There have been tourist trips to Chernobyl for over a decade already. I was there this summer.
Pripyat is already wrecked, since there have been a lot of looters going through the area. Our guide told us that the apartment buildings are completely stripped by now, even the toilet seats are gone.
We visited an abandoned school as well. The old swimming pool area had obviously been used by kids who went there to drink Vodka and smash the place.
LTE is primarily targeted at computers and similar devices, not mobile phones (yes, that is one target market as well, but not the prime market).
I have seen presentations from more than one operator that wants to try and convert people away from fixed broadband to HSPA/LTE even for home use, altough I do not know what Verizon is planning. But in my mind, LTE on a smart-phone is overkill, at least for the foreseeable future, unless you use it as a modem.
I'm sure you're just joking, but a lot of people have this misconception that space is cold.
The few particles floating around out there (background radiation included) is very cold yes, only a few degrees K. However, these particles are few and far between, and the actual vacuum of space has no temperature at all (although I'm not sure how to factor in virtual particles into this).
I believe that I read somewhere that floating unshielded through space, you are more likely to die from overheating, since you can only lose excess heat through black body radiation.
Currently means a theoretical top speed of 150Mbps in the downlink, actual field speed here in Stockholm have been measured at ~60Mbps (but I think 30Mbps is more common, always depends on radio conditions and cell usage). Currently work is ongoing to reach 1Gpbs theoretical top speed.
The big thing I think is the reduced latency. For HSPA type technologies you typically end up with 80 - 120 ms latency added from the packets trip trough the Radio Access Network (RAN) and Packet Core networks. For LTE, the specification states that the combined latency of the RAN and PC should be around 5ms.
That being said, having LTE on a phone isn't really that necessary, at least for the immediate future (unless you want to use your phone as a modem). LTE was developed with mobile data in mind, and primary target consumers are laptop users and IPTV consumers (no that there are very many yet). Yes, you can use it on your smartphone, but the advantages will be very slim over 3G.
The Sun is throwing photons at us, which is how both light and heat get's here.
And that is the problem. Yes, things in space will cool down, however, the only way this occurs is through what is called "black body radiation", that is, the emission of photons. Cooling down this way is slower than being cooled by air, water or some other substance.
And why should they care? There's no way they can make any more money out of those games, and they do have the cash cow tightly under control.
You would be surprised. Starcraft sold 1.5 million copies in the first year after it was released, but has over the following decade sold a total of ~11 million copies, and are still selling today. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft#Reception)
I think the cause is more likely that they understand that this CD check really doesn't affect the number of sold copies in any substantial way, so why not give the players the option to play without the disc if they want?
You might install it on a notebook without net access (admittedly less of an issue these days).
Indeed. One of those mythical notebooks that are permanently deprived of an internet connection.
The servers might crash.
And be up again, this is something you do ONCE. Ever.
A pirate might have already used your ID and you can't install.
I won't pretend this isn't a problem, it has been problematic since the time of Half-Life, and probably before. My guess is that the company will replace such a copy however.
There may be limits to how many times you can install, so reinstalling after a system crash will cause problems. I don't know if it may happen in this case, but upgrading your computer may cause the software to think it has been copied onto another system and demand reactivation (or just stop working).
Seeing how this works for the games Blizzard has out today, I doubt this will be the case. I have entered my BW serial key into my battle.net account, and have since used their torrent-based installer to install the game on several computers.
The company might go bankrupt or just decide the software is at end of life.
They might. Blizzards history however indicates that this activation requirement will be dropped after some years.
But all that wasn't my point of my original post. The point was that you can't go around saying you don't have restrictive DRM and then implement restrictive DRM, but just less so than someone else.
For your definition of restrictive. Nothing in the currently spec:ed DRM restricts me from doing anything that I would want to do. It might restrict some of the things YOU want to do, but please keep your generalizations for yourself.
It's a single online activation. It would not surprise me if they release a patch sometime in the future to remove even that, especially if they take down the auth server. Blizzard has done similar things in the past, although on a small scale. You are not, since 1.15, required to have a CD in your CD drive to play Starcraft or Broodwars.
