I agree with everyone elses objections etc... about OEM's, market doubling, etc... however when XP came out there was also other Windows compitition, in Windowns 2000 and Windows ME. ME certainly sucked, but it did come on a lot of OEM computers (including my last OEM bought DELL, yuck), which in conjunction with 2000, would take away from the XP numbers, further dimishing them, at least initally. Now you have 5 choices: Vista, Vista, Vista, Vista, or Vista! However when you add them up as one, well you can do the math. Basically this is Microsoft playing with numbers, and being misleading in an attempt (probably a successful one) to convince stupid shareholds and the public about how great they are. Wee.
OK I guess I was mostly talking about the games that do not have a Linux port. It seems to me this is by far usually the case (like 95% or so), and also seems to me that there are now even less developers making Linux versions of games (probably due to how long and expensive it is to make a game these days it seems).
I don't know about UT2006, but yes ET works and runs well without problems. It is one of the few games I have installed on my machine.
Yes. However the difference here is once you fiddled around with it and found how to get it working, it worked perfectly fine (or most did).
I currently run Linux, and while attempts have been made to make it easier to play games, it is STILL not a gaming system. It will NEVER be a system you can game on really until you get buy in support from the game designers and they start making games FOR Linux.
Games in Linux for me fall into 4 categories: A) Doesn't work, not supported. B) The fix to actually get it working is so convouluted and difficult that it might be easier to design your own OS and get the game working on that first. C) The game works, however, there are significant problems as somethings do not work, or if you do certain things it will crash, or it will just crash seemingly randomly. D) The game works, however because you are basically emulating windows the proformance is horrible.
Thats pretty much as good as it gets as far as my experiance goes.
I am currently looking to built a new system next month. After much thought, I have decided to bite the bullet and just buy Vista. Linux can't do it. OSX can't do it. I refuse to go back and buy old technology in XP. I want my games. Computer games, NOT console games. I had an Xbox, and the while fun, the experiance is not the same, the main thing is the types of games that are released and the quality of online play. I have friends that have the Wii, it is a fun party type console, but doesn't do it for me as a stand alone system. Xbox basically made mostly sport and driving games, very little strategy or RPG or anything like that, mostly the only thing playable was FPS, however my main interest in those are for online play, and well Live is full of young kids being stupid basically. I don't have an HD TV either, making Xbox360 underutilized and thus not worth the upgrade, other than they stopped making games for the xbox it seems. The PS3 is very expensive and seems by all accounts that it may not be that successful.
Thus Vista is really the only alternative, though a crappy one initally anyway. However this is Microsofts buisness plan and how they make their billions, by being the only real game in town, and having no real compitition. This is why the monoply sucks, as they can come out with garbage like Vista, but consumers really have little choice but to bend over and take it. Even a little compitition would be nice, look at all the great things AMD and Intel are doing! Ah, anyway this somehow turned into a rant... oh well, my 2 cents I guess. DarthVain
I am willing to conceed that the assumption that Earth is not a unique or rare event, and that there are many instances of intelligent life.
However there is an assumption of time. It assumes that intelligent life somehow always started before it did on Earth. Why is that?
If you are going to assume that Earth is average and thus life somewhat common, you also have to assume that the time in which life takes to develop is also about the same everywhere and thus our current civ is about as advanced as anywhere plus minus a few freaks. The freaks would be rare, and thus in all probibility not close to anyone in particular.
What that means is that while there may be life out there, they have only been around for about as long as we have, for about the same period, with probably about the same advancments.
Considering we have only been putting out Radio noise for about 60-70 years in any volume, and considering A) the speed in which those waves travel (not the speed of light) and B) the amount of degradaion that I am sure will also happen, our observerable footprint is pretty damn small (at least at the scales we are talking here). If we assume that we are all in the same boat as this, then it is no wonder than no one have met anyone else (or that those meeting would be very rare indeed, perhaps only if you reside close to one of the very rare freaks). So the only reason we have to blame for not meeting any Aliens is that we haven't developed a technology or had the will to do so yet, and thus pretty much no one else has either.
IMHO you can't make one assumtion without making the other, and when you make both, it is easy to see why there has been no evidence of other life.
Quid Pro quo or something like that:)
I am sure if we blow up our Sun someone out there might see it after many many years. Course we would be quite dead, and of course we lack the ability to do so anyway. Perhaps all those Nova's we see are not natural occurances, but a lonely Alien lifeform reaching out for contact. Morse code (or the like) may require the death of many Suns just to say "Hello my name is Earth".
Thats frickin' awsome! I wish I had though of that when I was DMing back in the day... Just the look on their faces when I kill off their beloved char. Of course I think they might guess something was up after more and more of them die. But oh that would have been fun for all the shit they put me through as DM.
