I go to a small private college, and one of my very liberal teachers (who admitted the first day of class that she's probably on several government watch lists) was very upset over the cost of books. So what did she do? She photocopied the main book for each of the students (there are less than 20 in the class) using the schools resources. Obviously this won't work on a large university scale, but definitely feasible for the smaller schools.
You want to see robot sales REALLY explode? Wait till we have the first sex-doll that comes anywhere close to realistically simulating sex (and doesn't way a metric ton). I'm not joking either. Sex drove the video recording industry, sex drove the internet, sex will drive the upcoming robot industry. You don't need to program emotion to have a reasonably satisfying sexual experience. And with todays advances in synthetic skins, robots, and AI, expect to have reasonably affordable sex-bots within 5 years.
Just because nobody knew doesn't mean UO isn't to blame. Intentional or not, they set the standard for buggy releases, and incidentally, they became a success, so people modeled the behavior of what made them a success, and in this case, it happened to be a buggy release. I'm not saying that its their fault for being the first one to try an graphical MMORPG, but it is their fault for releasing it buggy as all hell. Regardless of whether it was the first game of not, they released a game that should have still been in beta for all the bugs it had.
....is how the game companies often try to silence the critics of their games when they are released full of bugs or minus key features (such as gameplay). *cough*SWG*cough*. They were deleting posts left and right on the forums, locking out non-players, and many other things, simply because they had an unfinished game, and they didn't want people to know about it.
And you know who we have to blame for all of this? UO.
They started the trend of releasing a game that realistically was still in beta. However, since it was so successful anyways, other companies decided, "HEY! if they did it, we can do it to!", and thus the trend began. And I know I only speak for the MMORPG genre, I'm sure similar things have happened with other genres as well.
There's been a couple technologies that are being developed which I think will once and for all solve the problem of the tiny screen on small devices.
#1 - Roll-up Displays Kind of self explanatory....when you need a big screen, you roll this baby out, plug it in, and BAM, big screen.
#2 - Holographic Screens Again, kind of self explanatory. Your screen projects from the device to a small distance away from it.....and can be expanded if you need it to.
#3 - Wearable Computing This works kind of like the holographic one.....you can make the screen appear as big as you want, because it doesn't really exist. The other benefit is that others can't see what you're looking at. Expect this one to roll out the instant wearable computing becomes affordable/stylish.
These three technologies offer possibly the best hopes we have of ending the issue of the shrinking device/shrinking screen dilema, and they're almost all here.
P.S. I'd love for someone to attempt to put this post into Spanish Inquisition form because I'm not familiar enough with the sketch to do it myself!
I've always thought this was an incredibly creative solution. However...sometimes it works a little too well. I've encountered sites where I can't make out what the word is no matter what I try. And I'm not even colorblind/blind. The problem is....this filter does a good job of filtering not just computers who would have difficulty piecing the information together visually, but humans who might have problems doing that as well.
One solution might be to offer multiple ways of deciphering. Such as an audio clip that could play a distorted version of the phrase that you could then type in. Or even ask simple questions, such as "What color is the background?".
Then there's the other issue of the code not being visible simply because I'm using Mozilla....but thats a whole different can of worms.
But........But......how do they shrink Magneto down to be little mutant size to fit into the drive? And I'm sure Cyclops won't enjoy being stuck in there with him.
"This isn't about protecting trademarks, this is about simply being able to advertise what you sell. Advertising that I sell Serta mattresses doesn't in any way delute the trademark."
Would it be possible for the copyright holder to prohibit you from using Google Ads? I can't think of a reason why they would offhand.....but lets say for some reason M$ or someone didn't want another company to sell their product, could they tell Google to turn the ads from that company off?
The main reason reason that Photoshop ranks #1 is because it is the best out there, end of story. The second reason it is #1 is because of how Adobe has hooked people in the past. They have grown up using Photoshop in schools, and most likely having a pirated copy of it for their personal use. The $600 pricetag is not something the ordinary user will hand over money for.
