Perhaps that reason is that Starbucks has economies of scale in place that small independent coffee shops don't. I'm sure Starbucks got a great deal from AT&T to provide the WiFi service, and is paying far less per month per store than any cafe would from their local ISP.
e-readers don't normally consume WiFi either. Most have built-in 3G, and even the ones that don't only use WiFi when purchasing new books and the occasional web browsing. And here's a tip: most people don't buy e-readers for web browsing.
The other point is that there is a happy medium between a shop being overrun by customers buying one coffee and staying for 3-4 hours, and the same shop banning all electronic devices, books, newspapers, and anything else that might keep customers in the store for longer. Your local Panera's seems to have found one such happy medium.
The prize is a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card, not $10,000 in cash or a $10,000 Apple gift card. Last I checked, the iTunes store doesn't sell MacBooks.
Well, if the version numbering converged to something interesting like pi (or e, or the golden ratio) I could see people wanting it.
Then again, that kind of system wouldn't be rational.
Actually, since a license is free for non-commercial use, it's most likely to show how many people are too lazy to fill out an online form or register an account (possibly giving their email up to spammers--I mean marketing). Kinda like using bugmenot to get into free-to-register websites.
During the mid- to late- 90's I'd heartily agree; Square's RPGS were great in those days, and I still pick up Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI from time to time. These days, their popularity is more due to leftover nostalgia and riding on the coattails of their classics. Which, if response the the latest two games is an indicator, may soon be running dry.
I have a mouse with a back button that maps to alt-left behind the scenes. Most other built-in functions I use mouse or keyboard-shortcuts for as well, so my most-clicked buttons would all be from extensions. Or to close background tabs.
I still remember being a kid in the early 90's, and playing games like Time Traveler and Holosseum in arcades. Apparently they were very successful financially, though they didn't last too long.
It works for comic books and graphic novels. Many of them come out monthly or bimonthly, take about 15-30 minutes to read an issue, and have ongoing plot-lines. TV shows takes either 30 or 60 minutes to watch, come out weekly, and many of those (think Lost, 24, Fringe, etc) have ongoing plot-lines.
On a slightly related note, I finished GRR Martin's 4th ASoIaF book in two days, and have been waiting nearly five years for the 5th book. Which was originally the second half of the 4th book, but was split up because of size.
Mod parent up. As much as it seems silly that the two losing parties still remain in power, it isn't when you think of it. If combined they still represent more votes (and thus a higher percentage of people's views), shouldn't they be the ones in power rather than a party that a majority of people didn't want?
This is pretty much what happened when Nader "spoiled" the vote for Gore in Florida back in 2000. Even if you discount the whole recount issue, if Nader hadn't been running most of his votes would have likely gone to Gore (both being liberals), and Gore would have easily won the state and the election. Similarly, if the UK were a 2-party system, the Labour and Lib Dems (which if I recall are both more similar to each other than the Conservatives) would be a single party and easily have won.
The benefits of having multiple parties is that no matter who "wins", without a clear majority the ruling coalition needs to be built on compromise. Whether it's Conservatives + Lib Dems, or Labour + Lib Dems, or one of the other permutations, the government can't go too far to one extreme. More importantly, minor parties are still needed to form a coalition, giving them a chance to make some of their views heard.
This can give new ideas—ideas that may be popular with the electorate but too risky/unknown to make traction with the main parties—a chance to be tested while still having a sort of buffer preventing them from being taken too far to quickly. Think, for example, the Pirate Party; major parties are too beholden to big corporate donations to advocate sensible copyright reform, yet that doesn't mean there shouldn't be advocates for it in the legislature.. Compare this to the US, where the two parties have been pretty stagnant for as long as anyone can remember, and new ideas are quickly shot down as "radical" from both sides
The solution is pretty already for the most part in place, and occurs at the browser level. Most of the browser vendors have known about this for years (since 2005 I believe) and implement a combination of whitelists, phishing filters, and Punycode to avert the problem .
