If Microsoft had wanted them sent back, then they should have written the bloggers and had them agree to send it back in the first place, before sending the computers. The letter from Microsoft is just a suggestion about what what Microsoft thinks you should do.
Even better, as things like AT&T's CallVantage service get bigger, use VoIP service to deliver more to the cellphone users. Charge students maybe $100 for the year, if they want, for a system where calling your dorm number will call your cellphone instead. Work with the cellphone companies to make these all local calls (not a big deal since everyone has free long-distance anyway). That way your parents have a local number to call you with (your original cell phone), and you have a local number to keep in touch with all the students and professors. Campus and town employers might like it too, since they are loathe to make long-distance calls to their student employees.
Speaking of VoIP, companies are getting closer to phones that would be able to seemlessly switch between cellular and Wi-Fi access. That would be another possibility, students with those phones could buy really cheap VoIP minutes from the University to use while on campus. This requires that every square inch of the campus (well, almost every square inch) be covered with wi-fi access, but that's already been done on some smaller campuses (Wake Forest)
Most traffic laws (light times, speed limits, etc.) are made arbitrarily or based on generating revenue (shorter yellows to get you to run a light with a camera, unreasonably low speed limits). Designing roads and regulations based on what people actually do with them would help greatly.
You're assuming that they want to unionize. While these working conditions sound horrible, and as this story develops I'm sure that it will become clear that these are not isolated incidents, there is a certain cost to unionization. I would say that game developers are in a similar situation to graduate students. Poor working conditions with inadequate (grossly inadequate for grad students) compensation. Also, grad students are only employed by the university for 2-3 years. With a transient workforce like that, as some have described the game developer workforce here, unions are often not approved, because the formation of the union actually gives the employer unfair bargaining power over the employees due to unstable leadership, only a short term vision for the union, etc. Becaues of that, at some universities there are pushes for grad students to unionize, but the vast majority don't want to.
Also, there are limits as to who can unionize. In some states contract employees may not be able to. And if EA can find enough people to fulfill a 50% turnover rate, I'm sure they can find enough people looking to work as "independent contractors" to skirt the union.
There either has to be a shift on the part of the employees to demand the overtime or an hourly wage, and/or to get EA to change its tune through this litigation.
Nah, it'll be the 4356th expansion pack for The Sims 2, titled The Sims 2: Litigation Nation. It'll be great, they can sell it to law schools to give students more time to practice without taking up the moot courtroom.
Re:Grand Theft Auto is funnier than that
on
Humor in Games?
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· Score: 1
-SPOILER ALERT-
During one of the Rosenberg missions, while he's all coked up, you hear him talking about how "This really takes me back to the good ole days, right Tommy?" To which Carl replies "Who the hell is Tommy?"
There's so many references to Love Fist even. The poster Carl uses to hid blueprints, a mention by one of the DJ's (K-DST's I think) and the guy who is with Kent Paul in "Don Peyote" is a member of Love Fist. Little things like that really make it a lot funnier.
Grand Theft Auto is funnier than that
on
Humor in Games?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
As you go alone in Grand Theft Auto, it gets a lot funnier. I would say a huge percentage of the jokes are inside jokes from the previous games. Catalina in San Andreas is a lot funnier as a character when you realize you killed her in GTA:3. So for a newcomer to the series, some of the jokes might not be all that funny.
Exactly. Imagine booting up a computer with multiple, automatically configured desktop environments for media, internet browsing, productivity work, etc. Shove everything that's not needed away from the user to make using a computer as easy as using a TV. Microsoft has started in this direction. But Linux could blow them away if a few issues of protected content would be resolved.
I don't think so, people have a right to be warned about a problem. Now, it is irresponsible if you withheld anything from Google as they tried to fix the problem.
"same thing with the auto industry. there hasn't been many (if any) great breakthru's in the last 15-20 years"
There have been tremendous breakthoughs in a number of areas of the automotive industry. In 1985, there was not variable valve lift, electronic stability control, variable ride shocks, draught-less ventilation systems, heated seats, satellite radio, OnStar services, etc. etc. The auto industry does not equal only the engine. That science/art is 100 years old, and pretty refined. Hard to have a major breakthrough at this point. Although it's possible.
I think though, the vast majority of people with camera phones have them as phones first, cameras second. I would say though, that if I bought this device, I would be buying each function equally.
I think the reply meant if that data was connected with his/her name. I'd be a bit freaked out if I stepped out of my car, and someone walked up to me who somehow knew my name because of what I drove.
"Throwing Money" at the problem is exactly what some users do on a personal level. There's a huge number of people who buy a firewall, antivirus program, etc. when free tools exist, and when a different browser would help solve the problem immensely. Then after spending $100 on a security suite, they wonder why the computer is acting up. "I spent money to prevent this, it can't possibly break!"
There is the "The system has recovered from a serious error" message in XP after just about every system crash. That does't seem to blame it on anyone.
Trillian is a much more polished program out of the box. You need to load plugins to accomplish a ton of things than Trillian Basic can do. Some of the stuff Trillian Pro does just blows it out of the water. But Miranda is very new (only been out a year or two) and they're making a lot of progress pretty quickly. Right now, I would say Gaim and Miranda are the Firefox to Trillian's Opera.
Grand Theft Auto multiplayer? Could you imagine a deathmatch across an entire state? Having your friend helping you on a mission rather than having Lance Vance wandering into your gunfire all the time? Only thing would be fighting over who gets to drive sometimes.
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If Microsoft had wanted them sent back, then they should have written the bloggers and had them agree to send it back in the first place, before sending the computers. The letter from Microsoft is just a suggestion about what what Microsoft thinks you should do.
Because the Google project has moved on and grown so far, and so fast that it probably gives him plenty of fulfillment to work on just it.