OK I am sooo sick of this conversation. This has been going on for years. It is really stupid. I haven't got an email yet. If I do I will ignore it. Nothing against the USA, but I am pretty sure they would try and invade if we tried to influance their internal policy. RIAA bring it. We will see how you fare in Canadian Courts. You may get some of us to buckle under your threats, but the rest of us will make you pay so much in legal fees that we will make it a very costly proposition to try this garbage in Canada. I am not so sure that I am in the right, however I know for a fact that you are wrong. That is enough for me.
I will admit that the idea makes me a bit nervous as well. Probably because I have seen too many movies. Anyway it worried me enough that I looked into it a bit awhile back, also keep in mind that I am by no means an authority on this subject. Anyway it is my understanding that black holes need to be of a certain size in order to be able to consume enough material to stay in existace let alone grow. This tells me that there is some threshold where a blackhold become self sustaining and beyond that would be various degrees of increasing growth. From what I read the black holes that are created by these colliders are so small that they only exist for a fraction of a second, and poof they are gone. Now when scientists decide to try and "approch" that unknown theshold, then I will start to get worried. One consolation that I take into consideration is despite all of are advances the Universe is larger than we can really comprehend. The only known black holes thought to exist are those created by an imploding STAR. The amount of mass and energy contained within a star, is far beyond what we can recreate. Even if we postulate that the dangerous threshold is many many mangnitudes less, it would 'probably' still be at a threshold well beyond our capability, at least anytime soon (say within out lifetimes). I seem to remember that it was thought that the stars that do turn into blackholes were thought to be red giant class stars that imploded rather than turned nova. If this is correct then even all the energy and mass contained within our own sun would be many magintudes too small to produce the effect. If that is compared to say if every atom on earth was turned into an atomic reaction, which then imploded upon itself, it would not be enough to create a blackhole by so many magnitudes as to be silly, though one may be created for a specifed time before it disapeared. Anyway, a lot of if's, but I think I have said the word "magnitude" so many times as to get the idea across. I would try to offer some comparison, but the values are so large as to make my brain hurt trying to think of an analogy. Anyway interesting stuff, and definatly something I think should be approched with caution, but probably most scientists that work with the stuff and that are in the know, would probably laugh pretty hard at the concern.
Anyway I may be totally wrong, this is all just off the top of my head and it was more of a casual interest more than anything else. David Brin has a book (fiction) called "Earth" with explores this very subject, and is kind of freaky, though as I said probably not very plausable.
Just as an example. THIS year. Went to local music store to buy "Rage against the Machine". It was 28.99$. This past christmas I went to by a CD for my Sister, A Compaliation of Songs Inspired by Neil Gaiman this time at Amazon.com... It was over 25$ as well. Mind you this is Canadian Dollars (which I should have specified I suppose). Even still, thats too much.
"Which they have; they've dropped about 60% in constant dollars since launch."
Um I don't think so. Sure you can find some Britney Spears in teh crap bin for 12.99, however there are still CD's out there that cost 30$ at release. There are also tons of other CD's that are hard to find (ie older than 5-10 years) that are that or more. You can't tell me with a stright face that they used to cost 48$ a CD, even factoring in inflation thats a bunch of bunk.
"...then why don't you become the one that kills them? I'm 100% serious."
I agree. If it is so apparent that they are doing such a horrible job, then do it better and profit! However, the record companies not making much profit is NOT a indicator of how well they do their job. It is just profit, and due to a basic monolopy, it is pretty hard to draw any comparisions. The thing that makes me angry is that they seem to be more interested in trying any naferious, underhanded trick to make more profit, but yet doesn't seem interested in any actual innovation. They just seem to sue people, lobby gov for more mono profit laws, and try to bully everyone else out of market. Anyone who tries to enter market, they lobby against, sue, make then sign stupid deals, etc...
Well good for him. Sure looks a lot better and more practical that his last suit.
However my only missgivings are in this paragraph:
"In the helmet, there's a solar-powered fresh-air system and a drinking tube attached to a canteen in the small of the back."
I am pretty sure the solar-powered fresh-air system is a fancy way of saying a solar powered fan in the helmet. More disturbing that that would be:
"A laser pointer mounted in the middle of the forehead is ready to point to snipers, while LED lights frame the face."
#1 I think I would prefer to point out snipers with something other than the middle of the forehead. Thats kinda like poking a bear with a stick in my books.
#2 I love how included into that statment was how your face is lit up with LED lights, you know, just in case the sniper missed the stupid laser pointer in the forehead, he can aim at the lit up face.
I actually laughed out loud when I read that paragraph, he may want to re-think some of those helmet elements.:)
I think you make a very good point, one that most people either don't see or understand.