Other possibilities they could add is highlighting the background of any URL not in the user's native character set, or that uses characters of different sets, write those suspect characters in bold, or pop up a security dialog. The problems with these approaches it that they are much more prone to user error than a default-enabled filter. How many real-users (as in, outside the slashdot crowd) would known what the changed background or bold letters mean? How many just ignore any popup dialog that appears and hit OK to get on with it? At least something like Punycode it's a lot easier to see something wrong with the URL, and the phishing screens are much more likely to be noticed than a simple pop-up.
Because OSX is an entire operating system used by 7.95% of users, while Linux is used by only 2.34% of users. Opera is just a web browser used by only 1.42% of users.
For those 1.42% using Opera, it's rather easy to upgrade to a new version. As already stated there are versions available that fix the problem, and only requires a simple application install. Even if Opera never released a patched version, moving to Safari/Firefox/Chrome/(gasp!)IE isn't too hard, at least when compared to moving to a new OS.
Updating an OS is more of a chore, especially in a large company with many computers. There is no update yet for OSX which addresses the issue, and even when it comes out there's no guarantee it will work with anything besides 10.6. Users of 10.5 may be, and users of 10.4 will almost certainly be, stuck no matter what web browser they choose. They would be forced to upgrade to 10.6; for users with older hardware, that might require them to buy new systems just to keep internet access. That's why the issue is bigger for OSX users than Opera users.
(disclaimer: I am a happy user of OS X 10.6 on my iMac and MBP)
Well, considering that Robocop 2 was made in March 1990, a few months after System 6.0.5 and a few months before Windows 3.0 were released, it is hardly surprising that they used a DOS computer. That's what most people would have recognized after all. The whole "good guys use Mac" meme is a much more recent phenomenon.
Considering that one of the things it seems the article's computer *can't* do is handle a slashdotting without crashing and going up in flames, I would hardly consider linking to them being a reward.
The problem isn't just in making the levels randomly; the problem is making levels that don't suck randomly. Relying on a purely random "place stuff over here" could easily generate levels even worse than Asshole Mario; levels that cannot possibly be beaten because the path is blocked, or the key is unobtainable (or never generated in the first place). Or it could generate levels that are stupidly easy; where the exit is right next to the entrance. Generating interesting and playable levels randomly is a lot more difficult and interesting a problem. The general idea is probably to combine predefined sections, perhaps morphing those sections. The algorithm should be keeping track via a pathfinding algorithm or something what areas can be entered from where and the location of any keys. It would need to keep track of the difficulty of the area; each section might have a difficulty rating, as would monsters, traps, and so forth. To add more variability the "sections" can be procedurally generated as well to some degree, though this adds difficulty in ensuring that the section is actually playable. Depending on the style of the game this may be relatively easy (a game like Diablo only really needs to worry about keeping the level contiguous and the locations of any keys), moderately difficult (a sidescroller would want to avoid Asshole Mario Syndrome, so a way to detect it is necessary) or insanely difficult (a 3d sidescroller ala Mario 64 adds a whole new dimension to the problem, if you'll pardon the pun). Perhaps the algorithm would need to run a bot through each section (again tuned to the difficulty) to try and get past the obstacles. Oh, and if we're procedurally generating levels, the obvious use case is to do it on-demand; that is, as the player loads the level. So it needs to be fast, otherwise loading times will become unbearable.
Personally I care less about what they're made of and more about the sizes and colours. I know dollars are tinted now, but they're still basically green, and all the same size. Not a major issue, I know, but it's just that little bit less convenient when you're thumbing through your wallet.
Or, if you happen to be blind, more than "a little less convenient". US paper currency has been ruled to be discriminatory to the blind. Unfortunately, this redesign does not address the issue.
The biggest reason I've seen for not changing the size or adding raised/textured numbers that can be felt by hand, is that it would screw up vending machines. But there are a couple of points of counterargument. For one, can you say that older vending machines will be able to read this new redesigned bill either? It seems so totally different that it's unlikely.
