On the lower right hand side of that page is a link titled Sign up for Gmail. I'd bet -- and this is just a wild guess -- that you'd use that to subscribe to the service.
We don't seem to have the same rendering of http://www.gmail.com/ cause there ain't no link titled "Sign up for Gmail" on mine. And the link you provided requires you to have a mobile phone. Why the hell do you need me to have a mobile phone for webmail?
Though I could be wrong. All manner of danger and obfuscation could live behind that link
Yep, see above, mobile phone requirement. Google already serves me enough ads as it is, I don't want them spamming my SMS.
I, too, share your fear and hatred of "some piece of beta software", no matter how well it works.
Google is a master in search, but they seem lousy in many other fields. I like Google as much as the next guy, but releasing a whole bunch of software or services, and leaving them perpetually in beta, just shows how much they really care about making quality software. They don't even consider taking the time to thoroughly test their software to call them anything other than beta.
We all know the 80/20 rule. The first 80% of a software project takes 20% of the time, and it's the extra 20% of the project that requires 80% of the time and effort, but it's also that last 20% that makes it a complete and useful software. Just look at how many software projects (at sourceforge or anywhere else) that have been abandoned halfway because the developer only wanted to have fun coding the first 80% and not serious enough to do the last 20%. Nobody at Google seems to want to do that last 20% either, and that is pretty scary for a billion dollars company that we are supposed to take seriously.
Probably because Yahoo! mail has been out a LOT longer than GMail.
Or maybe because Yahoo! mail is a real official service offered by Yahoo!, while Gmail is just some piece of beta software that you can't subscribe to anyway. Where's the "Create a new account" button on http://www.gmail.com/ ?
With cheap power living becomes easier and I am guessing a potential population boom.
You're right... the only reason why I'm not having 20 kids today is because of energy costs. WTF?
How about the opposite. The easier living gets, the fewer kids people have. 19th century, it was pretty common for mothers to have 10 kids or more, living wasn't easier then, it was harder, and having kids was part of the solution to make it easier (more people to work on the farm). Even today, the rich rarely have more than 2 kids (if they have any), while the poor often have 3 or more.
Easier living make people more selfish and they don't want to share any of their comfort with extra people, or they don't want the extra work that kids require.
All (*) our power stems from "a" sun (or suns), but not ours.
((*) Tidal?)
Tidal power could also be considered as indirect power from the sun, since the tides come from the gravity of both the moon and the sun... so it's partly solar power, and partly lunar power...
The funny thing is, even though Nintendo only makes software for Nintendo consoles, if you count total software sales internationally, Nintendo is first overall. Nintendo published software outsells software made by every other company in gaming, EA is a distant second.
Frankly, as a consumer, I wouldn't buy a graphics card from an upstart (or a board that has built in graphics from an upstart). It's a chicken-egg problem.
Well, *you* might not, but someone else might. However, that someone else didn't have the opportunity to do so (that is, if the story is true).
Dave, do you find the hurdles larger when changing from one application to another (IE to Opera) or when there are version changes (2000 to XP)? My assumption would be application changes are larger then upgrades.
Depends on the application. I've seen my coworkers go from IE6 to IE7, as well as from Office 2003 to Office 2007 (we need to always be aware of the latest versions of many software for what we do...), and I must say that the absent menu bar from IE7, and the whole ribbon concept of Office 2007, is rather disorienting. It's actually easier to migrate from IE6 to Firefox than to IE7, and from Office 2003 to OpenOffice.org, than to Office 2007.
People are afraid to learn a new application not because of the application, but because of the UI. If a new version of the same application changes the UI drastically, then it's as hard to learn as a new application.
It's not as much about the genre as it is about the replay-value, which is somewhat affected by the genre. A game might have only 10 minutes of gameplay, but if it manages to make me love those 10 minutes of gameplay again and again and again, then it's a good game (Tetris). If a game has no replay value (most RPGs), then it damn better have over 50 hours of gameplay to justify the $60 I spent on it.
So it's not only about genres. Most RPGs are only fun the first time you play them and boring the second time (since you know the plot). Some FPS are fun the first time with a decent plot, and boring afterwards for a lack of decent multiplayer (XIII), while some have near infinite replay-value due to the nice multiplayer action they pack (UT2k4).
RPGs in particular tend to have relatively simple game mechanics that rarely get changed-up---they pad the game out with level-grinding and plot.
