I didn't say only women, I said "most women." The suggestion of "most people" is intended to include "most women," correct? The fact that you somehow interpreted my statement as "women are the only ones who put fashion before safety" is intriguing and rather telling.
See how twisting things is stupid and pointless? It twists both ways, every time.
Winner: Most foolish statement of the day. If you are choosing to wear footwear that impedes your ability to drive so you can be fashionable, you need to rethink your priorities before you kill someone just so you can look nice. And if youre suggesting most women put fashion before safety, Id suggest youre at least as sexist as anyone I know.
I wish I could mod you up, this is helpful. Thanks. I did look it up and it's apparently an issue of sterilization rather than quality, but I never realized it was an issue at all before now. Assuming this bacteria doesn't grow out of control and eat civilization, I could see it being pretty beneficial.
PET is one of those plastics that's very easy to recycle already, people just don't do it. And I mean really easy to recycle, I make and sell poker chips that are made largely out of recycled bottles (that's PET) and any bad part can simply be ground up and thrown back in the hopper so the material is used again. Obviously there's a little more to recycling used bottles and whatnot, but the point is it's already really easy to recycle PET compared to many other materials. While I understand this isn't the same as nature being able to break it down, I don't understand what the big benefit to this over standard recycling. There is a much larger problem when it comes to recycling and that's the willing participation of the general population. Where I live we get fined for failing to sort recyclables, and people still don't do it. Solving that seems more important if you ask me.
You have it backwards. It's been a long time since Apple fanbois have come out to defend Apple with anywhere near the zeal MS fanbois attack them with. It's getting a little weird at this point, guys. Look at all the posts here, I see a ton of people talking shit about Apple and everyone who uses them, and then like one post stating some basic facts that suggest Oculus just dropped cross-platform support altogether for other reasons. Or does Linux only run on potatoes?
Don't get me wrong, it's been a decade since I purchased an Apple computer for my home, but MS users go after Apple users non-stop as if their livelihoods depend on it, and nobody seems to notice the Apple crowd decided to sit in smug silence years ago. They laugh at you for making fun of them choosing a brand, when in fact they chose something they like and you're the one judging based on a brand name you think is cool or uncool. Seriously, the joke's not on the Apple users anymore.
As for the Rift not running on Apple computers, does anyone really care? When I was primarily using Apple computers, it was largely because I wasn't gaming. I still use them for work but we all accepted years ago that Windows is the most convenient gaming platform. Sure, you can get as much power out of a Mac and Luckey is just being a dick here, but it is generally less convenient. Real story here: Palmer Luckey is atleast as much of a judgemental dick as anyone you'll meet on the street today.
Perhaps you're unaware that going from kindergarten to graduating high school takes thirteen years, and another four for college makes seventeen years, so limiting exposure to programming twenty-thirty years ago would have impacted children who are now entering or are already a part of the work force. Actually, I wouldn't expect to see results from changes to education in less than ten-fifteen years, twenty-thirty seems pretty reasonable. Beyond that, I'm probably not the only one here who was actually growing up then, had a Windows 95 PC, and would've enjoyed dabbling in some BASIC as I was growing bored with HTML but I simply didn't know it existed until I was in high school a few years later and met people who knew more than I did.
I filed a complaint and was told there's nothing more to do now but wait. The system totally works. But, to be honest, I have a computer connected to the television that suits the purpose just fine, so it's not a huge hassle just a bit insulting.
Did you even read the summary? Overall speed is not the focus. From TFS and TFA:
The AG office suspects that customers who are paying a premium fee for higher internet speeds could be experiencing a disruption to their service due to technical issues brought about by business disputes in these interconnection deals.
It doesn't sound like he's talking about his average speeds. It sounds like he's talking about the targeted throttling of services. For example, I am a Comcast subscriber with an HBO subscription that I pay for through Comcast. As a part of my HBO subscription, I gain access to HBO Go. I have a PS4 HBO Go application. Every time I have tried it, it has failed to work, at all. This is a known issue, and in response to customer complaints Comcast has openly stated that it is a business decision, not a technical one. So, I pay Comcast for something, and they don't allow me to use it.
