But why let facts get in the way of some good entertainment? We have a good old-fashioned hate-fest going on here. Can't you just feel the waves of scorn?
Seriously, though. I doubt the article's accuracy too. But I can hope.
Not true. Often people buy a $50 or $60 game with the intention of dumping it for $30 later. That makes the actual cost to them $30 or $40, which they are willing to pay.
Now, if this is true (and a very bit "if"), the actual cost of the game will be the retail price. They will buy less.
Also, rentals bite the dust. There will be no way to evaluate demos, so people will buy less. Blockbuster will not buy any more -- sales will go down once again.
Now, about the only way that Sony could not totally piss off its customers is to lower the retail price of the games to less than $40. Wait, is that a flock of pigs up there in the sky?
I decided to hate Sony after the whole rootkit fiasco. To me, this train wreck is grand entertainment. Pass the popcorn!
Yes, I know that there are other ways to get AIDS. Sheesh. But you must certainly admit that behavioral changes can make you 99.999999% certain NOT to get it. So, tell me. How many cases do you think there are of hemopheliacs getting AIDS from blood there are in Africa? In that continent, sex is the primary reason for the spread of AIDS.
Well, a lot of problems can be traced back to lack of education. The solution to AIDS is obvious. Abstinence is guaranteed to be effective. Condoms help a lot. There is no magic drug that will make people practice either of these. Focusing on AIDS drugs is like working on a better way to put out a fire -- much better to not have a fire in the first place. Simply stated, AIDS is spread by behavior. Education can help to change behavior.
Let's look at other problems. Many countries in Africa are politically unstable. Certain tribes/countries/ethnic groups want to kill the others. They are raised to think of the "other group" (whoever that may be) as the enemy/evil/not-to-be-trusted. It has been proven that the Internet can break down borders. On a forum (including ones like this), you can have people from dozens of countries putting in their opinion. It helps people to understand their near and distant neighbors.
Finally, some countries have a culture of corruption. When aid gets sent from foreign countries, there is sometimes lots of "palm greasing" just to get the supplies to those who need them the most. And even if the supplies get there, sometimes a few guys with guns take it all away. This is "just the way things are." So, what happens if the children are educated to realize that things do not have to be that way? It is possible that in a decade or two, opinions could start to change.
This is not just about reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic. This is about changing the way that people see the world.
I do admit that this OLPC is not LIKELY to do all of that. But if it changes the life of even a few children, maybe those children will grow up to be the next president/prime minishter/grand poobah of their countries.
Well, let's look at the target market -- children. Kids are rough on stuff, so I would expect these to be incredibly tough. Would you take your Mac to the beach? These things would likely survive the beach quite well, and may even survive drops quite well due to low weight and no moving parts. The best part is that if you DO break one, you are not out much dough.
Well, eMusic is also marked by a diversity of stuff in one place. Many of the other MP3 sites out ther specialize in one form of music or another (usually dance/techno/electronica). eMusic has stuff for almost any musical taste.
Now, if only they would switch to a flat $0.25 per song, I would come running back to their service. But as it is, I do not have time to go hunting for 40 songs to download, so I would not get my money's worth.
I'm also not 100% sure about having only 1 PATA connector, although this is probably a good thing these days..
How is this a good thing? Go to Newegg and try to find a DVD burner with a SATA interface. I found two, and they run $100.
This is really no limitation as long as you want only one optical drive. But if you want two (like I do), then you have both of them sharing an interface. In Korea, only old people have two drives per interface. If you happen to want three drives for whatever reason, then you have to get a SATA version and pay through the nose.
I like to have one reader and one burner. My reader really is better at reading than my burner it. I also like the idea of having them on their own channel. This really will be a non-problem once SATA optical drives are common and cheap, though.
I am a former customer of theirs. I like the business model, but the search feature was frustrating. I heard a dance/pop version of "Time after Time" on the radio once. I thought that eMusic might have it. You can browse the "dance" category. You can search for the words "Time after Time". You apparently could NOT apply both criteria at the same time.
Well, I also left because finding good music takes time, and I don't have any. I paid $10 per month, and went a couple of months without downloading anything, so I cancelled.
I must admit that I found the band "Madison Park" through their site -- and they are one of my favorites now. I also found a couple of "Echoing Green" singles on there that I love -- and they are my favorite band of all time.
