars later they are shutting it down. Just another example of how our government is quite efficient at wasting money.
I can only speak for my wife and I but there just aren't any new titles we want to buy right now. Last game I bought was Fallout 3. Since then I've bought all 4 expansion packs. Next game I was planning on buying was Bioshock 2 but now that's been pushed back. There aren't any other games I'm caring about right now. Between Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2, I'm happy.
Maybe rather than blaming everything on the economy they should compare what came out this time last year to what has come out this year. I spend money when games I want to play are released. No good games = no spent cash. It's that simple. For me at least.
Not only is it never going up, it's sitting on display in Japan. NASA traded for it to be built but then didn't bother to take delivery and maybe put it on display at one of its own facilities. Tax payers really got a raw deal on that bit of equipment.
I agree with you on most points but keep in mind that not everyone can afford PC gaming. I own an Xbox 360 and I have FO3 and all 4 expansions. I'll be buying the 5th as soon as it hits. I love the game. One of my all time favorites. Had it only been released on PC I would have never played it as I don't do PC gaming. I don't have the graphics for it, nor the budget to upgrade my PC to keep up with gaming.
Beyond just cost, I find console gaming to be far simpler than pc gaming. When I need an update or an expansion it's a very quick and easy process on my console. I don't have to go to any sites or find anything. I don't need to upgrade any drivers. All I care about is playing the game, not tweaking crap to get it to run right or finding out that I should have bought ATI rather than Nvidia or vice versa.
Plus for other games, like Gears of War 2, the online play is top notch on the 360. As far as I know there isn't anything like Xbox Live for the PC, but since I'm not a PC gamer, there very well might be and I just haven't heard of it. I do kinda wish FO3 had a co-op mode. That would be a cool expansion pack... something that added a co-op mode. You and a buddy exploring the wasteland... if only.
I dropped my iPhone 3g on the pavement about a month ago. Screen shattered. I love the features the iPhone has so I'm not going to switch, but I sure wish it was more rugged.
Serious Sam was never about being the prettiest. We loved the first two because of the game play. You ran, you killed, and you either kept killing at a brutal pace or you were overwhelmed by the insane number of enemies. That was it. No complex puzzles. No crazy strategy. Just run and gun and have a blast. Nobody cared that the lawn was flat because we knew if there was a lot of detail, the game would never have run at all. Way too many enemies on the screen to have serious levels of detail.
Now, many years later, computers are faster, we have more memory and all that, but the point of the game hasn't changed. With SS2 they changed things and nobody liked it. For me the main problem was it locked up a lot. I didn't have that problem at all with the first two. I still have the first two and I'd much rather play them as is than prettier versions of the same thing.
Why not instead take the original engine and make a Third Encounter? And then a Fourth Encounter? We LOVED the first two and two more games just like those, different maps and what have you, but same exact style of game play, would be awesome!
Yea, umm, really? I just dumped my Curve for an iPhone and I gotta say, I couldn't be happier. Of course mine is jail broken so I can run all the extra crap that really makes the iPhone shine but still, comparing what I have to what I had, it's no comparison.
My main issue with Blackberry phones is the lack of software. How long did Pandora have an iPhone version before finally releasing a Blackberry version? How many websites have iPhone versions vs how many have Blackberry versions? Have you tried Mobile Safari? What does Blackberry have that compares?
I thought my Curve was tits until I really sat down and gave an iPhone an honest try and then I was sold. Sure it's not perfect, but I think Apple has done a much better job than any other player in the game, and considering that they've only been at this for a couple years, what excuse does Rim have for being passed up so easily?
The Pirate Bay? Really? You do know there are better sites out there, right? I don't know why but I've just never cared for TPB. I've wanted to, since they are popular and I like the stance they've taken and all that. Just don't care for their site though.
The funny thing for me is that I have an HP computer that had Windows on a restore partition. It had the license sticker on the case. The license on the sticker on the case did not work with the Windows on the restore partition. Rather than spend time on the phone to HP, I "pirated" a copy of Windows and then after the install I updated it to use my license... which was more trouble than it was worth. But I'm once again legit... I guess. Funny that pirating it is faster and almost always easier than going through the proper channels.
