Those aren't really sandboxes as much as playgrounds. There are lots of rides on them and you can choose when you want to go on them, but they, for the most part, only work in the way they are designed.
Just like that POS device 'Tapwave' sells for more than the cost of the actual hardware to pay for the work that went into develop it, CDs allow an artist to earn more while letting more people share the cost.
The difference is, of course, people actually want CDs, as oppose to the Tapwave which sold so well the company went into bankruptcy.
Nokia is a very profitable cell phone company. They can afford to take several cracks at this to get it right. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes and bring something new to the market. They do make pretty good phones.
In the US, money you pay for 'audits' to Scientology - essentially classes - are tax deductable. However, your tuition to a private Catholic or Jewish Day school is not. Go figure.
It would not work because the 'lesson' from a movie lasts only about 90 minutes - maybe 120. You can't make the major focus of a game you play for 20-40 hours a 'lesson' about how bad global warming is.
It's like this - how many SPORTS do you know that are created to try and teach a lesson? Video Games are more like SPORTS than they are like books/movies/etc. Sure, they can have a theme (Oddworld), but it's really a sport about getting your little friends from one side of the map to the other.
Oddworld games - at least the one or two I played - have a decidedly anti-corporate tone. Given the Lannings comments on the Civil Rights movement and older media like movies, I wonder if he wants to push his games to be more of an activist vehicle than they have in the past.
Which is all well and fine... as long as the games are still principally fun and he doesn't forget that the reason people load up Abe + co not to learn a lesson but for the same reason people head to the movie house - to have an escape and to get some enjoyment.
Better that than having games that get the same 'You must go see this film - the message is so powerful' swill (Siriana) that tries to guilt you into going to some film rather than to one you would enjoy (Borat).
Laws against insider trading are what prevent the market from being open and fair.
The market doesn't work the way you describe. Your signature indicates your ears are closed by I'll give it a shot anyway.
Insider trading results in very smooth curves of an individual equity value. It is smooth curves that give small investors the time to make re-assessments and trades. It is the sharp, 10%+ shifts that happen in the market that hurt the small investor.
What prompts an insider trade investigation by the SEC is when the equity value of a stock is smooth in relation to advisories that you would expect would cause a shock.
If any of what you said was true, the Shanghai stock market would not be as successful as it is - despite that there are no insider/anti-arbitrage rules.
No, it wouldn't hurt the company at all. Company's profitability or ability to pay their employees or their shareholders aren't affected by these things coming and leaving in a series of days.
If the company management/ownership isn't colluding in it, they are probably scratching their heads and then grasping what is happening and just riding it out.
In theory, if they were in the midst of a merger or an aqausition, it could screw things up a bit, but only in the short term. This kind of things could also happen because of something systematic, too, like a terrorist attack on the NYSE.
The problem with your analysis is that the stock market IS profitable to the spammers.
The truth is, no one gets hurt by these spammers just like no one gets hurt by insider training (except stock brokers) and no one gets hurt by arbitrage (except company management). Restrictions on both of these practices - which are allowed on some exchanges - actually hurt the small and casual investors.
There are huge ghettos of Islamist extremist immigrants that are in a daily war with local police and are creating an internal version of Saudi Arabia within the country. This is reflected in the electoral success of Sarkozy.
I can't create a whole media industry here on slashdot to educate you on this. If you want to look into it on your own you can. This is a pretty good article to describe that all is not well.
But this is lost on you. I know that you think the only real terrorist is President Bush, he probably had a hand indirectly in 9/11, there is no Al-Queda, there is no threat from radical islam, and that boogey men like the 'Religious Right' here in the US are the real threat to your most important liberties, like downloading porn in mom's basement or lounging around Starbucks and complaining about how hard life is.
Little Johnny will just have to have his parent 'green-light' the game for his user account. No big deal.
Yeah, huge constitutional crisis and massive civil rights violation akin to asking Rosa Parks to go to the back of the bus. Whatever. Oh, and M$ is evil, etc. etc.
It's just the way the business works. Viacom decided to liscense MS to distribute it's content in the US through it's 360 with a lot of restrictions. They may have agreements with other people in, say, France for distribution of media there that restrict the time/manor/place of the distribution of the same media also in France.
Itunes is also a good example.
Also, if you have some American media it might make sense to distribute it via XBL but would be more profitable to distribute it exclusivly through, say, the PS3 (theoretical) media network in Japan where there is a larger install base.
Source? Ever heard of DVD region coding? You think that is just there to screw with you?
I actually bought some Sopranos Season 2 DVDs from the UK (region 2?) about a year before they were available in the US. Why? In the UK at the time, HBO determined this was the most profitable distrubution method - probably because they couldn't get a pay-to-view TV station in the UK to carry the show.
That blacks vote for Kerry overwhelmingly or that they are less likely to participate in an exit poll?
For the former, that's just an unfortunate fact.
For the latter, weren't we told by the same crowd claiming OH was stolen that FL was stolen and that TN was stolen by the positioning of police near minority precincts? Yes, we were.
