Further evidence of this is when some high profile titles don't sell all that well, the price can come down to $50 or less within a month, whereas some games take forever to come down in price because the demand is still there. The original Gears of War is a good example of the latter scenario, where it wasn't sold for less than $55 or $60 until maybe three months before the sequel finally came out.
"Look, if you wanted to talk about pet care, you should've called two weeks ago when our show on racism was airing. Okay, I'm doing a show about the elderly right now, which of course, to people watching means: call in about cooking..."
I would rather not have any sort of personal information, such as detailed account info, sent via email. That's insecure, and that's not cool.
What my cable, credit card, and electric company all do is send out an email saying "your online statement is now available, log on to view", which makes more sense.
I live in Portland, and did live in Eugene for several years. There are idiot bicyclists and motorists in both places, for certain. I do regularly hear about people getting ticketed for blowing stop signs in Portland on their bikes, but I think it's a very vocal minority that's doing the bitching.
Personally, though, I both ride and drive, know the laws, try my best to heed them, and watch out for the assholes who aren't. As someone who's consistently on both sides of this equation, I think most people are pretty sane about it.
Oh I forgot, we're talking about Oregon, the state where cyclists (who pay nothing) have more rights on the road than drivers who's taxes and fees actually pay for the roads. We're talking about a state where cyclist "gangs" actively ride the streets of Portland and have been known to pull drivers out of their car for ALLEGED infractions and beat the crap out of them (google cyclist violence portland to see what I mean).
According to the ODOT budget (see page 4), nearly half of their revenue comes from federal funds which, shockingly, everyone pays into. And a bicyclist does not have more rights a car (although a pedestrian does), they are supposed to be treated the same as any other vehicle on the road. Not to mention that a car causes just a tiny bit more wear and tear on the infrastructure than bicycles do.
Finally, the top few hits for "cyclist violence portland" mention a few people encouraging violence against cyclists and a few hit-and-run cases, but I don't see anything like what you're describing; I heard about one isolated incident a couple of months back, where the cyclist was severely road burned, but the stories leading up to the confrontation were conflicting. And while I've seen a fair number of cyclist parades and whatnot, I have yet to see a "cyclist gang" in Portland. Gimme a fucking break.
As for the GPS idea being idiotic and probably overly expensive, I agree with you on that.
Apple may be able to beat RIM at the smartphone game, but they'll never beat RIM, Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Samsung and Sony together, not in the long run. The iPhone will become the niche, and Android will become the 90%.
By this logic, why isn't Windows Mobile already the undisputed champion in this arena?
I would give them more credit than that. In the last couple of years, EA's really put out some quality games, mostly because they have gone from a buy-and-assimilate mode to a buy-and-nurture mode. In recent memory, that means Black Box (Skate), Harmonix (Rock Band), Criterion (Burnout: Paradise), and BioWare (Mass Effect), which is nothing to sneeze at. All this without forcing out a new Rock Band game every three months on every available platform.
No, Activision is the new king of sludge.
Well, there's one *very* fundamental difference, here: when people sing at a Karaoke bar, they're still *singing*. ie, they're playing their instrument, even if it's not very well. But Rock Band? Guitar Hero? Like you say, they're simply rhythm games. Just tapping keys to a beat. That's it.
Rock Band has a vocal part, too, you know. (And The Beatles: RB will have three!)
Also, the drum fills are insanely fun.
And then they tried it all over again with M2, which revitalized the awesome, but it took them all of a year or two to ruin that with reality shows, too.
Excepting for the fact that you don't have a hi-hat pedal and, especially if you're playing Rush songs, you don't have a thousand different pieces of kit.
Personally, I would rather have to occasionally make concessions in the name of progress.
Three years is a long time in computing. It's the difference between Windows 3.1 (1992) and Windows 95. It's the difference between the 486 and the Pentium.
Aside from that, I'm sure that there are plenty of computers that were built in 2004 that don't meet the 2007-released Vista's hefty minimum hardware requirements either (particularly the 32MB graphics memory or DVD-ROM drive).
Nope. Deadlines are often unreasonable. Welcome to the real world. But as a good software developer, you should be able to cope with that too, and without last-minute hide-the-problem hacks.
This "real world" of yours sounds a lot like programming in a bubble. Aside from the constraints of working on top of other's libraries, operating systems, or web browsers, software will always have bugs, and they may not always be under your control. You'll have to defer the lower priority bugs to meet your release date, but without sufficient time to address them-- say, a last-minute bug that would require a significant rewrite of a subsystem that you didn't even author-- you can at least try to make the problem less painful in the meantime.
Yeah, HTC phones do suck. The Samsung Galaxy is the one I'm waiting for, personally. It looks like it has none of the shortcomings of the HTC phone, and I've never had a Samsung phone that I didn't like (okay, maybe individual gripes, but they makes solid gear). Hopefully they'll be out in the US sometime soon.
That's true, but back around 2002 I don't remember having much of a choice for a landline. And, actually, that's why I've stuck with T-Mobile for my cell phone-- I was very pleased by their customer service, so I've stuck by them.
