>>I was hoping for something more thoughtful and substantial rather than flippant stream-of-consciousness.
Mark then revealed his new project: Bongbot. A walking waterpipe that plays Pink Floyd mp3s and dispenses Hostess cupcakes. He was just finishing up an all-night testing session.
Depends on the complexity of the task. There are times I wished my guild would put up a teamspeak server (hell I would do it if I still played) when we did instances in WoW. As long as the task demands communication it sure beats typing. But most games or most parts of games don't need this and it does degenerate into OOC/Chatfilter/Nonsense stuff. Its also very handy in BF2 if youre in a serious squad, but normally its just one gibbering idiot you can't mute.
>He's the richest man in the world, but name someone that gives more money to the poor than he.
Being Filthy Rich 101:
He's the richest man in the world THUS he gives the most in charity.
When you attain a certain level of wealthy, x amount of it will either go straight to the government in the form of taxes or you can turn that x into your own charitable organization (or just donations). Another amount, lets say y, will always go to the government, so its not like he doesn't pay taxes. Of course all wealthy people do this, some of whom you may like.
At this level of wealthy x isn't just writeoffs its so huge that you can start a world-class charity and do whatever you want. Cure Malaria? Sure. Bgates might be credited for that in the future. How cool is that? After Microsoft and their antics is a dim memory of our grandkids "Yeah, they made those old computers right grandad?" there might be some incredible lasting social good. A cheap Malaria cure would almost be as earth-shattering as the worldwide smallpox vaccinations the UN did in the 60's.
Oh wow, that list is crazy long. I really dodged a bullet here. I almost bought Syberia 2 and Freedom Force just for kicks because of their low prices and gimmicky gameplay, but now I can safely forget about them. Shame really. They just lost 2 sales and as news of this spreads (okay it might not) it may be the Sony Rootkit of videogames.
I'd much rather deal with a steam-like system which is obvious to me as a user than some background driver any day of the week.
I also don't understand the backlash against Starforce. We should be complaining to game companies who license this stuff. PC gaming is hurting enough as it is and once these things start hosing more systems people are just going to stop dealing with the expensive video cards, ram upgrades, etc and just buy a next-gen console system and be done with it.
On the bright side I got a chuckle out of this title "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life." Nothing spells socializing like PC gamer. For the most part these games are small publisher and/or crappy and easy to avoid but "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary" is on there too. For shame.
>>As far as I can see, it's basically lying and bullshitting
Unlike some other commentators I will say that's about correct, but highly cynical. Telling white lies, bullshitting, etc all lend themselves to a social understanding of ones self and others. You tell a white lie not to hurt another person's feelings and you bullshit so you don't hurt your own feelings (who wants to admit to only having a handful of friends if that?). Its being self-aware but socially.
I find this interesting because when you meet someone who comes off inept or brash or whatever it makes me wonder if either they are unable to tell how other people percieve them (which may be a sign of old fashioned stupidity) or apathetic about it (which is a sign of being very asocial).
I think idealism and middle class values frowns upon things like BS'ing, gossip, and a loose class system, but as humans we are all about that. Acting like a stoic or being too serious leaves us unfulfilled.
I also don't think geeks are unable to build social skills. They can become very socially savvy. It takes work and effort. After a while it doesnt even feel like youre faking or it or even trying.
A few years back I challenged myself to make small-talk with strangers waiting for the train, talk to women about stuff thats interests them (not just what interests me), etc. Its not easy especially if you've become sensitized to the process and get very anxious. Also its worth mentioning that people with are asocial to a strong degree, cannot function as a team, etc may be suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder.
I'll agree that the GP is a bit over the top, but you fully do not understand the old testament, the religions built upon it, what "god's rules" have done historically, and what they continue to do under the guise of holiness by the big three monotheistic traditions. Even the Christian religion has not disowned the Old Testament and has historically used it push morals and punish others in a despicable fashion. You can be purposely obtuse about this or admit that your religion has led to some of the worst things man has ever done to man and the problem of religious law has yet to be solved.