The memory usage is pretty insane and I find myself having to restart it quite a bit lately. I miss the days when Firefox was lean and mean. I guess I could dump the latest version and reinstall an older one... which was the best? 1.5.x? I don't even remember anymore. I know 2 added some stuff that was cool but I don't recall if it was where the bloat really started or not.
Give me the $$ needed and I'll build myself a pc for playing my media. Until then, I'll use the xbox 360's I already have in various rooms to stream my media. Oh wait, you'll need to give me $$ to build 3 pc's because I currently have and stream to 3 xbox 360's.
And wait again because I just realized I don't really want yet another device in these rooms, especially not one that could get viruses or have other problems. Sure my 360's can get the RROD or crap out for some other reason but I already have them and they work just fine right now. Why add yet another device to the loop when I already have something that works?
Maybe it's just me and what I watch but I don't have any problem with streaming. I'm using TVersity, Grid something or other, and PlayOn to stream from one of my pc's to the network. I can watch stuff on my pc's, Revision3 (DiggNation, Totally Rad Show), stuff on Hulu, NetFlix, and a bunch of other stuff. I also run SimplifyMedia and stream my audio collection to my iPhone when I'm out and get bored with Pandora.
What you seem to be missing is the current consoles ARE pc's. MS and Sony could both add other codecs and completely remove the need for transcoding and I would love that. Why do I need my computer to transcode videos? For divx the 360 handles it just fine. Why not add support for a bunch of other ones? And maybe that's the plan. Maybe that is how Windows 7 will handle streaming... you'll install an update for your 360 that will allow it to stream a lot more formats without any transcoding. That would be pretty sweet.
I bought one a 360 a couple years back and it just failed two months ago. I went online, filled out a quick form, MS sent me a box, I sent in the unit, had it back right away and it's working great again. Less than 2 weeks total downtime. Sure it would be great to have no downtime at all, but hardware fails. If MS hadn't extended the warranty on the unit to cover these failures then I would be upset but I feel like they've done a fairly good job of taking care of the mess after the fact.
To me the PS3 is too spendy and the games I really like are all 360 titles. Gears of War, Halo, and lately the big one has been Fallout 3. Sure I can get that on PS3 but the dlc isn't avail for PS3. The first expansion wasn't all that great IMO but for the money it wasn't all that bad either. Second one comes out tomorrow and then the big one in a month or two. If I had a PS3 and had bought this for PS3, I would have paid the same $$ for the game but wouldn't be able to buy the expansions that make the game that much better. The third expansion will lift the level cap from 20 to 30 and change the ending. That's significant.
So yea, the hardware failures suck but they aren't the end of the world when you can just mail your unit in and get it repaired pretty quick. MS even covers shipping.
I'm still in awe of the phone and I have one! I don't get it to show off but I do have it out quite a bit. Waiting in line, while I'm driving (kidding!), anytime I bored really. It's great for making the lines at theme parks suck a little less.
Actually they do have some provisions for this sort of thing. I have an iPhone and while I was skimming over what was allowed on my plan, I noticed that there was something about running my laptop through my iPhone connection. If what I use the connection for violates their rules then they have the right to bill me for the data usage. Using anything like a p2p program or streaming data to another device all falls outside of what they list as allowed. They specifically list several things but also mention that anything not expressly allowed is disallowed. In this case the guy was streaming data to watch a football game. If I did that using my iPhone to any device other than my iPhone itself, then I could be billed. Apparently watching it on my iPhone is ok though. Then again, programs like Joost block access over 3g although there is an easy workaround so I'm not sure how much they are allowing anyway.
Consider for a moment what console owners save in hardware and frustration. For pc gaming I need a newer computer with the right graphics card. Then I need to buy a game, bring it home, and most likely install patches to get it to work. I may even need to update my graphics drivers and possibly my sound card drivers. Then I need to hold my mouth just right and howl at the moon until the planets align just so and the game plays.
For my 360 I go to the store, pick up a game, bring it home and I'll be damned, it just works. If there is a patch for it I'm told when I go to play the game and it automatically installs. If MS pushes an update for my 360 it's the same deal. I don't have to go to one site for my graphics card drives and another for sound cards and another for my input device and whatever.