Sadly, I don't live in New York and Comcast doesn't appear to be a target of these letters. I can't actually speak to the practices of other ISPs as I'm not their customer, but both the article and summary make it pretty clear this isn't a matter of "guaranteed bandwidth." I haven't seen the words written in the article, but this is a net neutrality issue.
Can you possibly word this differently? It looks to me like you're saying Mars is less suitable because there's no reason to go into space right now? We're not currently getting any raw materials from space, and I haven't heard of any concrete plans to do so profitably, but if you have I'd like any information on it. As far as terraforming is concerned, are you saying we'd try to terraform the moon rather than an actual planet? I'm also unclear as to why the atmosphere of the moon would be a better environment for developing the technology for a colony on another planet. It's true we're unlikely to want to settle on a large scale any planet similar to Mars, but what makes our moon more suitable? Ease of access is all I can figure, but then why leave Earth? Sorry if I misunderstood, but it doesn't look like you're making any real argument here. If you're saying raw resources are the only reason to go to space, that would be a separate argument, though I don't agree with that either.
Isn't the moon about as similar to Mars as it is Earth? We know we can get to the moon, and even come back from it. Getting to and returning from Mars poses different challenges and would require different technology than we used to reach the moon. The two big requirements I can immediately think of are sustaining life for a significantly longer trip and returning from the surface of Mars. The atmosphere is also very different, the harsh conditions on Mars would serve as a far better test environment for equipment/structure durability and capability. The moon would be an easier starting point than Mars, sure, but that's why Mars would be a more suitable target for developing the technology to go even further.
For someone who knows that -- without a doubt -- they will upgrade to whatever new iPhone comes out in a year's time, and they're confident that they'd definitely take out Apple Care, it amounts to a saving of a few dollars over two years.
This is just another pointless article by a hater, he doesn't even agree with himself. It's bait, and not even good bait, he throws a few numbers out there but doesn't show us any actual cost comparison between using the upgrade program Apple offers and, say, paying full retail or taking advantage of other upgrade programs offered by the service providers. Indeed, he even states that you can save money using the program while complaining that you're just sending more to Apple. There's no substance to the article, no facts to back up all of his complaining about the bad upgrade deal. He's probably just sour he's already in a contract and can't dump his outdated phone to take advantage of the new program. This article is just one of the many new additions to the pointless Apple hate on the internet we'll be seeing now that they've announced another upgrade to their mobile product line.
Just a quick disclaimer, since a bunch of you will no doubt label me a fanboy, I use Apple AND Android products, they both have different advantages and disadvantages. I find myself defending Apple products most often though because for some reason there's this strange hate towards them from people who don't use them, as if we should all be that worried about what phone other people are using...
This is especially interesting given the way the consortium addresses the issue of different symbols representing the same character in different parts of East Asia. From http://unicode.org/faq/han_cjk...:
Q: If the character shapes are different in different parts of East Asia, why were the characters unified?
A: The Unicode Standard is designed to encode characters, not glyphs. Even where there are substantial variations in the standard way of writing a character from locale to locale, if the fundamental identity of the character is not in question, then a single character is encoded in Unicode.
Characters, not glyphs. So emoji are characters, while various Asian writing styles are glyphs, I guess. And a couple lines further down in the same answer...
There are occasional instances of unified characters whose typical Chinese glyph and typical Japanese glyph are distinct enough that the Chinese glyph will be unfamiliar to the typical Japanese reader, e.g., U+76F4. To prevent legibility problems for Japanese readers, it is advisable to use a Japanese-style font when presenting Unihan text to Japanese readers.
So if you're Japanese and want to see Japanese characters, you're told to use a Japanese font. But, you'll never be forced to choose between a male and female dancing emoji, you deserve to have BOTH in your character set. Why are emoji more important to Unicode than the Japanese language?
AR > VR for LARPing. I've been raving about everything AR, specifically the Hololens, could mean for LARPing to my friends since I saw that promo video a year or two ago back, even more now with the recent E3 presentation. VR would be crap for actual LARPing, I wouldn't want to rely on my VR display while running through the woods, there's no way every obstacle would be represented in the simulation. However, an augmented reality lens that could make the NPCs look like monsters while we fight, add spell effects to packets, make foam swords look like metal...
