Nobody mentioned the security or system requirement aspects...
I am not perfect (hence I am hanging out on slashdot today...) but here's what I'd do...
1.) Evaluate the hardware requirements of the machines I have available to me.
2.) Figure out if any of the old stuff has security vulnerabilities to rule out using it.
3.) If an older app has no vulnerabilities, the next critria should be forward compatibility with file types.
4.) Hence, because of #3, new (F)OSS stuff may end up winning the argument, unless the new (F)OSS stuff bogs down the machines compared to the old proprietary stuff (see step #1)
don't expect extended features, cast and/or director commentary, dvd-games, dvd-rom features, alternate endings, cut scenes, thx, dolby, a stylish, standardized full-plastic dvd clamshell.
I've bought a few of these, and they're OK for people who just want the movie. Nothing more, nothing less.
Unfortunately for us, many of these older movies we would have more of an interest in background information about the movie than most of the junk that Hollywood, inc puts out today.
As far as selection goes, here's what I've noticed locally.
(No gamestop store)
EB-soon to be a gamestop, so this data may change. decent selection of games for all current, and some former systems, including PC games.
Prices-the decent (pc) games stay about $30 forever and a day.
Also not unusual for an old Sega Genesis cartridge to cost upwards of $10.
Buyback policy-horrible. I used to think, they had a good buyback policy, but now I realize that they are just ripping off the kids who have consoles. At least with pc games, you can make a backup copy for archival purposes.
Don't believe me-case in point: The last time we were there, these kids were trying to sell their DDR gamepad that would hook up to either a playstation 2 or an xbox. They had paid $100 from that same store.
The weasels wanted to give them $1 for it.
My wife overheard them saying, I guess we won't eat today (or something along those lines) and she approached them.
Before I knew it, she offered them $10 for it, and they walked next door to the Scottish Ethnic Food Emporium to eat.
Closer examination of the box yielded 2 PS2 games, and a few N64 cartridges.
We ourselves don't have any of these consoles, but my wife was interested in the DDR pad because our 6 year old loves to dance, and we figure he could take it with him to his uncle's and hook it up to his uncle's xbox.
As far as the N64 carts go, we plan on giving them to her cousin in Evansville.
As far as the playstation 2 games go, we are giving them to a little girl in our six year old's kindergarten class.
Enough about EB, soon to be gamestop, here are the other options:
GameCrazy: Great selection of used and new games,, pricing is decent as well. Biggest pitfall here is no PC games carried at all.
WalMart: PC games selection tend to revolve around the kind of games we avoid (strategy, online subscription fee, or fast-paced got no chance of getting to the next level violence.) Pricing is OK, but sometimes they are undercut by others. Also doesn't carry any used games. I guess I should explain our tastes in PC games, since our computer is in the loft, we try and buy games that won't give our aforementioned 6 year old nightmares. We give him enough of those just by being ourselves anyway. The online subscription kind is all about keeping our expenses down. And, as far as strategy goes, I love them, but my wife hates them. Occasionally, you may find a jewel of a game here, but more often you won't.
Target: A great selection of both PC games and console. They, of course don't carry used games. Pricing varies, but runs from reasonable, to unreasonable. We found the same game packaged 2 different ways in 2 different parts of the store for 2 different prices.
Meijer: Selection of pc games aren't as good as Target, but pricing is similar.
Best Buy: Great selection and ok pricing of PC games. They also carry console.
Circuit City: About like best buy
Frys: Not nearby, but have the best selection of new PC games. Pricing is good, too. What really amazes me is their pricing on hardware. Should be interesting to see how they do, in that location there used to be a similar store called Incredible Universe that did the same exact thing and ended up belly up.
To sum it up, maybe comparing EB/Gamestop/Gamecrazy to these department stores and discount electronics stores isn't a valid comparison, for the former deal in the secondary market of games, and the latter do not.
Economic theory would tend to mean that consolidation in one market leads to higher prices in that market.