>what makes you think that a program you launch can't modify the same file?
That's true of ANYTHING when runnning admin on windows. Install an antivirus but you get a trojan that hasnt been caught yet? Or your definitions are way out of date. Same deal. At least with ad blocking you're not able to get 90% of the ads and spyware packages out there because you're cutting off the vector to download.
I wouldnt at all call it a dumb suggestion. Well, its mine, so I kinda life it but you get some added benefits:
1. Less flash ads/blinken crap. 2. Faster page loads. 3. Blocking of not only ads, but known spyware servers and web-bugs.
Its as about as "dumb" as installing adblock and flashblock. A malicious program could remove those too.
Its funny, ironically the "opt-in" crowd here will shoot you down when it comes to google. They may have a point, but at its core google is a for-profit company making off-site replicas of content. That's a little bothersome. Whats even more bothersome is that the cache ignore deleted pages. So if I take something down then its still in the cache for a long time (forever?). So to truly delete something from the web you need to make a blank page. So now we have to jump through two hoops just for google.
If MS was doing this I doubt there would be so many defenders. Unfortunately, judges and the US government really dont want to restrict the growth of such a profitable and high profile company. This is standard practice in the US. So Google gets the same preferential treatment players like MS and Sony get.
Hell, while we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, unplug your fat DOD funded internet while youre at it.
I love my local library system, both here in the city and when I lived in the suburbs. Being a kid with no money but having access to all the best sci-fi in the world, other fiction, and non-fiction was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Back before computers were affordable it was the place where I could go to get word processing done and even play a game! Right now people without internet access depend on them for the basic information you're spoiled to have. Oh no, the horrors of "big government" (the US government is tidy compared to some of europe and scandanavia its your military thats huge) led to people getting books for free! How will big publishing survive?!?
Go back to watching southpark in your mom's basement. Thanks.
>>The only way everyone gets what they want is by taking it out of government hands.
What does that mean? Are you saying constituents don't want these filters? Family groups and both political parties wanted them. When you look outside your circle of geek friends you'll see regular people who really don't care and actually approve of crap like this. Essentially, you're just blaming this mysterious free-floating government thing while ignoring the constituents - family groups, christians, etc who demand filters. Its not like some bored fuctionary in some IT department decided to give himself more work. Its your congress at work - most notably your Republicans with the Christian groups. Last I checked these Christians were not "government" but people with a right to peitition their governments. They're creaming everyone else with their resources and connections. In other words, if you want change then you cant sit on some high horse and decry civilization, you need to work against these people. Are you up to it? Or will you continue down the path of the "southpark conservative" and just blame "government?"
Oh get off it. You have a list of words completely taken out of context and you're turning it into some "everyone at Sundance is racist" nonsense.
The real difference between the two lists is that the first list is more concrete and the second is more abstract. I'm not surprised to hear that fascinating, beautiful and emotional are in the list. Those words are the hackneyed descriptions of every art house critics favorite film. People are probably sick of hearing them and ignore them like a David Manning review.
I dont know why Africa and America are on there. Perhaps people dont want to see political flms? Perhaps there have been a glut of films about 9/11 America and African warlords? I know I've seen many off these films in the Chicago Reader's film section.
Also, you assume black refers strictly to race. How about black comedies. Or a description for something dark or sinister like some lame home-made serial killer movie?
Whats really interesting is how people project their own assumptions on others from a list of out of context words.
You use the word "big" before risks. Why? Probably because the level of success is very low. So the world is also full of people who have taken those risks and failed. For every Graham there's 10,000 others who didn't make it. Maybe it was no fault of their own. Maybe it wasn't the right time, the right place, the right people, etc.
The OP's comment on luck still applies. Some risk-takers end up like Graham, others end up in debt and regretting it. Both took the big risk.
Well, heres a partial explanation right here. People tend to develop skills as they need them. 50+ years ago in the US by the time a man was 17 going on 18 he was considered an adult who would be entering the career of his life. In a couple years, if not already so, he would also get married. These people needed to know basic finance but also worked manual labor jobs.
