I have some concerns about the price of this service. Infinium claims that their audience ranges "from the avid gamer to the casual player" but what casual player is going to spend $29.95 per month on gaming?
I consider myself to be a bit more than a casual player (but not much more) and I don't currently spend $29.95 per month on gaming. That's $359.40 per year! I spend about $30 - $40 every two months on games and I spend an average of $100 per year on hardware upgrades to keep new games running. That's still cheaper ($280 - $340 per year, usually right at $300) and I'm getting harware upgrades on my PC that tend to boost the system's overall performance.
The hardware that the Phantom is spec'd at looks good now but it isn't out yet and it has to last two years after it comes out for it to be "free." The math just doesn't add up for me.
It's fairly competitive at retail now but what about when it comes out? It's first E3 showing hasn't happened yet. When do they plan on deploying this thing? Will it be competitive then? It won't make it to garage sales if it can't keep it's quality vs. price ratio high until it debuts.
I would agree, but they're doing this a little late in the game for me to completely buy in to your analysis. The I-Pod is now becoming very popular with non-geeks. I know several family members and friends who have an I-Pod now. I would think that the RIAA was allowing people to get familiar with the I-Pod before pulling rank and upping prices, but then they would be a little early for such a move.
I think the RIAA might just be wanting more money with no other conspiritorial plan to kill online music or enslave its audience.
Hey, if I'm going into space in a Winnebago, I'd better have a Mog for a copilot. Where are you going to find one of those here on earth? It's a catch 22.
Q: What do you call a program that you do not want installed that runs anyways, is hard to remove, and notably degrades the performance of you machine?
A: They're frickin viruses. I guess technically they might be considered trojans, worms, etc, but they should be the in the realm of virus and they should be treated as such both socially and legally.
I can see the argument that some software requires such spyware to run and therefore that spyware is not a virus, but if that is the case then the spyware should be uninstalled with the offending program. If not, the company producing said spyware should be handled legally the same way as a person introducing a computer virus, trojan, worm, etc into the wild.
I don't agree that if your twitch reflexes aren't up to snuff, you shouldn't be allowed to proceed. I can see that being the case for shooter games, but sometimes puzzle games require these types of reflexes for some parts and these annoy me to no end. There are some good games that I have played that have gotten me to a certain point far along in a game and then I'm stuck because I couldn't get past a certain part because even though I knew what to do, I couldn't push the buttons fast enough to make it work.
The two examples that I can think of that made me go from loving a game to loathing it are Prince of Persia and Lost Vikings.
In Prince of Persia, there was one room where you had to step on a plate to open a door three or four screens away. If you didn't time it perfectly, the door was shut by the time you get there. This part was insanely harder than anything before or after it and I just didn't like the game after I finally got past that part.
Another similar situation was the Lost Vikings. There was one level where you had to jump on platforms as they are falling to reach the top. I knew what to do, but I just couldn't do it. It's a shame that I missed out on the rest of the puzzles in the game because that level had one insanely hard part to it.
I'm playing a puzzle game to solve puzzles. If I've already figured out what needs to be done and tried my best to do it over a reasonable period of time, I'm going to be annoyed if the puzzle isn't solved. Then again, I don't see beating a game as a badge of courage. I see it as an admission of defeat that the developer has run out of interesing things to put in the game.
You don't have a God-given right to collect royalties from people who would rather use a different technology.
If by "fix prices" you mean keep prices high because that is what is necessary to make a profit because other technologies that are almost as good are far cheaper, then the companies being sued by Rambus had better watch out.
I have plenty of research skills without Google, but they are related to my schooling and my profession (Computer Science). I am quite adept at going to the library and searching through books, professional journals, etc for Computer Science information. I am not very adept at researching topics that I haven't been trained to research, so I rely on google for that.
Q: Who has worked on Logging File Systems and what was the latest research on the topic? A: Look in ACM journal and various CS (specifically OS-related) conference papers at my local University library.