However, when you enter the business world, the user will gladly plop down that $600 if they are a freelancer, and if its a company, its a drop in the bucket for them to purchase the licenses they need. Adobe shouldn't be worrying about getting money from the regular Joe Enduser because they most likely won't pay for it. Even if they have to use the #2 Photoshop-clone out there, they'll do it if they can get it for free, or a lot cheaper.
Adobe's getting greedy, and they'll learn the hard way that this won't do anything but cost them dollars and annoy the piss out of the legit customers, because there will ALWAYS be a cracked version out there.
They're missing out if they don't play female characters. My friend and I both played female wood elves after we deemed them to be the most "attractive" of the EQ races. I have never been such a dirty slut in my life, but I have to say that not only did I never have to save my cash to get that rare item, I also was completely decked out in the best equipment my "boyfriends" could afford. Talk about a whole new style of gameplay!
"Keep the adds to a minimum, preferably none unless the buyer opts to see specials, and no pay on cart option. That would involve wireless transmission of the credit card info, and require encryption. "
I'll tell you right now why you'll never be able to turn off the ads. The ads are how the supermarkets are going to pay for the new technology. People will pay good money for paid placement, and even if they were paying for the carts some other way, do you think they'd turn down an opportunity to make more money?
Its bad enough they have 50 billion ads on the back of my receipt. In fact, my receipt is now often 3 receipts, where the second one is ENTIRELY ads, and the third one is a special store scratch off lottery deal where you have to give them personal information (that they can sell) to win anything.
They already do something similar now. A friend of mine who's hispanic was at Rainbow Foods in Minneapolis and noticed in the Hispanic foods isle that a container of Nestle Quik chocolate powder (labeled in spanish) cost a whole dollar more than the english version (which was exactly the same except with an english label) which was located a few isles down. Obviously they never intended someone to notice, or be able to do anything about it (as the people who would most likely buy the spanish version probably didn't speak english).
She spoke to the on-duty manager (who was roughly 17) who obviously didn't give a shit, and nothing has been changed.
You know, I read about the new MMORPGs coming out.....and they are really all the same. They take a few key gaming elements, switch the theme a bit (oh, hmmmm, fantasy's been done, lets change the swords to lasers!), and lock players in to the same leveling treadmill which is really just a virtual Skinner Box. I think the closest thing to an innovative MMORPG lately has been Planetside....but it doesn't offer enough true FPS elements to make it any fun to play. I think the first MMOFPS that can truly combine the two will be earthshattering. Perhaps a future Halflife 2 mod, who knows.
" It's not the guy's fault, if his intentions are good. But a lot of guys are assholes, and girls realize that. Look at the Kobe Bryant case for a different scenario. Basically the bad guys ruin it for everyone else. You already have one strike against you, you're a guy."
Actually, its the "bad" guys who usually get the girl. Go figure.
While your comment was obviously a joke, I wonder if there will one day be software that could do just that. Not every guy can go out to the mall and approach 10 girls to build his confidence. A virtual reality dating sim might be able to help him do just that. And before someone makes a crack about my comment, realize that it is increasingly common in this day and age for boys to not feel confident enough to approach girls, so this is a real problem that needs some solutions.
I actually had a discussion about this in class. We were talking about reenactments and how some of the ones done today are probably HORRIBLY inaccurate based on the data we have of the time. However, in the future, barring some sort of massive information loss, I think they'll have an EXTREMELY clear picture of what life was like today due to our ability to digitally record our data, and the fact that since storage is so cheap now that we tend to store almost everything.
"All one needs to do to enslave Americans is to do it in small steps, making sure that each step is the easiest thing for the victim to do at that time."
Reminds me of how you boil a frog. If you try to put the frog into a pot of boiling water, it will just jump out. However, if you put it in room temperature water, and gradually heat it to the point of boiling, the frog won't even realize it's being cooked until its too late.
Bah, hasn't Hollywood taught you anything? We just need Bruce Willis and a team of rough and tough oil platform workers to fly up there on a hip and trendy new space shuttle, drill to its core, and deposit a nuke, all while keeping in constant communication with Liv Tyler at home. Not up to the challenge my ass!