Now its a bit different. We don't really consider 18 year olds adult in the same sense. Adulthood starts after college graduation. Now we dont enter careers until age 22-25 and get married in mid to late twenties. College finances are not real world finances. You're living off loans, your parents help you out, the state helps you out with aid, etc. So its not surprising that people who we rarely treat as adults act like children. They have no incentive to act otherwise and have no need.
This is not common outside the US but more common in developed western nations where economies demand people with college and post-college educations for jobs that pay (checked for inflation) what old manufacturing jobs paid.
Extended childhood and a case of arrested development is part of the price of an educated society that has moved away from manufacturing and into a service based economy it seems.
I think its being very disingenious to cry "Everyone is stupid nowadays" without look at the radical cultural changes from 50-100 years ago. 200+ years ago people werent getting any education outside a few years of schooling and were getting married at around 15-17 years old and working the rest of their days on the farm. If progress means a longer childhood period then so be it unless you want to be a farmhand or working a lathe for 50 years until retirement somewhere (outside of the western world).
>The current generation of robotic metal boxes won't get us there
You can picture a spacecraft as acting like a living system. It consumes food (fuel), it has intelligence (programming), it can be trained (remote control), etc. How switching to some organic based system is going to help is beyond me. Where's the propulsion going to come from? Whats it going to eat? What happens in case of a contamination?
Would you rather drive somewhere or ride a horse there?
>>The consumer made the decision to lower wages and incomes in their own area, Wal*Mart just met their desire for less expensive goods and lower overhead.
Walmart's strategy is to compete on having the lowest cost. Period. After their failed "buy america" campaign. Walmart muscles the brands it has to produce at ridiculously low costs and the only way to do that is to push as much manufacturing off to China. Thus small-town manufacturing is going away as the US moves from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based one. High School drop outs cant make 60 grand a year running the same lathe machine for 40 years anymore. Welcome to the changing world and competition! The same way brick and mortar sports stores are getting edged out by ecommerce.
You say people asked for this? No they asked for low, low prices and don't care where it comes from. When the world of economics bites them back its only logical as you can't get something from nothing. Now your previous rant was how government is driving everyone bankrupt. Err, when local TV manufacturers sued a Chinese company that was selling below costs guess who Walmart put their money and politicians behind. Yep, the Chinese. Eventually they lost and someone is still making TVs somewhere in the states. For now.
So your rants are more meaningless when you consider at a certain level there is very little difference between government and business.
>>The worker should acknowledge that they're no longer efficient at their job and find something else to do. That's a reality.
Take your own advice. You lost your sports store because you're not good enough and because of a changing economic landscape from retail to e-retail. The same way your brick and mortor stole it from the old catalogue mail-in system.
Don't blame the government for your failing retail model. The subset of goods you sell are hardly worth their own brick and mortar store unless you want to expand into apparrel and other high ticket items. Look at how Sportmart has changed. They have to deal with the same regulations and sales tax you had to.
Not to mention you can never ever get away from taxes. Your advantage was that your buyers didnt have to pay shipping, so they pay sales tax instead. Hell, right now many e-retailers charge tax.
Your anti-government rant is full of holes and looks like youre simply unable to blame the person who is most likely responsible for your failures - YOU. I mean, come on, you openly admit you lost your business to some paperwork. That's pretty incompetent.
My father has been running small restaurants in more than a few towns in his lifetime and has dealt with the same issues. When he had to close shop it all had to do with slumping sales from cause by competition from the big corporate franchises or just better restaurants moving into the market. The same thing happened to you. It wasn't the local goverment "mafia" it good old fashioned competition and the slowest gazelle loses. Your customers decided that the items you sold where best gotten from the web. They didnt need your salesmen and parking lot.
You big Republican anti-tax, anti-minimum wage, and anti-handicapped regulations rant is hardly convicing to anyone who has has the smallest experience in small business. Of course on a website full of "southpark conservatives" and with recent political issues which have re-energized conservative thought I fully expect you to keep that +5 informative you have because of your "blame the government" attitude.