Even better, as things like AT&T's CallVantage service get bigger, use VoIP service to deliver more to the cellphone users. Charge students maybe $100 for the year, if they want, for a system where calling your dorm number will call your cellphone instead. Work with the cellphone companies to make these all local calls (not a big deal since everyone has free long-distance anyway). That way your parents have a local number to call you with (your original cell phone), and you have a local number to keep in touch with all the students and professors. Campus and town employers might like it too, since they are loathe to make long-distance calls to their student employees.
Speaking of VoIP, companies are getting closer to phones that would be able to seemlessly switch between cellular and Wi-Fi access. That would be another possibility, students with those phones could buy really cheap VoIP minutes from the University to use while on campus. This requires that every square inch of the campus (well, almost every square inch) be covered with wi-fi access, but that's already been done on some smaller campuses (Wake Forest)
Most traffic laws (light times, speed limits, etc.) are made arbitrarily or based on generating revenue (shorter yellows to get you to run a light with a camera, unreasonably low speed limits). Designing roads and regulations based on what people actually do with them would help greatly.
Yes, it is referred to as "the giant white running shoe ship" throughout the books.
Maybe I just saw that in a style guide or something. My, this is some good crow.
The terms "former" and "latter" are only used when there are two options. So they shouldn't be in the story.
You're assuming that they want to unionize. While these working conditions sound horrible, and as this story develops I'm sure that it will become clear that these are not isolated incidents, there is a certain cost to unionization. I would say that game developers are in a similar situation to graduate students. Poor working conditions with inadequate (grossly inadequate for grad students) compensation. Also, grad students are only employed by the university for 2-3 years. With a transient workforce like that, as some have described the game developer workforce here, unions are often not approved, because the formation of the union actually gives the employer unfair bargaining power over the employees due to unstable leadership, only a short term vision for the union, etc. Becaues of that, at some universities there are pushes for grad students to unionize, but the vast majority don't want to. Also, there are limits as to who can unionize. In some states contract employees may not be able to. And if EA can find enough people to fulfill a 50% turnover rate, I'm sure they can find enough people looking to work as "independent contractors" to skirt the union. There either has to be a shift on the part of the employees to demand the overtime or an hourly wage, and/or to get EA to change its tune through this litigation.
Nah, it'll be the 4356th expansion pack for The Sims 2, titled The Sims 2: Litigation Nation. It'll be great, they can sell it to law schools to give students more time to practice without taking up the moot courtroom.
-SPOILER ALERT- During one of the Rosenberg missions, while he's all coked up, you hear him talking about how "This really takes me back to the good ole days, right Tommy?" To which Carl replies "Who the hell is Tommy?" There's so many references to Love Fist even. The poster Carl uses to hid blueprints, a mention by one of the DJ's (K-DST's I think) and the guy who is with Kent Paul in "Don Peyote" is a member of Love Fist. Little things like that really make it a lot funnier.
As you go alone in Grand Theft Auto, it gets a lot funnier. I would say a huge percentage of the jokes are inside jokes from the previous games. Catalina in San Andreas is a lot funnier as a character when you realize you killed her in GTA:3. So for a newcomer to the series, some of the jokes might not be all that funny.
Exactly. Imagine booting up a computer with multiple, automatically configured desktop environments for media, internet browsing, productivity work, etc. Shove everything that's not needed away from the user to make using a computer as easy as using a TV. Microsoft has started in this direction. But Linux could blow them away if a few issues of protected content would be resolved.
The best Linux desktop system will take advantage of the flexibility of open source and combine the ability to use any number of options.
I don't think so, people have a right to be warned about a problem. Now, it is irresponsible if you withheld anything from Google as they tried to fix the problem.
"same thing with the auto industry. there hasn't been many (if any) great breakthru's in the last 15-20 years" There have been tremendous breakthoughs in a number of areas of the automotive industry. In 1985, there was not variable valve lift, electronic stability control, variable ride shocks, draught-less ventilation systems, heated seats, satellite radio, OnStar services, etc. etc. The auto industry does not equal only the engine. That science/art is 100 years old, and pretty refined. Hard to have a major breakthrough at this point. Although it's possible.
I'm actually a little surprised this isn't in YRO.
I think though, the vast majority of people with camera phones have them as phones first, cameras second. I would say though, that if I bought this device, I would be buying each function equally.
I think the reply meant if that data was connected with his/her name. I'd be a bit freaked out if I stepped out of my car, and someone walked up to me who somehow knew my name because of what I drove.
They can't be "full-powered". The most powerful processor that's be deemed to have "automotive grade durability" is about 300Mhz.
There are a large number of parallels. Open source vs closed. Plugins/extensions needed for a large amount of the fuctionality vs most built in.
My bad. In any case, the project has really started to pick up a lot of steam in the last year or two. I thought it had just started then.
"Throwing Money" at the problem is exactly what some users do on a personal level. There's a huge number of people who buy a firewall, antivirus program, etc. when free tools exist, and when a different browser would help solve the problem immensely. Then after spending $100 on a security suite, they wonder why the computer is acting up. "I spent money to prevent this, it can't possibly break!"
There is the "The system has recovered from a serious error" message in XP after just about every system crash. That does't seem to blame it on anyone.
Trillian is a much more polished program out of the box. You need to load plugins to accomplish a ton of things than Trillian Basic can do. Some of the stuff Trillian Pro does just blows it out of the water. But Miranda is very new (only been out a year or two) and they're making a lot of progress pretty quickly. Right now, I would say Gaim and Miranda are the Firefox to Trillian's Opera.
Grand Theft Auto multiplayer? Could you imagine a deathmatch across an entire state? Having your friend helping you on a mission rather than having Lance Vance wandering into your gunfire all the time? Only thing would be fighting over who gets to drive sometimes.