That's why once we do start getting things going in space, we're gonna end up with things like this. Garbage men in space. Actually, the series just started being released on fansubs and is available here. It is quite an excellent anime series and is very interesting to see their take on the trash problem in space.
I really hope they bring all the spells over. Granted, some can't because it requires too much direct DM interaction, but just once I'd like to see them implement Wish properly, or Prismatic Spray, etc. Also, I really hope this doesn't just turn into "D&D does EQ". The thing about D&D that made it fun is that the story revolves around you and your party. It's not D&D if you go out and just kill rats till you're level two, then off to kobolds. As a big D&D fan, of course I'm hoping this turns into something good. But honestly, after seeing everything else out there in terms of MMORPGs, I seriously doubt they will be able to pull it off. NWN is the closest we'll get to a suitable D&D translation to the net.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh wait, wait........imagine a beowulf cluster....oh fuck it.
And you know who we have to blame for all of this? UO.
They started the trend of releasing a game that realistically was still in beta. However, since it was so successful anyways, other companies decided, "HEY! if they did it, we can do it to!", and thus the trend began. And I know I only speak for the MMORPG genre, I'm sure similar things have happened with other genres as well.
#1 - Roll-up Displays
Kind of self explanatory....when you need a big screen, you roll this baby out, plug it in, and BAM, big screen.
#2 - Holographic Screens
Again, kind of self explanatory. Your screen projects from the device to a small distance away from it.....and can be expanded if you need it to.
#3 - Wearable Computing
This works kind of like the holographic one.....you can make the screen appear as big as you want, because it doesn't really exist. The other benefit is that others can't see what you're looking at. Expect this one to roll out the instant wearable computing becomes affordable/stylish.
These three technologies offer possibly the best hopes we have of ending the issue of the shrinking device/shrinking screen dilema, and they're almost all here.
P.S.
I'd love for someone to attempt to put this post into Spanish Inquisition form because I'm not familiar enough with the sketch to do it myself!
One solution might be to offer multiple ways of deciphering. Such as an audio clip that could play a distorted version of the phrase that you could then type in. Or even ask simple questions, such as "What color is the background?".
Then there's the other issue of the code not being visible simply because I'm using Mozilla....but thats a whole different can of worms.
Would it be possible for the copyright holder to prohibit you from using Google Ads? I can't think of a reason why they would offhand.....but lets say for some reason M$ or someone didn't want another company to sell their product, could they tell Google to turn the ads from that company off?
The main reason reason that Photoshop ranks #1 is because it is the best out there, end of story. The second reason it is #1 is because of how Adobe has hooked people in the past. They have grown up using Photoshop in schools, and most likely having a pirated copy of it for their personal use. The $600 pricetag is not something the ordinary user will hand over money for.
However, when you enter the business world, the user will gladly plop down that $600 if they are a freelancer, and if its a company, its a drop in the bucket for them to purchase the licenses they need. Adobe shouldn't be worrying about getting money from the regular Joe Enduser because they most likely won't pay for it. Even if they have to use the #2 Photoshop-clone out there, they'll do it if they can get it for free, or a lot cheaper.
Adobe's getting greedy, and they'll learn the hard way that this won't do anything but cost them dollars and annoy the piss out of the legit customers, because there will ALWAYS be a cracked version out there.
I'll tell you right now why you'll never be able to turn off the ads. The ads are how the supermarkets are going to pay for the new technology. People will pay good money for paid placement, and even if they were paying for the carts some other way, do you think they'd turn down an opportunity to make more money?
Its bad enough they have 50 billion ads on the back of my receipt. In fact, my receipt is now often 3 receipts, where the second one is ENTIRELY ads, and the third one is a special store scratch off lottery deal where you have to give them personal information (that they can sell) to win anything.
She spoke to the on-duty manager (who was roughly 17) who obviously didn't give a shit, and nothing has been changed.
Actually, its the "bad" guys who usually get the girl. Go figure.
Reminds me of how you boil a frog. If you try to put the frog into a pot of boiling water, it will just jump out. However, if you put it in room temperature water, and gradually heat it to the point of boiling, the frog won't even realize it's being cooked until its too late.