I'm willing to pay extra up front to know that I won't have to worry about problems down the road. Not to say that console gaming isn't without some issues. I've been playing Fallout 3 a lot and it's crashed a few times and other times I simply get stuck somewhere and have to reload. But overall it seems to be more pain free and much cheaper than pc gaming.
Slashdot Mirror
This only matters once they reach capacity. If the bandwidth now being used by YouTube was otherwise going to be idle, then they would gain nothing by not using it. Since they already have the fiber in place, and since at least some of it is idle, and since AFAIK it doesn't cost any more to use bandwidth on the lines they already have, have paid for, and are already maintaining, I would think their cost should be very close to 0.
I use Pandora all the time. I paid the yearly fee and use the app on my computer as well as on my iPhone. One of the main reasons I bought an iPhone was because at the time Pandora didn't have an app for Blackberry. I've discovered a lot of music through the use of Pandora that I most likely would have never heard otherwise. I don't listen to the radio. Haven't watched any of the so called music channels on tv in years, not that they play music anymore though. Have I heard anything on Pandora that belongs to Warner Bros? I dunno. But if I have, if some of the music I've bought because I first heard it on Pandora and really liked it belongs to them, then they've made more money thanks to Pandora than just the advertising revenue. Pandora is a music discovery service. I put in what I like and it suggests other music which I then buy. Who is the moron at WB that doesn't understand that customers won't buy what they don't know about?
With no 3G I suddenly don't want one. I love my iPhone and thought this would be great for watching videos and surfing on the couch, but I also want to take it places where I don't have wifi and in the modern age, most things you do require the internet. Seems silly to not include that.
At one friends house, I can get signal and download apps while my friend can't even though we are using seemingly identical 3gs iPhones. Anywhere in my house, on my wifi, he gets full bars while I can be sitting right next to my router and have it drop to just one bar. I typically get better wifi reception from outside than I do inside, while for him it's generally the opposite.
Just for the record, my iPhone is in an Otter Box case while his is not cased, and I still get much better reception at his house. And no, not his first iPhone 3gs... last one had the same issue for him. And I know other people with iPhones and it always seems like wherever we are, someone will have signal issues while someone else will have great signal... but it varies on who will have the better signal.
I actually recode all of my downloaded tracks to 128k mp3 files to save space. My ears really don't hear a difference between this and the original files most of the time and it saves a lot of disk space. I have 43,000 songs in my library and as it is they take up quite a bit of space. Plus I stream my library to my iPhone and with the lower bit rate that works better. I'm sure at some point I'll probably wish I had higher quality files but I started this collection years ago and so far it's worked just fine for me.
What choice do they have? Re-theme the rides/attractions? Not likely. That would cost even more and would confuse people. They may not be happy having to pay Disney but they'll still do it.
When is the last time TPB or any other torrent site took anything back? You never hear of that. Oh, this movie I downloaded the other night was deleted from my downloads folder... apparently TPB didn't have the rights to distribute it! Not gonna happen. And yes, I know TPB isn't distributing the actual files but you get my point. When piracy is easier than acquiring something by legitimate means, you are increasing the likelihood that the item will be pirated. The legitimate means obviously can't compete on price so they have to offer better quality, easier acquisition, or something else along those lines.
4) Store the dry casks on site until Yucca opens, or they can be re-processed.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yucca30-2009jul30,0,2377820.story
Yucca isn't going to open. All these years and dollars later they are shutting it down. Just another example of how our government is quite efficient at wasting money.
Good recent games... or somewhat recent... Fallout 3, Gears of War 2... umm... Call of Duty whatever it's up to now... 4 or 5...
Horde in GOW2 is a lot of fun online. 50 waves of enemies against you and a few buddies. If you get a good team it's great.
I can only speak for my wife and I but there just aren't any new titles we want to buy right now. Last game I bought was Fallout 3. Since then I've bought all 4 expansion packs. Next game I was planning on buying was Bioshock 2 but now that's been pushed back. There aren't any other games I'm caring about right now. Between Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2, I'm happy.
Maybe rather than blaming everything on the economy they should compare what came out this time last year to what has come out this year. I spend money when games I want to play are released. No good games = no spent cash. It's that simple. For me at least.