Q: How many episodes did the Greatest American Hero have? A: Search Google.
This article assumes that the person looking for information already knows other means of finding information. I didn't know about the Who's Who book and even if I did, I might not have one handy. I think these results are a little less than accurate for most people. Also, the author directly phones some people. What if I don't know exactly who to phone? I think Google will win in that case.
No, but if they're not keeping track of their finances then they probably have an accountant who is. And I would expect a person who I pay to keep track of my finances to keep track of every last one of my songs, performances, etc.
Then where is David Bowie? If you wanted to pay Bowie for some service he performed, how would you go about doing it? Remember, the RIAA can't just pick one of Bowie's addresses and hope that he gets his check.
Also, I doubt you can let your fingers do the walking and find him in the phone book. To find these artists, the RIAA will have to figure out who the artist's agent, attorneys, and/or accountants are and contact them. This might not always be easy to do and might be time consuming per artist. The RIAA still needs to follow up on this better, but finding Bowie or Estefan for payment purposes might actually be harder than finding a nobody or a hasbeen.
Just so you know, they do price-match in a few limited areas. I know their automotive area will price-match tires. I've gotten them to do this several times with tirerack.com. Not every store will price-match off the internet but some do so look around.
It looks like the RIAA wasn't paying because the artists didn't bother to get their payments from them. I'm sure if David Bowie wanted his money he could have gone to the RIAA and gotten it, but he didn't bother to go to the RIAA to get his money. Maybe the RIAA could have tried a little harder to contact these people, but I know that if the someone owes me money, they're going to be hearing from me until I get it.
I hate to see 989 and Microsoft stop competing in the NFL games, but both products were inferior. I would have preferred to see them step up to the challenge instead of rolling over and dying, but that's their decision to make. I guess Sega is my only source for NFL nowadays.
TinFoilHatRantOn(); I refuse to play Madden because it does some very un-football things like letting you pick a play by receiver. If you're too focused on one receiver getting the ball, you're going to throw a lot of incompletes and ints. Then again, I refused to play Microsoft's NFL game again after I realized that Microsoft just shuts off your defensive ability in the last few minutes of the game.
This does come from someone who takes the time to see how players move when audibles are called so that I can set up substitutions for a multi-set offense (like lining up in Goalline with my 5WR package so I can call an audible and be in a 5WR formation with the proper personnel while the defense has their goalline squad on the field). I might just be a little too picky. TinFoilHatRantOff();
I'm getting a little sick of people being surprised that WalMart is no longer the cheapest place to get some things. Once upon a time if you wanted it cheap you went to WalMart. Now that is no longer the case. They are still the cheapest on a few things, but not on many of their products.
If you watch their low prices commercials you'll notice that the smiley face is lowering prices based on WalMart's original price for the item. WalMart is now in the game of convenience. You go to WalMart because you can get pretty much everything you need in one trip and it doesn't cost too terribly much.
WalMart is not the place it used to be. Notice that "The customer is always right" is no longer their policy and that "Always the lowest prices" has been replaced with "Always low prices".
Ok so I did forget that Bob was specifically mentioned by the parent poster so I'll address my problem with the parent's mention of Bob.
Bob did not have any features I am aware of that survived that were not already in Windows 3.1 (just so you know I was briefly a Bob user... lousy Packard Bell). This idea of merging improvements and features is not something Microsoft-specific. Many Linux users now use some of the improvements made by NextStep, but we are not necessarily using Apple products. Sometimes a piece of software can have redeeming features and still be a failure. Other software will adopt those features.
Bob is dead. If I am wrong and Bob did leave Microsoft with some sort of redeemable software, it doesn't mean that Bob isn't dead. It just means that Microsoft is smart enough to not reinvent the wheel.
According to the parent's logic, no software projects containing useful code are dead since Microsoft can take bits of those projects and use them on new projects. I say that those projects are dead and the parent is making a big deal of common development practices.