Yeah, the double standard is pretty obvious. "Perfectly level playing field??" Umm sure. As far as I know Apple hasnt even licensed FairPlay to anyone in fear of good old fashioned competition from other mp3 players. Switching masters is no solution, a little healthy competition is.
Well put. There is a story here, but because its Dave Winer as its source, its completely untrustworthy. Maybe some more sober-minded people will do an analysis and we'll hear more from Apple, but in the meantime I'd trust Winer's objectivity as much as Scott McClellan's.
>The chintzy integrated video will play all of those games well enough. But you're going to have to back off from "11" on the display options.
I don't think that's true. A lot of the integrated video I see is whatever intel has laying around. They don't have enough video ram to even start up Battlefield 2 and the games these chipsets do support tend to be supported at 'low' which means 800x600, low textures, and no AA. Console games look better than this stuff.
The grandparent is right, there are no real affordable options. Either you pay 150-250 or you deal with the next to useless integrated video on your mobo. Something decent that will play most of the popular games at 'medium' without massive frame loss at around 75-100 dollars is needed. That really should be the price point the industry shoots for, but gamers seem to have an endless supply of cash, or at least credit cards.
Its not just that, its economic concerns of building on top of GPS, something controlled by a foriegn military.
The Galileo system isn't just a GPS clone, theyve got tiered pricing and accuracy. I believe its something like commercial, residential, emergency, and intelligence/government. Residential is free, the rest aren't. Arguably, a new industry will emerge with Galileo taking worrying businesses who don't want to deal with GPS going into "combat mode" when resources or even human lives are on the line.
Slashdot Mirror
>>I was hoping for something more thoughtful and substantial rather than flippant stream-of-consciousness.
Mark then revealed his new project: Bongbot. A walking waterpipe that plays Pink Floyd mp3s and dispenses Hostess cupcakes. He was just finishing up an all-night testing session.
Depends on the complexity of the task. There are times I wished my guild would put up a teamspeak server (hell I would do it if I still played) when we did instances in WoW. As long as the task demands communication it sure beats typing. But most games or most parts of games don't need this and it does degenerate into OOC/Chatfilter/Nonsense stuff. Its also very handy in BF2 if youre in a serious squad, but normally its just one gibbering idiot you can't mute.
>He's the richest man in the world, but name someone that gives more money to the poor than he.
Being Filthy Rich 101:
He's the richest man in the world THUS he gives the most in charity.
When you attain a certain level of wealthy, x amount of it will either go straight to the government in the form of taxes or you can turn that x into your own charitable organization (or just donations). Another amount, lets say y, will always go to the government, so its not like he doesn't pay taxes. Of course all wealthy people do this, some of whom you may like.
At this level of wealthy x isn't just writeoffs its so huge that you can start a world-class charity and do whatever you want. Cure Malaria? Sure. Bgates might be credited for that in the future. How cool is that? After Microsoft and their antics is a dim memory of our grandkids "Yeah, they made those old computers right grandad?" there might be some incredible lasting social good. A cheap Malaria cure would almost be as earth-shattering as the worldwide smallpox vaccinations the UN did in the 60's.
Oh wow, that list is crazy long. I really dodged a bullet here. I almost bought Syberia 2 and Freedom Force just for kicks because of their low prices and gimmicky gameplay, but now I can safely forget about them. Shame really. They just lost 2 sales and as news of this spreads (okay it might not) it may be the Sony Rootkit of videogames.
I'd much rather deal with a steam-like system which is obvious to me as a user than some background driver any day of the week.
I also don't understand the backlash against Starforce. We should be complaining to game companies who license this stuff. PC gaming is hurting enough as it is and once these things start hosing more systems people are just going to stop dealing with the expensive video cards, ram upgrades, etc and just buy a next-gen console system and be done with it.
On the bright side I got a chuckle out of this title "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life." Nothing spells socializing like PC gamer. For the most part these games are small publisher and/or crappy and easy to avoid but "Namco Museum 50th Anniversary" is on there too. For shame.