I don't mind that they are trying to protect the single player part of the game from casual copying. That multipalyer is forced to be on battle.net only is slightly annoying, but I had not intended to play anywhere else anyways.
You are right of course. The Trammel/Felucca split came about precisely because the majority of the players didn't want to have to deal with PKs.
For me, personally, the added risk of being attacked by another player at (almost) any time makes the game that much more fun, as well as the ability to attack someone who's disrupting gameplay. I have never played as a random PK, but I have always enjoyed having them around.
I certainly understand why modern MMOs are developed the way they are, and I know that it is what people want. It is not for me however, so I do not play MMOs at all anymore, even though I like the game format.
That is not really exceptional. You will have the same issue in a 3G network, owing to how the internal network is structured.
Radio Access Networks (RANs) are by and large still constructed with voice in mind, so you get low latency in voice communication, where you set up a permanent circut throughout the RAN and Core Network, whereas data packets need to be routed individually.
Newer technologies are focusing on lowering latency on data, LTE for instance is designed for data rather than voice, and the goal is to lower latency to the 5 - 10 ms range. It is possible that the WiMax standard is old enough that it was optimized for voice as well, which would explain some of the latency problems.
I hear a lot of this when talking about wireless networks. Sitting at home right now, testing my HSPA connection, I get 1.1mbit/s in the downlink at 141ms latency. At work, where we have a base station on the roof, I get 3mbit downlink reliably. That is with a phone that can handle a theoretical max of 7.2 mbit/s. I have never been in an area where I have HSPA coverage where I have gone below 1mbit/s.
I question the point in rolling out a WiMax network if the top speed is less than 1/4 of what commercially available HSPA can do today (28mbit theoretical max speed, 48mbit to be released this year will make that 6mbit look even more paltry). Is there some roadmap showing how they plan to evolve the network speed over time?
Maybe because resumes get sent to HR and management, not experienced programmers?
Exactly. When a manager is looking to hire a person, knowing that "we create our software using C", he expects to see "Knowledge of the C language" on the resume he gets.
Trying to argue that you extensive knowledge of Pascal, JAVA and Assembly for the given platform means you will be able to work efficiently anyways, since you'll very quickly pick up the C knowledge needed, probably won't get you hired, even if it is true.
Of course, there might be the special case where an intimate knowledge of setjump or the structure of the stack during a function call might be needed, but I think those cases are somewhat rare.
I have already preordered Civ V, but this makes me a bit worried.
I have never played a game that uses Steam, so I don't know if it's bad or not. I'll definitively keep an eye on what people are saying.
But if it turns out to be too bad (for me), I'll just cancel my preorder and not get the game at all. There are plenty of other games out there (including Civ 4)
The Desire takes a few hours of use to get used to, if you have only used the iPhone before (or, as in my case, an iPod Touch). But know that I have gotten a feel for how the UI works, I really enjoy it.
Of course, that is common sense. But when you have an information gatherer like Google, that is nearly omnipresent on the web, it becomes hard to hide stuff in any way other than doing what you recommended: nothing at all.
That being said, I am, by and large, a Google "fan". It's just that sometimes I wonder how much they DO know, and how much they COULD find out about me, if they cared enough.
There are plenty of things that you might not want everyone (or specific persons) to know, because you consider them personal/embarrassing/private/hurtful to others/etc
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It's probably because iD don't have the rights to the game. They have, after all, released the source for most of their other games.
There have been tourist trips to Chernobyl for over a decade already. I was there this summer.
Pripyat is already wrecked, since there have been a lot of looters going through the area. Our guide told us that the apartment buildings are completely stripped by now, even the toilet seats are gone.
We visited an abandoned school as well. The old swimming pool area had obviously been used by kids who went there to drink Vodka and smash the place.
LTE is primarily targeted at computers and similar devices, not mobile phones (yes, that is one target market as well, but not the prime market).