But even if it can, there's the second point; most of the many, many vending machines in the US accept $1 and $5 bills, selling $1.50 cans of coke or $1 bags of candy. Yes, there are a small number of machines selling higher priced items such as electronics, but these are much less common (and have higher profits as well). So, the solution is to start changing size from the top down, keeping the $1 bill the same. Only the relatively rare, high-profit machines need to be changed over to accept the new bills. The machines found in every school, shopping center, and transportation hub selling Coke and M&Ms don't have to be touched.
Yes, bringing a collection of a hundred DVDs is far easier than storing those hundred on 64GB of flash memory.
Seriously though, if you know what software to use (Handbrake has built-in presets for ipod and Apple TV; iPad is only a matter of time if those don't work) it is a piece of cake to DeCSS a movie and convert it to H.264. From there, just drag into iTunes and sync. For a one-time viewing, a portable DVD player may be more convenient. But if you plan ahead or have movies that your kids want to watch often in the back seat, storing a substantial portion of your movie library on the iPad wouldn't be so hard.
The biggest hurdle to this that I can see is one of security. How do you keep your kids out of your private documents/email? I've seen this mentioned elsewhere; unlike the iPhone which is a more personal device, the iPad is much more geared as a shared entertainment device that also happens to do email and documents. Without some sort of user login to differentiate between family members may cause problems. But none of that has anything to do with the ease of getting DVDs onto the device.
Blu-ray now; that's another story. But find me a portable Blu-ray player first...
Better yet, why not get the first level for free, and then pay to unlock the following levels? Allow us to share this free first level with all of our friends legally with no fear of lawsuits, so we can get them interested in the game as well. If the first level is good enough, it can help sell a lot more of the game company's wares. I wonder what we can call this business model, and why nobody has thought of it before? Oh, that's right, no companycould everbe successful giving away a product for free!
There's already an app that does the same thing with your (Windows/Mac/Linux) PC called Simplify Media that this seems to. Essentially, it scans your music directory (or iTunes/Rhythmbox library if you want) on each computer the client runs, and lets you share them (directly through iTunes/Rhythmbox's own shared library front-end) on any other computer the client runs on. It also lets you add up to 30 "friends" to share with as well. Photos can also be shared (using iPhoto's events/faces/locations features if you run on a Mac). Best thing of all is the price. Pogoplug requires a proprietary $129 hardware device, but the iPhone app, if I read correctly, is free. Simplify requires a computer (which you probably already have), and a free client. The iPhone app costs about $6 ($3 when it first came out). Total cost: $129 for Pogoplug, $3 for SM if yo Sadly, I just read that as of two weeks ago they stopped selling the app and allowing new users to sign up. The service still works as of now, and they promise something new in the pipeline. I guess we'll see what comes of this.
2. You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.
The question then becomes how enforceable is the agreement? Sure, if he has an account Facebook can close it, but if he is just accessing Facebook without an account do they have a case? Last I saw you can browse parts of profiles without being logged in, and without ever agreeing to any terms.
So, should corporations be allowed to marry? And if so, what about gay marriage? How do you know if a corporation is a male corporation or a female corporation?
The only known way that a top quark can decay is through the weak interaction producing a W-boson and a down-type quark (down, strange, or bottom). Because of its enormous mass, the top quark is extremely short lived with a predicted lifetime of only 5×1025 s. As a result top quarks do not have time to form hadrons before they decay, as other quarks do. This provides physicists with the unique opportunity the study the behavior of a bare quark.
So for any of the other five quarks you'd be right, but not for the top quark. True, a top quark won't be bound lying about. But neither will it be found bound in any hadrons—that is, mesons (quark-antiquark pairs) and baryons (three quark triplets)—like the other five. The only way to get a top quark is to create one, and then it only exists (bare, by itself) for a very, very short time.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps that reason is that Starbucks has economies of scale in place that small independent coffee shops don't. I'm sure Starbucks got a great deal from AT&T to provide the WiFi service, and is paying far less per month per store than any cafe would from their local ISP.
e-readers don't normally consume WiFi either. Most have built-in 3G, and even the ones that don't only use WiFi when purchasing new books and the occasional web browsing. And here's a tip: most people don't buy e-readers for web browsing.
