> Not even Blizzard really cares about the old content
True and valid point. It's like the old world areas kind of froze when you moved on to BC, WotLK, etc. Nothing new in politics, events, etc. There are quest lines they never seemed to finish up (such as returning some note to someone after Deadmines. I don't remember the specifics.) They did add some new stuff to Dustwallow Marsh ages ago (new quests, new flight point, etc.) but that's it. I have to agree with the others - if it wasn't for the refer a friend, I'd be tired of it. I'm using the program to level a rogue (one of the few classes I haven't played) solely for PvP purposes. That's going quite quickly (level 1-61 in a couple of weeks) otherwise, I'd be gone.
Great. A wonderful, in-depth analytical piece. But so what? Not like anything's going to come of it. Anyone who has ever gotten "legitimate" spam (i.e. not Viagra, etc. but from real businesses) or junk snail mail knows this is going on. Hell, politicians know it's going on. But it's not going to change. This isn't an Upton Sinclair piece that will change the meat-packing industry. Let's face facts: This crap won't ever change. And even if, through some magic means, it does, the damage has been done - All your data are belong to them already. Sorry. I'm a giant cynic. But I think I'm also a realist.
Outstanding. The screen is great, the battery life is outstanding and the form factor is remarkably comfortable. Frankly, that's a huge difference between the Kindle and a netbook. The Kindle is designed for one thing and that's reading for long periods of time. Netbooks aren't. I'm curious how many people who insist "a netbook can do it and its cheaper and no DRM and and and" have ever actually held a Kindle to see just how important the form factor component really is. Frankly, I don't care that I can read the books on my iPhone (another device people are saying is a good alternative.) I've done that and other than being able to sync where I am in the book between my Kindle and iPhone, I don't enjoy the experience nor do I find reading on the phone as relaxing or comfortable. I don't care about DRM issues. There are plenty of free books out there and I tend to buy books rather than going to the library, so if I was going to buy them anyway, then buying them for a device that I own and like isn't really a big deal to me. (Whether that point of sale is at Amazon or Google.) I don't need a netbook. I bought a kindle because I needed something that I could read for hours at a time and not have to worry about recharging the thing every 3-5 hours.
The same is true of the environment on Mars, but you're not going to change it. People complain that the only way to get supported access to an Apple OS is on Apple hardware is to be locked into Apple. The only way to get supported access to an Apple OS on non-Apple hardware will be to be locked into these third-party vendors. The theoretical solution - and best for the consumer - is for Apple to make it easier to install OS X (or whatever) on hardware they don't control. A show of hands for those who expect that to happen anytime soon? Didn't exactly get a breeze going from all of those hands flying up, did we?
That's great for consistency, but like half of the posters here, I can't stand the thing. The first thing I do when I sit down at a new Windows installation is right-click on the desktop and switch the "appearance" back to the "old" windows UI (Is it called "original"? I don't remember). I want the ability to do the same with the ribbon. I can't get used to it. I'm a moron, fine. But if it gets in the way of my productivity, then it's a badly designed UI. MS designed the ribbon for new Office users - people who haven't gotten used to doing things in a way that works for them and so can be "trained" in using this new interface. I'd love to know the number of brand new Office users vice people who have been using it for years and so have developed a level of comfort with how best they get things done. Look at the old Wordperfect interface with all of the function keys. Was it perfect? No. Once you got used to it and used it for a few years, did you find it to be difficult to switch to Office, a completely different UI? I bet you did. I know I did (and didn't MS have something under their Help menu in office to help people with switching from WP to Office? Maybe the differences in hotkeys or something?) If it works, suddenly changing it can grind your work to a halt.
I'm a giant Mac fanboy, but the same thing was/is the case with some of their stuff - or some of the shareware software designed by third-party developers. Even one of the early developers of Apple's UI stuff, Bruce Tognazzini, agrees that they've moved away from user-friendly design. MS is falling into the same pit.
All of the above is true. I picked one up (the Kindle 2) last Saturday. I love the thing and grabbed the handful of Amazon books that are $0.00 (some OK sci-fi ones.) But of more use were the freebies - ManyBooks, FeedBooks, and MobiPocket. A lot of the "classics" are there - the ones you always say you're going to read but never do. I've got a ton of them that I now have in a convenient storage medium (for me to still never actually read;))
All of that said, I'm pissed that I just got the 2 and now the DX is announced so soon after. I'm a Mac fanboy so I'm used to that kind of thing happening, but... The only reason I would consider returning the 2 and holding on the DX would be the native PDF support. I'm guessing that's a purely software-based feature (as well as the horizontal/vertical flipping) and hopefully it'll be an optional software upgrade down the line. Or if those things are important to me, should I send the 2 back, fork out the additional $100 and wait for the summer release?