Good RPG's require no grinding at all. If you follow the plot, and go to places the plot requires you to go, and do quests the plot requires you to do, you should have just enough random encounters to level up enough so that when you encounter a boss, you may have a challenging-but-not-impossible battle.
Boring grinding serve only 2 purposes: 1) Doing that optional side-quest that lets you earn the über-badass-weapon that you don't need for the main plot, but that you want because you always want the best of everything. 2) Getting to a level so high that even boss battles are not challenging.
While some side quests might be cool and actually improve on the storyline, some are just filler that developers put in there to have more gameplay hours. And grinding just to make a boss battle easier is exactly the opposite of mastering the game mechanics since your strategy only relies on brute force.
I was originally going to say that I thought Ubisoft was aiming for number two, but that was meant as number two behind EA.
Ubisoft wants to be number 2 globally, which is for the Wii, PS3, Xbox360 and PC combined. In that combined market, EA is first. However, on the Wii (or GameCube, or NDS, or GBA, or just any console made by Nintendo), Nintendo is by far and beyond the first developer, and I truly doubt anybody will ever catch up to them. Even EA can't make something as successful as Zelda, Squeenix either.
Even if there is extensive 3rd party support for the Wii, 4 Nintendo franchises will sell more than 50% of all software : Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Pokemon. Final Fantasy and Madden can't even dream to get that big a market share.
Or did you start to slouch the moment you read this?
Unfortunately, the problem with the 135 degrees position is that you need a very good chair with a head-rest, otherwise, sitting at 135 degrees while keeping you head straight (in order to be looking horizontally at your monitor, rather than at the ceiling) hurts the neck.
And 11 of those 35 dollar DVD players comes out to $385 dollars.
They're up by 15 bucks, not counting for inflation.
The problem is not that they "save" money in the long run, it's that they whine about it, because they somehow expect a $35 DVD player to last more than a year. People simply have unrealistic expectations.
Walmart imports tons of Chinese goods because that's the country to where our manufacturing base has been transplanted by market forces for cheap labor. Customers do not buy Chinese goods because they are seeking them out.
Most of the Chinese goods have an alternative that is American (or European, or whatever is "local" to you). However, that alternative is usually slightly more expensive, mostly because laws in western countries state that a worker has to be paid a decent salary, thus raising production costs.
People don't buy Chinese goods because they particularly like Chinese stuff, they buy it because they can save a nickel. People will go to WalMart two towns down the road to save a dollar in buying something made in China, instead of buying the alternative good made locally at the store across the street. Alternatives exist, you just have to look for them, and accept to pay slightly more.
Or what about the fact he was using works computer to download music, Does this give them the right?
The RIAA is accusing his mother, not him. Does the RIAA really think his mother would use his work computer to download music? That farfetched, even for the RIAA.
Maybe he was insinuating the fact that he (Mark), does not have developers as good as those at Novell.
Why does a distro even need developers? Gnome is Gnome, Firefox is Firefox, OOo is OOo. A distro is just a gathering of software. Ubuntu developers are not writing a whole new Gnome just for Ubuntu, they are simply using a pre-determined version of Gnome, developed by Gnome developers. Same goes for Firefox or just about any other software (except for SuSE, which has "OpenOffice.org Novell Edition").
Other than "which version of each software is included" and "different default configurations", what does the "Ubuntu development team" and "SuSE development team" (or Xandros, or Freespire, or Debian, etc.) do that don't go into each other's distro? Ain't the whole point of GPL and OSS the sharing of any new development?
What I find so interesting about this post is that it's exactly why companies are nervous about using open source for mission critical projects. You're absolutely right - since people pay nothing for the software then they can make no demands of it. [...] At least with proprietary software you have the right to demand that things get fixed, and if you don't get what you want then you can find an alternative.
If you use OSS and don't get what you want, then you can find an alternative. It's no different.
I work for a proprietary-closed-source-software company. It happened a couple of times that a customer experienced a very rare bug because of some weird configuration they had, or that they wanted the software to behave slightly differently in a special situation. In both cases, we told the customer we could implement the specially requested feature just for them, but we would charge them to do it. Some accepted, some refused (we charge a lot... gotta pay the programmers). The extra feature made for that one client, we then make available for all of out users.
Had it been an OSS, the user could have hired a programmer to add the required feature themselves, probably costing them about the same amount. Same result, different path.