The National Retail Federation has members that stand to be sued by SCO if SCO's claims are true. Of course NRF is going to say that SCO's claims are meritless. Like SCO, NRF is looking out for number one!
$_from_members_using_Linux > $_to_fight_SCO
If it were the other way around, the NRF would probably be pushing members to abandon Linux as we speak.
Keeping memebers and avoiding legal battles is all NRF cares about. That's not a bad thing, but it does make them a little biased when evaluating the SCO legal battles.
Bob != Clippy. Bob was some sort of front end that was on my Packard Bell from the factory. It was a confusing, clunky UI that I promptly removed.
MSDOS != cmd.exe. cmd is a shell, much like bash or tcsh. It is not an OS. There is some DOS compatability left in WinXP from what I hear so I'll concede this point, but I still maintain that I cannot get a good current install of MSDOS (minus Win32) from Microsoft.
I am fully aware that Xenix was never available to end users. Last I heard SCO is keeping the Xenix heritage alive and well, but Microsoft has definately abandoned that project at this point.
"Microsoft never lets projects really die. They may kill off other companies' projects, but never their own."
So where can a get the latest version of BOB or MSDOS? Also where can I get Xenix? I've been looking to upgrade for a while. While I'm at it I might upgrade IE on my Mac and my Solaris box.
Thin clients DID catch on in a big way back when computers were VERY expensive (see 3270). Since hardware got cheap, thin client computing has fizzled out some. I remember when Sun Rays first came out and the terminal was the cost of a decent Linux box. Why go thin when you can go thick for the same price?
Thin clients still have their place, but only in a limited market right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I have some concerns about the price of this service. Infinium claims that their audience ranges "from the avid gamer to the casual player" but what casual player is going to spend $29.95 per month on gaming?
I consider myself to be a bit more than a casual player (but not much more) and I don't currently spend $29.95 per month on gaming. That's $359.40 per year! I spend about $30 - $40 every two months on games and I spend an average of $100 per year on hardware upgrades to keep new games running. That's still cheaper ($280 - $340 per year, usually right at $300) and I'm getting harware upgrades on my PC that tend to boost the system's overall performance.
The hardware that the Phantom is spec'd at looks good now but it isn't out yet and it has to last two years after it comes out for it to be "free." The math just doesn't add up for me.
It's fairly competitive at retail now but what about when it comes out? It's first E3 showing hasn't happened yet. When do they plan on deploying this thing? Will it be competitive then? It won't make it to garage sales if it can't keep it's quality vs. price ratio high until it debuts.
I would agree, but they're doing this a little late in the game for me to completely buy in to your analysis. The I-Pod is now becoming very popular with non-geeks. I know several family members and friends who have an I-Pod now. I would think that the RIAA was allowing people to get familiar with the I-Pod before pulling rank and upping prices, but then they would be a little early for such a move.
I think the RIAA might just be wanting more money with no other conspiritorial plan to kill online music or enslave its audience.
Hey, if I'm going into space in a Winnebago, I'd better have a Mog for a copilot. Where are you going to find one of those here on earth? It's a catch 22.
Q: What do you call a program that you do not want installed that runs anyways, is hard to remove, and notably degrades the performance of you machine?
A: They're frickin viruses. I guess technically they might be considered trojans, worms, etc, but they should be the in the realm of virus and they should be treated as such both socially and legally.
I can see the argument that some software requires such spyware to run and therefore that spyware is not a virus, but if that is the case then the spyware should be uninstalled with the offending program. If not, the company producing said spyware should be handled legally the same way as a person introducing a computer virus, trojan, worm, etc into the wild.
I don't agree that if your twitch reflexes aren't up to snuff, you shouldn't be allowed to proceed. I can see that being the case for shooter games, but sometimes puzzle games require these types of reflexes for some parts and these annoy me to no end. There are some good games that I have played that have gotten me to a certain point far along in a game and then I'm stuck because I couldn't get past a certain part because even though I knew what to do, I couldn't push the buttons fast enough to make it work.