Funny you mention Newsweek - I just picked up a Kindle 2 last week. I had heard there were periodicals available (for a price). I figured I'd check out Newsweek, until I read the reviews - With no charts, etc. Newsweek is pretty bland. It seems like - at least for now - this is yet another example of traditional media just not getting it.
Once Turner signed on with TW, he lost any clue-catching ability he ever had. But it wasn't just him.You have to understand just how stove piped TW has always been; There's serious competition between each of the separate fiefdoms with them at times operating in ways that are harmful to each other.
When I started work for TW a million years ago, I was sitting in a bar and looked around. I had never noticed how ingrained TW was with everything - Turner's channel was on the TV, a Warner music song was playing on the radio (I didn't know it at the time, but looked it up later on a hunch) what was (I think) a Warner entertainment arcade game in the corner and posters were up for Warner movies. It was, truthfully, kind of scary. The only thing missing was I wasn't reading a Time-Life publishing book on home repair.
But it got worse. When I started working for their cable modem service (then called Road Runner) for a period of a few months we lost the use of the character, because it belongs to Warner Brothers and they objected (and objected strongly) to our using the term, "Beep! Beep!" Turns out the official term is, "Meep! Beep!" (nor "Meep! Meep!" as it is sometimes written.) We had to pull back merchandise, promotional gear, etc. and reprint it all.
When it came to the content we offered in the (as they called it) "walled garden" online content area (i.e. the stuff only subscribers had access to) we kept telling them to make a deal with AOL to use their content. It's already there, it's (arguably) popular and you can spend the money you're putting toward content to help rollout the service to more places and faster. We were told that no deal with AOL would ever be struck because TW and AOL were arch rivals and had nothing in common.
Jump ahead to the weekend-long negotiations that happened on the second floor of some building in NYC in 2000, when attorneys and lawyers spent 48 sleepless-hours hammering things out. When the news broke that morning, all I could think was that it was done because of a penis-envy of sorts when TW and AOL management looked at the excite/@home merger (which also worked out oh-so-well. They went from $200/share to splitting the stock in half and never, ever recovering.) The only acquisition/merger/whatever handled worse was anything touched by David Wetherell when he was heading up the CF that was CMGI.
Living through all of that felt like living through something about which Hunter S. Thompson would written.
I know the licensing for cable cards is stupid and companies aren't willing to pony up for it, and I know there's yet more talk about some new standard, but until more set-top boxes can handle them, they're getting to the point where they're not overly useful. I have three Tivo's, and being somewhat older models, they can't handle a cable card - so I can't use them with our HD FIOS. The Apple TV box (whatever it's called. AppleTV or something?) is the same thing. I'd love to get it to use as a DVR or whatever. But without a cable card, I can't...
Two guys were hiking through the jungle when they spotted a tiger who looked both hungry and fast. One of the guys reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of tennis shoes.
His friend looked at him "Do you really think those shoes are going to make you run faster than that tiger?"
I don't have to run faster than that tiger, his friend replied. "I just have to run faster than you".
why hasn't someone marked this comment up? I'm actually surprised it hasn't been marked flamebait as it calls out that there's a reasonable - and logical - middle ground. Damn you, Smidge. Go take your logic somewhere else... Like Fark *grin*
Slashdot Mirror
> I'd wonder if you couldn't clog it fairly easily with something low tech and get the tank to blow itself up.
I forget, are the coyote or the roadrunner?
But if it's happening in other countries, can we say China shot first?
> Not even Blizzard really cares about the old content
True and valid point. It's like the old world areas kind of froze when you moved on to BC, WotLK, etc. Nothing new in politics, events, etc. There are quest lines they never seemed to finish up (such as returning some note to someone after Deadmines. I don't remember the specifics.) They did add some new stuff to Dustwallow Marsh ages ago (new quests, new flight point, etc.) but that's it. I have to agree with the others - if it wasn't for the refer a friend, I'd be tired of it. I'm using the program to level a rogue (one of the few classes I haven't played) solely for PvP purposes. That's going quite quickly (level 1-61 in a couple of weeks) otherwise, I'd be gone.