Also most of the complaining or user bashing is done by IT tech support, as mostly they are the first line of defence. They are the ones that mostly get the really stupid user problems. Most problems that make it to the DBA, Network Admin, etc... usually end up being real problems, with serious answers. Though of course there are always exceptions, particulary in developement. However comparing Doctors, Lawyers, and Dentists and the like to some poor lost soul stuck doing IT support, isn't quite fair either. I bet if you offered ANY IT tech support person an extra 80k in salary, and all they had to do extra was have some "professional ethics" and not make fun of the people who call you for help, well I think not one of them would turn it down. In fact I bet you would see an end to the practice, at least overtly. I'm a Data Analyst and hell pay me an extra 30k to 50k and not only will I not ever make fun of anyone that asks my help, I will actively praise and grovel one lucky user every day.
The other exception is people that actually own development companies that do contract work and consultants. Both of these groups of IT professionals LOVE stupid users and would never dare make fun of clients/potential clients... They are uniquly able to just laugh all the way to the bank for every silly change and exception that the users ask outside of what is agreed upon initially, and they just keep charging them more and more money (though some don't and thus complain and make fun).
Total elasped time of conversation: Minimum of 300 years (assuming lightspeed communication).
I think at the rate we are advancing one message will have little relavence to the next, assuming of course we don't at somepoint in the conversation master FTL.
Even more annoying would be the disparegy of technology, just think if one civ had some level of FTL and one didn't or at a much lower level. How annoying would that be. They could respond say near instantanous, and ours takes like 30 years to travel! I see somewhere in our future being called "Lagging Noobs" or something like that in an alien context/language.... Of course the upside is perhaps they will be annoyed so much as to give us the FTL technology (provided they have it), so that they can communicate easier with us. The downside of course is perhaps if they are that technology advanced, and that annoyed, perhaps they will just come and destroy us.
I hear you brother! I laugh my ass of anytime I hear from people having a "hard time" running games on their new computers, or buy Mac's as PC's are too "hard" to use...
I remember trying to game on my only 286... now that was freakin' hard.... I remember making batch files of batch files, messing withg EMS, XMS, and whatever other crazy memory BS , not to mention the CGA, EGA, VGA, stuff going on.... making boot disks for each particular game, just so it would load properly, all the while installing something on 30 floppy disks (5 1/4" bitches!)... etc..... It generalizes down to two principles:
1) I pretty much got my interetest into computer science from trying to play games on my various systems (and trying to tweak out whatever I could to play games). 2) Other people are stupid and/or lazy and/or spoiled.
I did a rant on this topic awhile ago.... I even ranted at the sys admins to tell them how silly it is. Managers ultimatly make the decisions though, and in their eyes, they have done their job to makes things "secure". You by writing down your password simply fail to do yours as you are violating security policy. I have more passwords than you, but only several of them change stupidly. My main one has to be changed every month or 30 days which is just stupid. After a while you figure out a system of passwords (or I did anyway) to beat the system, but even so I have sticky note passwords everywhere. The only saving grace is that one of my accounts they actually unified with the main username, so thats one less damn user name I have to remember also.
I always get a laugh out of this sort of thing. The basic premis here is that at stock speeds it is about the same as other motherboards (Intel Core 2 Duo). However the differenace is that it overclocks like a motherfu*ker. If you look at its compitition in the Asus and Gigabyte using an intel chipset, they also overclock well (if not quite so much). The big kicker is that this new board costs about 300$ compaired to like 170$ or even 130$.
So the moral of the story is just because some piece of computer equipment does something really well, a better computer it does not make (within reason, most people have some sort of cost restrictions to their lives). What I mean by this is, why buy a 300$ motherboard to overclock a 210$ CPU, when you can buy a 170$ motherboard and use the extra 130$ to buy a better CPU to overclock in the first place? Thats the differance between an E6300 and a E6600, for those that know what that means. Of course if your like me, you think the money would be better spent on a E6400, and pocket the change, for say something really important like beer or possibly pizza.
Of course prices will go down, but so with the compitition (at least to a certain threshold), its all about finding that perfect (or as close as you can get it) balance of components and price.
Well one tick agaist the electronic voting machines was mentioned on The Daily Show last night....
I am mis-quoting but it boils down to there are 4 types of election volenteers. 1) Unemployed people 2) Old People 3) Really really old people 4) The Crypt Keeper
Now ask yourself this question: Do ANY of the above embrace technology, or training?
If you answered a resounding "NO!", then grab a pencil and paper and make your mark.
Personally I just voted online for our Municiple election here in Ontario, Canada. It was used as a way to vote early and easily, the paper polling stations are still out there for those so inclined....
Downloading is perfectly legal. Uploading is perfecttly legal. However distributing (that is actively or passively) to multiple parties is a more sketchy ground. I wouldn't call it legal anyway.