What this I think would mean, would be that even with the other competetion for new games from the other stores in the area, it means that their prices will go up or remain the same. I don't envision the corp execs of gamestop streamlining their operations for better value for their consumer, but rather, better profits for their shareholders.
Never heard of game stop, but...
on
GameStop buys EB
·
· Score: 0
I almost took a job as Electronics boutique store manager.
I'm glad I didn't.
There is a game crazy (part of hollywood video) in our town that seems to cater to the console-game people. The only diffy between EB & Game Crazy is that Game Crazy doesn't carry PC games (a bummer, since that's my primary gaming platform.)
I kind of wonder if this is karma kicking in vis-a-vis EB. I was there last weekend, and the guy wanted to give these kids $1 for a DDR game pad that they paid $100 when they bought it off of him.
Maybe I'm a schliemel, but I bought that, 2 play station games, a couple of N64 games off of them for $10. They were only looking to make some lunch money.
I did get some nasty glares from the EB people.
Did anybody else buy the EB preferred advantage card? I hope they still honor that after this deal carries through.
If it depreciates (loses it's value over time) lease it.
If it appreciates (increases it's value over time) buy it.
That being said, you could find yourself into a bad contract either way, no matter whether you're buying or leasing.
I would like to believe the same applies to corp America, but I actually know (another poster already stated) that all corp America cares for is Profit$ Right Now, to h3ll with the customers, the employees, everybody but the three letter execs (CEO, CTO, CIO, COO) and the board of directors.
Other posters have mentioned that if you buy something, you should take reasonable precautions to get any and all data off of the drives before disposing of the equipment either through sale or just plain outright trashing.
And, another poster mentioned that he's in the same situation as our IT group is here vis a vis who gets the profits from the sale of the equipment.
Only, where I work, it's much more granular than that. It doesn't go into the general fund, it goes directly to a specific department that has nothing to do with getting the computers ready for the sale, or making sure they are off of inventory.
As far as the tax ramifications go, you should probably leave that up to your beancounters. The U.S. tax law changes at least once every year. To read the entire tax code, would take a very long time.
What you will find here, is the bigger corps have more and better beancounters than smaller ones. Hence, bigger corps will tend to pay less taxes than smaller ones.
Welcome to the real world, it's not a perfect system, but then what is?
3.) One last chilling thought for those of us who happen to like their Palm-OS based handhelds, Palm1's exec recently resigned. Imagine what she could do to an organization that's already blowing up all by itself!
Don't know how many people will see this post, as I'm in permanent -1 land for just telling the truth.
As far as the dealership goes..
I think she should have gone to a different Kia dealership.
Ours has never charged for anything during the warranty repair period. They once tried to get me to pay $5.00 for a parking light but I prevailed because the light had gone out within the first month or so of owning the vehicle.
I do believe that these codes should be open and available to the public. Then the public would see how much today's cars are engineered to create bogus service trips and add revenue to the car dealership.
It's best to have a mechanic you can trust, though.
As they say in all threads, YMMV
Doh!
Actually, didn't I read that most apps running on IA64 machines were really written for win32?
Either way, I stand corrected. Teach me not to use preview.
I would love to get a hold of a game like this.
However, I see the problems inherent. It's interesting that they chose the 30s as a starting point.
One could make a case for other key critical periods in time, and other places. Say, for instance mid to late 18th century North America.
Or early 20th century Russia. Other lurking history scholars who aren't so Western Civ centric as I am might point out other good junctures and places to use.
Shucks I didn't make first post.
However, it may be teaching History at the expense of philosophy. Some in that camp have argued that, even if you could go back in time, you still couldn't change things destined from happening from happening.
---
Kyle Davis
Rebel without a pause
Ahh, but you forget...
Apple *DID* have PDAs once upon a time. They were called Apple Newtons.
Something from that whole experience left a bad taste in Apple's mouth (maybe not getting a good enough penetration in the windows world) and they ended up pulling the plug.
One of the developers could even see the writing on the wall. Palm (US robotics, whatever) had a bigger penetration in the pda complimenting a mac than apple did. He committed suicide. (Of course, I'm grasping here, and there could have been other factors involved into his decision.)
