it's simplistic to think monopoly=bad automatically
Well, yes and no. A monopoly is not automatically a bad thing. But the market situation lets the supplier set a price where the market, as a whole, is being hurt.
This does not mean a supplier (in this case ARM) will by default pick such a price - although it would be feasible from a business point of view. There are other aspects to consider: marketing aspects, a low price as an entry barrier etc.
And even if the supplier does pick the optimal price from his point of view, it does not say anything about the _absolute_ "damage" done to the market. A good in a competitive market could be priced at 10 cent, and the monopoly price could be 20 cent. While this is not optimal technically, in reality most people don't care:)
...the reason they didn't see the Romulans was lack of visual communication technology (which of course seems silly given today's technology).
Ummmm, no, I think they were using incompatible video codecs for visual communication, and only the Federation could solve the problem by introducing a single, widely-accepted standard:)
IMHO there are severaly ways to integrate ads into games, not all of them necessarily bad. I think one of the first games to introduce some advertising was "Theme Park", where from time to time you could see a banner of a UK bank (IIRC the first few screens and the accounting screens). That didn't bother me much.
Another point is that advertising can make a game more real, e.g. in sports games. In a typical soccer/ice-hockey/... stadium there is perimeter advertising. Using this space for real, in-game advertising creates a more realistic atmosphere. Sure, the banners could all read "ACME Rockets Inc.", but it just wouldn't be the same. Racing cars would also look a bit different:)
All in all, if in-game advertising is subtle and does not interrupt or deteriorate my gaming experience, I (personally) don't mind it. And this definetely rules out commercial breaks in a FPS:)
gprs being the only affordable way to move data to a cellphone at the moment in most places
Interesting enough, over the last few years GPRS (or packet switched data delivery in general) was believed to be the cheapest, fastest method for data exchange. And, at least in Germany, currently this is not true.
We have calculated the costs involved for streaming a video to a mobile phone. If you use GPRS, the data transmitted (28k video + audio stream) amounted to 50-500(!) Euros for 90 minutes. HSCSD, where you pay by the minute, was a mere 9 Euros (10 Cent per minute).
As a result, you should know how the data transmission is handled by the game. For short data bursts, GPRS would be better. If more data is transmitted, HSCSD might be better.
All in all, flatrates would be the optimum;)
Re:Great for paranoid nuts, useless for real peopl
on
RF-Blocking Wallpaper
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· Score: 1
I guess you can use WLAN inside your apartment, as long as you use this kind of wallpaper on your outside walls only. Then the radio waves can pass through the inner walls, though not outside (your garden, e.g.).
Cellphones won't work, but TV and radio could, if the antenna is outside (on the roof) and the signals are distributed via cable. And cable TV/radio works too, of course.
I'm not sure how big the market really is. A few people are concerned with the increasing amount of radiation (TV, GSM, UMTS, WLAN, DECT...). Regarding health issues, there is no definitve answer. So if the price of the wallpaper is not too high, I'd guess that some people are better safe than sorry, especially if they have small children.
I know 2 examples of universities that have WLAN on the entire (well, almost) campus.
1) Register your MAC address electronically, print out a form stating you will abide to the terms of usage, sign it, hand it in, and your MAC addess will receive an IP from DHCP the next day. VPN required (with group passwords). Connections are filtered through a firewall.
2) No registration required, but you need to install a VPN client with a certificate which can be generated on a website which is only available from a computer with a campus-IP. Again, a firewall restricts connections, depending on the type of user (students have more restrictive filters than employees).
Of course each solution requires you to have an account at the university (LDAP check).
As we are also using PDAs, VPN is a bit of a burden, but so far the various devices (iPAQ & Palm 5xx) can handle it, more or less. A major annoyance is the fact that you tend to turn off the PDA to save power. This cuts the VPN connection, so you need to log in again and again and.....:/
The actual news article is brief and did not mention any academic fraud, so I am forced to assume that the degree is being recinded due to his actions since being awarded the degree.
Exactly. He was manipulating results. I don't have all the details in my head but reportedly, he used identical graphs to visualize results... problem was, there were very different tests which could not have produced those same results.
Do degrees "expire"?
Not AFAIK. But a academic degree basically shows your ability to work and research in an accurate, precise and honest manner - at least that is the idea, or how I think of it. Writing a doctoral thesis is just that: a way to prove you are able and "worthy" (for lack of a better word).
