I for one don't have a game console. Even if I did, I wouldn';t want to have to get it out and use it just for netflix streaming when I already have a perfectly good MythTV box thats the core of my Home Theater setup.
Netflix's trend is clearly towards totally removing its DVD service, and also to continue to ignore support for streaming to PC Linux-based computers.
As a Ubuntu user who doesn't own and refuses to ever buy a copy of Windows, Netflix will by their own hand have exactly 0 service I can use, so will be losing me as a subscriber.
As I and many others will soon have our Netflix money available to spend with someone else, I wonder if anyone (e.g. Mr. Shuttleworth) has given a Linux-friendly equivalent of the Netflix service any thought?
Android: commercial product tied to one company. Includes marketing-based artificial dependencies already built-in like App-store, DRM etc. I know Google/Android are 'cool' at the moment, but at the end of the day they are a business and are ultimately in it for the money. Superficial business tactics aside, they are just another Microsoft or Apple.
Linux: non-commercial product, independent, altruistic, good free community support via the internet, no artificial functional limitations or dependencies baked-in by marketing types. Many more professional-quality apps available for free download than Android. Even has licenses to protect its 'freeness'.
You tell me which would be a better choice for poor kids and their family budgets.
>> What should I say to him when we talk about this again?"
Tell him he needs to ask not demand. He also needs to not punish or otherwise discriminate against those who say "no" (imagine single parents etc). He also needs to be prepared to reward people who do work long days commensurately. If he's like my boss, he won't realise that this means a lot more than just free pizza.
I guess the word "unlimited" has a different meaning inside Virgin. I wonder how long it will be before we see a class-action suit for false advertising?
I don't know that Microsoft will ever play nicely. I'm betting they will do their usual tactic of trying to convince people that Microsoft's approach is THE 'standard'.
It help a lot to be running Linux because normal users cant extend or modify the operating system or its configuration. Normal Windows users (and processes they run) can.
Article slashdotted so I can't RTFA but I find it hard to believe that NASA really think Tron, Avatar, and Mars Attacks! are all more feasible scenarios than disastrous environmental effects from global warming. It seems NASA saying 2012 was most unrealistic was more than slightly motivated by proagandist politics.
Yep I have the same problem. I emigrated to the US from England about 8 years ago so have an English accent. I don't believe I have a strong UK regional accent, as British regional accents go, my home area (south west) is probably nearest to 'generic' BBC English. Yet still most voice recognition software can't figure me out. Personally I find products like Dragon more effort than they are worh so avoid them ( I can type faster anyway) but its getting ever harder to avoid those very annoying corporate phone menu systems can't understand me at all, until I use a very exaggerated whiney American accent, then they work just fine.
Isn't it amazing how a company (Microsoft) can blatantly rub the noses of their customers in a "we dont care about you" attitude repeatedly and over decades. They never innovate. They are often years late to market with dull "me too" products that are always more buggy, more limited, less secure, less interoperable and harder-to-use versions of other existing products, and yet even though there are much better alternatives available, even free ones, many if not most indviduals and even big businesses amazingly still actively choose Microsoft products and services for their infrastructure even at inflated prices. It totally blows my mind why this is the case.
If you're repeatedly seeing the same bugs come back that you've already fixed, it strongly suggests you have sloppy developers repeatedly merging old/outdated code back in to the current trunk over fixes.
It seems clear your real problem is around a lack of software process and/or version management so testing is after-the-fact in this case. you need to fix your development process first. Adding a formal test environment on a bad process is just putting expensive lipstick on a pig.
Has anyone actually played this game? From the videos I can find of Minecraft it just looks just like a sandbox. No actual point to doing anything. No objectives. It looks even more pointless than 2nd life. Is it really that bad?
It still amazes me why none of the morons that fall for this ever seem to wonder why, out of the millions of people in the world, whats so special about themselves that some previously unknown foreign VIP in charge of millions would specifically contact them with such an "amazing opportunity".
It seems unlikely that someone could hide one or more backdoors in such a ubiquitous piece of code without _anyone_ else ever spotting it.
It also seems unlikely because Perry didn't share actual technical details of the backdoor(s) so their existence can be proven. Surely when making such a radical claim its just human nature to also justify it with all the evidence you have.
Mostly agree (especially about the DRM and crapware) except I don't want games with scripted storylines. That immediately implies the game has a limited lifespan and no re-playability.
His statement about 25 hours and you're out was the most telling. I have no idea why EA's whole religion has always been that single player games all need to be a heavily scripted experience that force you down a set path ultimately just to see the final 'well done' video. Those are interactive movies, not games.
The answer to better games and long playability is simple: Games need to dynamically create an run their own unscripted environments. Its been proved often by games like Dwarf Fortress. Meanwhile EA still don't get it.
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I for one don't have a game console. Even if I did, I wouldn';t want to have to get it out and use it just for netflix streaming when I already have a perfectly good MythTV box thats the core of my Home Theater setup.
Thats not exactly right. For sure they can't legally copy them or rip them to their servers, for example.
Sorry, I meant to include this justification of my earlier "continue to ignore Linux support" statement.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=1745
Netflix's trend is clearly towards totally removing its DVD service, and also to continue to ignore support for streaming to PC Linux-based computers.