I was going to, but I couldn't find my wallet. See, it has this tracker in it, and ...
>Car travel, by contrast, is largely mundane.
;)
You must never have driven in Southern California in the late '80s
Great. A wonderful, in-depth analytical piece. But so what? Not like anything's going to come of it. Anyone who has ever gotten "legitimate" spam (i.e. not Viagra, etc. but from real businesses) or junk snail mail knows this is going on. Hell, politicians know it's going on. But it's not going to change. This isn't an Upton Sinclair piece that will change the meat-packing industry. Let's face facts: This crap won't ever change. And even if, through some magic means, it does, the damage has been done - All your data are belong to them already. Sorry. I'm a giant cynic. But I think I'm also a realist.
Outstanding. The screen is great, the battery life is outstanding and the form factor is remarkably comfortable. Frankly, that's a huge difference between the Kindle and a netbook. The Kindle is designed for one thing and that's reading for long periods of time. Netbooks aren't. I'm curious how many people who insist "a netbook can do it and its cheaper and no DRM and and and" have ever actually held a Kindle to see just how important the form factor component really is. Frankly, I don't care that I can read the books on my iPhone (another device people are saying is a good alternative.) I've done that and other than being able to sync where I am in the book between my Kindle and iPhone, I don't enjoy the experience nor do I find reading on the phone as relaxing or comfortable. I don't care about DRM issues. There are plenty of free books out there and I tend to buy books rather than going to the library, so if I was going to buy them anyway, then buying them for a device that I own and like isn't really a big deal to me. (Whether that point of sale is at Amazon or Google.) I don't need a netbook. I bought a kindle because I needed something that I could read for hours at a time and not have to worry about recharging the thing every 3-5 hours.
> Google is not a hardware company.
Neither is Amazon and you'll get my Kindle when you pry it from my cold, dead hands...
Seriously, I don't care who sells them so long as they offer the content I want and the cost is right.
The same is true of the environment on Mars, but you're not going to change it. People complain that the only way to get supported access to an Apple OS is on Apple hardware is to be locked into Apple. The only way to get supported access to an Apple OS on non-Apple hardware will be to be locked into these third-party vendors. The theoretical solution - and best for the consumer - is for Apple to make it easier to install OS X (or whatever) on hardware they don't control. A show of hands for those who expect that to happen anytime soon? Didn't exactly get a breeze going from all of those hands flying up, did we?
We need a new moderation tag: "Geek" :)
Doesn't it also give a better attack vector via a hardware-focused rootkit?
That's great for consistency, but like half of the posters here, I can't stand the thing. The first thing I do when I sit down at a new Windows installation is right-click on the desktop and switch the "appearance" back to the "old" windows UI (Is it called "original"? I don't remember). I want the ability to do the same with the ribbon. I can't get used to it. I'm a moron, fine. But if it gets in the way of my productivity, then it's a badly designed UI. MS designed the ribbon for new Office users - people who haven't gotten used to doing things in a way that works for them and so can be "trained" in using this new interface. I'd love to know the number of brand new Office users vice people who have been using it for years and so have developed a level of comfort with how best they get things done. Look at the old Wordperfect interface with all of the function keys. Was it perfect? No. Once you got used to it and used it for a few years, did you find it to be difficult to switch to Office, a completely different UI? I bet you did. I know I did (and didn't MS have something under their Help menu in office to help people with switching from WP to Office? Maybe the differences in hotkeys or something?) If it works, suddenly changing it can grind your work to a halt.
I'm a giant Mac fanboy, but the same thing was/is the case with some of their stuff - or some of the shareware software designed by third-party developers. Even one of the early developers of Apple's UI stuff, Bruce Tognazzini, agrees that they've moved away from user-friendly design. MS is falling into the same pit.
It's not shit. Rupert, when your products can say the same, let me know.