I like the idea of AR better than VR because VR's purpose is to separate you entirely from the reality around you. While VR could make for some really cool video games, they'll still just be video games. The setup in the video appears to be an attempt to combine the two, and it does look like a bunch of fun, but what they're doing is only possible after designing a 3D environment that accurately represents the physical room their players will walk around in, and then it's filled only with virtual enemies. Don't get me wrong, The Void just made it onto my to-do list, it might even be one of my vacation stops next year if they open when they plan to and Utah doesn't turn me off too much. But I'll be much more excited when the games have you working with/against other players, and even more when I can spend whole weekends defending Shadowfane from beasts.
So what they're saying is that 80% of people have used these features and do want them. The story makes it sound like nobody wants these and it's a pointless endeavor, but 20% of people not wanting these features in their next car is not some catastrophic failure of the product. Don't get me wrong, I'm not even happy about the extra buttons my car has for the XM Radio I will never use, I understand people not wanting the features. But what's the story here? Some folks aren't interested in around half of the 33 high-tech features in their car? Is this even a slow adoption rate for new technology?
"Some people out there like something I don't. The truth is, that thing they like sucks!"
You're an idiot. Just because you don't see the appeal to split-screen doesn't mean it "sucks." I know a lot of people on here are primarily PC gamers as opposed to console, I see the console hate in enough posts, but how dense do you need to be to not understand that playing in the same room with your friends is a different experience than talking to them on a headset? My friends and I for a long time got together atleast one night a week for a late night of gaming. We still get together frequently, but now gaming isn't always appealing because we don't want to all lug our televisions and consoles to eachothers' houses (picture wife/gf reactions to living rooms with four TVs set up) nor do we want to just take turns all night. Sure, we play together online still, but it's not even a remotely similar experience.
I'm not going to say there aren't drawbacks, none of us could understand why by the time Halo 4 came out they still had kill and death messages taking up such a huge portion of the split-screen, even blocking the crosshairs at times, but it was still a hell of a lot more fun playing together than sitting in rooms in different towns and talking on a headset. As for performance hits, Halo 4 was the first time in a long time I'd seen a noticeable performance drop in split-screen, and while it was a huge disappointment, I still enjoyed the game most playing with my friends in split-screen.
The death of split-screen is just another symptom of our ever-decreasing interest in human interaction. I mean, not only do you not see the appeal of actually being around other people you're doing things with, you don't even understand why anyone else would want to be around people they're doing things with. How does that not seem screwed up to you? I'm not saying everyone should enjoy split-screen, but you're basing an argument against a preferred method of social interaction on the affect it has on graphics and performance, that's just silly to me. Also, your suggestion that for social gatherings we should just play games where all players are on the same screen, are you even listening to yourself? "You should be forced to play a type of game you have no interest in instead of the type of game you've been enjoying for decades." How can you even take yourself seriously suggesting that?
Sorry if I missed the study, but what makes this all because of preorders? I've been playing buggy games for decades, plenty of which I didn't preorder, many of which weren't even expected to be huge hits, why is everyone so sure that preorders are why developers aren't fixing games? I'm not saying they definitely have nothing to do with it, but as someone who preorders a game about once every year or two, I'm genuinely curious what evidence there is that my actions are damaging the games. And for anyone thinking I'm a dumbass for preordering games, I like to get collectors editions of sequels to games I already enjoy because I like having cool things to put on display to represent those games. I genuinely like that extra stuff, lots of people do, I'm not saying you should but don't give people shit because they like different things.
To be honest, I think it has more to do with priorities changing at major game companies. It seems to me like the industry started off as gamers making games they enjoyed for other gamers, and making a bit of money off it. As the industry has grown and become more profitable, many of the people making the games aren't as passionate about the games themselves and are more concerned with making money. This is fairly obvious with larger companies such as Activision, franchises like CoD have a new release every year instead of even attempting to make a game one would enjoy for longer. And we've all seen the Destiny fiasco, a game I enjoy but am getting fed up with at the same time. It seems to me they're just choosing quantity over quality. That's really just me guessing, but without any evidence one way or another, I think anyone's guess is just as good.
as a result of NSA spying and Snowden's whistleblowing
Also, FTA:
The actual losses "will likely far exceed $35 billion," according to the ITIF report, because the entire American tech industry has performed worse than expected as a result of the Snowden leaks.
