I don't believe WoW is the 800-pound gorilla yet, because there are still ways to serve the market.
One request that has often been asked but hardly answered is the free-game-with-subscription model.
While almost all pay-$50-then-$15-monthly gamers may have been attracted to WoW, there must be even more gamers who are only willing to invest in a game which allows them to pay-as-they-play. Is any leading publisher willing to take a risk of no initial income and bank on the monthly subscription?
So I think WoW is in a way helping the industry to identify this subscription-based market, but if the rest of the industry is trying to do the same thing, they are likely to be a distanced also-run.
Long before anyone built levees and floodgates, barrier islands were serving to block dangerous storm surges. Of course, those islands often fall victim to coastal development.
Is it time to learn from the nature and build some artificial barrier islands, rather than further changing the face of the earth?
You mean the one that forces you to "update" before you can play its game? This system is making a player's life difficult too.
It's worth noting, however, that Valve is historically a PC games developer and has only made two console games thus far--Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2, both for Xbox.
I think this line says it all - Valve is inexperienced in cross-platform console game development, and it's whinging about it. Kind of reminds me of Alternative Browsers Impede Investigations
I thought Microsoft has long accepted Linux's place in the market, otherwise why would it bother to come up with those TCOs and FUDs?
I hope this is not exposing the lack of maturity in "Linux People", who acts like a little brother, and always try to get recognition and comparison with his older brother, and in trying so, will forever live under the shadow of the latter.
Switch back to IE, it's the best Homeland Security Friendly browser on earth!
While the summary sounds like a "problem", the article clearly indicated that someone has already figured how to deal with these alternative browsers and is sharing with the law enforcement agents.
Paging lifeguards is good as long as one is available.
Maybe in the future, a secondary (upper) tiles can be installed on the pool floor, and the system is able to pinpoint the victim and automatically raise enough tiles to push the victim out of the water.
What I need is a Firefox-plugin that looks exactly like IE (including the lack of tabs and search box) while still providing the same level of security.
It's not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it's organized groups and organized crime." Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"
Haven't you realized this very dark and cloudy organized group they're referring to is the Bitorrent User Group (BUG)?
I do have another question though - Why don't consumers buying/wearing fake branded products get arrested?
A Nike t-shirt is probably as easy and cheap to copy and produce as a DVD movie. Imagine law enforcement officers roaming the streets and ripping counterfeited t-shirts off materialistic girls.
I like the way industry analyst talked down the threats to Apple.
However the fact is, if you're using patents held by your ever-so-slightly-competition, you're sitting on a time bomb without a LCD display telling you when it will go off, and how much damage it is likely to cause.
While Microsoft might have a more friendly relationship with Apple, Creative is certainly aggressive in competing with iPod. Creative's CEO has been openly challenging iPod's domination and this seems to be a handy weapon.
Just hope they didn't patent the built-in virus too.
Does CC improve the enforceability? I mean, what's the incentive to claim/release/share a copyrighted article if there is no way of protecting it properly?
If a work is released under a CC license, will it be brought to court and judged accordingly in a quick manner?
What's the difference between CC and common laws in terms of enforceability. It seems nowadays, lawsuits are about financial depth, whoever has enough cash to burn in court for the next 10-20 years will be pretty safe from any litigation, regardless of the right or wrong.
Interestingly, I have a similar job on a website (no link for you too, Slashdot hordes!), here's what I do (I'm sure there are smarter ways):
1. Place all "to-process" documents in a specific folder in a webserver 2. Write a script to read those documents 3. Use Regex (and similar functions) to strip off and/or replace specific tags/wordings (similar to web scrapping technique).
Admittedly it was a tedious job at first to identify every possible template, however I'm amazed how predictable some documents are and once you get hold of such "blueprint", you can reformat documents to HTML/XML fairly easily.
Once the changes are done, I then preview them in a browser, and if everything's expected, I simply save the page and use it; If not, it's easy enough to make a few tweaks from the familar HTML environment.
While 9 billion additional pages are pretty useless to an individual, it can however mean each topic will have an additional 30 pages, or a search on Ferrari images gives another 25 pictures.
This is actually quite interesting, as bullying probably won't be rated anything more than PG.
Will we see ratings for racism, sexism, political and other similar behaviors? These are non-sexual and non-violent, yet they can have great, if not greater, impact on people's life.
How can this be? Does that mean my whole life as a MS-bashing Slashdotter is nothing but... nothing?!? Well, I'm sure "DOS Ain't Done til Linux Won't Run"!!
On a more serious note though, the first reply in the article says it all.
Microsoft is a for-profit company, so it will do anything to make a profit. If billions of people are rushing out to buy Longhorn so that they can play Tux Racer, Microsoft will make sure "Longhorn ain't done til Tux Racer run".
It's also interesting to see from one of the comments:
Well, I submitted this to Slashdot. (And even added an Obligatory Stupid Inflammatory Remark at the end!) I have a pretty dismal track record of accepted submissions, though, and this one isn't likely to change it.