So I would classify myself as an "almost satisfied" customer. If they beef up the search and then agree not to charge you for months that you don't download, then I would sign up again today. They did get my money for several months while Apple, Yahoo, and the rest of the DRM-craptastic music vendors have yet to see a penny of my money.
I should also like to point out that I tried the user vs. admin thing. The software that made me switch back was Winamp (they should know better) and Logitech's driver for the Quickcam Chat (they should definately know better).
Winamp was annoying, but I suppose that I could ask for a refund of every penny that I paid for it, which was nothing.
Logitech, on the other hand, was more annoying. I paid good money for that product, and a company that size should check for this sort of stuff. The problem is that if you press the "picture" button, the picture gets saved in the documents directory of the preson who installed the camera. And if there is no write permission, explorer crashed. This is simply inexcusable.
But then again, I have been anooyed by Logitech's driver support before. Less than two years ago, I purchased a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for $80 -- pretty close to the top of the line. They have not released updated drivers in over two years, and their special keyboard buttons do not even support Firefox. You can check for yourself under the Cordless MX Duo page. Since Firefox is the 2nd most popular browser around, I would expect them to update their drivers to support it. But I guess that they figure that they already have my money. But they probably won't have it the next time. It is quite interesting, though. Logitech has excellent hardware, but the software/drivers are poorly tested and poorly supported. Point is: Logitech sucks.
Besides, how many of you can pull yourselves from your computers long enough to play on a console?
Huh? In many ways, consoles are BETTER than computers...
Console's don't get viruses.
You don't have to worry about upgrading your console's video card every year
No driver problems
You generally are not forced into additional DRM that screws your computer
No need to worry about your console being too obsolete to play any given game
Hardware platform generally stable for at least four years
Let me list the ways that PCs are better than consoles
Mouse, keyboard
More eye candy if you spend big bucks.
Games run from the hard drive
I spent $1500 on a computer less than two years ago. It has AGP and a 5900XT video card ($200 at the time). I am not much of a gamer, but I understand that my vid card can barely play the newest games. Of course, my computer is AGP so I will pay through the nose to upgrade it.
On the other hand, if I purchase a 360 or a Wii this year, I can still play new games just find three years from now. And the cost of the Wii will likely be about the same price as one video card, and the 360 is about the same price as two video cards.
Any way that you slice it, consoles are not such a bad idea. If you could add a mouse and keyboard to them and hook them up to a VGA monitor, consoles for the win.
Do you know how many computers are on classified networks? Neither do I. But I can tell you that it is not a huge number. Most government stuff is unclassified. The Department of Labor, Deptartment of Education, Social Security Administration, etc. all do not really deal in clasified data. Let's estimate that 15% of all government computers are clasified. That still leaves a LOT of room for competition.
OK. The cable itself is cheap. Putting it where it needs to be is expensive. At my company, we hire outside contractors to run all of our cable. It seems like I am always spools of cable lying around, and guys with their feet on a ladder and their heads in the ceiling. Since an outside company is doing this, it turns a $10/hour worker into a $30/hour or more expence to my company.
But still, the wireless is usually used for the manager laptops. They have to have to be able to check Lookout ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Outlook in meeting.
Well, there are a couple of differences. Usually, when somebody comes in your business they take something, and there is some physical evidence. They also have to do this after-hours. A wireless attack can happen in a busy environment in broad daylight and leave not a trace (unless you have intrusion detection systems).
And on an only slightly-related note, what can home users do to secure a wireless network -- besides the obvious stuff like use encryption, change passwords, disable SSID, MAC filtering, etc. Using consumer-grade routers, NAS boxes and the like, what is involved in implementing a VPN solution? It must take some specialized gear because I doubt that my Linksys AP can handle it. Bonus points for something that works on XP and Linux.
You need to raise the net over your head to catch the sarcasm as it passes by.
The point of my post is that Sony has entirely missed the boat in the world of portable music (mp3 players). This was the same sort of field that made Sony what it was a back in the 70's and 80's with the Walkman.
The point is that Sony held out on making MP3 players for quite a while. They came out with ATRAC players. An ATRAC file is kind of like a MP3, but burdened down with DRM. Never mind the fact that anybody with an MP3 collection would have to convert everytyhing. Also, the only way to get these ATRAC files into a Sony player is with software that, from what I understand, could kindly be described as "crap." Of course I have no first-hand experience with this, as I am wise enough to avoid Sony like the plague.