The main reason that I dropped my landline was that phone companies have always been a major pain in the ass to deal with. I've never spent more than an hour on hold with any other service provider, but with telcos it seems to be par for the course. The final straw was when I just moved to a different apartment in the same complex and all I wanted was the exact same service that I had in the old apartment. Naturally, they sign me up for MSN, send me a new DSL modem, and try to charge me for the connection fees et cetera.
Not wanting to pay for services I didn't want and didn't order, I called them and, after an hour of explanation, they swore that it would be taken care of. When the next bill came, it wasn't, of course, so I called again. Four months of two-hour long phone calls with various support folks and supervisors later, it was finally resolved. I never wanted to deal with that again; it was a gigantic waste of my time for their fuck up. When I moved, I never ordered phone service again. I'm perfectly happy with a cell phone and my cable internet has been much more reliable than my DSL service ever was.
The job of universities is to point out reality, not fantasy.
I thought the job of universities was to bring in enough students to keep the overly priced tuition, housing, food court, and textbook dollars rolling in and give the students enough busy work so that the professors can get back to writing grants for their next pet project. I've had plenty of great teachers, but academia seems to exist in a world largely separated from the real world. The only aspect of reality it prepares you for is the ability to jump through endless bureaucratic hoops.
Haven't you heard of Paul Bunyan, who was 25 feet tall? Or George Washington, twelve stories high, made of radiation? It's something in the water over here.
US citizens have far less holiday time than Europeans, but as yet there is no evidence of them being more productive. Anecdotally they seem less so.
So much for anecdotal evidence. According to a 2007 study by the International Labour Organization, each U.S. worker produces US$63,885 of wealth per year, more than any other country (followed by Ireland at $55,986 per worker; Luxembourg at $55,641; Belgium, $55,235; and France, $54,609. The productivity figure is found by dividing the country's gross domestic product by the number of people employed. The U.N. report is based on 2006 figures for many countries, or the most recent available.
Of course, Americans work more hours per year than in most other developed economies. However, measured as value added per hour worked, Norway has the highest productivity level ($37.99), followed by the United States ($35.63) and France ($35.08).
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm.
Will knowing these numbers help me procreate before I die?
I don't know about the three or the seven, but the two certainly will... after all, it takes two to tango.
At least 32 of the states did, circa 2005: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
Further evidence of this is when some high profile titles don't sell all that well, the price can come down to $50 or less within a month, whereas some games take forever to come down in price because the demand is still there. The original Gears of War is a good example of the latter scenario, where it wasn't sold for less than $55 or $60 until maybe three months before the sequel finally came out.
"Look, if you wanted to talk about pet care, you should've called two weeks ago when our show on racism was airing. Okay, I'm doing a show about the elderly right now, which of course, to people watching means: call in about cooking..."
...or even better, chalk and chalkboard (whiteboard sucks :p )...
Both suck if you're left-handed; you have to write at an odd angle to not erase what you're writing.
I would rather not have any sort of personal information, such as detailed account info, sent via email. That's insecure, and that's not cool.
What my cable, credit card, and electric company all do is send out an email saying "your online statement is now available, log on to view", which makes more sense.
I live in Portland, and did live in Eugene for several years. There are idiot bicyclists and motorists in both places, for certain. I do regularly hear about people getting ticketed for blowing stop signs in Portland on their bikes, but I think it's a very vocal minority that's doing the bitching.
Personally, though, I both ride and drive, know the laws, try my best to heed them, and watch out for the assholes who aren't. As someone who's consistently on both sides of this equation, I think most people are pretty sane about it.
Oh I forgot, we're talking about Oregon, the state where cyclists (who pay nothing) have more rights on the road than drivers who's taxes and fees actually pay for the roads. We're talking about a state where cyclist "gangs" actively ride the streets of Portland and have been known to pull drivers out of their car for ALLEGED infractions and beat the crap out of them (google cyclist violence portland to see what I mean).
According to the ODOT budget (see page 4), nearly half of their revenue comes from federal funds which, shockingly, everyone pays into. And a bicyclist does not have more rights a car (although a pedestrian does), they are supposed to be treated the same as any other vehicle on the road. Not to mention that a car causes just a tiny bit more wear and tear on the infrastructure than bicycles do.
Finally, the top few hits for "cyclist violence portland" mention a few people encouraging violence against cyclists and a few hit-and-run cases, but I don't see anything like what you're describing; I heard about one isolated incident a couple of months back, where the cyclist was severely road burned, but the stories leading up to the confrontation were conflicting. And while I've seen a fair number of cyclist parades and whatnot, I have yet to see a "cyclist gang" in Portland. Gimme a fucking break.
As for the GPS idea being idiotic and probably overly expensive, I agree with you on that.
Apple may be able to beat RIM at the smartphone game, but they'll never beat RIM, Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Samsung and Sony together, not in the long run. The iPhone will become the niche, and Android will become the 90%.
By this logic, why isn't Windows Mobile already the undisputed champion in this arena?