Serious question. Does the leak actually count as part of the cause? I know if everything were still under wraps the spying might not have cost tech companies anything in lost sales, but it seems unfair to suggest that Snowden is partly responsible for the consequences of what he revealed simply because the consequences MIGHT have been avoided or at least delayed if he hadn't revealed it. I might just be making something out of nothing, it just seems like a dick move to act like it's his fault the way some people make it out to be. Not that it's anything new, but it was almost excusable when this was fresh and people still didn't fully understand the situation, now we've all had enough time to take it in and figure out who the real bad guys are.
Because you couldn't be bothered to even read the summary:
the government argued that she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."
They're not doing anything to hide the fact that she assisted them, they're actually arguing that she gave them permission to create the account when she gave them permission to access her phone. Even if their argument doesn't hold up in court, they're still acknowledging she gave them some assistance by allowing them to access her phone. You could maybe claim they're downplaying how much she assisted them, but it seems more likely this is exactly what it looks like and they created the account without her knowledge.
While I completely agree and feel a handful of people should get locked up for this, I'm no longer shocked to see laws and punishments not being applied fairly to corporations. It wasn't long ago we saw a company get away with killing three hundred people.
Nice job picking out the only quote in the entire thing that suggests Macs are more expensive. You can buy a PC for less than Dell or anyone else charges too if you buy the components yourself. If you actually read the article (instead of deliberately taking out one quote that runs counter to the rest of it) you'll see that between the comparisons they did, the Mac is equal to one system and $200 less than the other. When the components were priced out separately to build a Mac Pro clone, you could save a whopping $5.67. So while they say there's little doubt you could get one for less, they don't actually manage to, and the quote you chose runs counter to the entire rest of the article. But then, that's why you chose the quote, since there's no actual evidence anywhere of Macs being overpriced besides statements from PC fanboys. They don't offer any real budget models or anything, but that's far from the same issue. Personally, I see the value in Macs, it takes a lot less effort to keep it running well for a very long time, and the fact that most people hear that and say you've set your computer up wrong only proves that point. I have two at home that we use regularly, and they're great. But, I also keep a custom PC running Windows 7 for gaming, because it is definitely easier to upgrade than even the Mac Pro and I don't have to wait for ports. There are definitely many pros and cons to each side, but the price isn't really an issue for Apple unless you're only trying to buy a budget system. It's really only fanboys who still say it, and the fact that you deliberately took that one quote out of context knowing what the rest of the article contains suggests that's all you are, continuing on even when you know you're wrong.
As for $7-10k being an absurd amount for an individual to spend on one computer, I'm aware, you'll see I already pointed out most people wouldn't notice any benefit from doing so. However, like I said before, if you're a criminal and you know you're not going to pay for it, why not go all out?
Hasn't this idea been debunked many times? Oh yeah, it has, at this point it's only fools and trolls who say it. If you can't imagine spending that much on one computer, even a Windows PC with power beyond anything you'll ever actually need, I suspect you must have stopped buying computers shortly after that first one. I've worked for businesses that don't mind dropping $10,000 on a single system, and that's not even the upper limit. That doesn't mean everyone's going to go out and spend that much or would even notice any benefit from doing so, but if you know you're a criminal stealing it anyway, you may as well go all out.
Seriously? They sell computers. I'm more curious how he didn't spend more in there, you could spend more than that on just one computer there with all the options.
I don't understand this response. People are up in arms about the NSA collecting our private information, but somehow it's okay for Google to read our kids' email? This makes no sense.
I wish I had mod points. Every time I hear about planets not being able to support life, this is my first thought. While it's possible that there's no radically different life forms in the universe, until we actually go out and see it, we don't really know. I'm not even sure if we should call it unlikely until we've managed to examine the planets outside out solar system more closely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting it and I'll be amazed if we find anything so different from ourselves, but I don't think we should rule out the possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't say only women, I said "most women." The suggestion of "most people" is intended to include "most women," correct? The fact that you somehow interpreted my statement as "women are the only ones who put fashion before safety" is intriguing and rather telling. See how twisting things is stupid and pointless? It twists both ways, every time.