The big differance is how the two legal systems (Canada vs the USA) are set up to allow for the proscutions of such offences. In the USA I hear what happens is the RIAA initially sues a "John Doe" on an ISP from a particular state that allows this. The whole point of this, is to force the ISP to reveal their user lists. Once the RIAA gets this list and thus a name, they drop all charges with "John Doe". It is at this point they start a new charge in the state and against the named individual. This is the point where people get a letter to extort, erm, I mean settle out of court, as most do.
This tatic does not work in Canada. In Canada you can't sue some fictional person. You actually have to sue a person. The Canadian version of the RIAA has repeadedly tried to force the ISP's to disclose their user lists, so they can get to a suein'. However as much as I hate the Bell's and Rogers's of the world due to their monoloplistic tendancies, and brutal customer service, it is at this point that I must applaud. As both bell and rogers has told the CRIA (or whatever it is called) to go to hell, as have the courts. The privacy laws in Canada will not allow it. If there is a criminal case and evidence then for sure the courts can force the ISP to disclose a name, but you can't go and sue 5000 John Doe's here.
So while sueing Americans is actually profitable, sueing Canadians would not be, as they would have to do due process on each individual BEFORE the extortion letters go out. Whereas in the USA, they only have to do that on those that refuse to pay up. Nice eh?
Currently it seems that the CRIA has changed their tatics, and are instead trying to lobby to try and change laws or implement new ones through bribing, erm, I mean contribuiting illegally (by illegally I mean in Canada there is a cap to how much a individual can donate to a political party. However I have heard of accounts where an individual will max out, as will their spouse, and their 3 children, including a baby that is 6 months old. While technically this might, and I stress might as I don't know, might be legal, it certainly isn't ethical, or holding to the sperit of the law) to copyright "friendly" political canidates... Which is pretty damn dirty pool if you ask me.
Anyway as mentioned by the parent we all pay an invisible media tax (never mind you might use said media to back up your data files), that goes to a pot that the CRIA controls. I have no idea if a single cent has made it to Sloan and other music folks, though it wouldn't surprise me a whole lot if I learned that some portion or even a large portion goes to the "administration" of the CRIA, and ultimaly to copyright "friendly" dinners and such.
Anyway this somehow turned into a big rant, so sorry.
Well right off I can give you my short list (in no particular order): Finland Norway Switzerland Netherlands Sweden Australia Perhaps UK somewhere (England, Ireland, Scotland)
of course I live in Canada so I can't pick that (and no I would NOT move to the USA)
The main disadvantages that many might have with the scandinavian countries are A) the cold weather, B) the taxes, and C)relitive remoteness and smaller urbanized areas.
Well Canada is A) Cold, B) has high taxes also, and C) unless you live in Toronto, Vancouver can be somewhat remote and smaller urban areas. So not so different really, certainly not so much to cause distress.
I picked Australia pretty much because as far are warmer countries go it seems pretty nice. Also I hear girls down under dig the Canadian accent:) . The one thing that sort of bothers me is that everything seems to be poisonious. I have also read some stuff about their current conservative government... of course these things come and go... Currently we have a like problem, though Harper isn't so bad as far as robots go, you just have to get to know him...
Another great thing about Australia and the UK is I don't need to learn a new language (though I know that most of the Scandinavian contries seem to have an absurd rate of english speaking also like 80-90%, but I would feel bad living there without learning the native tounge). The other great thing about the UK is all the shared heritage between them and Canada. Lots of relations on both sides, shared culture. Being from Nova Scotia (New Scotland), there are a lot of shared traditions with the British Iles, more so than central, or western Canada.
Also just to illistrate how great my choices are, here are some links to stuff like UN polls etc...
I was looking for the actual UN list of top 50 or whatever, as I remember Canada used to be at #1 for many years, until Norway finally de-throned us Canadians. Though I suspect it had more to do with Norway's expansion of oil production in the North Sea, and the smart way they are using the funds for the future (Canada has oil as well, but it doesn't seemed to be handled in as intelligent way, too many competing interests).
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with everyone elses objections etc... about OEM's, market doubling, etc... however when XP came out there was also other Windows compitition, in Windowns 2000 and Windows ME. ME certainly sucked, but it did come on a lot of OEM computers (including my last OEM bought DELL, yuck), which in conjunction with 2000, would take away from the XP numbers, further dimishing them, at least initally. Now you have 5 choices: Vista, Vista, Vista, Vista, or Vista! However when you add them up as one, well you can do the math. Basically this is Microsoft playing with numbers, and being misleading in an attempt (probably a successful one) to convince stupid shareholds and the public about how great they are. Wee.
OK I guess I was mostly talking about the games that do not have a Linux port. It seems to me this is by far usually the case (like 95% or so), and also seems to me that there are now even less developers making Linux versions of games (probably due to how long and expensive it is to make a game these days it seems).