The other point is that there is a happy medium between a shop being overrun by customers buying one coffee and staying for 3-4 hours, and the same shop banning all electronic devices, books, newspapers, and anything else that might keep customers in the store for longer. Your local Panera's seems to have found one such happy medium.
The prize is a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card, not $10,000 in cash or a $10,000 Apple gift card. Last I checked, the iTunes store doesn't sell MacBooks.
Well, if the version numbering converged to something interesting like pi (or e, or the golden ratio) I could see people wanting it.
Then again, that kind of system wouldn't be rational.
Actually, since a license is free for non-commercial use, it's most likely to show how many people are too lazy to fill out an online form or register an account (possibly giving their email up to spammers--I mean marketing). Kinda like using bugmenot to get into free-to-register websites.
During the mid- to late- 90's I'd heartily agree; Square's RPGS were great in those days, and I still pick up Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI from time to time. These days, their popularity is more due to leftover nostalgia and riding on the coattails of their classics. Which, if response the the latest two games is an indicator, may soon be running dry.
I have a mouse with a back button that maps to alt-left behind the scenes. Most other built-in functions I use mouse or keyboard-shortcuts for as well, so my most-clicked buttons would all be from extensions. Or to close background tabs.
I still remember being a kid in the early 90's, and playing games like Time Traveler and Holosseum in arcades. Apparently they were very successful financially, though they didn't last too long.
It works for comic books and graphic novels. Many of them come out monthly or bimonthly, take about 15-30 minutes to read an issue, and have ongoing plot-lines. TV shows takes either 30 or 60 minutes to watch, come out weekly, and many of those (think Lost, 24, Fringe, etc) have ongoing plot-lines.
On a slightly related note, I finished GRR Martin's 4th ASoIaF book in two days, and have been waiting nearly five years for the 5th book. Which was originally the second half of the 4th book, but was split up because of size.
Still waiting, Mr. Martin...
Mod parent up. As much as it seems silly that the two losing parties still remain in power, it isn't when you think of it. If combined they still represent more votes (and thus a higher percentage of people's views), shouldn't they be the ones in power rather than a party that a majority of people didn't want?
This is pretty much what happened when Nader "spoiled" the vote for Gore in Florida back in 2000. Even if you discount the whole recount issue, if Nader hadn't been running most of his votes would have likely gone to Gore (both being liberals), and Gore would have easily won the state and the election. Similarly, if the UK were a 2-party system, the Labour and Lib Dems (which if I recall are both more similar to each other than the Conservatives) would be a single party and easily have won.
The benefits of having multiple parties is that no matter who "wins", without a clear majority the ruling coalition needs to be built on compromise. Whether it's Conservatives + Lib Dems, or Labour + Lib Dems, or one of the other permutations, the government can't go too far to one extreme. More importantly, minor parties are still needed to form a coalition, giving them a chance to make some of their views heard.
This can give new ideas—ideas that may be popular with the electorate but too risky/unknown to make traction with the main parties—a chance to be tested while still having a sort of buffer preventing them from being taken too far to quickly. Think, for example, the Pirate Party; major parties are too beholden to big corporate donations to advocate sensible copyright reform, yet that doesn't mean there shouldn't be advocates for it in the legislature.. Compare this to the US, where the two parties have been pretty stagnant for as long as anyone can remember, and new ideas are quickly shot down as "radical" from both sides
Sounds a bit low to me. If he were a real major league pitcher, he would get paid nearly $1 million just for showing up to a game, even if he lost.
The solution is pretty already for the most part in place, and occurs at the browser level. Most of the browser vendors have known about this for years (since 2005 I believe) and implement a combination of whitelists, phishing filters, and Punycode to avert the problem .
