Remember, these are typical Walmart customers here.
That is important, they are not like Slasdot readers. Unlike business users or college students, M$ has done no favors for these people and they have zero loyalty.
That is a very foolish thing to say, but, given the source, not unexpected.
I have yet to meet anyone off Slashdot who spells Microsoft with a dollar sign. But I do know that what the Walmart shopper sees is the $50 HP All-In-One Printer for XP and Vista.
The commodity PC running Windows is affordable and it is everywhere. In a village of 1500 I can walk four blocks and return home with all the consumables my PC will need for the winter.
I might even find the bargain bin PC game that doesn't suck. Deux Ex, perhaps.
Open Office is more than enough for the average school paper. Very few people actually NEED M$ Office for work and even they hate it. The rest of the world considers M$'s ever changing, secret file formats an expensive ass pain. They are right.
Give me a break, Twitter.
I look at the sales charts at Amazon.com and see anything but extraordinary strength in MS Office sales. MS Office is more than a text editor. Even Sun would admit that much.
Wal-Mart is not stupid. They know that as the price of PCs falls, their sales volume rises. They have a vested interested in commoditizing PCs. With Microsoft, Wal-Mart gets a limited mark-up. With Linux PCs made by small vendors, Wal-Mart gets to call the shots. Wal-Mart has dollars signs in their eyes, and those dollars signs are dancing with Tux.
Think again.
The "new" Walmart is interested in profit not volume.
It has been closing and downsizing stores. Putting its emphasis on upscale products like HDTV. Take a look at where it places the XBox 360 and the Vista laptop in its adds.
Walmart's alleged commitment to Linux has been in fits and starts, none of them of any lasting consequence.
One thing I've suspected for awhile, is that the "Linux Revolution" (Linux taking off as a desktop alternative) would NOT happen at businesses or with high-end users. It will happen much like the "Windows Revolution" happened back in the 90's. It will start with the "Walmart buyer". Ordinary people making ordinary FINANCIAL decisions to buy a cheap PC. This is the regular, ordinary, joe-sixpack, "what's a right-click?" kind of person.
I think not.
Walmart is a deep discount retailer with a split personality: a chain that is trying to move up-market.
It is perfectly willing to unload a carload of otherwise unsaleable low-end PCs on to the Geek - who will, quite predictably, post rave reviews on their website. That there is no matching printer kinda gets lost in the shuffle.
The fundamental problem with the $200 net appliance is that Internet service costs at least $20 a month. If you can afford the Internet, you can afford a "real" PC.
The Vista Premium desktop at Walmart.com starts at $500. Dual core Athlon CPU. 1 or 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB HDD, DVD burner and so on. The next step up is integrated WiFi and you won't get lost hunting for a driver.
speaking as a seven year winter-biker in toronto canada --
when seven years becomes eight years - and eight years becomes ten years - and ten years becomes fifteen years, will you still be a winter biker in Toronto?
The main problem i see is that Americans don't want to ride a bike. In America people believe if your riding a bike its because you got a DUI or your just broke.
There aren't many American cities or metropolitan districts that approach the density that would be familiar to an Asian or a European.
The climate isn't always benign. Locally, cyclists were warned to stay off the roads to avoid the punishing heat and humidity this summer.
Those who attempted it had the look and smell of roadkill.
Like, what amazes me the most about these kinds of lawsuits, is why the companies settle. Why not take it to a jury trial? I don't see any way TT could possibly lose if they did.
The jury recently awarded $222,000 in damages to the RIAA in a P2P file-sharing case. It seriously considered upping the ante even more.
The geek thought his side had a winner there too.
The plaintiff gets the first crack at defining the issues for a jury that in all probability won't want to set a precedent for allowing strong adult content to be quietly embedded into a video game - and exposed only after the game is on the shelves.
In pre-trial depositions, the plaintiff gets to ask the most interesting questions:
"Your PR blitz put the blame on the modding community."
"Five minutes on the phone to Rockstar North would have told you that was a lie. That Hot Coffee was probably embedded in every console pressing of the game. Why didn't you make the call? We have some evidence that you did make the call."