Winner: Most foolish statement of the day. If you are choosing to wear footwear that impedes your ability to drive so you can be fashionable, you need to rethink your priorities before you kill someone just so you can look nice. And if youre suggesting most women put fashion before safety, Id suggest youre at least as sexist as anyone I know.
"For the longest time, I thought it was frozen yogurt." - Weasel referring to the shit emoji.
I wish I could mod you up, this is helpful. Thanks. I did look it up and it's apparently an issue of sterilization rather than quality, but I never realized it was an issue at all before now. Assuming this bacteria doesn't grow out of control and eat civilization, I could see it being pretty beneficial.
PET is one of those plastics that's very easy to recycle already, people just don't do it. And I mean really easy to recycle, I make and sell poker chips that are made largely out of recycled bottles (that's PET) and any bad part can simply be ground up and thrown back in the hopper so the material is used again. Obviously there's a little more to recycling used bottles and whatnot, but the point is it's already really easy to recycle PET compared to many other materials. While I understand this isn't the same as nature being able to break it down, I don't understand what the big benefit to this over standard recycling. There is a much larger problem when it comes to recycling and that's the willing participation of the general population. Where I live we get fined for failing to sort recyclables, and people still don't do it. Solving that seems more important if you ask me.
You have it backwards. It's been a long time since Apple fanbois have come out to defend Apple with anywhere near the zeal MS fanbois attack them with. It's getting a little weird at this point, guys. Look at all the posts here, I see a ton of people talking shit about Apple and everyone who uses them, and then like one post stating some basic facts that suggest Oculus just dropped cross-platform support altogether for other reasons. Or does Linux only run on potatoes?
Don't get me wrong, it's been a decade since I purchased an Apple computer for my home, but MS users go after Apple users non-stop as if their livelihoods depend on it, and nobody seems to notice the Apple crowd decided to sit in smug silence years ago. They laugh at you for making fun of them choosing a brand, when in fact they chose something they like and you're the one judging based on a brand name you think is cool or uncool. Seriously, the joke's not on the Apple users anymore.
As for the Rift not running on Apple computers, does anyone really care? When I was primarily using Apple computers, it was largely because I wasn't gaming. I still use them for work but we all accepted years ago that Windows is the most convenient gaming platform. Sure, you can get as much power out of a Mac and Luckey is just being a dick here, but it is generally less convenient. Real story here: Palmer Luckey is atleast as much of a judgemental dick as anyone you'll meet on the street today.
Perhaps you're unaware that going from kindergarten to graduating high school takes thirteen years, and another four for college makes seventeen years, so limiting exposure to programming twenty-thirty years ago would have impacted children who are now entering or are already a part of the work force. Actually, I wouldn't expect to see results from changes to education in less than ten-fifteen years, twenty-thirty seems pretty reasonable. Beyond that, I'm probably not the only one here who was actually growing up then, had a Windows 95 PC, and would've enjoyed dabbling in some BASIC as I was growing bored with HTML but I simply didn't know it existed until I was in high school a few years later and met people who knew more than I did.
I filed a complaint and was told there's nothing more to do now but wait. The system totally works. But, to be honest, I have a computer connected to the television that suits the purpose just fine, so it's not a huge hassle just a bit insulting.
The AG office suspects that customers who are paying a premium fee for higher internet speeds could be experiencing a disruption to their service due to technical issues brought about by business disputes in these interconnection deals.
It doesn't sound like he's talking about his average speeds. It sounds like he's talking about the targeted throttling of services. For example, I am a Comcast subscriber with an HBO subscription that I pay for through Comcast. As a part of my HBO subscription, I gain access to HBO Go. I have a PS4 HBO Go application. Every time I have tried it, it has failed to work, at all. This is a known issue, and in response to customer complaints Comcast has openly stated that it is a business decision, not a technical one. So, I pay Comcast for something, and they don't allow me to use it.