Other possibilities they could add is highlighting the background of any URL not in the user's native character set, or that uses characters of different sets, write those suspect characters in bold, or pop up a security dialog. The problems with these approaches it that they are much more prone to user error than a default-enabled filter. How many real-users (as in, outside the slashdot crowd) would known what the changed background or bold letters mean? How many just ignore any popup dialog that appears and hit OK to get on with it? At least something like Punycode it's a lot easier to see something wrong with the URL, and the phishing screens are much more likely to be noticed than a simple pop-up.
Because OSX is an entire operating system used by 7.95% of users, while Linux is used by only 2.34% of users. Opera is just a web browser used by only 1.42% of users.
For those 1.42% using Opera, it's rather easy to upgrade to a new version. As already stated there are versions available that fix the problem, and only requires a simple application install. Even if Opera never released a patched version, moving to Safari/Firefox/Chrome/(gasp!)IE isn't too hard, at least when compared to moving to a new OS.
Updating an OS is more of a chore, especially in a large company with many computers. There is no update yet for OSX which addresses the issue, and even when it comes out there's no guarantee it will work with anything besides 10.6. Users of 10.5 may be, and users of 10.4 will almost certainly be, stuck no matter what web browser they choose. They would be forced to upgrade to 10.6; for users with older hardware, that might require them to buy new systems just to keep internet access. That's why the issue is bigger for OSX users than Opera users.
(disclaimer: I am a happy user of OS X 10.6 on my iMac and MBP)
Well, considering that Robocop 2 was made in March 1990, a few months after System 6.0.5 and a few months before Windows 3.0 were released, it is hardly surprising that they used a DOS computer. That's what most people would have recognized after all. The whole "good guys use Mac" meme is a much more recent phenomenon.
Considering that one of the things it seems the article's computer *can't* do is handle a slashdotting without crashing and going up in flames, I would hardly consider linking to them being a reward.
The problem isn't just in making the levels randomly; the problem is making levels that don't suck randomly.
Relying on a purely random "place stuff over here" could easily generate levels even worse than Asshole Mario; levels that cannot possibly be beaten because the path is blocked, or the key is unobtainable (or never generated in the first place). Or it could generate levels that are stupidly easy; where the exit is right next to the entrance.
Generating interesting and playable levels randomly is a lot more difficult and interesting a problem. The general idea is probably to combine predefined sections, perhaps morphing those sections. The algorithm should be keeping track via a pathfinding algorithm or something what areas can be entered from where and the location of any keys. It would need to keep track of the difficulty of the area; each section might have a difficulty rating, as would monsters, traps, and so forth.
To add more variability the "sections" can be procedurally generated as well to some degree, though this adds difficulty in ensuring that the section is actually playable. Depending on the style of the game this may be relatively easy (a game like Diablo only really needs to worry about keeping the level contiguous and the locations of any keys), moderately difficult (a sidescroller would want to avoid Asshole Mario Syndrome, so a way to detect it is necessary) or insanely difficult (a 3d sidescroller ala Mario 64 adds a whole new dimension to the problem, if you'll pardon the pun). Perhaps the algorithm would need to run a bot through each section (again tuned to the difficulty) to try and get past the obstacles.
Oh, and if we're procedurally generating levels, the obvious use case is to do it on-demand; that is, as the player loads the level. So it needs to be fast, otherwise loading times will become unbearable.
Personally I care less about what they're made of and more about the sizes and colours. I know dollars are tinted now, but they're still basically green, and all the same size. Not a major issue, I know, but it's just that little bit less convenient when you're thumbing through your wallet.
Or, if you happen to be blind, more than "a little less convenient". US paper currency has been ruled to be discriminatory to the blind. Unfortunately, this redesign does not address the issue.
The biggest reason I've seen for not changing the size or adding raised/textured numbers that can be felt by hand, is that it would screw up vending machines. But there are a couple of points of counterargument. For one, can you say that older vending machines will be able to read this new redesigned bill either? It seems so totally different that it's unlikely.