Another thing about customer hostility is that Sony once tried to shut-down the web site of a guy for post Aibo hacks. Ripped from Wikipedia:
Many AIBO owners enjoy teaching their pets new behaviors by reprogramming them (in Sony's special 'R-CODE' language). However, in October of 2001, Sony sent a cease-and-desist notice to the webmaster of aibopet.com/aibohack.com, demanding that he stop distributing code that was retrieved by bypassing the copy prevention mechanisms of the robot.
I still don't get it. "Copy Prevention Mechanisms" in a robot? I have heard of CD-R and DVD-R, but never Robot-R. You can't copy an Aibo. The Aibo was hardware, and that was what Sony was selling. Anything on the software side that enables customers can only help hardware sales as others realize how cool the product is. So Sony proved once again that they care nothing about the customers, and managed to shoot themselves squarely in the foot yet again.
It is rather a shame too. Sony used to represent quality. But now I actively go out of my way to avoid them. I will not buy any Sony music for fear of screwing up my computer. I will be getting a new digital camera soon, and Sony is not even in the running. And when I need to get a new laptop, no Vaios. Perhaps the only Sony products that I will have difficulty avoiding is their movies. I still have to watch the next "Spiderman" after all.
Since you seem to know a little more about this than me...
Where are good references about asynch design?
I have a MsEE, and design logic for FPGAs for a living. I would like to learn more about asynch design, but the best that I have been able to find is either a bunch of useless marketing junk, or info that is at such a high level as to be useless.
Sooooooo, if the universe expands to (consults rectal database) 10,000 times it current size, a new big bang would start at 10,000 times the size of the known universe and get bigger?
And a better question. The universe is isotropic, which means that it looks the same everywhere (or so I am told). Thus there is no "center." Imagine the surface of the Earth. Where is the center of the surface (no digging allowed). There IS none.
Well, if this property holds true for the universe, and eventually our universe will expand a whole lot and lead to a new bang, exactly where in the known universe will this bang occur?
Or, perhaps there IS a center to the universe. If this is true, what would this do for relativity, which states that ALL frames of reference are valid? If you could just fly in a rocket and see a bit red cement pole with "center of universe" painted on it, that would make a dandy absolute reference point.
You just don't get it. He obviously knows what FOSS stands for. He is just making a point that the average guy walking into CompUSA probably doesn't. I bet that many of the people WORKING at CompUSA probably don't. The odds are even worse as Best Buy.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as facts go, you are absolutely correct.
But why let facts get in the way of some good entertainment? We have a good old-fashioned hate-fest going on here. Can't you just feel the waves of scorn?
Seriously, though. I doubt the article's accuracy too. But I can hope.
Not true. Often people buy a $50 or $60 game with the intention of dumping it for $30 later. That makes the actual cost to them $30 or $40, which they are willing to pay.
Now, if this is true (and a very bit "if"), the actual cost of the game will be the retail price. They will buy less.
Also, rentals bite the dust. There will be no way to evaluate demos, so people will buy less. Blockbuster will not buy any more -- sales will go down once again.
Now, about the only way that Sony could not totally piss off its customers is to lower the retail price of the games to less than $40. Wait, is that a flock of pigs up there in the sky?
I decided to hate Sony after the whole rootkit fiasco. To me, this train wreck is grand entertainment. Pass the popcorn!
So, you are saying that because rape happens, all is lost and we should not even try education at all. Hmmm.
Apparently, it will run Vista about as well as a Levono laptop ... http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/24/132622 3
Yes, I know that there are other ways to get AIDS. Sheesh. But you must certainly admit that behavioral changes can make you 99.999999% certain NOT to get it. So, tell me. How many cases do you think there are of hemopheliacs getting AIDS from blood there are in Africa? In that continent, sex is the primary reason for the spread of AIDS.
Well, a lot of problems can be traced back to lack of education. The solution to AIDS is obvious. Abstinence is guaranteed to be effective. Condoms help a lot. There is no magic drug that will make people practice either of these. Focusing on AIDS drugs is like working on a better way to put out a fire -- much better to not have a fire in the first place. Simply stated, AIDS is spread by behavior. Education can help to change behavior.
Let's look at other problems. Many countries in Africa are politically unstable. Certain tribes/countries/ethnic groups want to kill the others. They are raised to think of the "other group" (whoever that may be) as the enemy/evil/not-to-be-trusted. It has been proven that the Internet can break down borders. On a forum (including ones like this), you can have people from dozens of countries putting in their opinion. It helps people to understand their near and distant neighbors.