>>As far as I can see, it's basically lying and bullshitting
Unlike some other commentators I will say that's about correct, but highly cynical. Telling white lies, bullshitting, etc all lend themselves to a social understanding of ones self and others. You tell a white lie not to hurt another person's feelings and you bullshit so you don't hurt your own feelings (who wants to admit to only having a handful of friends if that?). Its being self-aware but socially.
I find this interesting because when you meet someone who comes off inept or brash or whatever it makes me wonder if either they are unable to tell how other people percieve them (which may be a sign of old fashioned stupidity) or apathetic about it (which is a sign of being very asocial).
I think idealism and middle class values frowns upon things like BS'ing, gossip, and a loose class system, but as humans we are all about that. Acting like a stoic or being too serious leaves us unfulfilled.
I also don't think geeks are unable to build social skills. They can become very socially savvy. It takes work and effort. After a while it doesnt even feel like youre faking or it or even trying.
A few years back I challenged myself to make small-talk with strangers waiting for the train, talk to women about stuff thats interests them (not just what interests me), etc. Its not easy especially if you've become sensitized to the process and get very anxious. Also its worth mentioning that people with are asocial to a strong degree, cannot function as a team, etc may be suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder.
>>It's a part that you don't seem to understand
I'll agree that the GP is a bit over the top, but you fully do not understand the old testament, the religions built upon it, what "god's rules" have done historically, and what they continue to do under the guise of holiness by the big three monotheistic traditions. Even the Christian religion has not disowned the Old Testament and has historically used it push morals and punish others in a despicable fashion. You can be purposely obtuse about this or admit that your religion has led to some of the worst things man has ever done to man and the problem of religious law has yet to be solved.
>what makes you think that a program you launch can't modify the same file?
That's true of ANYTHING when runnning admin on windows. Install an antivirus but you get a trojan that hasnt been caught yet? Or your definitions are way out of date. Same deal. At least with ad blocking you're not able to get 90% of the ads and spyware packages out there because you're cutting off the vector to download.
I wouldnt at all call it a dumb suggestion. Well, its mine, so I kinda life it but you get some added benefits:
1. Less flash ads/blinken crap.
2. Faster page loads.
3. Blocking of not only ads, but known spyware servers and web-bugs.
Its as about as "dumb" as installing adblock and flashblock. A malicious program could remove those too.
>>And on Slashdot, trolls are those who point out anything negative about Apple.
Only someone with your sig could be an expert on trolling.
Its funny, ironically the "opt-in" crowd here will shoot you down when it comes to google. They may have a point, but at its core google is a for-profit company making off-site replicas of content. That's a little bothersome. Whats even more bothersome is that the cache ignore deleted pages. So if I take something down then its still in the cache for a long time (forever?). So to truly delete something from the web you need to make a blank page. So now we have to jump through two hoops just for google.
If MS was doing this I doubt there would be so many defenders. Unfortunately, judges and the US government really dont want to restrict the growth of such a profitable and high profile company. This is standard practice in the US. So Google gets the same preferential treatment players like MS and Sony get.
>>arguably a brand that has fizzled out anyway over the last decade.
Right. Now kids are all about the Devo 2.0. Soon kids at Disneyworld will be wearing flower pot hats and everything. Flash link w/ music here.
>>There ought to be no government libraries
Hell, while we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, unplug your fat DOD funded internet while youre at it.
I love my local library system, both here in the city and when I lived in the suburbs. Being a kid with no money but having access to all the best sci-fi in the world, other fiction, and non-fiction was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Back before computers were affordable it was the place where I could go to get word processing done and even play a game! Right now people without internet access depend on them for the basic information you're spoiled to have. Oh no, the horrors of "big government" (the US government is tidy compared to some of europe and scandanavia its your military thats huge) led to people getting books for free! How will big publishing survive?!?
Go back to watching southpark in your mom's basement. Thanks.
>>The only way everyone gets what they want is by taking it out of government hands.