All of the above is true. I picked one up (the Kindle 2) last Saturday. I love the thing and grabbed the handful of Amazon books that are $0.00 (some OK sci-fi ones.) But of more use were the freebies - ManyBooks, FeedBooks, and MobiPocket. A lot of the "classics" are there - the ones you always say you're going to read but never do. I've got a ton of them that I now have in a convenient storage medium (for me to still never actually read ;))
All of that said, I'm pissed that I just got the 2 and now the DX is announced so soon after. I'm a Mac fanboy so I'm used to that kind of thing happening, but ... The only reason I would consider returning the 2 and holding on the DX would be the native PDF support. I'm guessing that's a purely software-based feature (as well as the horizontal/vertical flipping) and hopefully it'll be an optional software upgrade down the line. Or if those things are important to me, should I send the 2 back, fork out the additional $100 and wait for the summer release?
Funny you mention Newsweek - I just picked up a Kindle 2 last week. I had heard there were periodicals available (for a price). I figured I'd check out Newsweek, until I read the reviews - With no charts, etc. Newsweek is pretty bland. It seems like - at least for now - this is yet another example of traditional media just not getting it.
I want a virtual duel with swords or pistols!
:)
I'm sure there's a joke somewhere about "prior restraint"
Once Turner signed on with TW, he lost any clue-catching ability he ever had. But it wasn't just him.You have to understand just how stove piped TW has always been; There's serious competition between each of the separate fiefdoms with them at times operating in ways that are harmful to each other.
When I started work for TW a million years ago, I was sitting in a bar and looked around. I had never noticed how ingrained TW was with everything - Turner's channel was on the TV, a Warner music song was playing on the radio (I didn't know it at the time, but looked it up later on a hunch) what was (I think) a Warner entertainment arcade game in the corner and posters were up for Warner movies. It was, truthfully, kind of scary. The only thing missing was I wasn't reading a Time-Life publishing book on home repair.
But it got worse. When I started working for their cable modem service (then called Road Runner) for a period of a few months we lost the use of the character, because it belongs to Warner Brothers and they objected (and objected strongly) to our using the term, "Beep! Beep!" Turns out the official term is, "Meep! Beep!" (nor "Meep! Meep!" as it is sometimes written.) We had to pull back merchandise, promotional gear, etc. and reprint it all.
When it came to the content we offered in the (as they called it) "walled garden" online content area (i.e. the stuff only subscribers had access to) we kept telling them to make a deal with AOL to use their content. It's already there, it's (arguably) popular and you can spend the money you're putting toward content to help rollout the service to more places and faster. We were told that no deal with AOL would ever be struck because TW and AOL were arch rivals and had nothing in common.
Jump ahead to the weekend-long negotiations that happened on the second floor of some building in NYC in 2000, when attorneys and lawyers spent 48 sleepless-hours hammering things out. When the news broke that morning, all I could think was that it was done because of a penis-envy of sorts when TW and AOL management looked at the excite/@home merger (which also worked out oh-so-well. They went from $200/share to splitting the stock in half and never, ever recovering.) The only acquisition/merger/whatever handled worse was anything touched by David Wetherell when he was heading up the CF that was CMGI.
Living through all of that felt like living through something about which Hunter S. Thompson would written.
Hey, if androids can dream of electric sheep, why shouldn't avatars get into the fun? ;)
I know the licensing for cable cards is stupid and companies aren't willing to pony up for it, and I know there's yet more talk about some new standard, but until more set-top boxes can handle them, they're getting to the point where they're not overly useful. I have three Tivo's, and being somewhat older models, they can't handle a cable card - so I can't use them with our HD FIOS. The Apple TV box (whatever it's called. AppleTV or something?) is the same thing. I'd love to get it to use as a DVR or whatever. But without a cable card, I can't...
Two guys were hiking through the jungle when they spotted a tiger who looked both hungry and fast. One of the guys reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of tennis shoes. His friend looked at him "Do you really think those shoes are going to make you run faster than that tiger?" I don't have to run faster than that tiger, his friend replied. "I just have to run faster than you".
I'm guessing if "Linux" was swapped for "Mac" this would be marked flamebait? Or is that "troll"? I keep getting them confused.
They couldn't hear all of the arguments because they had their iPods on ... ;)
> so it is left as an exercise for the reader to find the original study and post a link for the rest of us.
Wonder how depressing it is wherever the study lives.
> students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction
;)
Wow. We never called it that. But we were told it we latched onto it too often we could go blind.
why hasn't someone marked this comment up? I'm actually surprised it hasn't been marked flamebait as it calls out that there's a reasonable - and logical - middle ground. Damn you, Smidge. Go take your logic somewhere else ... Like Fark *grin*