Sadly, I don't live in New York and Comcast doesn't appear to be a target of these letters. I can't actually speak to the practices of other ISPs as I'm not their customer, but both the article and summary make it pretty clear this isn't a matter of "guaranteed bandwidth." I haven't seen the words written in the article, but this is a net neutrality issue.
Can you possibly word this differently? It looks to me like you're saying Mars is less suitable because there's no reason to go into space right now? We're not currently getting any raw materials from space, and I haven't heard of any concrete plans to do so profitably, but if you have I'd like any information on it. As far as terraforming is concerned, are you saying we'd try to terraform the moon rather than an actual planet? I'm also unclear as to why the atmosphere of the moon would be a better environment for developing the technology for a colony on another planet. It's true we're unlikely to want to settle on a large scale any planet similar to Mars, but what makes our moon more suitable? Ease of access is all I can figure, but then why leave Earth? Sorry if I misunderstood, but it doesn't look like you're making any real argument here. If you're saying raw resources are the only reason to go to space, that would be a separate argument, though I don't agree with that either.
Isn't the moon about as similar to Mars as it is Earth? We know we can get to the moon, and even come back from it. Getting to and returning from Mars poses different challenges and would require different technology than we used to reach the moon. The two big requirements I can immediately think of are sustaining life for a significantly longer trip and returning from the surface of Mars. The atmosphere is also very different, the harsh conditions on Mars would serve as a far better test environment for equipment/structure durability and capability. The moon would be an easier starting point than Mars, sure, but that's why Mars would be a more suitable target for developing the technology to go even further.
For someone who knows that -- without a doubt -- they will upgrade to whatever new iPhone comes out in a year's time, and they're confident that they'd definitely take out Apple Care, it amounts to a saving of a few dollars over two years.
This is just another pointless article by a hater, he doesn't even agree with himself. It's bait, and not even good bait, he throws a few numbers out there but doesn't show us any actual cost comparison between using the upgrade program Apple offers and, say, paying full retail or taking advantage of other upgrade programs offered by the service providers. Indeed, he even states that you can save money using the program while complaining that you're just sending more to Apple. There's no substance to the article, no facts to back up all of his complaining about the bad upgrade deal. He's probably just sour he's already in a contract and can't dump his outdated phone to take advantage of the new program. This article is just one of the many new additions to the pointless Apple hate on the internet we'll be seeing now that they've announced another upgrade to their mobile product line.
Just a quick disclaimer, since a bunch of you will no doubt label me a fanboy, I use Apple AND Android products, they both have different advantages and disadvantages. I find myself defending Apple products most often though because for some reason there's this strange hate towards them from people who don't use them, as if we should all be that worried about what phone other people are using...
This is especially interesting given the way the consortium addresses the issue of different symbols representing the same character in different parts of East Asia. From http://unicode.org/faq/han_cjk...:
Q: If the character shapes are different in different parts of East Asia, why were the characters unified?
A: The Unicode Standard is designed to encode characters, not glyphs. Even where there are substantial variations in the standard way of writing a character from locale to locale, if the fundamental identity of the character is not in question, then a single character is encoded in Unicode.
Characters, not glyphs. So emoji are characters, while various Asian writing styles are glyphs, I guess. And a couple lines further down in the same answer...
There are occasional instances of unified characters whose typical Chinese glyph and typical Japanese glyph are distinct enough that the Chinese glyph will be unfamiliar to the typical Japanese reader, e.g., U+76F4. To prevent legibility problems for Japanese readers, it is advisable to use a Japanese-style font when presenting Unihan text to Japanese readers.
So if you're Japanese and want to see Japanese characters, you're told to use a Japanese font. But, you'll never be forced to choose between a male and female dancing emoji, you deserve to have BOTH in your character set. Why are emoji more important to Unicode than the Japanese language?
AR > VR for LARPing. I've been raving about everything AR, specifically the Hololens, could mean for LARPing to my friends since I saw that promo video a year or two ago back, even more now with the recent E3 presentation. VR would be crap for actual LARPing, I wouldn't want to rely on my VR display while running through the woods, there's no way every obstacle would be represented in the simulation. However, an augmented reality lens that could make the NPCs look like monsters while we fight, add spell effects to packets, make foam swords look like metal...