I don't know about UT2006, but yes ET works and runs well without problems. It is one of the few games I have installed on my machine.
Yes. However the difference here is once you fiddled around with it and found how to get it working, it worked perfectly fine (or most did).
I currently run Linux, and while attempts have been made to make it easier to play games, it is STILL not a gaming system. It will NEVER be a system you can game on really until you get buy in support from the game designers and they start making games FOR Linux.
Games in Linux for me fall into 4 categories: A) Doesn't work, not supported. B) The fix to actually get it working is so convouluted and difficult that it might be easier to design your own OS and get the game working on that first. C) The game works, however, there are significant problems as somethings do not work, or if you do certain things it will crash, or it will just crash seemingly randomly. D) The game works, however because you are basically emulating windows the proformance is horrible.
Thats pretty much as good as it gets as far as my experiance goes.
I am currently looking to built a new system next month. After much thought, I have decided to bite the bullet and just buy Vista. Linux can't do it. OSX can't do it. I refuse to go back and buy old technology in XP. I want my games. Computer games, NOT console games. I had an Xbox, and the while fun, the experiance is not the same, the main thing is the types of games that are released and the quality of online play. I have friends that have the Wii, it is a fun party type console, but doesn't do it for me as a stand alone system. Xbox basically made mostly sport and driving games, very little strategy or RPG or anything like that, mostly the only thing playable was FPS, however my main interest in those are for online play, and well Live is full of young kids being stupid basically. I don't have an HD TV either, making Xbox360 underutilized and thus not worth the upgrade, other than they stopped making games for the xbox it seems. The PS3 is very expensive and seems by all accounts that it may not be that successful.
Thus Vista is really the only alternative, though a crappy one initally anyway. However this is Microsofts buisness plan and how they make their billions, by being the only real game in town, and having no real compitition. This is why the monoply sucks, as they can come out with garbage like Vista, but consumers really have little choice but to bend over and take it. Even a little compitition would be nice, look at all the great things AMD and Intel are doing! Ah, anyway this somehow turned into a rant... oh well, my 2 cents I guess.
DarthVain
Just 99,999,971 years to go and I win!
I think Fermi's Paradox makes a false assumption.
:)
I am willing to conceed that the assumption that Earth is not a unique or rare event, and that there are many instances of intelligent life.
However there is an assumption of time. It assumes that intelligent life somehow always started before it did on Earth. Why is that?
If you are going to assume that Earth is average and thus life somewhat common, you also have to assume that the time in which life takes to develop is also about the same everywhere and thus our current civ is about as advanced as anywhere plus minus a few freaks. The freaks would be rare, and thus in all probibility not close to anyone in particular.
What that means is that while there may be life out there, they have only been around for about as long as we have, for about the same period, with probably about the same advancments.
Considering we have only been putting out Radio noise for about 60-70 years in any volume, and considering A) the speed in which those waves travel (not the speed of light) and B) the amount of degradaion that I am sure will also happen, our observerable footprint is pretty damn small (at least at the scales we are talking here). If we assume that we are all in the same boat as this, then it is no wonder than no one have met anyone else (or that those meeting would be very rare indeed, perhaps only if you reside close to one of the very rare freaks). So the only reason we have to blame for not meeting any Aliens is that we haven't developed a technology or had the will to do so yet, and thus pretty much no one else has either.
IMHO you can't make one assumtion without making the other, and when you make both, it is easy to see why there has been no evidence of other life.
Quid Pro quo or something like that
I am sure if we blow up our Sun someone out there might see it after many many years. Course we would be quite dead, and of course we lack the ability to do so anyway. Perhaps all those Nova's we see are not natural occurances, but a lonely Alien lifeform reaching out for contact. Morse code (or the like) may require the death of many Suns just to say "Hello my name is Earth".
Vista is just a Microsoft marketing ploy to sell XP!
Thats frickin' awsome! I wish I had though of that when I was DMing back in the day... Just the look on their faces when I kill off their beloved char. Of course I think they might guess something was up after more and more of them die. But oh that would have been fun for all the shit they put me through as DM.
OK I am sooo sick of this conversation. This has been going on for years. It is really stupid. I haven't got an email yet. If I do I will ignore it. Nothing against the USA, but I am pretty sure they would try and invade if we tried to influance their internal policy. RIAA bring it. We will see how you fare in Canadian Courts. You may get some of us to buckle under your threats, but the rest of us will make you pay so much in legal fees that we will make it a very costly proposition to try this garbage in Canada. I am not so sure that I am in the right, however I know for a fact that you are wrong. That is enough for me.