Hot Coffee could be forgiven as an example of the geek's bad taste, his adolescent sense of sexuality and humor. The uncut Manhunt 2 seems to have taken things farther. As an attorney, do you really want a jury listening to the psycho-babble of a Rockstar exec as he defends the game? While a particularly gruesome scene from the video replays in their head?
i don't understand how people can be upset about content that is effectively unlocked from the game unless you go out of your way to unlock it.
because it undermines faith in the ratings system and trust in the developer.
rockstar releases an M rated game with hidden AO content and when the content is unlocked - as it will be - it puts the blame on the modding community to maintain plausible denial.
from hot coffee we move on to the thinly veiled psycho kills of Manhunt 2 and to whatever mischief will be uncovered in the next iteration of GTA.
but this cannot go on forever without the industry paying a very stiff price.
the british censors have to feel vindicated in their decision to reject the edited version of Manhunt 2 and they are unlikely to be forgiving or forgetful of rockstar the next time around.
rockstar is not making it any easier for a producer to openly and successfully introduce adult themes and content into a game - and not have it tainted by talk of the pornography of sex and violence.
We already had carrier pigeons, why create the Postal Service? Why bother making cars when the horse and carriage combination is cheaper, safer, more fulfilling (horses, at least), and roads are already designed for carriages? Why spend hundreds of dollars on iron differential engines when we have humans who can do the same calculations infinitely more quickly?
The horse and carriage was a very expensive proposition.
There would be all the expenses of owning and maintaining the animal. Including those of a stable boy or hired hand. Harness and tack. The 1897 "A Grade" mail order carriage cost $50 to $100 FOB from Sears, Roebuck.
Home cooking has become a craft for those who could afford the robot. When they haven't the time for this they shop from a service like Schwan's which home-delivers pre-packaged gourmet dinners for the oven and the microwave.
The Enterprise had replicators. But replicated food beomes boring.
Water boarding to get the info about the potential attempt to hijack a plane will be much more successful.
Torture extracts what you want to hear and not want you need to know. The terrorist who risks capture has probably memorized enough false leads and plausible scenarios to keep his interrogators occupied for months. He will have been trained to sacrifice his pawns to protect his queen. He may not even know how much of the truth he holds himself.
The real issue is, 9/11 won't happen again...Box cutter? You best have a flamethrower next time, because me and everyone in business class are going to beat you to death with our laptops as soon as you start trying to wave that piddly crap in our faces. Akbar Macbook, Bitch!
This is real world and not the video game,
more likely you will doing something involuntary...and messy.
It would be altogether extraordinary if you were physically and emotionally prepared to challenge a close-combat trained killer who had just slit the throat of a stewardess to make his point.
Isn't truth an absolute defense to an accusation of libel ?
The law rarely deals in absolutes. The shotgun approach where you fire off dozens of accusations in the hope that at least some of them will stick suggests a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth.
the compressed air car is a horrible waste of energy
Compressed air has been used to power locomotives in mines and tunnels, fork lifts and tractors in other hazardous environments, since the 19th century. But I have never understood its appeal as an alternative fuel for the open road.
That'll just make people want their game all the more! Thanks Target!!!
More likely, the game will never be missed, as buyers are drawn to games like Bioshock - intelligent, suspenseful and the perfect compliment for the XBox 360 and HDTV.
And it's news that the Pharms would prefer to treat the symptoms rather than cure a disease? There's no money in cures.
The working definition of a cure for cancer - diabetes - congestive heart disease - is to see your patients still very much alive, active and alert, five years after the diagnosis, ten years after the diagnosis.
In this sense, there is a great deal of money to be made in cures.
an attempt to excuse shortsighted stupidity?
it was allowed to do that on cheap oil and the internal combustion engine
suburban development began here with the coal-fired steam engine, the trolley line and interurban electric railroad powered by Niagara Falls. ca. 1890.
please try to locate your local railroad station on a map, or buy a good bike
temperatures held near an oppressive 100F this summer with humidity in the high 80s. it reached the point where even the fittest of cyclists were told to stay off the roads.
temperatures this winter could just as easily fall to minus 10F with winds gusting to 45mph.
there is no commuter rail service within 60 miles.
The successful public library is identified with a particular neighborhood or community.
Ours is housed in a restored 19th Century Red Brick School, where it shares space with the cub scouts, a village museum, lecture hall, teen center, gymnasium and so on.
Kids have been playing basketball here for 100 years.
The library's core users own a great many books and the annual book sale is a reliable fund raiser.