I like the idea of AR better than VR because VR's purpose is to separate you entirely from the reality around you. While VR could make for some really cool video games, they'll still just be video games. The setup in the video appears to be an attempt to combine the two, and it does look like a bunch of fun, but what they're doing is only possible after designing a 3D environment that accurately represents the physical room their players will walk around in, and then it's filled only with virtual enemies. Don't get me wrong, The Void just made it onto my to-do list, it might even be one of my vacation stops next year if they open when they plan to and Utah doesn't turn me off too much. But I'll be much more excited when the games have you working with/against other players, and even more when I can spend whole weekends defending Shadowfane from beasts.
So what they're saying is that 80% of people have used these features and do want them. The story makes it sound like nobody wants these and it's a pointless endeavor, but 20% of people not wanting these features in their next car is not some catastrophic failure of the product. Don't get me wrong, I'm not even happy about the extra buttons my car has for the XM Radio I will never use, I understand people not wanting the features. But what's the story here? Some folks aren't interested in around half of the 33 high-tech features in their car? Is this even a slow adoption rate for new technology?
"Some people out there like something I don't. The truth is, that thing they like sucks!"
You're an idiot. Just because you don't see the appeal to split-screen doesn't mean it "sucks." I know a lot of people on here are primarily PC gamers as opposed to console, I see the console hate in enough posts, but how dense do you need to be to not understand that playing in the same room with your friends is a different experience than talking to them on a headset? My friends and I for a long time got together atleast one night a week for a late night of gaming. We still get together frequently, but now gaming isn't always appealing because we don't want to all lug our televisions and consoles to eachothers' houses (picture wife/gf reactions to living rooms with four TVs set up) nor do we want to just take turns all night. Sure, we play together online still, but it's not even a remotely similar experience.
I'm not going to say there aren't drawbacks, none of us could understand why by the time Halo 4 came out they still had kill and death messages taking up such a huge portion of the split-screen, even blocking the crosshairs at times, but it was still a hell of a lot more fun playing together than sitting in rooms in different towns and talking on a headset. As for performance hits, Halo 4 was the first time in a long time I'd seen a noticeable performance drop in split-screen, and while it was a huge disappointment, I still enjoyed the game most playing with my friends in split-screen.
The death of split-screen is just another symptom of our ever-decreasing interest in human interaction. I mean, not only do you not see the appeal of actually being around other people you're doing things with, you don't even understand why anyone else would want to be around people they're doing things with. How does that not seem screwed up to you? I'm not saying everyone should enjoy split-screen, but you're basing an argument against a preferred method of social interaction on the affect it has on graphics and performance, that's just silly to me. Also, your suggestion that for social gatherings we should just play games where all players are on the same screen, are you even listening to yourself? "You should be forced to play a type of game you have no interest in instead of the type of game you've been enjoying for decades." How can you even take yourself seriously suggesting that?
Sorry if I missed the study, but what makes this all because of preorders? I've been playing buggy games for decades, plenty of which I didn't preorder, many of which weren't even expected to be huge hits, why is everyone so sure that preorders are why developers aren't fixing games? I'm not saying they definitely have nothing to do with it, but as someone who preorders a game about once every year or two, I'm genuinely curious what evidence there is that my actions are damaging the games. And for anyone thinking I'm a dumbass for preordering games, I like to get collectors editions of sequels to games I already enjoy because I like having cool things to put on display to represent those games. I genuinely like that extra stuff, lots of people do, I'm not saying you should but don't give people shit because they like different things.
To be honest, I think it has more to do with priorities changing at major game companies. It seems to me like the industry started off as gamers making games they enjoyed for other gamers, and making a bit of money off it. As the industry has grown and become more profitable, many of the people making the games aren't as passionate about the games themselves and are more concerned with making money. This is fairly obvious with larger companies such as Activision, franchises like CoD have a new release every year instead of even attempting to make a game one would enjoy for longer. And we've all seen the Destiny fiasco, a game I enjoy but am getting fed up with at the same time. It seems to me they're just choosing quantity over quality. That's really just me guessing, but without any evidence one way or another, I think anyone's guess is just as good.
as a result of NSA spying and Snowden's whistleblowing
Also, FTA:
The actual losses "will likely far exceed $35 billion," according to the ITIF report, because the entire American tech industry has performed worse than expected as a result of the Snowden leaks.