But even if it can, there's the second point; most of the many, many vending machines in the US accept $1 and $5 bills, selling $1.50 cans of coke or $1 bags of candy. Yes, there are a small number of machines selling higher priced items such as electronics, but these are much less common (and have higher profits as well). So, the solution is to start changing size from the top down, keeping the $1 bill the same. Only the relatively rare, high-profit machines need to be changed over to accept the new bills. The machines found in every school, shopping center, and transportation hub selling Coke and M&Ms don't have to be touched.
Yes, bringing a collection of a hundred DVDs is far easier than storing those hundred on 64GB of flash memory.
Seriously though, if you know what software to use (Handbrake has built-in presets for ipod and Apple TV; iPad is only a matter of time if those don't work) it is a piece of cake to DeCSS a movie and convert it to H.264. From there, just drag into iTunes and sync. For a one-time viewing, a portable DVD player may be more convenient. But if you plan ahead or have movies that your kids want to watch often in the back seat, storing a substantial portion of your movie library on the iPad wouldn't be so hard.
The biggest hurdle to this that I can see is one of security. How do you keep your kids out of your private documents/email? I've seen this mentioned elsewhere; unlike the iPhone which is a more personal device, the iPad is much more geared as a shared entertainment device that also happens to do email and documents. Without some sort of user login to differentiate between family members may cause problems. But none of that has anything to do with the ease of getting DVDs onto the device.
Blu-ray now; that's another story. But find me a portable Blu-ray player first...
Better yet, why not get the first level for free, and then pay to unlock the following levels? Allow us to share this free first level with all of our friends legally with no fear of lawsuits, so we can get them interested in the game as well. If the first level is good enough, it can help sell a lot more of the game company's wares.
I wonder what we can call this business model, and why nobody has thought of it before? Oh, that's right, no company could ever be successful giving away a product for free!
There's already an app that does the same thing with your (Windows/Mac/Linux) PC called Simplify Media that this seems to. Essentially, it scans your music directory (or iTunes/Rhythmbox library if you want) on each computer the client runs, and lets you share them (directly through iTunes/Rhythmbox's own shared library front-end) on any other computer the client runs on. It also lets you add up to 30 "friends" to share with as well. Photos can also be shared (using iPhoto's events/faces/locations features if you run on a Mac).
Best thing of all is the price. Pogoplug requires a proprietary $129 hardware device, but the iPhone app, if I read correctly, is free. Simplify requires a computer (which you probably already have), and a free client. The iPhone app costs about $6 ($3 when it first came out). Total cost: $129 for Pogoplug, $3 for SM if yo
Sadly, I just read that as of two weeks ago they stopped selling the app and allowing new users to sign up. The service still works as of now, and they promise something new in the pipeline. I guess we'll see what comes of this.
From the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Section 3 "Safety":
2. You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.
The question then becomes how enforceable is the agreement? Sure, if he has an account Facebook can close it, but if he is just accessing Facebook without an account do they have a case? Last I saw you can browse parts of profiles without being logged in, and without ever agreeing to any terms.
So, should corporations be allowed to marry? And if so, what about gay marriage? How do you know if a corporation is a male corporation or a female corporation?
From the wikipedia article for top quark:
The only known way that a top quark can decay is through the weak interaction producing a W-boson and a down-type quark (down, strange, or bottom). Because of its enormous mass, the top quark is extremely short lived with a predicted lifetime of only 5×1025 s. As a result top quarks do not have time to form hadrons before they decay, as other quarks do. This provides physicists with the unique opportunity the study the behavior of a bare quark.
So for any of the other five quarks you'd be right, but not for the top quark. True, a top quark won't be bound lying about. But neither will it be found bound in any hadrons—that is, mesons (quark-antiquark pairs) and baryons (three quark triplets)—like the other five. The only way to get a top quark is to create one, and then it only exists (bare, by itself) for a very, very short time.
At first I was fooled into thinking it was real, until saw the same video a second time. Well-played indeed.