The old laws simply need updated to reflect todays technology/
"Nothing he did deserves hard time."
This is the mind set of a privileged elite: arrogant, careless, self-indulgent. There is no disguising it from a judge or jury. It is guaranteed to sink the Geek's case it when it goes to trial.
Slashdot Mirror
That is important, they are not like Slasdot readers. Unlike business users or college students, M$ has done no favors for these people and they have zero loyalty.
That is a very foolish thing to say, but, given the source, not unexpected.
I have yet to meet anyone off Slashdot who spells Microsoft with a dollar sign. But I do know that what the Walmart shopper sees is the $50 HP All-In-One Printer for XP and Vista.
The commodity PC running Windows is affordable and it is everywhere. In a village of 1500 I can walk four blocks and return home with all the consumables my PC will need for the winter.
I might even find the bargain bin PC game that doesn't suck. Deux Ex, perhaps.
Open Office is more than enough for the average school paper. Very few people actually NEED M$ Office for work and even they hate it. The rest of the world considers M$'s ever changing, secret file formats an expensive ass pain. They are right.
Give me a break, Twitter.
I look at the sales charts at Amazon.com and see anything but extraordinary strength in MS Office sales. MS Office is more than a text editor. Even Sun would admit that much.
Think again.
The "new" Walmart is interested in profit not volume.
It has been closing and downsizing stores. Putting its emphasis on upscale products like HDTV. Take a look at where it places the XBox 360 and the Vista laptop in its adds.
Walmart's alleged commitment to Linux has been in fits and starts, none of them of any lasting consequence.
I think not.
Walmart is a deep discount retailer with a split personality: a chain that is trying to move up-market.
It is perfectly willing to unload a carload of otherwise unsaleable low-end PCs on to the Geek - who will, quite predictably, post rave reviews on their website. That there is no matching printer kinda gets lost in the shuffle.
The HP All-In-One Printer for XP, Vista and OSX is $50.
The fundamental problem with the $200 net appliance is that Internet service costs at least $20 a month. If you can afford the Internet, you can afford a "real" PC.
The Vista Premium desktop at Walmart.com starts at $500. Dual core Athlon CPU. 1 or 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB HDD, DVD burner and so on. The next step up is integrated WiFi and you won't get lost hunting for a driver.
when seven years becomes eight years - and eight years becomes ten years - and ten years becomes fifteen years, will you still be a winter biker in Toronto?
There aren't many American cities or metropolitan districts that approach the density that would be familiar to an Asian or a European.
The climate isn't always benign. Locally, cyclists were warned to stay off the roads to avoid the punishing heat and humidity this summer.
Those who attempted it had the look and smell of roadkill.
The jury recently awarded $222,000 in damages to the RIAA in a P2P file-sharing case. It seriously considered upping the ante even more.
The geek thought his side had a winner there too.
The plaintiff gets the first crack at defining the issues for a jury that in all probability won't want to set a precedent for allowing strong adult content to be quietly embedded into a video game - and exposed only after the game is on the shelves.
In pre-trial depositions, the plaintiff gets to ask the most interesting questions:
"Your PR blitz put the blame on the modding community."
"Five minutes on the phone to Rockstar North would have told you that was a lie. That Hot Coffee was probably embedded in every console pressing of the game. Why didn't you make the call? We have some evidence that you did make the call."
Hot Coffee could be forgiven as an example of the geek's bad taste, his adolescent sense of sexuality and humor. The uncut Manhunt 2 seems to have taken things farther. As an attorney, do you really want a jury listening to the psycho-babble of a Rockstar exec as he defends the game? While a particularly gruesome scene from the video replays in their head?
because it undermines faith in the ratings system and trust in the developer.
rockstar releases an M rated game with hidden AO content and when the content is unlocked - as it will be - it puts the blame on the modding community to maintain plausible denial.
from hot coffee we move on to the thinly veiled psycho kills of Manhunt 2 and to whatever mischief will be uncovered in the next iteration of GTA.
but this cannot go on forever without the industry paying a very stiff price.
the british censors have to feel vindicated in their decision to reject the edited version of Manhunt 2 and they are unlikely to be forgiving or forgetful of rockstar the next time around.
rockstar is not making it any easier for a producer to openly and successfully introduce adult themes and content into a game - and not have it tainted by talk of the pornography of sex and violence.