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1
To give a direct answer, I knew the Republicans weren't answering because of the results I was getting versus what the precinct reported at the end of the day. This was in 1994 and there were paper ballots, so nothing shady.
That, on it's face, is evidence the 'experts' who did their study don't know what they are doing and aren't controlling properly.
A precinct that votes more heavily for Bush doesn't necessarily means that it is the Bush voters who are giving a higher response.
Also, if you can imagine a Kerry stronghold where there is a dominance of either Blacks who are suspect of anyone asking questions as they leave a polling place OR hispanics who are unfamiliar with the English language or being quizzed about what is supposidly a private matter, you can understand why it might look like W's precincts have a higher percentage of participants than a Kerry precinct.
Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Hi,
I actually have conducted them for media outlets. I was pretty young at the time though the way they get these exit pollers is pretty much the same: low paying, single-day temp employees.
They are often wildly innacurate because many folks choose not to participate - mostly people who are Republican - and because they miss absentee voters - also mostly Republicans as in Ohio and in other states the Rs did a huge absentee vote program where Ds mostly focus on the 48-hour GOTV effort of driving indigents to polling places.
Anyway, it's easy to be part of the slashherd hivemind and believe a couple of clowns that have a few letters after their names doing, what I think Breshnev referred to as, 'using statistics to turn excriment into bullets.'
It has nothing to do with being a test bed. It has to do with distribution rights.
The content creators (Viacom, etc) did not give MS the distribution rights for other parts of the world. If they did, MS would be happy to distribute it.
Sales of distribution rights are the reasons for DVD coding, etc. It has nothing to do with 'testing.'
You do not own your credit report - Equifax, etc. own it. Their business model is BUILT around selling it to almost anyone.
You don't own your account information with your bank unless your bank explicitly tells you they don't share it with anyone - but they won't, because they regularly share this info with law enforcement.
If I were, for some wierd reason, sit across the street from you and record each day when you leave and when you return, I could give the info to anyone and the government would not need a warrent to use it in court. Observing someone's behavior in either commercial or otherwise public transactions is legitemate.
Do you think the IRS needs a warrent to go after you for a fraudulent tax form - just to see the tax form?
I really liked the Apple product. I don't care for any other Apple products. It is pretty promising. But I dislike a few things about it - no GPS, looks like it's locked into a certain provider, and lacks a thumb keyboard.
I am now using the second generation of what is a much superior device: the HP Ipaq HW6945.
It is also available for $500 with a contract from Cingular. You will probably also want to ditch the GPS software it comes with in favor of TomTom 6.
It's camera isn't as good (though it does have a LED Flash) and it's screen isn't as large, but the screen is still fairly large. With miniSD cards you can have a LOT of space and swap the cards easily between your reader to get video over to it. You can also stream audio (and presumably video) over either wireless or EDGE.
Love or hate WM5, there are many, many 3rd party apps for it. And it has a keyboard which I am grateful to have in exchange for the somewhat smaller screen.
Granted, the processor is a little wheezy, and hopefully the third generation of this device will be even better. The GPS is awesome as it seems to get signal even when I am in my office with the blides closed. And since I am almost always in the car when I have the GPS the battery drain isn't an issue.
Slashdot Mirror
A truer example of a sandbox might be Sim City.
Just like that POS device 'Tapwave' sells for more than the cost of the actual hardware to pay for the work that went into develop it, CDs allow an artist to earn more while letting more people share the cost.
The difference is, of course, people actually want CDs, as oppose to the Tapwave which sold so well the company went into bankruptcy.
Nokia is a very profitable cell phone company. They can afford to take several cracks at this to get it right. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes and bring something new to the market. They do make pretty good phones.
In the US, money you pay for 'audits' to Scientology - essentially classes - are tax deductable. However, your tuition to a private Catholic or Jewish Day school is not. Go figure.
It's like this - how many SPORTS do you know that are created to try and teach a lesson? Video Games are more like SPORTS than they are like books/movies/etc. Sure, they can have a theme (Oddworld), but it's really a sport about getting your little friends from one side of the map to the other.
Which is all well and fine... as long as the games are still principally fun and he doesn't forget that the reason people load up Abe + co not to learn a lesson but for the same reason people head to the movie house - to have an escape and to get some enjoyment.
Better that than having games that get the same 'You must go see this film - the message is so powerful' swill (Siriana) that tries to guilt you into going to some film rather than to one you would enjoy (Borat).
The market doesn't work the way you describe. Your signature indicates your ears are closed by I'll give it a shot anyway.
Insider trading results in very smooth curves of an individual equity value. It is smooth curves that give small investors the time to make re-assessments and trades. It is the sharp, 10%+ shifts that happen in the market that hurt the small investor.
What prompts an insider trade investigation by the SEC is when the equity value of a stock is smooth in relation to advisories that you would expect would cause a shock.
If any of what you said was true, the Shanghai stock market would not be as successful as it is - despite that there are no insider/anti-arbitrage rules.
If the company management/ownership isn't colluding in it, they are probably scratching their heads and then grasping what is happening and just riding it out.
In theory, if they were in the midst of a merger or an aqausition, it could screw things up a bit, but only in the short term. This kind of things could also happen because of something systematic, too, like a terrorist attack on the NYSE.