Not only is it never going up, it's sitting on display in Japan. NASA traded for it to be built but then didn't bother to take delivery and maybe put it on display at one of its own facilities. Tax payers really got a raw deal on that bit of equipment.
I agree with you on most points but keep in mind that not everyone can afford PC gaming. I own an Xbox 360 and I have FO3 and all 4 expansions. I'll be buying the 5th as soon as it hits. I love the game. One of my all time favorites. Had it only been released on PC I would have never played it as I don't do PC gaming. I don't have the graphics for it, nor the budget to upgrade my PC to keep up with gaming.
Beyond just cost, I find console gaming to be far simpler than pc gaming. When I need an update or an expansion it's a very quick and easy process on my console. I don't have to go to any sites or find anything. I don't need to upgrade any drivers. All I care about is playing the game, not tweaking crap to get it to run right or finding out that I should have bought ATI rather than Nvidia or vice versa.
Plus for other games, like Gears of War 2, the online play is top notch on the 360. As far as I know there isn't anything like Xbox Live for the PC, but since I'm not a PC gamer, there very well might be and I just haven't heard of it. I do kinda wish FO3 had a co-op mode. That would be a cool expansion pack... something that added a co-op mode. You and a buddy exploring the wasteland... if only.
I dropped my iPhone 3g on the pavement about a month ago. Screen shattered. I love the features the iPhone has so I'm not going to switch, but I sure wish it was more rugged.
Serious Sam was never about being the prettiest. We loved the first two because of the game play. You ran, you killed, and you either kept killing at a brutal pace or you were overwhelmed by the insane number of enemies. That was it. No complex puzzles. No crazy strategy. Just run and gun and have a blast. Nobody cared that the lawn was flat because we knew if there was a lot of detail, the game would never have run at all. Way too many enemies on the screen to have serious levels of detail.
Now, many years later, computers are faster, we have more memory and all that, but the point of the game hasn't changed. With SS2 they changed things and nobody liked it. For me the main problem was it locked up a lot. I didn't have that problem at all with the first two. I still have the first two and I'd much rather play them as is than prettier versions of the same thing.
Why not instead take the original engine and make a Third Encounter? And then a Fourth Encounter? We LOVED the first two and two more games just like those, different maps and what have you, but same exact style of game play, would be awesome!
Best. Fucking. Comment. Ever.
Jack Bauer released the list as a ploy to lure the terrorists in...
Yea, umm, really? I just dumped my Curve for an iPhone and I gotta say, I couldn't be happier. Of course mine is jail broken so I can run all the extra crap that really makes the iPhone shine but still, comparing what I have to what I had, it's no comparison.
My main issue with Blackberry phones is the lack of software. How long did Pandora have an iPhone version before finally releasing a Blackberry version? How many websites have iPhone versions vs how many have Blackberry versions? Have you tried Mobile Safari? What does Blackberry have that compares?
I thought my Curve was tits until I really sat down and gave an iPhone an honest try and then I was sold. Sure it's not perfect, but I think Apple has done a much better job than any other player in the game, and considering that they've only been at this for a couple years, what excuse does Rim have for being passed up so easily?
The Pirate Bay? Really? You do know there are better sites out there, right? I don't know why but I've just never cared for TPB. I've wanted to, since they are popular and I like the stance they've taken and all that. Just don't care for their site though.
The funny thing for me is that I have an HP computer that had Windows on a restore partition. It had the license sticker on the case. The license on the sticker on the case did not work with the Windows on the restore partition. Rather than spend time on the phone to HP, I "pirated" a copy of Windows and then after the install I updated it to use my license... which was more trouble than it was worth. But I'm once again legit... I guess. Funny that pirating it is faster and almost always easier than going through the proper channels.
The memory usage is pretty insane and I find myself having to restart it quite a bit lately. I miss the days when Firefox was lean and mean. I guess I could dump the latest version and reinstall an older one... which was the best? 1.5.x? I don't even remember anymore. I know 2 added some stuff that was cool but I don't recall if it was where the bloat really started or not.