I will admit that the idea makes me a bit nervous as well. Probably because I have seen too many movies. Anyway it worried me enough that I looked into it a bit awhile back, also keep in mind that I am by no means an authority on this subject. Anyway it is my understanding that black holes need to be of a certain size in order to be able to consume enough material to stay in existace let alone grow. This tells me that there is some threshold where a blackhold become self sustaining and beyond that would be various degrees of increasing growth. From what I read the black holes that are created by these colliders are so small that they only exist for a fraction of a second, and poof they are gone. Now when scientists decide to try and "approch" that unknown theshold, then I will start to get worried. One consolation that I take into consideration is despite all of are advances the Universe is larger than we can really comprehend. The only known black holes thought to exist are those created by an imploding STAR. The amount of mass and energy contained within a star, is far beyond what we can recreate. Even if we postulate that the dangerous threshold is many many mangnitudes less, it would 'probably' still be at a threshold well beyond our capability, at least anytime soon (say within out lifetimes). I seem to remember that it was thought that the stars that do turn into blackholes were thought to be red giant class stars that imploded rather than turned nova. If this is correct then even all the energy and mass contained within our own sun would be many magintudes too small to produce the effect. If that is compared to say if every atom on earth was turned into an atomic reaction, which then imploded upon itself, it would not be enough to create a blackhole by so many magnitudes as to be silly, though one may be created for a specifed time before it disapeared. Anyway, a lot of if's, but I think I have said the word "magnitude" so many times as to get the idea across. I would try to offer some comparison, but the values are so large as to make my brain hurt trying to think of an analogy. Anyway interesting stuff, and definatly something I think should be approched with caution, but probably most scientists that work with the stuff and that are in the know, would probably laugh pretty hard at the concern.
Anyway I may be totally wrong, this is all just off the top of my head and it was more of a casual interest more than anything else. David Brin has a book (fiction) called "Earth" with explores this very subject, and is kind of freaky, though as I said probably not very plausable.
Just as an example. THIS year. Went to local music store to buy "Rage against the Machine". It was 28.99$. This past christmas I went to by a CD for my Sister, A Compaliation of Songs Inspired by Neil Gaiman this time at Amazon.com... It was over 25$ as well. Mind you this is Canadian Dollars (which I should have specified I suppose). Even still, thats too much.
/ B000FP2IXM/sr=1-1/qid=1170947526/ref=sr_1_1/702-95 68932-7209623?ie=UTF8&s=music
Here it is right now, after christmas for 23$ http://www.amazon.ca/Wheres-Neil-When-You-Need/dp
thats not including a DVD, or special anything.
"Which they have; they've dropped about 60% in constant dollars since launch."
Um I don't think so. Sure you can find some Britney Spears in teh crap bin for 12.99, however there are still CD's out there that cost 30$ at release. There are also tons of other CD's that are hard to find (ie older than 5-10 years) that are that or more. You can't tell me with a stright face that they used to cost 48$ a CD, even factoring in inflation thats a bunch of bunk.
"...then why don't you become the one that kills them? I'm 100% serious."
I agree. If it is so apparent that they are doing such a horrible job, then do it better and profit! However, the record companies not making much profit is NOT a indicator of how well they do their job. It is just profit, and due to a basic monolopy, it is pretty hard to draw any comparisions. The thing that makes me angry is that they seem to be more interested in trying any naferious, underhanded trick to make more profit, but yet doesn't seem interested in any actual innovation. They just seem to sue people, lobby gov for more mono profit laws, and try to bully everyone else out of market. Anyone who tries to enter market, they lobby against, sue, make then sign stupid deals, etc...
Oh wait....nevermind.
First and last game I ever pre-ordered...
Starcraft? I can't stop playing Masters of Orion 2! God I need sleep.
Canada calls Shotgun! Those islands are now the soverign soil of Canada! Hurray!
Well good for him. Sure looks a lot better and more practical that his last suit. However my only missgivings are in this paragraph: "In the helmet, there's a solar-powered fresh-air system and a drinking tube attached to a canteen in the small of the back." I am pretty sure the solar-powered fresh-air system is a fancy way of saying a solar powered fan in the helmet. More disturbing that that would be: "A laser pointer mounted in the middle of the forehead is ready to point to snipers, while LED lights frame the face." #1 I think I would prefer to point out snipers with something other than the middle of the forehead. Thats kinda like poking a bear with a stick in my books. #2 I love how included into that statment was how your face is lit up with LED lights, you know, just in case the sniper missed the stupid laser pointer in the forehead, he can aim at the lit up face. I actually laughed out loud when I read that paragraph, he may want to re-think some of those helmet elements. :)
I think you make a very good point, one that most people either don't see or understand.