How about creating a new Google-style Ranking system that only ranks sites based on the number of no-follow links heading towards them?
The truth is, no one gets hurt by these spammers just like no one gets hurt by insider training (except stock brokers) and no one gets hurt by arbitrage (except company management). Restrictions on both of these practices - which are allowed on some exchanges - actually hurt the small and casual investors.
Perhaps this child should go outside and get some fresh air and excercise so he doesn't look like you when he is your age?
I can't create a whole media industry here on slashdot to educate you on this. If you want to look into it on your own you can. This is a pretty good article to describe that all is not well.
But this is lost on you. I know that you think the only real terrorist is President Bush, he probably had a hand indirectly in 9/11, there is no Al-Queda, there is no threat from radical islam, and that boogey men like the 'Religious Right' here in the US are the real threat to your most important liberties, like downloading porn in mom's basement or lounging around Starbucks and complaining about how hard life is.
Yeah, huge constitutional crisis and massive civil rights violation akin to asking Rosa Parks to go to the back of the bus. Whatever. Oh, and M$ is evil, etc. etc.
The term that can generally be applied to these games, though it is trademarked, is bemani.
Look more carefully. Evidence to the contrary is ample. Perhaps the best example is what is happening in the Netherlands.
What evidence do you have that they are anything like the Irish in the US? The Muslim in France is a very, very different story.
Get out from behind your PC (both kinds).
Itunes is also a good example.
Also, if you have some American media it might make sense to distribute it via XBL but would be more profitable to distribute it exclusivly through, say, the PS3 (theoretical) media network in Japan where there is a larger install base.
Source? Ever heard of DVD region coding? You think that is just there to screw with you?
I actually bought some Sopranos Season 2 DVDs from the UK (region 2?) about a year before they were available in the US. Why? In the UK at the time, HBO determined this was the most profitable distrubution method - probably because they couldn't get a pay-to-view TV station in the UK to carry the show.
That blacks vote for Kerry overwhelmingly or that they are less likely to participate in an exit poll?
For the former, that's just an unfortunate fact.
For the latter, weren't we told by the same crowd claiming OH was stolen that FL was stolen and that TN was stolen by the positioning of police near minority precincts? Yes, we were.
To give a direct answer, I knew the Republicans weren't answering because of the results I was getting versus what the precinct reported at the end of the day. This was in 1994 and there were paper ballots, so nothing shady.
A precinct that votes more heavily for Bush doesn't necessarily means that it is the Bush voters who are giving a higher response.
Also, if you can imagine a Kerry stronghold where there is a dominance of either Blacks who are suspect of anyone asking questions as they leave a polling place OR hispanics who are unfamiliar with the English language or being quizzed about what is supposidly a private matter, you can understand why it might look like W's precincts have a higher percentage of participants than a Kerry precinct.
I actually have conducted them for media outlets. I was pretty young at the time though the way they get these exit pollers is pretty much the same: low paying, single-day temp employees.
They are often wildly innacurate because many folks choose not to participate - mostly people who are Republican - and because they miss absentee voters - also mostly Republicans as in Ohio and in other states the Rs did a huge absentee vote program where Ds mostly focus on the 48-hour GOTV effort of driving indigents to polling places.
Anyway, it's easy to be part of the slashherd hivemind and believe a couple of clowns that have a few letters after their names doing, what I think Breshnev referred to as, 'using statistics to turn excriment into bullets.'
Wouldn't a nuclear blast - tactical or otherwise - OR an EMP device fry a ships ability to fire these? Can someone clearify?
The content creators (Viacom, etc) did not give MS the distribution rights for other parts of the world. If they did, MS would be happy to distribute it.
Sales of distribution rights are the reasons for DVD coding, etc. It has nothing to do with 'testing.'
You don't own your account information with your bank unless your bank explicitly tells you they don't share it with anyone - but they won't, because they regularly share this info with law enforcement.
If I were, for some wierd reason, sit across the street from you and record each day when you leave and when you return, I could give the info to anyone and the government would not need a warrent to use it in court. Observing someone's behavior in either commercial or otherwise public transactions is legitemate.
Do you think the IRS needs a warrent to go after you for a fraudulent tax form - just to see the tax form?
It's called the HP Ipaq 6945.
I am now using the second generation of what is a much superior device: the HP Ipaq HW6945.
It is also available for $500 with a contract from Cingular. You will probably also want to ditch the GPS software it comes with in favor of TomTom 6.
It's camera isn't as good (though it does have a LED Flash) and it's screen isn't as large, but the screen is still fairly large. With miniSD cards you can have a LOT of space and swap the cards easily between your reader to get video over to it. You can also stream audio (and presumably video) over either wireless or EDGE.
Love or hate WM5, there are many, many 3rd party apps for it. And it has a keyboard which I am grateful to have in exchange for the somewhat smaller screen.
Granted, the processor is a little wheezy, and hopefully the third generation of this device will be even better. The GPS is awesome as it seems to get signal even when I am in my office with the blides closed. And since I am almost always in the car when I have the GPS the battery drain isn't an issue.