What does that mean? Are you saying constituents don't want these filters? Family groups and both political parties wanted them. When you look outside your circle of geek friends you'll see regular people who really don't care and actually approve of crap like this. Essentially, you're just blaming this mysterious free-floating government thing while ignoring the constituents - family groups, christians, etc who demand filters. Its not like some bored fuctionary in some IT department decided to give himself more work. Its your congress at work - most notably your Republicans with the Christian groups. Last I checked these Christians were not "government" but people with a right to peitition their governments. They're creaming everyone else with their resources and connections. In other words, if you want change then you cant sit on some high horse and decry civilization, you need to work against these people. Are you up to it? Or will you continue down the path of the "southpark conservative" and just blame "government?"
>>Maybe they're just getting faster/better at finding bugs?
Right. Its dual core so its twice the bugs found twice as fast. Amazing!
Oh get off it. You have a list of words completely taken out of context and you're turning it into some "everyone at Sundance is racist" nonsense.
The real difference between the two lists is that the first list is more concrete and the second is more abstract. I'm not surprised to hear that fascinating, beautiful and emotional are in the list. Those words are the hackneyed descriptions of every art house critics favorite film. People are probably sick of hearing them and ignore them like a David Manning review.
I dont know why Africa and America are on there. Perhaps people dont want to see political flms? Perhaps there have been a glut of films about 9/11 America and African warlords? I know I've seen many off these films in the Chicago Reader's film section.
Also, you assume black refers strictly to race. How about black comedies. Or a description for something dark or sinister like some lame home-made serial killer movie?
Whats really interesting is how people project their own assumptions on others from a list of out of context words.
>>they dare to take big risks.
You use the word "big" before risks. Why? Probably because the level of success is very low. So the world is also full of people who have taken those risks and failed. For every Graham there's 10,000 others who didn't make it. Maybe it was no fault of their own. Maybe it wasn't the right time, the right place, the right people, etc.
The OP's comment on luck still applies. Some risk-takers end up like Graham, others end up in debt and regretting it. Both took the big risk.
Next week they'll take on the difficult subject of "changelogs" and the mysterious "READMEs" you see everywhere.
Yeah, get rid of the curve and the gray background please.
>>and so on down the chain.
Well, heres a partial explanation right here. People tend to develop skills as they need them. 50+ years ago in the US by the time a man was 17 going on 18 he was considered an adult who would be entering the career of his life. In a couple years, if not already so, he would also get married. These people needed to know basic finance but also worked manual labor jobs.
Now its a bit different. We don't really consider 18 year olds adult in the same sense. Adulthood starts after college graduation. Now we dont enter careers until age 22-25 and get married in mid to late twenties. College finances are not real world finances. You're living off loans, your parents help you out, the state helps you out with aid, etc. So its not surprising that people who we rarely treat as adults act like children. They have no incentive to act otherwise and have no need.
This is not common outside the US but more common in developed western nations where economies demand people with college and post-college educations for jobs that pay (checked for inflation) what old manufacturing jobs paid.
Extended childhood and a case of arrested development is part of the price of an educated society that has moved away from manufacturing and into a service based economy it seems.
I think its being very disingenious to cry "Everyone is stupid nowadays" without look at the radical cultural changes from 50-100 years ago. 200+ years ago people werent getting any education outside a few years of schooling and were getting married at around 15-17 years old and working the rest of their days on the farm. If progress means a longer childhood period then so be it unless you want to be a farmhand or working a lathe for 50 years until retirement somewhere (outside of the western world).
>The current generation of robotic metal boxes won't get us there
You can picture a spacecraft as acting like a living system. It consumes food (fuel), it has intelligence (programming), it can be trained (remote control), etc. How switching to some organic based system is going to help is beyond me. Where's the propulsion going to come from? Whats it going to eat? What happens in case of a contamination?
Would you rather drive somewhere or ride a horse there?
>>The consumer made the decision to lower wages and incomes in their own area, Wal*Mart just met their desire for less expensive goods and lower overhead.