Also most of the complaining or user bashing is done by IT tech support, as mostly they are the first line of defence. They are the ones that mostly get the really stupid user problems. Most problems that make it to the DBA, Network Admin, etc... usually end up being real problems, with serious answers. Though of course there are always exceptions, particulary in developement. However comparing Doctors, Lawyers, and Dentists and the like to some poor lost soul stuck doing IT support, isn't quite fair either. I bet if you offered ANY IT tech support person an extra 80k in salary, and all they had to do extra was have some "professional ethics" and not make fun of the people who call you for help, well I think not one of them would turn it down. In fact I bet you would see an end to the practice, at least overtly. I'm a Data Analyst and hell pay me an extra 30k to 50k and not only will I not ever make fun of anyone that asks my help, I will actively praise and grovel one lucky user every day.
The other exception is people that actually own development companies that do contract work and consultants. Both of these groups of IT professionals LOVE stupid users and would never dare make fun of clients/potential clients... They are uniquly able to just laugh all the way to the bank for every silly change and exception that the users ask outside of what is agreed upon initially, and they just keep charging them more and more money (though some don't and thus complain and make fun).
Anyway my two cents.
Total elasped time of conversation: Minimum of 300 years (assuming lightspeed communication).
I think at the rate we are advancing one message will have little relavence to the next, assuming of course we don't at somepoint in the conversation master FTL.
Even more annoying would be the disparegy of technology, just think if one civ had some level of FTL and one didn't or at a much lower level. How annoying would that be. They could respond say near instantanous, and ours takes like 30 years to travel! I see somewhere in our future being called "Lagging Noobs" or something like that in an alien context/language.... Of course the upside is perhaps they will be annoyed so much as to give us the FTL technology (provided they have it), so that they can communicate easier with us. The downside of course is perhaps if they are that technology advanced, and that annoyed, perhaps they will just come and destroy us.
Well if we do find the giant IRC server of the universe I think we should lurk for a long time. I don't want to be apart of the noob planet!
I hear you brother! I laugh my ass of anytime I hear from people having a "hard time" running games on their new computers, or buy Mac's as PC's are too "hard" to use...
I remember trying to game on my only 286... now that was freakin' hard.... I remember making batch files of batch files, messing withg EMS, XMS, and whatever other crazy memory BS , not to mention the CGA, EGA, VGA, stuff going on.... making boot disks for each particular game, just so it would load properly, all the while installing something on 30 floppy disks (5 1/4" bitches!)... etc..... It generalizes down to two principles:
1) I pretty much got my interetest into computer science from trying to play games on my various systems (and trying to tweak out whatever I could to play games).
2) Other people are stupid and/or lazy and/or spoiled.
If I had mod points I'd mod you up!
What makes a good man go neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
I did a rant on this topic awhile ago.... I even ranted at the sys admins to tell them how silly it is. Managers ultimatly make the decisions though, and in their eyes, they have done their job to makes things "secure". You by writing down your password simply fail to do yours as you are violating security policy. I have more passwords than you, but only several of them change stupidly. My main one has to be changed every month or 30 days which is just stupid. After a while you figure out a system of passwords (or I did anyway) to beat the system, but even so I have sticky note passwords everywhere. The only saving grace is that one of my accounts they actually unified with the main username, so thats one less damn user name I have to remember also.
I always get a laugh out of this sort of thing. The basic premis here is that at stock speeds it is about the same as other motherboards (Intel Core 2 Duo). However the differenace is that it overclocks like a motherfu*ker. If you look at its compitition in the Asus and Gigabyte using an intel chipset, they also overclock well (if not quite so much). The big kicker is that this new board costs about 300$ compaired to like 170$ or even 130$.
So the moral of the story is just because some piece of computer equipment does something really well, a better computer it does not make (within reason, most people have some sort of cost restrictions to their lives). What I mean by this is, why buy a 300$ motherboard to overclock a 210$ CPU, when you can buy a 170$ motherboard and use the extra 130$ to buy a better CPU to overclock in the first place? Thats the differance between an E6300 and a E6600, for those that know what that means. Of course if your like me, you think the money would be better spent on a E6400, and pocket the change, for say something really important like beer or possibly pizza.
Of course prices will go down, but so with the compitition (at least to a certain threshold), its all about finding that perfect (or as close as you can get it) balance of components and price.
Just my 2 cents.... Cheers!
Well one tick agaist the electronic voting machines was mentioned on The Daily Show last night....
I am mis-quoting but it boils down to there are 4 types of election volenteers.
1) Unemployed people
2) Old People
3) Really really old people
4) The Crypt Keeper
Now ask yourself this question: Do ANY of the above embrace technology, or training?
If you answered a resounding "NO!", then grab a pencil and paper and make your mark.
Personally I just voted online for our Municiple election here in Ontario, Canada. It was used as a way to vote early and easily, the paper polling stations are still out there for those so inclined....