The two examples that I can think of that made me go from loving a game to loathing it are Prince of Persia and Lost Vikings.
In Prince of Persia, there was one room where you had to step on a plate to open a door three or four screens away. If you didn't time it perfectly, the door was shut by the time you get there. This part was insanely harder than anything before or after it and I just didn't like the game after I finally got past that part.
Another similar situation was the Lost Vikings. There was one level where you had to jump on platforms as they are falling to reach the top. I knew what to do, but I just couldn't do it. It's a shame that I missed out on the rest of the puzzles in the game because that level had one insanely hard part to it.
I'm playing a puzzle game to solve puzzles. If I've already figured out what needs to be done and tried my best to do it over a reasonable period of time, I'm going to be annoyed if the puzzle isn't solved. Then again, I don't see beating a game as a badge of courage. I see it as an admission of defeat that the developer has run out of interesing things to put in the game.
You don't have a God-given right to collect royalties from people who would rather use a different technology.
If by "fix prices" you mean keep prices high because that is what is necessary to make a profit because other technologies that are almost as good are far cheaper, then the companies being sued by Rambus had better watch out.
"What isn't going to be included in DOOM3?"
A real release date.
A. Large numbers of tickets are sold to the events.
B. Average Joe buys team-related merchandise.
C. Non-computer companies sponsor the teams.
I have plenty of research skills without Google, but they are related to my schooling and my profession (Computer Science). I am quite adept at going to the library and searching through books, professional journals, etc for Computer Science information. I am not very adept at researching topics that I haven't been trained to research, so I rely on google for that.
Q: Who has worked on Logging File Systems and what was the latest research on the topic?
A: Look in ACM journal and various CS (specifically OS-related) conference papers at my local University library.
Q: How many episodes did the Greatest American Hero have?
A: Search Google.
This article assumes that the person looking for information already knows other means of finding information. I didn't know about the Who's Who book and even if I did, I might not have one handy. I think these results are a little less than accurate for most people. Also, the author directly phones some people. What if I don't know exactly who to phone? I think Google will win in that case.
No, but if they're not keeping track of their finances then they probably have an accountant who is. And I would expect a person who I pay to keep track of my finances to keep track of every last one of my songs, performances, etc.
Then where is David Bowie? If you wanted to pay Bowie for some service he performed, how would you go about doing it? Remember, the RIAA can't just pick one of Bowie's addresses and hope that he gets his check.
Also, I doubt you can let your fingers do the walking and find him in the phone book. To find these artists, the RIAA will have to figure out who the artist's agent, attorneys, and/or accountants are and contact them. This might not always be easy to do and might be time consuming per artist. The RIAA still needs to follow up on this better, but finding Bowie or Estefan for payment purposes might actually be harder than finding a nobody or a hasbeen.
Just so you know, they do price-match in a few limited areas. I know their automotive area will price-match tires. I've gotten them to do this several times with tirerack.com. Not every store will price-match off the internet but some do so look around.
It looks like the RIAA wasn't paying because the artists didn't bother to get their payments from them. I'm sure if David Bowie wanted his money he could have gone to the RIAA and gotten it, but he didn't bother to go to the RIAA to get his money. Maybe the RIAA could have tried a little harder to contact these people, but I know that if the someone owes me money, they're going to be hearing from me until I get it.
I hate to see 989 and Microsoft stop competing in the NFL games, but both products were inferior. I would have preferred to see them step up to the challenge instead of rolling over and dying, but that's their decision to make. I guess Sega is my only source for NFL nowadays.
TinFoilHatRantOn();
I refuse to play Madden because it does some very un-football things like letting you pick a play by receiver. If you're too focused on one receiver getting the ball, you're going to throw a lot of incompletes and ints. Then again, I refused to play Microsoft's NFL game again after I realized that Microsoft just shuts off your defensive ability in the last few minutes of the game.