According to NYTimes, this is what they're planning to do:
The astronaut would first try to remove the cloth, which is glued in place, by pulling it out with his gloved hand, she said. If that failed, he would use a set of forceps to tug the filler out or to hold the cloth while he cut it off with scissors, she said.
Are they saying that this piece of cloth (which may be removed by (1)pulling it out with bare hand, (2)poking it out or (3)cutting it off with a pair of scissors) won't simply burn away during re-entry?
The rating system has 11 categories, including Normal, Offtopic, Flamebait, Troll, Redundant, Insightful, Interesting, Informative, Funny, Overrated and Underrated.
Each category is to be rated -1 to 5.
There will also be filtering tools so a potential corporate user can specify its most important considerations.
but because this forces authors to create more standard compliant sites which work on multiple platforms.
You're right, however after building a site based completely on Firefox (which looks and works great), it's pretty ugly in IE, and I start to question my initial decision, because there are afterall still 80% of the IE users out there not being served properly.
Having said that, I'm sticking to FF for now, people still using IE probably won't be visiting my site anyway.
FYI 12% of the visitors are using IE and 86% on Firefox, so I guess I'm on the right track!
The bottom line is that this stripped-down Windows configuration is not practical, but makes a cool demonstration of just how little of Windows is required for basic functionality.
There will be a delay before Explorer redraws the desktop
won't be able to logoff
Networking is also crippled
I don't think this stripped-down Windows provides even the most basic functionality expected by many users nowadays.
It's like patients are treated as long as their hearts are beating, even though everything else has shut down.
Yes! You should at least switch your home network to 802.11g, so that damages are done on different part of your body at night, similar to load balancing.
There are so many researches and studies in the last 20 years, to the point that I'm starting to ignore all but a few obvious ones (like how you could get AIDS).
In my opinion, anything you do will cause damage to your body, even reading Slashdot everyday is enough to damage my eyes to a certain degree in the next 5-10 years, this is not including hitting F5 every 2 seconds, god knows how much damage that will do!
So this frying cell phone theory is rather pointless to me. If I have to make a phone call, I would use it, because I might just get run over by a car while trying to use that public phone booth across the street, or maybe cause a minor but irrepairable damage to my knees because of the extra travelling?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe WoW is the 800-pound gorilla yet, because there are still ways to serve the market.
One request that has often been asked but hardly answered is the free-game-with-subscription model.
While almost all pay-$50-then-$15-monthly gamers may have been attracted to WoW, there must be even more gamers who are only willing to invest in a game which allows them to pay-as-they-play. Is any leading publisher willing to take a risk of no initial income and bank on the monthly subscription?
So I think WoW is in a way helping the industry to identify this subscription-based market, but if the rest of the industry is trying to do the same thing, they are likely to be a distanced also-run.
Long before anyone built levees and floodgates, barrier islands were serving to block dangerous storm surges. Of course, those islands often fall victim to coastal development.
Is it time to learn from the nature and build some artificial barrier islands, rather than further changing the face of the earth?
Steam-like systems
You mean the one that forces you to "update" before you can play its game? This system is making a player's life difficult too.
It's worth noting, however, that Valve is historically a PC games developer and has only made two console games thus far--Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2, both for Xbox.
I think this line says it all - Valve is inexperienced in cross-platform console game development, and it's whinging about it. Kind of reminds me of Alternative Browsers Impede Investigations
I thought Microsoft has long accepted Linux's place in the market, otherwise why would it bother to come up with those TCOs and FUDs?
I hope this is not exposing the lack of maturity in "Linux People", who acts like a little brother, and always try to get recognition and comparison with his older brother, and in trying so, will forever live under the shadow of the latter.
Switch back to IE, it's the best Homeland Security Friendly browser on earth!
While the summary sounds like a "problem", the article clearly indicated that someone has already figured how to deal with these alternative browsers and is sharing with the law enforcement agents.
Paging lifeguards is good as long as one is available.
Maybe in the future, a secondary (upper) tiles can be installed on the pool floor, and the system is able to pinpoint the victim and automatically raise enough tiles to push the victim out of the water.
What I need is a Firefox-plugin that looks exactly like IE (including the lack of tabs and search box) while still providing the same level of security.
It's not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it's organized groups and organized crime." Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"
Haven't you realized this very dark and cloudy organized group they're referring to is the Bitorrent User Group (BUG)?
I do have another question though - Why don't consumers buying/wearing fake branded products get arrested?
A Nike t-shirt is probably as easy and cheap to copy and produce as a DVD movie. Imagine law enforcement officers roaming the streets and ripping counterfeited t-shirts off materialistic girls.
I know this sounds crazy, but given its bowl shape terrain, instead of pumping out the water and rebuild, why don't they rebuild over the water?
Otherwise, try asking Dutch how they have been living with large parts of Netherlands below sea level.
Wow, I thought Study Shows One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense is bad enough, who knows scientific papers are worse!
I patiently await the next article: "Research Shows Three-Quarters of All Researches Are Bullshit".
Wouldn't satellite signals be affected by rain and wind?