I have seen presentations from more than one operator that wants to try and convert people away from fixed broadband to HSPA/LTE even for home use, altough I do not know what Verizon is planning. But in my mind, LTE on a smart-phone is overkill, at least for the foreseeable future, unless you use it as a modem.
I'm sure you're just joking, but a lot of people have this misconception that space is cold.
The few particles floating around out there (background radiation included) is very cold yes, only a few degrees K. However, these particles are few and far between, and the actual vacuum of space has no temperature at all (although I'm not sure how to factor in virtual particles into this).
I believe that I read somewhere that floating unshielded through space, you are more likely to die from overheating, since you can only lose excess heat through black body radiation.
Currently means a theoretical top speed of 150Mbps in the downlink, actual field speed here in Stockholm have been measured at ~60Mbps (but I think 30Mbps is more common, always depends on radio conditions and cell usage). Currently work is ongoing to reach 1Gpbs theoretical top speed.
The big thing I think is the reduced latency. For HSPA type technologies you typically end up with 80 - 120 ms latency added from the packets trip trough the Radio Access Network (RAN) and Packet Core networks. For LTE, the specification states that the combined latency of the RAN and PC should be around 5ms.
That being said, having LTE on a phone isn't really that necessary, at least for the immediate future (unless you want to use your phone as a modem). LTE was developed with mobile data in mind, and primary target consumers are laptop users and IPTV consumers (no that there are very many yet). Yes, you can use it on your smartphone, but the advantages will be very slim over 3G.
Me and a friend used LaTeX/SVN for all of our collaborative theses during our university time, and it worked great.
The Sun is throwing photons at us, which is how both light and heat get's here.
And that is the problem. Yes, things in space will cool down, however, the only way this occurs is through what is called "black body radiation", that is, the emission of photons. Cooling down this way is slower than being cooled by air, water or some other substance.
And why should they care? There's no way they can make any more money out of those games, and they do have the cash cow tightly under control.
You would be surprised. Starcraft sold 1.5 million copies in the first year after it was released, but has over the following decade sold a total of ~11 million copies, and are still selling today. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft#Reception)
I think the cause is more likely that they understand that this CD check really doesn't affect the number of sold copies in any substantial way, so why not give the players the option to play without the disc if they want?
You might install it on a notebook without net access (admittedly less of an issue these days).
Indeed. One of those mythical notebooks that are permanently deprived of an internet connection.
The servers might crash.
And be up again, this is something you do ONCE. Ever.
A pirate might have already used your ID and you can't install.
I won't pretend this isn't a problem, it has been problematic since the time of Half-Life, and probably before. My guess is that the company will replace such a copy however.
There may be limits to how many times you can install, so reinstalling after a system crash will cause problems. I don't know if it may happen in this case, but upgrading your computer may cause the software to think it has been copied onto another system and demand reactivation (or just stop working).
Seeing how this works for the games Blizzard has out today, I doubt this will be the case. I have entered my BW serial key into my battle.net account, and have since used their torrent-based installer to install the game on several computers.
The company might go bankrupt or just decide the software is at end of life.
They might. Blizzards history however indicates that this activation requirement will be dropped after some years.
But all that wasn't my point of my original post. The point was that you can't go around saying you don't have restrictive DRM and then implement restrictive DRM, but just less so than someone else.
For your definition of restrictive. Nothing in the currently spec:ed DRM restricts me from doing anything that I would want to do. It might restrict some of the things YOU want to do, but please keep your generalizations for yourself.
What exactly are you talking about?
It's a single online activation. It would not surprise me if they release a patch sometime in the future to remove even that, especially if they take down the auth server. Blizzard has done similar things in the past, although on a small scale. You are not, since 1.15, required to have a CD in your CD drive to play Starcraft or Broodwars.
I don't mind that they are trying to protect the single player part of the game from casual copying. That multipalyer is forced to be on battle.net only is slightly annoying, but I had not intended to play anywhere else anyways.
Or just use TrueCryp and create a hidden partition.