Once you have shown your ability, the degree does not expire, just like your abilities do not expire. Now, in this case, falsifying data casts a serious shadow of doubt whether you have those abilities - and consequently, you are in danger of losing your degree.
This is also codified, at least in Germany, as another poster already pointed out. If a PhD seriously misbehaves, he/she loses the degree. There is no fixed definition of what has to happen, nor have I heard of any other cases like this. But the rule is there and he knew it (at least he should have).
The Internet Explorer version has feature X (like pagerank). Why don't you?
The Googlebar project is an independent organization [...] and some features, such as pagerank, appear to be proprietary; [...] We currently have no plans to implement pagerank or the voting buttons due to their proprietary nature (ie, we'd get sued!!).
Anybody know off the top of their heads if that's do-able without waiting for Microsoft to do it?
Opera has various settings in the quick-preferences window. Press "F12" and deselect the JavaScript-box (or set the preferences for popup blocking there).
It has been around for a few years, although IIRC earlier versions simply assigned an avatar with each IRC user, so there was no real comic as seen in the current screenshot, but simply comic characters talking to each other.
Needless to say the client flooded the channels with heaps of protocol text, which was useless for a "normal" irc client. Comic users weren't very welcome in most channels;)
I can't say I've seen any users using comic-chat lately, MS probably pulled the client back for further development. Still, the idea by itself is intriguing, I have to admit *g*
There was a sequel to Battlezone a few years back: Battlezone 2. Improved graphics, slightly different gameplay, fun to play. Unfortunately, it didn't sell. Just like the first part. A real pity:( Cinemaware re-released a fews classics (Defender of the Crown, Wings, The Three Stooges). DotC was stunning back in the old days, mostly due to the graphics. But today...
Personally I nonetheless think that brushed up classics could sell. It just has to be done right, not 'simply' transferring the game to current hardware.
There are already quiet a number of boardgames which have a railroad theme. Here is a list. The text is in German, but if you check the titles at your local store you should be lucky.
Most games deal with building an efficient railroad network, so the typical RRT train management and station building is not always included.
But check them out anyway, at least you can play those with your kids (yeah, I know, you don't have kids and I'm an insensitive clod...) because the rules are simpler.
I'm not sure how comparable the current situation is with the former ringtone/picture-SMS protocol from Nokia. Several years ago, Nokia stepped forward and extended the SMS protocol to allow the easy installation of ringtones and pictures on their phones.
Then, EMS and MMS appeared (as a standardized format supported by the majority of phone producers) and rendered the proprietary format obsolete. Phones are now able to display JPEG, GIF and play MIDI/MP3 ringtones. While the formats are standardized and customers have the ability to install their own ringtones/pictures for free (simple upload to the phone), content creation is not as easy.
The same COULD happen with games. Depending on the market volume, Nokia might take the lead again, and the other producers might follow, creating another standard in the process.
But I totally agree: let's hope it won't happen.:)
There might not even be a need for it, J2ME is pretty well established on a number of mobile phones. Using it (as most downloadable games do) lets you reach a lot of customers. Or maybe BREW, but I'm not sure if its catching on.
It becomes interesting when, say, Nokia tries to establish a proprietary platform which is incompatible to other mobile phones. Personally, I wouldn't expect a move like this to be successful. But you never know:)
Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
Very true. And, honestly, the information quality varies also. Google finds websites, and anyone can create a website with (almost) any content. So if I'd choose to put up several sites stating that the moon landing was fake, and people google for it, without checking references most of them will find that - as a "fact" - the moon landing was fake... Maybe the moon landing is a bad example, since there are thousands of sites covering this topic, but imagine a less common question (like the ones in the article), you get the idea.
Journals and books on the other hand (esp. scientific ones) are checked and reviewed. Of course this does not mean all the information in them are 100% correct (and most certainly it does not mean that information on the internet is 100% incorrect!), but they are more trustworthy than tidbits of data found on the web.
Personally, I opt for a mixed strategy: google first, and then try to verify the results with literature. As an alternative, Google often turns up literature references, so I have the opportunity to check the source directly. It takes time, though, so it's more a question of correctness vs. time:)
Certainly there are very trustworthy websites, esp. if they contain information "direct from the source". I'd imagine shuttle launch dates on nasa.gov are correct. And I also think that speeches found on whitehouse.gov are rather accurate.
Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
Interesting enough, a PocketPC-port is available here, yet it is not mentioned on the official Handy site on SF.