I like the way industry analyst talked down the threats to Apple.
However the fact is, if you're using patents held by your ever-so-slightly-competition, you're sitting on a time bomb without a LCD display telling you when it will go off, and how much damage it is likely to cause.
While Microsoft might have a more friendly relationship with Apple, Creative is certainly aggressive in competing with iPod. Creative's CEO has been openly challenging iPod's domination and this seems to be a handy weapon.
Just hope they didn't patent the built-in virus too.
Does CC improve the enforceability? I mean, what's the incentive to claim/release/share a copyrighted article if there is no way of protecting it properly?
If a work is released under a CC license, will it be brought to court and judged accordingly in a quick manner?
What's the difference between CC and common laws in terms of enforceability. It seems nowadays, lawsuits are about financial depth, whoever has enough cash to burn in court for the next 10-20 years will be pretty safe from any litigation, regardless of the right or wrong.
Interestingly, I have a similar job on a website (no link for you too, Slashdot hordes!), here's what I do (I'm sure there are smarter ways):
1. Place all "to-process" documents in a specific folder in a webserver
2. Write a script to read those documents
3. Use Regex (and similar functions) to strip off and/or replace specific tags/wordings (similar to web scrapping technique).
Admittedly it was a tedious job at first to identify every possible template, however I'm amazed how predictable some documents are and once you get hold of such "blueprint", you can reformat documents to HTML/XML fairly easily.
Once the changes are done, I then preview them in a browser, and if everything's expected, I simply save the page and use it; If not, it's easy enough to make a few tweaks from the familar HTML environment.
Someone has to be made accountable for this flipflop and pay for the costs involved in the refund.
While 9 billion additional pages are pretty useless to an individual, it can however mean each topic will have an additional 30 pages, or a search on Ferrari images gives another 25 pictures.
I believe this is your answer
This is actually quite interesting, as bullying probably won't be rated anything more than PG.
Will we see ratings for racism, sexism, political and other similar behaviors? These are non-sexual and non-violent, yet they can have great, if not greater, impact on people's life.
How can this be? Does that mean my whole life as a MS-bashing Slashdotter is nothing but... nothing?!? Well, I'm sure "DOS Ain't Done til Linux Won't Run"!!
On a more serious note though, the first reply in the article says it all.
Microsoft is a for-profit company, so it will do anything to make a profit. If billions of people are rushing out to buy Longhorn so that they can play Tux Racer, Microsoft will make sure "Longhorn ain't done til Tux Racer run".
It's also interesting to see from one of the comments:
Well, I submitted this to Slashdot. (And even added an Obligatory Stupid Inflammatory Remark at the end!) I have a pretty dismal track record of accepted submissions, though, and this one isn't likely to change it.
COME ON!! People are making fun of us!!!!!
According to NYTimes, this is what they're planning to do:
The astronaut would first try to remove the cloth, which is glued in place, by pulling it out with his gloved hand, she said. If that failed, he would use a set of forceps to tug the filler out or to hold the cloth while he cut it off with scissors, she said.
Are they saying that this piece of cloth (which may be removed by (1)pulling it out with bare hand, (2)poking it out or (3)cutting it off with a pair of scissors) won't simply burn away during re-entry?
The rating system has 11 categories, including Normal, Offtopic, Flamebait, Troll, Redundant, Insightful, Interesting, Informative, Funny, Overrated and Underrated.
Each category is to be rated -1 to 5.
There will also be filtering tools so a potential corporate user can specify its most important considerations.
but because this forces authors to create more standard compliant sites which work on multiple platforms.
You're right, however after building a site based completely on Firefox (which looks and works great), it's pretty ugly in IE, and I start to question my initial decision, because there are afterall still 80% of the IE users out there not being served properly.
Having said that, I'm sticking to FF for now, people still using IE probably won't be visiting my site anyway.
FYI 12% of the visitors are using IE and 86% on Firefox, so I guess I'm on the right track!
The bottom line is that this stripped-down Windows configuration is not practical, but makes a cool demonstration of just how little of Windows is required for basic functionality.
- There will be a delay before Explorer redraws the desktop
- won't be able to logoff
- Networking is also crippled
I don't think this stripped-down Windows provides even the most basic functionality expected by many users nowadays.It's like patients are treated as long as their hearts are beating, even though everything else has shut down.
Should I be worried?
Yes! You should at least switch your home network to 802.11g, so that damages are done on different part of your body at night, similar to load balancing.
There are so many researches and studies in the last 20 years, to the point that I'm starting to ignore all but a few obvious ones (like how you could get AIDS).
In my opinion, anything you do will cause damage to your body, even reading Slashdot everyday is enough to damage my eyes to a certain degree in the next 5-10 years, this is not including hitting F5 every 2 seconds, god knows how much damage that will do!
So this frying cell phone theory is rather pointless to me. If I have to make a phone call, I would use it, because I might just get run over by a car while trying to use that public phone booth across the street, or maybe cause a minor but irrepairable damage to my knees because of the extra travelling?