Walmart's strategy is to compete on having the lowest cost. Period. After their failed "buy america" campaign. Walmart muscles the brands it has to produce at ridiculously low costs and the only way to do that is to push as much manufacturing off to China. Thus small-town manufacturing is going away as the US moves from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based one. High School drop outs cant make 60 grand a year running the same lathe machine for 40 years anymore. Welcome to the changing world and competition! The same way brick and mortar sports stores are getting edged out by ecommerce.
You say people asked for this? No they asked for low, low prices and don't care where it comes from. When the world of economics bites them back its only logical as you can't get something from nothing. Now your previous rant was how government is driving everyone bankrupt. Err, when local TV manufacturers sued a Chinese company that was selling below costs guess who Walmart put their money and politicians behind. Yep, the Chinese. Eventually they lost and someone is still making TVs somewhere in the states. For now.
So your rants are more meaningless when you consider at a certain level there is very little difference between government and business.
>>The worker should acknowledge that they're no longer efficient at their job and find something else to do. That's a reality.
Take your own advice. You lost your sports store because you're not good enough and because of a changing economic landscape from retail to e-retail. The same way your brick and mortor stole it from the old catalogue mail-in system.
Don't blame the government for your failing retail model. The subset of goods you sell are hardly worth their own brick and mortar store unless you want to expand into apparrel and other high ticket items. Look at how Sportmart has changed. They have to deal with the same regulations and sales tax you had to.
Not to mention you can never ever get away from taxes. Your advantage was that your buyers didnt have to pay shipping, so they pay sales tax instead. Hell, right now many e-retailers charge tax.
Your anti-government rant is full of holes and looks like youre simply unable to blame the person who is most likely responsible for your failures - YOU. I mean, come on, you openly admit you lost your business to some paperwork. That's pretty incompetent.
My father has been running small restaurants in more than a few towns in his lifetime and has dealt with the same issues. When he had to close shop it all had to do with slumping sales from cause by competition from the big corporate franchises or just better restaurants moving into the market. The same thing happened to you. It wasn't the local goverment "mafia" it good old fashioned competition and the slowest gazelle loses. Your customers decided that the items you sold where best gotten from the web. They didnt need your salesmen and parking lot.
You big Republican anti-tax, anti-minimum wage, and anti-handicapped regulations rant is hardly convicing to anyone who has has the smallest experience in small business. Of course on a website full of "southpark conservatives" and with recent political issues which have re-energized conservative thought I fully expect you to keep that +5 informative you have because of your "blame the government" attitude.
Yeah, the double standard is pretty obvious. "Perfectly level playing field??" Umm sure. As far as I know Apple hasnt even licensed FairPlay to anyone in fear of good old fashioned competition from other mp3 players. Switching masters is no solution, a little healthy competition is.
Well put. There is a story here, but because its Dave Winer as its source, its completely untrustworthy. Maybe some more sober-minded people will do an analysis and we'll hear more from Apple, but in the meantime I'd trust Winer's objectivity as much as Scott McClellan's.
>The chintzy integrated video will play all of those games well enough. But you're going to have to back off from "11" on the display options.
I don't think that's true. A lot of the integrated video I see is whatever intel has laying around. They don't have enough video ram to even start up Battlefield 2 and the games these chipsets do support tend to be supported at 'low' which means 800x600, low textures, and no AA. Console games look better than this stuff.
The grandparent is right, there are no real affordable options. Either you pay 150-250 or you deal with the next to useless integrated video on your mobo. Something decent that will play most of the popular games at 'medium' without massive frame loss at around 75-100 dollars is needed. That really should be the price point the industry shoots for, but gamers seem to have an endless supply of cash, or at least credit cards.
Its not just that, its economic concerns of building on top of GPS, something controlled by a foriegn military.
The Galileo system isn't just a GPS clone, theyve got tiered pricing and accuracy. I believe its something like commercial, residential, emergency, and intelligence/government. Residential is free, the rest aren't. Arguably, a new industry will emerge with Galileo taking worrying businesses who don't want to deal with GPS going into "combat mode" when resources or even human lives are on the line.