FWIW
I've been thinking about this:
Politicians
Lawyers
(Dr.s or something medical?)
Auto Mechanics (although, the industry is trying to consolidate that career back into the dealership fold.)
Tenured Professors
CEOs, other high-management, possibly low iq or low moral types...
And, let's think about it, the obvious choice...
Journalists!
Think about it, who's been doing all the reporting on outsourcing? Somebody who learned English as a second language?
fwiw
Not sure about the date of the famous enigma machine..
Or even if it would classify as a computer.
But, you gotta admit, it was an interesting bit of technology for it's time.
first they take over www.catchup.com to dismantle it (for their own evil purposes?)
Now, they are using the mp3.com domain to try and sell music.
And, on the subject of lastable medium, heard the report on national communist, err.. national public radio that early CDs aren't as timeless as originally thought. The term they used was CD Rot.
The data layer starts to erode from the edge of the cd to the inner circle. A firm in the U.K. is gold-layering the top data layer to make the data more permanent and impervious to the CD rot.
fwiw
Slashdot Mirror
I'm disheartened to notice that...
Nobody mentioned the security or system requirement aspects...
I am not perfect (hence I am hanging out on slashdot today...) but here's what I'd do...
1.) Evaluate the hardware requirements of the machines I have available to me.
2.) Figure out if any of the old stuff has security vulnerabilities to rule out using it.
3.) If an older app has no vulnerabilities, the next critria should be forward compatibility with file types.
4.) Hence, because of #3, new (F)OSS stuff may end up winning the argument, unless the new (F)OSS stuff bogs down the machines compared to the old proprietary stuff (see step #1)
That's where you check other, and then specify the rest of the list, that's what I did.
don't expect extended features, cast and/or director commentary, dvd-games, dvd-rom features, alternate endings, cut scenes, thx, dolby, a stylish, standardized full-plastic dvd clamshell.
I've bought a few of these, and they're OK for people who just want the movie. Nothing more, nothing less.
Unfortunately for us, many of these older movies we would have more of an interest in background information about the movie than most of the junk that Hollywood, inc puts out today.
Why not a PDA?
Come on,
that's lame.
That only insures the one-finger minority gets only one vote per person.
That's about as useful as somebody using washable ink on somebody's hands to mark who has already voted.
All I would do to vote twice would be offer up my index finger from my other hand.
Hey 2 votes per person!
yeah, but as good as Game Crazy is,
they don't carry computer (pc) games.
As far as selection goes, here's what I've noticed locally.
(No gamestop store)
EB-soon to be a gamestop, so this data may change.
decent selection of games for all current, and some former systems, including PC games.
Prices-the decent (pc) games stay about $30 forever and a day.
Also not unusual for an old Sega Genesis cartridge to cost upwards of $10.
Buyback policy-horrible. I used to think, they had a good buyback policy, but now I realize that they are just ripping off the kids who have consoles. At least with pc games, you can make a backup copy for archival purposes.
Don't believe me-case in point:
The last time we were there, these kids were trying to sell their DDR gamepad that would hook up to either a playstation 2 or an xbox. They had paid $100 from that same store.
The weasels wanted to give them $1 for it.
My wife overheard them saying, I guess we won't eat today (or something along those lines) and she approached them.
Before I knew it, she offered them $10 for it, and they walked next door to the Scottish Ethnic Food Emporium to eat.
Closer examination of the box yielded 2 PS2 games, and a few N64 cartridges.
We ourselves don't have any of these consoles, but my wife was interested in the DDR pad because our 6 year old loves to dance, and we figure he could take it with him to his uncle's and hook it up to his uncle's xbox.
As far as the N64 carts go, we plan on giving them to her cousin in Evansville.
As far as the playstation 2 games go, we are giving them to a little girl in our six year old's kindergarten class.
Enough about EB, soon to be gamestop, here are the other options:
GameCrazy: Great selection of used and new games,, pricing is decent as well. Biggest pitfall here is no PC games carried at all.