Re:Think of the costs associated...
on
Koalas Gone Wild
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· Score: 2, Funny
hiring people to shoot the koalas
Oh, ok, I guess I misread "The government proposes shooting 20,000 of them"... I thought it was pretty darn heroic of the government to sacrify themselves for the koalas.
Hawking (my typo - my mistake) was just an example I picked, I was referring to the entire genre of "popular science". I never thought about Dawkins, I've never read any book by him and I didn't realize he might also fall into this genre;)
Apologies for the mix-up and confusion I may have caused:)
Ok, so Hawkins "A Brief History of Time" would qualify as a popular scientific publications, as it's simplyfied in a way, yet not too much. The target audience is the average reader without a PhD.
Still, I wouldn't rate it as literature, since Hawkins intended to inform the reader, and not necessarily to "emotionalize" (the latter - in my opinion - being the prime motive for literature).
IMHO it really boils down to the emotions (other than the occasional joke) conveyed in a text. This aspects sets scientific and literature texts apart. And this aspect is (again, IMHO) what makes a text worthy to receive a nobel prize.
I, for one, welcome our well-written scientific article overlords, but do these articles really fall into the same category as, for example, poems? The aims are very different. Scientific publications are there to make a statement, to get a point across, to share knowledge. Literature on the other hand is more emotional and less bound to "rules" (for lack of a better word), it has more freedom.
Or to put it differently: a play by Shakespeare may make you cry, because of the emotions the play has stirred in you. If you cry over a scientific article, it is mostly because of the bad writing or obvious mistakes.
The article also comments on the subject of readability of scientific publications, but this is IMHO another debate;)
To me, the P2P aspect is the true killer feature of Skype. All you have to do is to install the software, register an account, and you're good to go.
We've installed Skype on a number of boxes, worked every time so far, and the quality is really good (even outside LAN).
The drawback is that - according to the FAQ - Skype uses a proprietary protocol:( And after the beta, certain (yet unnamed) add-on features will cost money.
I, for one, like Skype and I am waiting for the Linux client so I can start skyping (will "to skype" become a verb like "to google"?) again.
And, yes, I am aware ICQ offered voice chat years ago:)
Slashdot Mirror
it's simplistic to think monopoly=bad automatically
:)
Well, yes and no. A monopoly is not automatically a bad thing. But the market situation lets the supplier set a price where the market, as a whole, is being hurt.
This does not mean a supplier (in this case ARM) will by default pick such a price - although it would be feasible from a business point of view. There are other aspects to consider: marketing aspects, a low price as an entry barrier etc.
And even if the supplier does pick the optimal price from his point of view, it does not say anything about the _absolute_ "damage" done to the market. A good in a competitive market could be priced at 10 cent, and the monopoly price could be 20 cent. While this is not optimal technically, in reality most people don't care
...the reason they didn't see the Romulans was lack of visual communication technology (which of course seems silly given today's technology).
:)
Ummmm, no, I think they were using incompatible video codecs for visual communication, and only the Federation could solve the problem by introducing a single, widely-accepted standard
IMHO there are severaly ways to integrate ads into games, not all of them necessarily bad. I think one of the first games to introduce some advertising was "Theme Park", where from time to time you could see a banner of a UK bank (IIRC the first few screens and the accounting screens). That didn't bother me much.
:)
:)
Another point is that advertising can make a game more real, e.g. in sports games. In a typical soccer/ice-hockey/... stadium there is perimeter advertising. Using this space for real, in-game advertising creates a more realistic atmosphere. Sure, the banners could all read "ACME Rockets Inc.", but it just wouldn't be the same. Racing cars would also look a bit different
All in all, if in-game advertising is subtle and does not interrupt or deteriorate my gaming experience, I (personally) don't mind it. And this definetely rules out commercial breaks in a FPS
gprs being the only affordable way to move data to a cellphone at the moment in most places
;)
Interesting enough, over the last few years GPRS (or packet switched data delivery in general) was believed to be the cheapest, fastest method for data exchange. And, at least in Germany, currently this is not true.
We have calculated the costs involved for streaming a video to a mobile phone. If you use GPRS, the data transmitted (28k video + audio stream) amounted to 50-500(!) Euros for 90 minutes. HSCSD, where you pay by the minute, was a mere 9 Euros (10 Cent per minute).
As a result, you should know how the data transmission is handled by the game. For short data bursts, GPRS would be better. If more data is transmitted, HSCSD might be better.