As a Ubuntu user who doesn't own and refuses to ever buy a copy of Windows, Netflix will by their own hand have exactly 0 service I can use, so will be losing me as a subscriber.
As I and many others will soon have our Netflix money available to spend with someone else, I wonder if anyone (e.g. Mr. Shuttleworth) has given a Linux-friendly equivalent of the Netflix service any thought?
Android: commercial product tied to one company. Includes marketing-based artificial dependencies already built-in like App-store, DRM etc. I know Google/Android are 'cool' at the moment, but at the end of the day they are a business and are ultimately in it for the money. Superficial business tactics aside, they are just another Microsoft or Apple.
Linux: non-commercial product, independent, altruistic, good free community support via the internet, no artificial functional limitations or dependencies baked-in by marketing types. Many more professional-quality apps available for free download than Android. Even has licenses to protect its 'freeness'.
You tell me which would be a better choice for poor kids and their family budgets.
>> What should I say to him when we talk about this again?"
Tell him he needs to ask not demand.
He also needs to not punish or otherwise discriminate against those who say "no" (imagine single parents etc).
He also needs to be prepared to reward people who do work long days commensurately. If he's like my boss, he won't realise that this means a lot more than just free pizza.
I guess the word "unlimited" has a different meaning inside Virgin.
I wonder how long it will be before we see a class-action suit for false advertising?
I don't know that Microsoft will ever play nicely. I'm betting they will do their usual tactic of trying to convince people that Microsoft's approach is THE 'standard'.
It help a lot to be running Linux because normal users cant extend or modify the operating system or its configuration. Normal Windows users (and processes they run) can.
just by giving up their windows obsession and using Linux instead.
Article slashdotted so I can't RTFA but I find it hard to believe that NASA really think Tron, Avatar, and Mars Attacks! are all more feasible scenarios than disastrous environmental effects from global warming.
It seems NASA saying 2012 was most unrealistic was more than slightly motivated by proagandist politics.
Yep I have the same problem.
I emigrated to the US from England about 8 years ago so have an English accent. I don't believe I have a strong UK regional accent, as British regional accents go, my home area (south west) is probably nearest to 'generic' BBC English. Yet still most voice recognition software can't figure me out. Personally I find products like Dragon more effort than they are worh so avoid them ( I can type faster anyway) but its getting ever harder to avoid those very annoying corporate phone menu systems can't understand me at all, until I use a very exaggerated whiney American accent, then they work just fine.
Isn't it amazing how a company (Microsoft) can blatantly rub the noses of their customers in a "we dont care about you" attitude repeatedly and over decades.
They never innovate. They are often years late to market with dull "me too" products that are always more buggy, more limited, less secure, less interoperable and harder-to-use versions of other existing products, and yet even though there are much better alternatives available, even free ones, many if not most indviduals and even big businesses amazingly still actively choose Microsoft products and services for their infrastructure even at inflated prices.
It totally blows my mind why this is the case.
If you're repeatedly seeing the same bugs come back that you've already fixed, it strongly suggests you have sloppy developers repeatedly merging old/outdated code back in to the current trunk over fixes.
It seems clear your real problem is around a lack of software process and/or version management so testing is after-the-fact in this case. you need to fix your development process first. Adding a formal test environment on a bad process is just putting expensive lipstick on a pig.
This sounds eerily similar to the Solex device that Scaramanga stole in the movie "The Man With the Golden Gun".
Has anyone actually played this game?
From the videos I can find of Minecraft it just looks just like a sandbox. No actual point to doing anything. No objectives.
It looks even more pointless than 2nd life. Is it really that bad?
So how is it that a commercial group like the MPAA/RIAA can buy the Dept of Homeland Security and turn them into its bitch?
It still amazes me why none of the morons that fall for this ever seem to wonder why, out of the millions of people in the world, whats so special about themselves that some previously unknown foreign VIP in charge of millions would specifically contact them with such an "amazing opportunity".
It seems like silverlight on linux isn't a problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/sep07/09-04silverlightpr.mspx
http://ostatic.com/blog/microsoft-brings-silverlight-2-to-linux
I'm surprised that some smart person out there hasn't already hacked something together, maybe even by rooting and reverse-engineering a Roku.
It seems unlikely that someone could hide one or more backdoors in such a ubiquitous piece of code without _anyone_ else ever spotting it.
It also seems unlikely because Perry didn't share actual technical details of the backdoor(s) so their existence can be proven. Surely when making such a radical claim its just human nature to also justify it with all the evidence you have.
Good, I think. Hopefully this will finally cause big companies to fight to get rid of software patents and patent troll companies as a whole.
Mostly agree (especially about the DRM and crapware) except I don't want games with scripted storylines. That immediately implies the game has a limited lifespan and no re-playability.
This EA guy is clearly mentally stuck in a rut.
His statement about 25 hours and you're out was the most telling. I have no idea why EA's whole religion has always been that single player games all need to be a heavily scripted experience that force you down a set path ultimately just to see the final 'well done' video. Those are interactive movies, not games.
The answer to better games and long playability is simple: Games need to dynamically create an run their own unscripted environments. Its been proved often by games like Dwarf Fortress. Meanwhile EA still don't get it.
So how does this allow the subscriber to send data? Does everyone have to have a megawatt transmitter in their home?
Call me strange but I don't want a feature that facilitates my employer putting their crap on _my_ phone.