WalMart: PC games selection tend to revolve around the kind of games we avoid (strategy, online subscription fee, or fast-paced got no chance of getting to the next level violence.) Pricing is OK, but sometimes they are undercut by others. Also doesn't carry any used games. I guess I should explain our tastes in PC games, since our computer is in the loft, we try and buy games that won't give our aforementioned 6 year old nightmares. We give him enough of those just by being ourselves anyway. The online subscription kind is all about keeping our expenses down. And, as far as strategy goes, I love them, but my wife hates them. Occasionally, you may find a jewel of a game here, but more often you won't.
Target: A great selection of both PC games and console. They, of course don't carry used games. Pricing varies, but runs from reasonable, to unreasonable. We found the same game packaged 2 different ways in 2 different parts of the store for 2 different prices.
Meijer: Selection of pc games aren't as good as Target, but pricing is similar.
Best Buy: Great selection and ok pricing of PC games. They also carry console.
Circuit City: About like best buy
Frys: Not nearby, but have the best selection of new PC games. Pricing is good, too. What really amazes me is their pricing on hardware. Should be interesting to see how they do, in that location there used to be a similar store called Incredible Universe that did the same exact thing and ended up belly up.
To sum it up, maybe comparing EB/Gamestop/Gamecrazy to these department stores and discount electronics stores isn't a valid comparison, for the former deal in the secondary market of games, and the latter do not.
Economic theory would tend to mean that consolidation in one market leads to higher prices in that market.
What this I think would mean, would be that even with the other competetion for new games from the other stores in the area, it means that their prices will go up or remain the same. I don't envision the corp execs of gamestop streamlining their operations for better value for their consumer, but rather, better profits for their shareholders.
the swiss army usb knife.
It's handy.
I almost took a job as Electronics boutique store manager.
I'm glad I didn't.
There is a game crazy (part of hollywood video) in our town that seems to cater to the console-game people. The only diffy between EB & Game Crazy is that Game Crazy doesn't carry PC games (a bummer, since that's my primary gaming platform.)
I kind of wonder if this is karma kicking in vis-a-vis EB. I was there last weekend, and the guy wanted to give these kids $1 for a DDR game pad that they paid $100 when they bought it off of him.
Maybe I'm a schliemel, but I bought that, 2 play station games, a couple of N64 games off of them for $10. They were only looking to make some lunch money.
I did get some nasty glares from the EB people.
Did anybody else buy the EB preferred advantage card? I hope they still honor that after this deal carries through.
If it depreciates (loses it's value over time) lease it.
If it appreciates (increases it's value over time) buy it.
That being said, you could find yourself into a bad contract either way, no matter whether you're buying or leasing.
I would like to believe the same applies to corp America, but I actually know (another poster already stated) that all corp America cares for is Profit$ Right Now, to h3ll with the customers, the employees, everybody but the three letter execs (CEO, CTO, CIO, COO) and the board of directors.
Other posters have mentioned that if you buy something, you should take reasonable precautions to get any and all data off of the drives before disposing of the equipment either through sale or just plain outright trashing.
And, another poster mentioned that he's in the same situation as our IT group is here vis a vis who gets the profits from the sale of the equipment.
Only, where I work, it's much more granular than that. It doesn't go into the general fund, it goes directly to a specific department that has nothing to do with getting the computers ready for the sale, or making sure they are off of inventory.
As far as the tax ramifications go, you should probably leave that up to your beancounters. The U.S. tax law changes at least once every year. To read the entire tax code, would take a very long time.
What you will find here, is the bigger corps have more and better beancounters than smaller ones. Hence, bigger corps will tend to pay less taxes than smaller ones.
Welcome to the real world, it's not a perfect system, but then what is?
Belkin kit has a lifetime warranty.
That's useful. Not sure how the warranty compares to Monster, though.
I will say, that the Monster cables look neat.