All in all, flatrates would be the optimum
I guess you can use WLAN inside your apartment, as long as you use this kind of wallpaper on your outside walls only. Then the radio waves can pass through the inner walls, though not outside (your garden, e.g.).
Cellphones won't work, but TV and radio could, if the antenna is outside (on the roof) and the signals are distributed via cable. And cable TV/radio works too, of course.
I'm not sure how big the market really is. A few people are concerned with the increasing amount of radiation (TV, GSM, UMTS, WLAN, DECT...). Regarding health issues, there is no definitve answer. So if the price of the wallpaper is not too high, I'd guess that some people are better safe than sorry, especially if they have small children.
I know 2 examples of universities that have WLAN on the entire (well, almost) campus.
:/
1) Register your MAC address electronically, print out a form stating you will abide to the terms of usage, sign it, hand it in, and your MAC addess will receive an IP from DHCP the next day. VPN required (with group passwords). Connections are filtered through a firewall.
2) No registration required, but you need to install a VPN client with a certificate which can be generated on a website which is only available from a computer with a campus-IP. Again, a firewall restricts connections, depending on the type of user (students have more restrictive filters than employees).
Of course each solution requires you to have an account at the university (LDAP check).
As we are also using PDAs, VPN is a bit of a burden, but so far the various devices (iPAQ & Palm 5xx) can handle it, more or less. A major annoyance is the fact that you tend to turn off the PDA to save power. This cuts the VPN connection, so you need to log in again and again and.....
The actual news article is brief and did not mention any academic fraud, so I am forced to assume that the degree is being recinded due to his actions since being awarded the degree.
Exactly. He was manipulating results. I don't have all the details in my head but reportedly, he used identical graphs to visualize results... problem was, there were very different tests which could not have produced those same results.
Do degrees "expire"?
Not AFAIK. But a academic degree basically shows your ability to work and research in an accurate, precise and honest manner - at least that is the idea, or how I think of it. Writing a doctoral thesis is just that: a way to prove you are able and "worthy" (for lack of a better word).
Once you have shown your ability, the degree does not expire, just like your abilities do not expire. Now, in this case, falsifying data casts a serious shadow of doubt whether you have those abilities - and consequently, you are in danger of losing your degree.
This is also codified, at least in Germany, as another poster already pointed out. If a PhD seriously misbehaves, he/she loses the degree. There is no fixed definition of what has to happen, nor have I heard of any other cases like this. But the rule is there and he knew it (at least he should have).
Actually, probably not. From the googlebar FAQ:
The Internet Explorer version has feature X (like pagerank). Why don't you?
The Googlebar project is an independent organization [...] and some features, such as pagerank, appear to be proprietary; [...] We currently have no plans to implement pagerank or the voting buttons due to their proprietary nature (ie, we'd get sued!!).
Anybody know off the top of their heads if that's do-able without waiting for Microsoft to do it?
Opera has various settings in the quick-preferences window. Press "F12" and deselect the JavaScript-box (or set the preferences for popup blocking there).
...if you're a dog.
It has been around for a few years, although IIRC earlier versions simply assigned an avatar with each IRC user, so there was no real comic as seen in the current screenshot, but simply comic characters talking to each other.
;)
Needless to say the client flooded the channels with heaps of protocol text, which was useless for a "normal" irc client. Comic users weren't very welcome in most channels
I can't say I've seen any users using comic-chat lately, MS probably pulled the client back for further development. Still, the idea by itself is intriguing, I have to admit *g*
By that logic, an MMORPG is glorified IRC with graphics?
;)
No no, that would be MS Comic-Chat!
There was a sequel to Battlezone a few years back: Battlezone 2. Improved graphics, slightly different gameplay, fun to play. Unfortunately, it didn't sell. Just like the first part. A real pity :( Cinemaware re-released a fews classics (Defender of the Crown, Wings, The Three Stooges). DotC was stunning back in the old days, mostly due to the graphics. But today...
Personally I nonetheless think that brushed up classics could sell. It just has to be done right, not 'simply' transferring the game to current hardware.
There are already quiet a number of boardgames which have a railroad theme. Here is a list. The text is in German, but if you check the titles at your local store you should be lucky.
Most games deal with building an efficient railroad network, so the typical RRT train management and station building is not always included.
But check them out anyway, at least you can play those with your kids (yeah, I know, you don't have kids and I'm an insensitive clod...) because the rules are simpler.
...I will have a day full of free food...
;)
So you will network for food?