Finally, some countries have a culture of corruption. When aid gets sent from foreign countries, there is sometimes lots of "palm greasing" just to get the supplies to those who need them the most. And even if the supplies get there, sometimes a few guys with guns take it all away. This is "just the way things are." So, what happens if the children are educated to realize that things do not have to be that way? It is possible that in a decade or two, opinions could start to change.
This is not just about reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic. This is about changing the way that people see the world.
I do admit that this OLPC is not LIKELY to do all of that. But if it changes the life of even a few children, maybe those children will grow up to be the next president/prime minishter/grand poobah of their countries.
Well, let's look at the target market -- children. Kids are rough on stuff, so I would expect these to be incredibly tough. Would you take your Mac to the beach? These things would likely survive the beach quite well, and may even survive drops quite well due to low weight and no moving parts. The best part is that if you DO break one, you are not out much dough.
If I could get one for $200, I would jump on it.
It would serve as a "writing tablet" -- presumably for languages where keyboards aren't really suitable (I'm looking at you, China).
Well, eMusic is also marked by a diversity of stuff in one place. Many of the other MP3 sites out ther specialize in one form of music or another (usually dance/techno/electronica). eMusic has stuff for almost any musical taste.
Now, if only they would switch to a flat $0.25 per song, I would come running back to their service. But as it is, I do not have time to go hunting for 40 songs to download, so I would not get my money's worth.
This is really no limitation as long as you want only one optical drive. But if you want two (like I do), then you have both of them sharing an interface. In Korea, only old people have two drives per interface. If you happen to want three drives for whatever reason, then you have to get a SATA version and pay through the nose.
I like to have one reader and one burner. My reader really is better at reading than my burner it. I also like the idea of having them on their own channel. This really will be a non-problem once SATA optical drives are common and cheap, though.
Well, they are almost doing things right...
I am a former customer of theirs. I like the business model, but the search feature was frustrating. I heard a dance/pop version of "Time after Time" on the radio once. I thought that eMusic might have it. You can browse the "dance" category. You can search for the words "Time after Time". You apparently could NOT apply both criteria at the same time.
Well, I also left because finding good music takes time, and I don't have any. I paid $10 per month, and went a couple of months without downloading anything, so I cancelled.
I must admit that I found the band "Madison Park" through their site -- and they are one of my favorites now. I also found a couple of "Echoing Green" singles on there that I love -- and they are my favorite band of all time.
So I would classify myself as an "almost satisfied" customer. If they beef up the search and then agree not to charge you for months that you don't download, then I would sign up again today. They did get my money for several months while Apple, Yahoo, and the rest of the DRM-craptastic music vendors have yet to see a penny of my money.
I should also like to point out that I tried the user vs. admin thing. The software that made me switch back was Winamp (they should know better) and Logitech's driver for the Quickcam Chat (they should definately know better).
Winamp was annoying, but I suppose that I could ask for a refund of every penny that I paid for it, which was nothing.
Logitech, on the other hand, was more annoying. I paid good money for that product, and a company that size should check for this sort of stuff. The problem is that if you press the "picture" button, the picture gets saved in the documents directory of the preson who installed the camera. And if there is no write permission, explorer crashed. This is simply inexcusable.
But then again, I have been anooyed by Logitech's driver support before. Less than two years ago, I purchased a wireless keyboard/mouse combo for $80 -- pretty close to the top of the line. They have not released updated drivers in over two years, and their special keyboard buttons do not even support Firefox. You can check for yourself under the Cordless MX Duo page. Since Firefox is the 2nd most popular browser around, I would expect them to update their drivers to support it. But I guess that they figure that they already have my money. But they probably won't have it the next time. It is quite interesting, though. Logitech has excellent hardware, but the software/drivers are poorly tested and poorly supported. Point is: Logitech sucks.
Let me list the ways that PCs are better than consoles
I spent $1500 on a computer less than two years ago. It has AGP and a 5900XT video card ($200 at the time). I am not much of a gamer, but I understand that my vid card can barely play the newest games. Of course, my computer is AGP so I will pay through the nose to upgrade it.
On the other hand, if I purchase a 360 or a Wii this year, I can still play new games just find three years from now. And the cost of the Wii will likely be about the same price as one video card, and the 360 is about the same price as two video cards.
