Of course we could make them as effective as humans if we work on them long enough but what's the point? Six legs offer much more stability and can handle rougher terrain (and imagine how nimble that would be at the same level of advancement as a good biped!). It won't trip easily (and can take a hit without falling over, could even lose limbs and still function) and I don't see an advantage in using only two legs. Most bipeds use two legs only because they need their arms for something else (tools, wings, whathaveyou) and they usually aren't as fast as the animals that use all four legs to walk. On a robot we can use any number of legs so we could give them the stability of four or six legs AND any number of arms for doing whatever it was meant for.
We could build cars like segways but that'd be pointless.
They're still called Infogrames in Europe (though they publish under the Atari logo and name) and according to their website their income in Europe went up by 6% even though their US income went down by 40%.
I don't know what Atari you're thinking about but we're talking about the Infogrames Atari. They are (or were) still an active publisher. You know the people who brought you Driv3r, Dragon Ball Z videogames and Enter The Matrix. Oh and silly niche titles like Act Of War, D&D Online or Fahrenheit.
I thought the original patent was for a mechanism to introduce a section to a disc that becomes unreadable if read once and would contain the key to decrypt the remaining data?
Yeah, that tripped me up too but I suppose that refers to the preceeding paragraph about mind controlling parasites in SciFi since the article does include off-site links relating to the subject.
Your system still has very big problems, if the popular vote determines what you get then you get only popular stuff. That'd make niche interests even worse to handle because you might not be able to get enough funding for some genres. Would be even worse with more expensive to make media like movies or videogames. And how many people would really donate for these funds instead of just downloading a copy via the internet or grabbing it on a "500 latest books" CD some guy at the street corner is selling for two bucks a piece? Would that really be enough to sustain a sizeable media industry?
The cheaper information becomes the less profitable it is to supply it. Many media are ad sustained now because the information can't be sold with a profit. You often see people complaining about "bought" reviewers that are afraid of pointing out problems because they might not get further support from the big company that makes the product. Now add a system where those reviewers are completely depending on money from either their foundation or the advertisers, both of which might have a beef with some statements being made.
Overall reducing the value of information to nil means degrading the quality of the information because supplying independent information is no longer self sustaining, you have to either give up your independence or supply information only as a hobby. While opensource may be a good example of that working the model cannot be applied to everything. Especially with entertainment media a consistent vision is hard to create with a group of volunteers and there seems to be a tendency for opensource groups to just copy what the corporations do intead of being innovative.
I just don't see it working well, even the current model, despite its flaws, produces better results.
__
Monopolies have a much wider range of actions to sweep smaller businesses off their feet (dumping, for example), it's not that hard to stay in that position after you've taken it. Hell, look at the browser market, IE is still the most prevalent browser despite being pretty much shit on a stick. Oligopolies are very dangerous as well, multiple large companies that work together instead of really competing (an unregulated market wouldn't stop them from doing that).
Considering that games come in packaging anyway (DVD cases, for example) and that's usually much bigger than a caddy I still doubt it'd make any difference for the price. Hell, GBA games cost less at retail and those are really expensive to make.
Re:Console manufacturers are out of step with
on
A PS3 Hands-On Report?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Microsoft tried the mostly-PC approach, it netted them a huge loss because consoles are sold at a price point way below the cost of building a PC like that. Without license fees on games the hardware has to make a profit on each sale. Do you know how much such a console would cost and how pointless it would be (consoles have the big advantage of a single fixed hardware config, no worrying about incompatibilities or hardware that doesn't perform like your testing machines)? Consoles last 5 years on average, BTW, no matter how outdated the hardware is at the end you can be sure the newest games will still work on your unmodified launch system.
If you want a PC then use one, don't try to turn a completely different system into one.