You are right of course. The Trammel/Felucca split came about precisely because the majority of the players didn't want to have to deal with PKs.
For me, personally, the added risk of being attacked by another player at (almost) any time makes the game that much more fun, as well as the ability to attack someone who's disrupting gameplay. I have never played as a random PK, but I have always enjoyed having them around.
I certainly understand why modern MMOs are developed the way they are, and I know that it is what people want. It is not for me however, so I do not play MMOs at all anymore, even though I like the game format.
That is not really exceptional. You will have the same issue in a 3G network, owing to how the internal network is structured.
Radio Access Networks (RANs) are by and large still constructed with voice in mind, so you get low latency in voice communication, where you set up a permanent circut throughout the RAN and Core Network, whereas data packets need to be routed individually.
Newer technologies are focusing on lowering latency on data, LTE for instance is designed for data rather than voice, and the goal is to lower latency to the 5 - 10 ms range. It is possible that the WiMax standard is old enough that it was optimized for voice as well, which would explain some of the latency problems.
I hear a lot of this when talking about wireless networks. Sitting at home right now, testing my HSPA connection, I get 1.1mbit/s in the downlink at 141ms latency. At work, where we have a base station on the roof, I get 3mbit downlink reliably. That is with a phone that can handle a theoretical max of 7.2 mbit/s. I have never been in an area where I have HSPA coverage where I have gone below 1mbit/s.
I question the point in rolling out a WiMax network if the top speed is less than 1/4 of what commercially available HSPA can do today (28mbit theoretical max speed, 48mbit to be released this year will make that 6mbit look even more paltry). Is there some roadmap showing how they plan to evolve the network speed over time?
Maybe because resumes get sent to HR and management, not experienced programmers?
Exactly. When a manager is looking to hire a person, knowing that "we create our software using C", he expects to see "Knowledge of the C language" on the resume he gets.
Trying to argue that you extensive knowledge of Pascal, JAVA and Assembly for the given platform means you will be able to work efficiently anyways, since you'll very quickly pick up the C knowledge needed, probably won't get you hired, even if it is true.
Of course, there might be the special case where an intimate knowledge of setjump or the structure of the stack during a function call might be needed, but I think those cases are somewhat rare.
What does gravity has to do with quantum mechanics?
Oh nothing at all. It's just one of the biggest unsolved problems in physics at the moment.
You really don't want to just pop one in orbit though. It'll leave one heck of a mess up there. It's not just debris, it's radioactive debris.
Not only that, but the blast itself will fry more satellites, which will have to be nuked in turn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_starfish_prime
I have already preordered Civ V, but this makes me a bit worried.
I have never played a game that uses Steam, so I don't know if it's bad or not. I'll definitively keep an eye on what people are saying.
But if it turns out to be too bad (for me), I'll just cancel my preorder and not get the game at all. There are plenty of other games out there (including Civ 4)
Strange, when I send a mail, it automatically gets the footer "Sent from my HTC Desire"
I have to agree with this.
The Desire takes a few hours of use to get used to, if you have only used the iPhone before (or, as in my case, an iPod Touch). But know that I have gotten a feel for how the UI works, I really enjoy it.
Of course, that is common sense. But when you have an information gatherer like Google, that is nearly omnipresent on the web, it becomes hard to hide stuff in any way other than doing what you recommended: nothing at all.
That being said, I am, by and large, a Google "fan". It's just that sometimes I wonder how much they DO know, and how much they COULD find out about me, if they cared enough.
Not everything worth hiding is illegal.
There are plenty of things that you might not want everyone (or specific persons) to know, because you consider them personal/embarrassing/private/hurtful to others/etc
'Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn't worry about privacy unless they have something to hide.'
And what if I DO have something to hide? Will you then remove me from all of your databases and registers?
Though tbh I wonder more when we'll see "iPhone nano" and "iPod Touch nano"
I'm still waiting for the iPhone Shuffle.
And many will get a huge settlement in countries where it is legal to apply a crack to a game you purchased.
(Even the pirates can just go pick up a copy and jump in on the class action suite)