To my knowlege the following is true:
Downloading is perfectly legal.
Uploading is perfecttly legal.
However distributing (that is actively or passively) to multiple parties is a more sketchy ground. I wouldn't call it legal anyway.
The big differance is how the two legal systems (Canada vs the USA) are set up to allow for the proscutions of such offences. In the USA I hear what happens is the RIAA initially sues a "John Doe" on an ISP from a particular state that allows this. The whole point of this, is to force the ISP to reveal their user lists. Once the RIAA gets this list and thus a name, they drop all charges with "John Doe". It is at this point they start a new charge in the state and against the named individual. This is the point where people get a letter to extort, erm, I mean settle out of court, as most do.
This tatic does not work in Canada. In Canada you can't sue some fictional person. You actually have to sue a person. The Canadian version of the RIAA has repeadedly tried to force the ISP's to disclose their user lists, so they can get to a suein'. However as much as I hate the Bell's and Rogers's of the world due to their monoloplistic tendancies, and brutal customer service, it is at this point that I must applaud. As both bell and rogers has told the CRIA (or whatever it is called) to go to hell, as have the courts. The privacy laws in Canada will not allow it. If there is a criminal case and evidence then for sure the courts can force the ISP to disclose a name, but you can't go and sue 5000 John Doe's here.
So while sueing Americans is actually profitable, sueing Canadians would not be, as they would have to do due process on each individual BEFORE the extortion letters go out. Whereas in the USA, they only have to do that on those that refuse to pay up. Nice eh?
Currently it seems that the CRIA has changed their tatics, and are instead trying to lobby to try and change laws or implement new ones through bribing, erm, I mean contribuiting illegally (by illegally I mean in Canada there is a cap to how much a individual can donate to a political party. However I have heard of accounts where an individual will max out, as will their spouse, and their 3 children, including a baby that is 6 months old. While technically this might, and I stress might as I don't know, might be legal, it certainly isn't ethical, or holding to the sperit of the law) to copyright "friendly" political canidates... Which is pretty damn dirty pool if you ask me.
Anyway as mentioned by the parent we all pay an invisible media tax (never mind you might use said media to back up your data files), that goes to a pot that the CRIA controls. I have no idea if a single cent has made it to Sloan and other music folks, though it wouldn't surprise me a whole lot if I learned that some portion or even a large portion goes to the "administration" of the CRIA, and ultimaly to copyright "friendly" dinners and such.
Anyway this somehow turned into a big rant, so sorry.
Well right off I can give you my short list (in no particular order):
:) . The one thing that sort of bothers me is that everything seems to be poisonious. I have also read some stuff about their current conservative government... of course these things come and go... Currently we have a like problem, though Harper isn't so bad as far as robots go, you just have to get to know him...
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r vey/i es.html
:)
Finland
Norway
Switzerland
Netherlands
Sweden
Australia
Perhaps UK somewhere (England, Ireland, Scotland)
of course I live in Canada so I can't pick that (and no I would NOT move to the USA)
The main disadvantages that many might have with the scandinavian countries are A) the cold weather, B) the taxes, and C)relitive remoteness and smaller urbanized areas.
Well Canada is A) Cold, B) has high taxes also, and C) unless you live in Toronto, Vancouver can be somewhat remote and smaller urban areas. So not so different really, certainly not so much to cause distress.
I picked Australia pretty much because as far are warmer countries go it seems pretty nice. Also I hear girls down under dig the Canadian accent
Another great thing about Australia and the UK is I don't need to learn a new language (though I know that most of the Scandinavian contries seem to have an absurd rate of english speaking also like 80-90%, but I would feel bad living there without learning the native tounge). The other great thing about the UK is all the shared heritage between them and Canada. Lots of relations on both sides, shared culture. Being from Nova Scotia (New Scotland), there are a lot of shared traditions with the British Iles, more so than central, or western Canada.
Also just to illistrate how great my choices are, here are some links to stuff like UN polls etc...
http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9085910/
I was looking for the actual UN list of top 50 or whatever, as I remember Canada used to be at #1 for many years, until Norway finally de-throned us Canadians. Though I suspect it had more to do with Norway's expansion of oil production in the North Sea, and the smart way they are using the funds for the future (Canada has oil as well, but it doesn't seemed to be handled in as intelligent way, too many competing interests).
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/04/eui.su
http://www.citymayors.com/environment/eiu_bestcit
apparently some of the best cities to live in are in Australia and Switzerland.
Also these countries have a robust Hockey culture as well. I have friends who love Soccer, but I am not one of them.
Finland
Norway
Switzerland
Sweden
So I think this is the difinitive choices of where to live!
Finland
Norway
Switzerland
Netherlands
Sweden
Australia
Ireland
And of course Canada, if you are not already there!