Kyle
Dell sucks web site
http://www.ihatedell.net/
and
HP sucks web site
http://www.roundmountaingroup.net/possible/
Actually, that last one is more of a take on Carly Fiorina, than HP itself.
Use Lynx instead!
Seriously, create a RAM Disk on your system. then, point all disk-based internet cache folders to the RAM disk instead.
Also, isn't checking the server when you press the Back button a setting you can change in your browser?
1.) I agree that Carly wasn't a good CEO. She gives the rest of us history majors a bad rap.
2.) Found this site from our friends across the pond.
3.) One last chilling thought for those of us who happen to like their Palm-OS based handhelds, Palm1's exec recently resigned. Imagine what she could do to an organization that's already blowing up all by itself!
Don't know how many people will see this post, as I'm in permanent -1 land for just telling the truth.
I charge a $50 trip fee. That's all I charge if it is something really simple that I fix in the first 5-10 minutes or so.
Otherwise, I charge $100 for most things, but $200 to re-install Windows, Applications, Data, etc.
I have heard of some guys going by the A,C, or G rule.
A$$
CA$H
or
Grass.
But for me, it's all about the benjamin's baby.
Exploit to every piece of code?
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10
Exploits?
As far as the dealership goes.. I think she should have gone to a different Kia dealership. Ours has never charged for anything during the warranty repair period. They once tried to get me to pay $5.00 for a parking light but I prevailed because the light had gone out within the first month or so of owning the vehicle. I do believe that these codes should be open and available to the public. Then the public would see how much today's cars are engineered to create bogus service trips and add revenue to the car dealership. It's best to have a mechanic you can trust, though. As they say in all threads, YMMV
And, I didn't RTFA, but
I for one, welcome our new iron-wielding robot overlords!
Doh! Actually, didn't I read that most apps running on IA64 machines were really written for win32? Either way, I stand corrected. Teach me not to use preview.
I for one, welcome our new IA64 Win32 Script Kiddy overlords.
I would love to get a hold of a game like this.
However, I see the problems inherent. It's interesting that they chose the 30s as a starting point.
One could make a case for other key critical periods in time, and other places. Say, for instance mid to late 18th century North America.
Or early 20th century Russia. Other lurking history scholars who aren't so Western Civ centric as I am might point out other good junctures and places to use.
Shucks I didn't make first post.
However, it may be teaching History at the expense of philosophy. Some in that camp have argued that, even if you could go back in time, you still couldn't change things destined from happening from happening.
--- Kyle Davis Rebel without a pause
33.6Kbps? That's what I use. A real punishment would be 300 BAUD. (Look it up on Wikipedia.)
Ahh, but you forget...
Apple *DID* have PDAs once upon a time. They were called Apple Newtons.
Something from that whole experience left a bad taste in Apple's mouth (maybe not getting a good enough penetration in the windows world) and they ended up pulling the plug.
One of the developers could even see the writing on the wall. Palm (US robotics, whatever) had a bigger penetration in the pda complimenting a mac than apple did. He committed suicide. (Of course, I'm grasping here, and there could have been other factors involved into his decision.) FWIW
I've been thinking about this: Politicians Lawyers (Dr.s or something medical?) Auto Mechanics (although, the industry is trying to consolidate that career back into the dealership fold.) Tenured Professors CEOs, other high-management, possibly low iq or low moral types... And, let's think about it, the obvious choice... Journalists! Think about it, who's been doing all the reporting on outsourcing? Somebody who learned English as a second language? fwiw
Not sure about the date of the famous enigma machine.. Or even if it would classify as a computer. But, you gotta admit, it was an interesting bit of technology for it's time.
first they take over www.catchup.com to dismantle it (for their own evil purposes?) Now, they are using the mp3.com domain to try and sell music. And, on the subject of lastable medium, heard the report on national communist, err.. national public radio that early CDs aren't as timeless as originally thought. The term they used was CD Rot. The data layer starts to erode from the edge of the cd to the inner circle. A firm in the U.K. is gold-layering the top data layer to make the data more permanent and impervious to the CD rot. fwiw