This does come from someone who takes the time to see how players move when audibles are called so that I can set up substitutions for a multi-set offense (like lining up in Goalline with my 5WR package so I can call an audible and be in a 5WR formation with the proper personnel while the defense has their goalline squad on the field). I might just be a little too picky.
TinFoilHatRantOff();
I'm getting a little sick of people being surprised that WalMart is no longer the cheapest place to get some things. Once upon a time if you wanted it cheap you went to WalMart. Now that is no longer the case. They are still the cheapest on a few things, but not on many of their products.
If you watch their low prices commercials you'll notice that the smiley face is lowering prices based on WalMart's original price for the item. WalMart is now in the game of convenience. You go to WalMart because you can get pretty much everything you need in one trip and it doesn't cost too terribly much.
WalMart is not the place it used to be. Notice that "The customer is always right" is no longer their policy and that "Always the lowest prices" has been replaced with "Always low prices".
This isn't where I found out about it, but Tom Baker's official website mentions it.
www.tombaker.tv
It seems like I found out at gallifreyone but I could be mistaken. Oh, and I never said the voice was decently acted.
And who can forget that Tom Baker (that's Doctor Who to you and me) was one of the game's voices in Perfect Dark.
This looks like the other Bond sequels that failed to live up to the original. Hopefully, I will be wrong.
Ok so I did forget that Bob was specifically mentioned by the parent poster so I'll address my problem with the parent's mention of Bob.
Bob did not have any features I am aware of that survived that were not already in Windows 3.1 (just so you know I was briefly a Bob user... lousy Packard Bell). This idea of merging improvements and features is not something Microsoft-specific. Many Linux users now use some of the improvements made by NextStep, but we are not necessarily using Apple products. Sometimes a piece of software can have redeeming features and still be a failure. Other software will adopt those features.
Bob is dead. If I am wrong and Bob did leave Microsoft with some sort of redeemable software, it doesn't mean that Bob isn't dead. It just means that Microsoft is smart enough to not reinvent the wheel.
According to the parent's logic, no software projects containing useful code are dead since Microsoft can take bits of those projects and use them on new projects. I say that those projects are dead and the parent is making a big deal of common development practices.
The National Retail Federation has members that stand to be sued by SCO if SCO's claims are true. Of course NRF is going to say that SCO's claims are meritless. Like SCO, NRF is looking out for number one!
$_from_members_using_Linux > $_to_fight_SCO
If it were the other way around, the NRF would probably be pushing members to abandon Linux as we speak.
Keeping memebers and avoiding legal battles is all NRF cares about. That's not a bad thing, but it does make them a little biased when evaluating the SCO legal battles.
I think not.
Bob != Clippy. Bob was some sort of front end that was on my Packard Bell from the factory. It was a confusing, clunky UI that I promptly removed.
MSDOS != cmd.exe. cmd is a shell, much like bash or tcsh. It is not an OS. There is some DOS compatability left in WinXP from what I hear so I'll concede this point, but I still maintain that I cannot get a good current install of MSDOS (minus Win32) from Microsoft.
I am fully aware that Xenix was never available to end users. Last I heard SCO is keeping the Xenix heritage alive and well, but Microsoft has definately abandoned that project at this point.
"Microsoft never lets projects really die. They may kill off other companies' projects, but never their own."
So where can a get the latest version of BOB or MSDOS? Also where can I get Xenix? I've been looking to upgrade for a while. While I'm at it I might upgrade IE on my Mac and my Solaris box.
Thin clients DID catch on in a big way back when computers were VERY expensive (see 3270). Since hardware got cheap, thin client computing has fizzled out some. I remember when Sun Rays first came out and the terminal was the cost of a decent Linux box. Why go thin when you can go thick for the same price?
Thin clients still have their place, but only in a limited market right now.