Any way that you slice it, consoles are not such a bad idea. If you could add a mouse and keyboard to them and hook them up to a VGA monitor, consoles for the win.
Do you know how many computers are on classified networks? Neither do I. But I can tell you that it is not a huge number. Most government stuff is unclassified. The Department of Labor, Deptartment of Education, Social Security Administration, etc. all do not really deal in clasified data. Let's estimate that 15% of all government computers are clasified. That still leaves a LOT of room for competition.
OK. The cable itself is cheap. Putting it where it needs to be is expensive. At my company, we hire outside contractors to run all of our cable. It seems like I am always spools of cable lying around, and guys with their feet on a ladder and their heads in the ceiling. Since an outside company is doing this, it turns a $10/hour worker into a $30/hour or more expence to my company.
But still, the wireless is usually used for the manager laptops. They have to have to be able to check Lookout ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Outlook in meeting.
Well, there are a couple of differences. Usually, when somebody comes in your business they take something, and there is some physical evidence. They also have to do this after-hours. A wireless attack can happen in a busy environment in broad daylight and leave not a trace (unless you have intrusion detection systems).
And on an only slightly-related note, what can home users do to secure a wireless network -- besides the obvious stuff like use encryption, change passwords, disable SSID, MAC filtering, etc. Using consumer-grade routers, NAS boxes and the like, what is involved in implementing a VPN solution? It must take some specialized gear because I doubt that my Linksys AP can handle it. Bonus points for something that works on XP and Linux.
The point of my post is that Sony has entirely missed the boat in the world of portable music (mp3 players). This was the same sort of field that made Sony what it was a back in the 70's and 80's with the Walkman.
The point is that Sony held out on making MP3 players for quite a while. They came out with ATRAC players. An ATRAC file is kind of like a MP3, but burdened down with DRM. Never mind the fact that anybody with an MP3 collection would have to convert everytyhing. Also, the only way to get these ATRAC files into a Sony player is with software that, from what I understand, could kindly be described as "crap." Of course I have no first-hand experience with this, as I am wise enough to avoid Sony like the plague.
Another thing about customer hostility is that Sony once tried to shut-down the web site of a guy for post Aibo hacks. Ripped from Wikipedia:I still don't get it. "Copy Prevention Mechanisms" in a robot? I have heard of CD-R and DVD-R, but never Robot-R. You can't copy an Aibo. The Aibo was hardware, and that was what Sony was selling. Anything on the software side that enables customers can only help hardware sales as others realize how cool the product is. So Sony proved once again that they care nothing about the customers, and managed to shoot themselves squarely in the foot yet again.
It is rather a shame too. Sony used to represent quality. But now I actively go out of my way to avoid them. I will not buy any Sony music for fear of screwing up my computer. I will be getting a new digital camera soon, and Sony is not even in the running. And when I need to get a new laptop, no Vaios. Perhaps the only Sony products that I will have difficulty avoiding is their movies. I still have to watch the next "Spiderman" after all.
Mini-Disc.
Memory Stick.
Sony has proven that it can't win ANY standard. Beta and Mini-Disc are dead, and the Memory Stick is kept on life support by Sony laptops and cameras.
But also forgot about Sony's line of wonderful MP3 players. Those are fine pieces of technology that really enables the consumer.
Hmmm -- ATRAC, "Connect" software -- never mind.
Since you seem to know a little more about this than me...
Where are good references about asynch design?
I have a MsEE, and design logic for FPGAs for a living. I would like to learn more about asynch design, but the best that I have been able to find is either a bunch of useless marketing junk, or info that is at such a high level as to be useless.
Any links?
Riiiight.
And a better question. The universe is isotropic, which means that it looks the same everywhere (or so I am told). Thus there is no "center." Imagine the surface of the Earth. Where is the center of the surface (no digging allowed). There IS none.
Well, if this property holds true for the universe, and eventually our universe will expand a whole lot and lead to a new bang, exactly where in the known universe will this bang occur?
Or, perhaps there IS a center to the universe. If this is true, what would this do for relativity, which states that ALL frames of reference are valid? If you could just fly in a rocket and see a bit red cement pole with "center of universe" painted on it, that would make a dandy absolute reference point.
You just don't get it. He obviously knows what FOSS stands for. He is just making a point that the average guy walking into CompUSA probably doesn't. I bet that many of the people WORKING at CompUSA probably don't. The odds are even worse as Best Buy.