The problem with sponsorship is that it destroys the darwinism inherent in a semi-free market. A bad author will still receive the same money to write books and even though noone might want the result (because it's just bad) the author got his money. Sure, you can decide from there on to throttle sponsorship for those who are perceived as bad but that would mean establishing arbitrary criteria as to what is good. So you'd enforce a formulaic approach to art. It's one of the most criticised aspects of total communism, it does not put pressure on producers to improve or keep the quality of their output. Capitalism isn't perfect either but usually compromise approaches are the most effective ones (a totally unregulated market would turn into a monopoly, for example). And with sponsored authors you'd have to have a system in place that determines who can get funding in first place because otherwise you'll see too many people signing up, writing crappy books to keep the money flowing and causing expenses that you can never possibly cover through taxes (and even less through voluntary donations).
I don't believe in the concept of property at all. I hope you don't mind if I just go into your house and borrow a few things you don't need?
You are aware that the medicine you talk of falls under patent law and that copyright is never about anything that's required for survival? If it's medicine you object to then copy those medicines and sell your knock-offs on the street, don't try to make creativity worthless.
Without copyright there would be no real reason to write a book, a song or a program for anything other than personal use. There'd be absolutely no reason to make movies or games. Since inventing automatically puts you at a disadvantage (R&D costs money, copying doesn't) you'd see creators go out of business while the copycats get fat. And since big business is better at copying than everyone else you'd just see small business crushed while the big megacorps continue to grow. I agree that this has been abused but totally abolishing it would be comparable to deciding that you don't want politicians to govern you and fighting for anarchy instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Assisting them even through psychological reinforcement is illegal. It's not murder of course but it can still net you quite some jailtime.
Well, the decryption keys have to be stored in the hardware sold to the end user so there might be a way of extracting those... Or have them leaked...
Actually I'd expect a working solution from DVD Jon within a few weeks of the first Bluray or HDDVD releases.
Goat? Bear? Cat? Many apes walk on all four for support as well.
If you wand hexapods or octopods you can look at insects and spiders.
Of course we could make them as effective as humans if we work on them long enough but what's the point? Six legs offer much more stability and can handle rougher terrain (and imagine how nimble that would be at the same level of advancement as a good biped!). It won't trip easily (and can take a hit without falling over, could even lose limbs and still function) and I don't see an advantage in using only two legs. Most bipeds use two legs only because they need their arms for something else (tools, wings, whathaveyou) and they usually aren't as fast as the animals that use all four legs to walk. On a robot we can use any number of legs so we could give them the stability of four or six legs AND any number of arms for doing whatever it was meant for.
We could build cars like segways but that'd be pointless.
They're still called Infogrames in Europe (though they publish under the Atari logo and name) and according to their website their income in Europe went up by 6% even though their US income went down by 40%.
I don't know what Atari you're thinking about but we're talking about the Infogrames Atari. They are (or were) still an active publisher. You know the people who brought you Driv3r, Dragon Ball Z videogames and Enter The Matrix. Oh and silly niche titles like Act Of War, D&D Online or Fahrenheit.
Babies can't walk upright. Now try an AI that's not even 1/10th as smart as a baby.
I thought the original patent was for a mechanism to introduce a section to a disc that becomes unreadable if read once and would contain the key to decrypt the remaining data?
However, bipedal designs are ineffective. We'd give them four or six legs for stability.
Then you'll be on the wrong end of my D-Gun, Core scum!
But how do you draw the registers?
On Endemol's TV, you watch Big Brother!
Thanks for stealing that point from the article, even the summary mentions it.
It is my firm belief that the moderators are under parasite mind control.
Yeah, that tripped me up too but I suppose that refers to the preceeding paragraph about mind controlling parasites in SciFi since the article does include off-site links relating to the subject.
And why doesn't it mention Resident Evil 4?
God was under the control of parasites! THAT's what made him create the world, to make something for the parasites to live in!