If the OSS maintainer decides not to add your feature or fix your bug, you can either do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If the proprietary software company decides to ignore your request, you're shit out of luck. Which actually makes me wonder why companies are not more nervous about using proprietary software for mission critical projects.
I think Nintendo heavily targets kids, age ranging from around 6-15.
Often characters in these games do not die, or if they do it is only implied; Mario just falls off the screen or falls on his back, you don't see blood all over the ground as you would with, say, Quake on the Xbox.
I think the "blood all over the ground" games actually targets young males aged 12 to 25, who needs a rush of violence to enjoy something. Most enjoyable games have no blood at all, or only simulated or "cartoony" violence, which doesn't appeal to young males, but that the rest of the mature population enjoys (see chess, or just about any board game). Only kids and immature adults need blood and violence.
A lot of the games are simple, and the story lines are not so complex that a kid wouldn't be able to follow it
Or the storylines are simple enough that someone can play half an hour on saturday, then be busy during the week (doing, I don't know... work maybe?), and then play again the next saturday without being completely lost because they forgot a little detail in the storyline, like that they need to go talk to the yellow-haired gnome in the third village in order to progress.
So called complex storylines are for people who can afford to play several hours a week, which are either kids, or retired people.
Personally, I'd say the only legitimate "Nintendo is for kids" argument would be concerning the online play, where your identity is hidden to the extent that you aren't even allowed to exchange text messages with randomly assigned opponents.
Actually, because Nintendo prevents random chat, I would say that it is a system for adults. Preventing random online chat is not to protect 12 years old boys from 35 years old maniacs saying "Hey, wanna see my Wii?", it's to protect the 35 years old men from the 12 years old boys screaming "Doodz! You suXor fucktard!".
For at least the next year, if not a couple years, they're not going to have that advantage (certainly not in the US, probably not in Europe, maybe not in Japan depending on the Wii's penetration)
Whether or not the Wii has a huge penetration doesn't matter, since the Wii and the PS3 are such different consoles, and aim at different markets. There will be PS3 exclusives and there will be Wii exclusives, and I expect very few PS3 games ported to the Wii and vice-versa. I own a Wii, and I don't think I'd be interested in a game that would be simply ported from the PS3, since it wouldn't have any of the "Wii spirit" or couldn't really use the Wiimote in a decent way. Plus, they'd have to cut down on a lot of features / eye-candy since the Wii's hardware can't output the same power as the PS3.
Games ported from the PS3 to the Wii won't use the input device correctly and will be feature-poor. Games ported from the Wii to the PS3 won't use half of the powerful hardware people paid $600 for.
Or, I could decide that having the console and at least two games I want to play in time for Thanksgiving, so I can play with my family on one of the few occasions we're all in the same place at the same time is worth spending the extra ~0.001% of my annual household income on.
$600 for the console, and $120 for two games, that's $720. If $720 is 0.001% of your annual household income, that means your annual household income is $72,000,000. You really think most of those who've been camping out earn seventy-two million dollars a year?
And why do *you* get in line, get your freakin' butler to do it for you.
I wonder... why I have seen no media stories about loads of people camping out in front of stores, for a chance to snag a new Wii? All you ever see is PS3!, PS3!, blah blah.
Fun story... I was watching the news this morning, they sent a reporter at Best Buy during the night, and interviewed the people standing in line. Knowing quite well that most of those people weren't really gamers and were just trying to make a quick buck by reselling it, they asked them a few interesting questions...
What are you waiting in line for? (Obvious answer, everybody knew that one)
So, you're into video games? (Most said yes, some said "Not that much")
Which game will you be playing on your new console? (About half of the people in line couldn't name a single game that was available for the PS3...)
Then, when the store opened at 8am, they kept filming the queue, watching the first 14 people get in the store (which had 28 consoles), and then all of those 14 new PS3 owners all headed towards the same truck after leaving the store... obviously giving them to someone who would be reselling them.
Then the reporter also passed a comment saying that some of the people waiting in line and getting a PS3 are not the type you would expect of a gamer, and that we're more used to see those people on street corners asking for change...
It's nice to see some of the media don't buy into the whole PS3 hype and aren't afraid of talking about people that hire bums to wait in line for them and such.
Slashdot Mirror
We don't seem to have the same rendering of http://www.gmail.com/ cause there ain't no link titled "Sign up for Gmail" on mine. And the link you provided requires you to have a mobile phone. Why the hell do you need me to have a mobile phone for webmail?