I would give them more credit than that. In the last couple of years, EA's really put out some quality games, mostly because they have gone from a buy-and-assimilate mode to a buy-and-nurture mode. In recent memory, that means Black Box (Skate), Harmonix (Rock Band), Criterion (Burnout: Paradise), and BioWare (Mass Effect), which is nothing to sneeze at. All this without forcing out a new Rock Band game every three months on every available platform. No, Activision is the new king of sludge.
GRRM is what came to mind for me, as well. I would be curious to read a review of this in light of someone who's familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire.
Wow... the picture of Terry Bozzio's setup on that Wikipedia page is ridiculous!
Well, there's one *very* fundamental difference, here: when people sing at a Karaoke bar, they're still *singing*. ie, they're playing their instrument, even if it's not very well. But Rock Band? Guitar Hero? Like you say, they're simply rhythm games. Just tapping keys to a beat. That's it.
Rock Band has a vocal part, too, you know. (And The Beatles: RB will have three!) Also, the drum fills are insanely fun.
And then they tried it all over again with M2, which revitalized the awesome, but it took them all of a year or two to ruin that with reality shows, too.
Excepting for the fact that you don't have a hi-hat pedal and, especially if you're playing Rush songs, you don't have a thousand different pieces of kit.
Personally, I would rather have to occasionally make concessions in the name of progress.
Three years is a long time in computing. It's the difference between Windows 3.1 (1992) and Windows 95. It's the difference between the 486 and the Pentium.
Aside from that, I'm sure that there are plenty of computers that were built in 2004 that don't meet the 2007-released Vista's hefty minimum hardware requirements either (particularly the 32MB graphics memory or DVD-ROM drive).
Nope. Deadlines are often unreasonable. Welcome to the real world. But as a good software developer, you should be able to cope with that too, and without last-minute hide-the-problem hacks.
This "real world" of yours sounds a lot like programming in a bubble. Aside from the constraints of working on top of other's libraries, operating systems, or web browsers, software will always have bugs, and they may not always be under your control. You'll have to defer the lower priority bugs to meet your release date, but without sufficient time to address them-- say, a last-minute bug that would require a significant rewrite of a subsystem that you didn't even author-- you can at least try to make the problem less painful in the meantime.
Not to be confused with the Microsoft Smart Technology-powered Fisher-Price Intelli-Table.
Yeah, HTC phones do suck. The Samsung Galaxy is the one I'm waiting for, personally. It looks like it has none of the shortcomings of the HTC phone, and I've never had a Samsung phone that I didn't like (okay, maybe individual gripes, but they makes solid gear). Hopefully they'll be out in the US sometime soon.
That's true, but back around 2002 I don't remember having much of a choice for a landline. And, actually, that's why I've stuck with T-Mobile for my cell phone-- I was very pleased by their customer service, so I've stuck by them.
The main reason that I dropped my landline was that phone companies have always been a major pain in the ass to deal with. I've never spent more than an hour on hold with any other service provider, but with telcos it seems to be par for the course. The final straw was when I just moved to a different apartment in the same complex and all I wanted was the exact same service that I had in the old apartment. Naturally, they sign me up for MSN, send me a new DSL modem, and try to charge me for the connection fees et cetera.
Not wanting to pay for services I didn't want and didn't order, I called them and, after an hour of explanation, they swore that it would be taken care of. When the next bill came, it wasn't, of course, so I called again. Four months of two-hour long phone calls with various support folks and supervisors later, it was finally resolved. I never wanted to deal with that again; it was a gigantic waste of my time for their fuck up. When I moved, I never ordered phone service again. I'm perfectly happy with a cell phone and my cable internet has been much more reliable than my DSL service ever was.
The job of universities is to point out reality, not fantasy.
I thought the job of universities was to bring in enough students to keep the overly priced tuition, housing, food court, and textbook dollars rolling in and give the students enough busy work so that the professors can get back to writing grants for their next pet project. I've had plenty of great teachers, but academia seems to exist in a world largely separated from the real world. The only aspect of reality it prepares you for is the ability to jump through endless bureaucratic hoops.
"Here is your travel itinerary in Microsoft Word format."
Can you just give it to me as plaintext instead?
Haven't you heard of Paul Bunyan, who was 25 feet tall? Or George Washington, twelve stories high, made of radiation? It's something in the water over here.
Bull-shit.
US citizens have far less holiday time than Europeans, but as yet there is no evidence of them being more productive. Anecdotally they seem less so.
So much for anecdotal evidence. According to a 2007 study by the International Labour Organization, each U.S. worker produces US$63,885 of wealth per year, more than any other country (followed by Ireland at $55,986 per worker; Luxembourg at $55,641; Belgium, $55,235; and France, $54,609. The productivity figure is found by dividing the country's gross domestic product by the number of people employed. The U.N. report is based on 2006 figures for many countries, or the most recent available.
Of course, Americans work more hours per year than in most other developed economies. However, measured as value added per hour worked, Norway has the highest productivity level ($37.99), followed by the United States ($35.63) and France ($35.08).