The reporter asks "Is waterboarding torture?"
The AG-designate who legalisms make news on Al Jazerra wins confirmation - but he does not win friends abroad.
2) Does the country in question have a stick so far up their colective asses they couldn't laugh this off?
It is unprofessional. It shows an elemental lack of courtesy and respect. In many societies the formalities are important.
how did you keep the batteries charged?
We already had carrier pigeons, why create the Postal Service? Why bother making cars when the horse and carriage combination is cheaper, safer, more fulfilling (horses, at least), and roads are already designed for carriages? Why spend hundreds of dollars on iron differential engines when we have humans who can do the same calculations infinitely more quickly?
The horse and carriage was a very expensive proposition.
There would be all the expenses of owning and maintaining the animal. Including those of a stable boy or hired hand. Harness and tack. The 1897 "A Grade" mail order carriage cost $50 to $100 FOB from Sears, Roebuck.
The Amish-Built Doctor's Buggy in 2007 is $3600.
Home cooking has become a craft for those who could afford the robot. When they haven't the time for this they shop from a service like Schwan's which home-delivers pre-packaged gourmet dinners for the oven and the microwave.
The Enterprise had replicators. But replicated food beomes boring.
Torture extracts what you want to hear and not want you need to know. The terrorist who risks capture has probably memorized enough false leads and plausible scenarios to keep his interrogators occupied for months. He will have been trained to sacrifice his pawns to protect his queen. He may not even know how much of the truth he holds himself.
This is real world and not the video game, more likely you will doing something involuntary...and messy.
It would be altogether extraordinary if you were physically and emotionally prepared to challenge a close-combat trained killer who had just slit the throat of a stewardess to make his point.
The law rarely deals in absolutes. The shotgun approach where you fire off dozens of accusations in the hope that at least some of them will stick suggests a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth.
Compressed air has been used to power locomotives in mines and tunnels, fork lifts and tractors in other hazardous environments, since the 19th century. But I have never understood its appeal as an alternative fuel for the open road.
The well-digging companies are coining money. But they are doing it in places where there is a shortage of water.
More likely, the game will never be missed, as buyers are drawn to games like Bioshock - intelligent, suspenseful and the perfect compliment for the XBox 360 and HDTV.
as many as Google hires to protect facilities built to the same scale and as critical to maintaining their online services.
There is no way you can spin numbers as pathetic as these and make them look impressive.
"In May 2007 bbc.co.uk was the 20th most popular English Language website in the world and the 33rd most popular overall." BBC - Internet
The working definition of a cure for cancer - diabetes - congestive heart disease - is to see your patients still very much alive, active and alert, five years after the diagnosis, ten years after the diagnosis.
In this sense, there is a great deal of money to be made in cures.
It can be much more than a mile.
You need solutions for the community as a whole - not just the twenty-something adult more or less in his physical prime.
You need solutions that work as well in Buffalo as they do in Key West.
it was allowed to do that on cheap oil and the internal combustion engine
suburban development began here with the coal-fired steam engine, the trolley line and interurban electric railroad powered by Niagara Falls. ca. 1890.
please try to locate your local railroad station on a map, or buy a good bike
temperatures held near an oppressive 100F this summer with humidity in the high 80s. it reached the point where even the fittest of cyclists were told to stay off the roads.
temperatures this winter could just as easily fall to minus 10F with winds gusting to 45mph.
there is no commuter rail service within 60 miles.
The successful public library is identified with a particular neighborhood or community.
Ours is housed in a restored 19th Century Red Brick School, where it shares space with the cub scouts, a village museum, lecture hall, teen center, gymnasium and so on.
Kids have been playing basketball here for 100 years.
The library's core users own a great many books and the annual book sale is a reliable fund raiser.
with rare exceptions like Manhattan Island, american cities do not approach the density that would be familiar to an Asian or European.
most of us live and work quite some distance from the urban core.
the urban commuter concept car tends to look like it was designed for the pool table flat central plains - but never the central plains winter.
"Nothing he did deserves hard time."
This is the mind set of a privileged elite: arrogant, careless, self-indulgent. There is no disguising it from a judge or jury. It is guaranteed to sink the Geek's case it when it goes to trial.
and this is why whenever the geek's "net appliance" re-enters the market it sinks like a rock.