Yep, see above, mobile phone requirement. Google already serves me enough ads as it is, I don't want them spamming my SMS.
Google is a master in search, but they seem lousy in many other fields. I like Google as much as the next guy, but releasing a whole bunch of software or services, and leaving them perpetually in beta, just shows how much they really care about making quality software. They don't even consider taking the time to thoroughly test their software to call them anything other than beta.
Seriously, when shall I expect to see the final version of Gmail, Google Blog Search, Google SMS, Google Calendar, Google Catalogs and Google Video? What is the planned release date?
We all know the 80/20 rule. The first 80% of a software project takes 20% of the time, and it's the extra 20% of the project that requires 80% of the time and effort, but it's also that last 20% that makes it a complete and useful software. Just look at how many software projects (at sourceforge or anywhere else) that have been abandoned halfway because the developer only wanted to have fun coding the first 80% and not serious enough to do the last 20%. Nobody at Google seems to want to do that last 20% either, and that is pretty scary for a billion dollars company that we are supposed to take seriously.
Or maybe because Yahoo! mail is a real official service offered by Yahoo!, while Gmail is just some piece of beta software that you can't subscribe to anyway. Where's the "Create a new account" button on http://www.gmail.com/ ?
You're right... the only reason why I'm not having 20 kids today is because of energy costs. WTF?
How about the opposite. The easier living gets, the fewer kids people have. 19th century, it was pretty common for mothers to have 10 kids or more, living wasn't easier then, it was harder, and having kids was part of the solution to make it easier (more people to work on the farm). Even today, the rich rarely have more than 2 kids (if they have any), while the poor often have 3 or more.
Easier living make people more selfish and they don't want to share any of their comfort with extra people, or they don't want the extra work that kids require.
Tidal power could also be considered as indirect power from the sun, since the tides come from the gravity of both the moon and the sun... so it's partly solar power, and partly lunar power...
But... it can't be... it's a car analogy, there are no good car analogies on slashdot!
It's called Software Engineering
Got numbers to back that up?
Well, *you* might not, but someone else might. However, that someone else didn't have the opportunity to do so (that is, if the story is true).
Depends on the application. I've seen my coworkers go from IE6 to IE7, as well as from Office 2003 to Office 2007 (we need to always be aware of the latest versions of many software for what we do...), and I must say that the absent menu bar from IE7, and the whole ribbon concept of Office 2007, is rather disorienting. It's actually easier to migrate from IE6 to Firefox than to IE7, and from Office 2003 to OpenOffice.org, than to Office 2007.
People are afraid to learn a new application not because of the application, but because of the UI. If a new version of the same application changes the UI drastically, then it's as hard to learn as a new application.
It's not as much about the genre as it is about the replay-value, which is somewhat affected by the genre. A game might have only 10 minutes of gameplay, but if it manages to make me love those 10 minutes of gameplay again and again and again, then it's a good game (Tetris). If a game has no replay value (most RPGs), then it damn better have over 50 hours of gameplay to justify the $60 I spent on it.
So it's not only about genres. Most RPGs are only fun the first time you play them and boring the second time (since you know the plot). Some FPS are fun the first time with a decent plot, and boring afterwards for a lack of decent multiplayer (XIII), while some have near infinite replay-value due to the nice multiplayer action they pack (UT2k4).
Good RPG's require no grinding at all. If you follow the plot, and go to places the plot requires you to go, and do quests the plot requires you to do, you should have just enough random encounters to level up enough so that when you encounter a boss, you may have a challenging-but-not-impossible battle.
Boring grinding serve only 2 purposes: 1) Doing that optional side-quest that lets you earn the über-badass-weapon that you don't need for the main plot, but that you want because you always want the best of everything. 2) Getting to a level so high that even boss battles are not challenging.
While some side quests might be cool and actually improve on the storyline, some are just filler that developers put in there to have more gameplay hours. And grinding just to make a boss battle easier is exactly the opposite of mastering the game mechanics since your strategy only relies on brute force.
Ubisoft wants to be number 2 globally, which is for the Wii, PS3, Xbox360 and PC combined. In that combined market, EA is first. However, on the Wii (or GameCube, or NDS, or GBA, or just any console made by Nintendo), Nintendo is by far and beyond the first developer, and I truly doubt anybody will ever catch up to them. Even EA can't make something as successful as Zelda, Squeenix either.