Give me the $$ needed and I'll build myself a pc for playing my media. Until then, I'll use the xbox 360's I already have in various rooms to stream my media. Oh wait, you'll need to give me $$ to build 3 pc's because I currently have and stream to 3 xbox 360's.
And wait again because I just realized I don't really want yet another device in these rooms, especially not one that could get viruses or have other problems. Sure my 360's can get the RROD or crap out for some other reason but I already have them and they work just fine right now. Why add yet another device to the loop when I already have something that works?
Maybe it's just me and what I watch but I don't have any problem with streaming. I'm using TVersity, Grid something or other, and PlayOn to stream from one of my pc's to the network. I can watch stuff on my pc's, Revision3 (DiggNation, Totally Rad Show), stuff on Hulu, NetFlix, and a bunch of other stuff. I also run SimplifyMedia and stream my audio collection to my iPhone when I'm out and get bored with Pandora.
What you seem to be missing is the current consoles ARE pc's. MS and Sony could both add other codecs and completely remove the need for transcoding and I would love that. Why do I need my computer to transcode videos? For divx the 360 handles it just fine. Why not add support for a bunch of other ones? And maybe that's the plan. Maybe that is how Windows 7 will handle streaming... you'll install an update for your 360 that will allow it to stream a lot more formats without any transcoding. That would be pretty sweet.
I bought one a 360 a couple years back and it just failed two months ago. I went online, filled out a quick form, MS sent me a box, I sent in the unit, had it back right away and it's working great again. Less than 2 weeks total downtime. Sure it would be great to have no downtime at all, but hardware fails. If MS hadn't extended the warranty on the unit to cover these failures then I would be upset but I feel like they've done a fairly good job of taking care of the mess after the fact.
To me the PS3 is too spendy and the games I really like are all 360 titles. Gears of War, Halo, and lately the big one has been Fallout 3. Sure I can get that on PS3 but the dlc isn't avail for PS3. The first expansion wasn't all that great IMO but for the money it wasn't all that bad either. Second one comes out tomorrow and then the big one in a month or two. If I had a PS3 and had bought this for PS3, I would have paid the same $$ for the game but wouldn't be able to buy the expansions that make the game that much better. The third expansion will lift the level cap from 20 to 30 and change the ending. That's significant.
So yea, the hardware failures suck but they aren't the end of the world when you can just mail your unit in and get it repaired pretty quick. MS even covers shipping.
I'm still in awe of the phone and I have one! I don't get it to show off but I do have it out quite a bit. Waiting in line, while I'm driving (kidding!), anytime I bored really. It's great for making the lines at theme parks suck a little less.
Actually they do have some provisions for this sort of thing. I have an iPhone and while I was skimming over what was allowed on my plan, I noticed that there was something about running my laptop through my iPhone connection. If what I use the connection for violates their rules then they have the right to bill me for the data usage. Using anything like a p2p program or streaming data to another device all falls outside of what they list as allowed. They specifically list several things but also mention that anything not expressly allowed is disallowed. In this case the guy was streaming data to watch a football game. If I did that using my iPhone to any device other than my iPhone itself, then I could be billed. Apparently watching it on my iPhone is ok though. Then again, programs like Joost block access over 3g although there is an easy workaround so I'm not sure how much they are allowing anyway.
I know the term Rambus but what is this Slashdot that you speak of?
Consider for a moment what console owners save in hardware and frustration. For pc gaming I need a newer computer with the right graphics card. Then I need to buy a game, bring it home, and most likely install patches to get it to work. I may even need to update my graphics drivers and possibly my sound card drivers. Then I need to hold my mouth just right and howl at the moon until the planets align just so and the game plays.
For my 360 I go to the store, pick up a game, bring it home and I'll be damned, it just works. If there is a patch for it I'm told when I go to play the game and it automatically installs. If MS pushes an update for my 360 it's the same deal. I don't have to go to one site for my graphics card drives and another for sound cards and another for my input device and whatever.
I'm willing to pay extra up front to know that I won't have to worry about problems down the road. Not to say that console gaming isn't without some issues. I've been playing Fallout 3 a lot and it's crashed a few times and other times I simply get stuck somewhere and have to reload. But overall it seems to be more pain free and much cheaper than pc gaming.