Serious question. Does the leak actually count as part of the cause? I know if everything were still under wraps the spying might not have cost tech companies anything in lost sales, but it seems unfair to suggest that Snowden is partly responsible for the consequences of what he revealed simply because the consequences MIGHT have been avoided or at least delayed if he hadn't revealed it. I might just be making something out of nothing, it just seems like a dick move to act like it's his fault the way some people make it out to be. Not that it's anything new, but it was almost excusable when this was fresh and people still didn't fully understand the situation, now we've all had enough time to take it in and figure out who the real bad guys are.
the government argued that she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations [sic]."
They're not doing anything to hide the fact that she assisted them, they're actually arguing that she gave them permission to create the account when she gave them permission to access her phone. Even if their argument doesn't hold up in court, they're still acknowledging she gave them some assistance by allowing them to access her phone. You could maybe claim they're downplaying how much she assisted them, but it seems more likely this is exactly what it looks like and they created the account without her knowledge.
While I completely agree and feel a handful of people should get locked up for this, I'm no longer shocked to see laws and punishments not being applied fairly to corporations. It wasn't long ago we saw a company get away with killing three hundred people.
Nice job picking out the only quote in the entire thing that suggests Macs are more expensive. You can buy a PC for less than Dell or anyone else charges too if you buy the components yourself. If you actually read the article (instead of deliberately taking out one quote that runs counter to the rest of it) you'll see that between the comparisons they did, the Mac is equal to one system and $200 less than the other. When the components were priced out separately to build a Mac Pro clone, you could save a whopping $5.67. So while they say there's little doubt you could get one for less, they don't actually manage to, and the quote you chose runs counter to the entire rest of the article. But then, that's why you chose the quote, since there's no actual evidence anywhere of Macs being overpriced besides statements from PC fanboys. They don't offer any real budget models or anything, but that's far from the same issue. Personally, I see the value in Macs, it takes a lot less effort to keep it running well for a very long time, and the fact that most people hear that and say you've set your computer up wrong only proves that point. I have two at home that we use regularly, and they're great. But, I also keep a custom PC running Windows 7 for gaming, because it is definitely easier to upgrade than even the Mac Pro and I don't have to wait for ports. There are definitely many pros and cons to each side, but the price isn't really an issue for Apple unless you're only trying to buy a budget system. It's really only fanboys who still say it, and the fact that you deliberately took that one quote out of context knowing what the rest of the article contains suggests that's all you are, continuing on even when you know you're wrong.
As for $7-10k being an absurd amount for an individual to spend on one computer, I'm aware, you'll see I already pointed out most people wouldn't notice any benefit from doing so. However, like I said before, if you're a criminal and you know you're not going to pay for it, why not go all out?
Hasn't this idea been debunked many times? Oh yeah, it has, at this point it's only fools and trolls who say it. If you can't imagine spending that much on one computer, even a Windows PC with power beyond anything you'll ever actually need, I suspect you must have stopped buying computers shortly after that first one. I've worked for businesses that don't mind dropping $10,000 on a single system, and that's not even the upper limit. That doesn't mean everyone's going to go out and spend that much or would even notice any benefit from doing so, but if you know you're a criminal stealing it anyway, you may as well go all out.
Seriously? They sell computers. I'm more curious how he didn't spend more in there, you could spend more than that on just one computer there with all the options.
I don't understand this response. People are up in arms about the NSA collecting our private information, but somehow it's okay for Google to read our kids' email? This makes no sense.
I wish I had mod points. Every time I hear about planets not being able to support life, this is my first thought. While it's possible that there's no radically different life forms in the universe, until we actually go out and see it, we don't really know. I'm not even sure if we should call it unlikely until we've managed to examine the planets outside out solar system more closely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting it and I'll be amazed if we find anything so different from ourselves, but I don't think we should rule out the possibility.