I'm not sure how comparable the current situation is with the former ringtone/picture-SMS protocol from Nokia. Several years ago, Nokia stepped forward and extended the SMS protocol to allow the easy installation of ringtones and pictures on their phones.
:)
Then, EMS and MMS appeared (as a standardized format supported by the majority of phone producers) and rendered the proprietary format obsolete. Phones are now able to display JPEG, GIF and play MIDI/MP3 ringtones. While the formats are standardized and customers have the ability to install their own ringtones/pictures for free (simple upload to the phone), content creation is not as easy.
The same COULD happen with games. Depending on the market volume, Nokia might take the lead again, and the other producers might follow, creating another standard in the process.
But I totally agree: let's hope it won't happen.
There might not even be a need for it, J2ME is pretty well established on a number of mobile phones. Using it (as most downloadable games do) lets you reach a lot of customers. Or maybe BREW, but I'm not sure if its catching on.
:)
It becomes interesting when, say, Nokia tries to establish a proprietary platform which is incompatible to other mobile phones. Personally, I wouldn't expect a move like this to be successful. But you never know
Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
:)
:)
Very true. And, honestly, the information quality varies also. Google finds websites, and anyone can create a website with (almost) any content. So if I'd choose to put up several sites stating that the moon landing was fake, and people google for it, without checking references most of them will find that - as a "fact" - the moon landing was fake... Maybe the moon landing is a bad example, since there are thousands of sites covering this topic, but imagine a less common question (like the ones in the article), you get the idea.
Journals and books on the other hand (esp. scientific ones) are checked and reviewed. Of course this does not mean all the information in them are 100% correct (and most certainly it does not mean that information on the internet is 100% incorrect!), but they are more trustworthy than tidbits of data found on the web.
Personally, I opt for a mixed strategy: google first, and then try to verify the results with literature. As an alternative, Google often turns up literature references, so I have the opportunity to check the source directly. It takes time, though, so it's more a question of correctness vs. time
Certainly there are very trustworthy websites, esp. if they contain information "direct from the source". I'd imagine shuttle launch dates on nasa.gov are correct. And I also think that speeches found on whitehouse.gov are rather accurate.
Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
Again, excellent point
Interesting enough, a PocketPC-port is available here, yet it is not mentioned on the official Handy site on SF.
hiring people to shoot the koalas
Oh, ok, I guess I misread "The government proposes shooting 20,000 of them"... I thought it was pretty darn heroic of the government to sacrify themselves for the koalas.
Hawking (my typo - my mistake) was just an example I picked, I was referring to the entire genre of "popular science". I never thought about Dawkins, I've never read any book by him and I didn't realize he might also fall into this genre ;)
:)
Apologies for the mix-up and confusion I may have caused
Ok, so Hawkins "A Brief History of Time" would qualify as a popular scientific publications, as it's simplyfied in a way, yet not too much. The target audience is the average reader without a PhD.
Still, I wouldn't rate it as literature, since Hawkins intended to inform the reader, and not necessarily to "emotionalize" (the latter - in my opinion - being the prime motive for literature).
IMHO it really boils down to the emotions (other than the occasional joke) conveyed in a text. This aspects sets scientific and literature texts apart. And this aspect is (again, IMHO) what makes a text worthy to receive a nobel prize.
I, for one, welcome our well-written scientific article overlords, but do these articles really fall into the same category as, for example, poems? The aims are very different. Scientific publications are there to make a statement, to get a point across, to share knowledge. Literature on the other hand is more emotional and less bound to "rules" (for lack of a better word), it has more freedom.
;)
Or to put it differently: a play by Shakespeare may make you cry, because of the emotions the play has stirred in you. If you cry over a scientific article, it is mostly because of the bad writing or obvious mistakes.
The article also comments on the subject of readability of scientific publications, but this is IMHO another debate
...can be found here. Other companies were interested, but showing commercials 13 miles above the earth kinda defeated the purpose.
To me, the P2P aspect is the true killer feature of Skype. All you have to do is to install the software, register an account, and you're good to go.
:( And after the beta, certain (yet unnamed) add-on features will cost money.
:)
We've installed Skype on a number of boxes, worked every time so far, and the quality is really good (even outside LAN).
The drawback is that - according to the FAQ - Skype uses a proprietary protocol
I, for one, like Skype and I am waiting for the Linux client so I can start skyping (will "to skype" become a verb like "to google"?) again.
And, yes, I am aware ICQ offered voice chat years ago