Even if there is extensive 3rd party support for the Wii, 4 Nintendo franchises will sell more than 50% of all software : Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Pokemon. Final Fantasy and Madden can't even dream to get that big a market share.
Despite what we would like to believe, the group of people who don't buy stuff made by Microsoft is very, very small. They don't make a difference.
Most of the Chinese goods have an alternative that is American (or European, or whatever is "local" to you). However, that alternative is usually slightly more expensive, mostly because laws in western countries state that a worker has to be paid a decent salary, thus raising production costs.
People don't buy Chinese goods because they particularly like Chinese stuff, they buy it because they can save a nickel. People will go to WalMart two towns down the road to save a dollar in buying something made in China, instead of buying the alternative good made locally at the store across the street. Alternatives exist, you just have to look for them, and accept to pay slightly more.
Why does a distro even need developers? Gnome is Gnome, Firefox is Firefox, OOo is OOo. A distro is just a gathering of software. Ubuntu developers are not writing a whole new Gnome just for Ubuntu, they are simply using a pre-determined version of Gnome, developed by Gnome developers. Same goes for Firefox or just about any other software (except for SuSE, which has "OpenOffice.org Novell Edition").
Other than "which version of each software is included" and "different default configurations", what does the "Ubuntu development team" and "SuSE development team" (or Xandros, or Freespire, or Debian, etc.) do that don't go into each other's distro? Ain't the whole point of GPL and OSS the sharing of any new development?
I work for a proprietary-closed-source-software company. It happened a couple of times that a customer experienced a very rare bug because of some weird configuration they had, or that they wanted the software to behave slightly differently in a special situation. In both cases, we told the customer we could implement the specially requested feature just for them, but we would charge them to do it. Some accepted, some refused (we charge a lot... gotta pay the programmers). The extra feature made for that one client, we then make available for all of out users.
Had it been an OSS, the user could have hired a programmer to add the required feature themselves, probably costing them about the same amount. Same result, different path.
If the OSS maintainer decides not to add your feature or fix your bug, you can either do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If the proprietary software company decides to ignore your request, you're shit out of luck. Which actually makes me wonder why companies are not more nervous about using proprietary software for mission critical projects.
I think the "blood all over the ground" games actually targets young males aged 12 to 25, who needs a rush of violence to enjoy something. Most enjoyable games have no blood at all, or only simulated or "cartoony" violence, which doesn't appeal to young males, but that the rest of the mature population enjoys (see chess, or just about any board game). Only kids and immature adults need blood and violence.
Or the storylines are simple enough that someone can play half an hour on saturday, then be busy during the week (doing, I don't know... work maybe?), and then play again the next saturday without being completely lost because they forgot a little detail in the storyline, like that they need to go talk to the yellow-haired gnome in the third village in order to progress.
So called complex storylines are for people who can afford to play several hours a week, which are either kids, or retired people.
Actually, because Nintendo prevents random chat, I would say that it is a system for adults. Preventing random online chat is not to protect 12 years old boys from 35 years old maniacs saying "Hey, wanna see my Wii?", it's to protect the 35 years old men from the 12 years old boys screaming "Doodz! You suXor fucktard!".
Whether or not the Wii has a huge penetration doesn't matter, since the Wii and the PS3 are such different consoles, and aim at different markets. There will be PS3 exclusives and there will be Wii exclusives, and I expect very few PS3 games ported to the Wii and vice-versa. I own a Wii, and I don't think I'd be interested in a game that would be simply ported from the PS3, since it wouldn't have any of the "Wii spirit" or couldn't really use the Wiimote in a decent way. Plus, they'd have to cut down on a lot of features / eye-candy since the Wii's hardware can't output the same power as the PS3.
Games ported from the PS3 to the Wii won't use the input device correctly and will be feature-poor. Games ported from the Wii to the PS3 won't use half of the powerful hardware people paid $600 for.
And why do *you* get in line, get your freakin' butler to do it for you.
Then, when the store opened at 8am, they kept filming the queue, watching the first 14 people get in the store (which had 28 consoles), and then all of those 14 new PS3 owners all headed towards the same truck after leaving the store... obviously giving them to someone who would be reselling them.
Then the reporter also passed a comment saying that some of the people waiting in line and getting a PS3 are not the type you would expect of a gamer, and that we're more used to see those people on street corners asking for change...
It's nice to see some of the media don't buy into the whole PS3 hype and aren't afraid of talking about people that hire bums to wait in line for them and such.