Your system still has very big problems, if the popular vote determines what you get then you get only popular stuff. That'd make niche interests even worse to handle because you might not be able to get enough funding for some genres. Would be even worse with more expensive to make media like movies or videogames. And how many people would really donate for these funds instead of just downloading a copy via the internet or grabbing it on a "500 latest books" CD some guy at the street corner is selling for two bucks a piece? Would that really be enough to sustain a sizeable media industry?
The cheaper information becomes the less profitable it is to supply it. Many media are ad sustained now because the information can't be sold with a profit. You often see people complaining about "bought" reviewers that are afraid of pointing out problems because they might not get further support from the big company that makes the product. Now add a system where those reviewers are completely depending on money from either their foundation or the advertisers, both of which might have a beef with some statements being made.
Overall reducing the value of information to nil means degrading the quality of the information because supplying independent information is no longer self sustaining, you have to either give up your independence or supply information only as a hobby. While opensource may be a good example of that working the model cannot be applied to everything. Especially with entertainment media a consistent vision is hard to create with a group of volunteers and there seems to be a tendency for opensource groups to just copy what the corporations do intead of being innovative.
I just don't see it working well, even the current model, despite its flaws, produces better results.
__
Monopolies have a much wider range of actions to sweep smaller businesses off their feet (dumping, for example), it's not that hard to stay in that position after you've taken it. Hell, look at the browser market, IE is still the most prevalent browser despite being pretty much shit on a stick. Oligopolies are very dangerous as well, multiple large companies that work together instead of really competing (an unregulated market wouldn't stop them from doing that).
Considering that games come in packaging anyway (DVD cases, for example) and that's usually much bigger than a caddy I still doubt it'd make any difference for the price. Hell, GBA games cost less at retail and those are really expensive to make.
Microsoft tried the mostly-PC approach, it netted them a huge loss because consoles are sold at a price point way below the cost of building a PC like that. Without license fees on games the hardware has to make a profit on each sale. Do you know how much such a console would cost and how pointless it would be (consoles have the big advantage of a single fixed hardware config, no worrying about incompatibilities or hardware that doesn't perform like your testing machines)? Consoles last 5 years on average, BTW, no matter how outdated the hardware is at the end you can be sure the newest games will still work on your unmodified launch system.
If you want a PC then use one, don't try to turn a completely different system into one.
All of EA's next gen videos at the last E3 were fake, GoW is the real deal, though.
For games that go for 60 Euros or more a piece?
It's faster when compiled.
The problem with sponsorship is that it destroys the darwinism inherent in a semi-free market. A bad author will still receive the same money to write books and even though noone might want the result (because it's just bad) the author got his money. Sure, you can decide from there on to throttle sponsorship for those who are perceived as bad but that would mean establishing arbitrary criteria as to what is good. So you'd enforce a formulaic approach to art. It's one of the most criticised aspects of total communism, it does not put pressure on producers to improve or keep the quality of their output. Capitalism isn't perfect either but usually compromise approaches are the most effective ones (a totally unregulated market would turn into a monopoly, for example). And with sponsored authors you'd have to have a system in place that determines who can get funding in first place because otherwise you'll see too many people signing up, writing crappy books to keep the money flowing and causing expenses that you can never possibly cover through taxes (and even less through voluntary donations).
I don't believe in the concept of property at all. I hope you don't mind if I just go into your house and borrow a few things you don't need?
You are aware that the medicine you talk of falls under patent law and that copyright is never about anything that's required for survival? If it's medicine you object to then copy those medicines and sell your knock-offs on the street, don't try to make creativity worthless.
Without copyright there would be no real reason to write a book, a song or a program for anything other than personal use. There'd be absolutely no reason to make movies or games. Since inventing automatically puts you at a disadvantage (R&D costs money, copying doesn't) you'd see creators go out of business while the copycats get fat. And since big business is better at copying than everyone else you'd just see small business crushed while the big megacorps continue to grow. I agree that this has been abused but totally abolishing it would be comparable to deciding that you don't want politicians to govern you and fighting for anarchy instead.