As others have noted their "gaming strategy" has been schizophrenic and scattered because of contrary goals working against each other instead of concert (promoting consoles erodes PC, promoting mobile erodes consoles, etc). So to answer your question: It does make sense if they decide they want to bank everything on Win Phone 8 and Surface where a future XBox is a distraction or partially erode that goal.
Although Microsoft can claim "we win!" the console generation, it cost heavily and might have been a Pyrrhic victory. If the high execs believe the future is all mobile phones and tablets then Microsoft has a much bigger in to "the living room" than it ever did with consoles. Consoles in this view become an expensive anchor that are fraught with more risk than selling another phone.
Of course this thinking only makes sense if you are an exec who really really really really really believes that Win Phone 8 and Surface are really really really really all of that. If the higher ups at Microsoft believe that then it would be a small step to see how selling off that expensive business "makes sense" for as a boost to the company instead of a disaster.
As I mentioned in another post, I very much appreciate my parents for getting an Apple IIe (with the 80 column text card) but it took me long after to consider how expensive that piece of hardware was for them just in 80s US$ let alone what it could cost today!! My fond memories of coding my own stuff (like a school presentation with ASCII graphics) and playing "Agent USA" and "Ultima 4" and "Ultima 5" and other games but it never really sunk in until these anniversaries came around just how expensive the hardware and software really was.
So while I salute my parents and Apple for providing me with a neat little computer to play and do some BASIC code on, I am really shocked it went anywhere due to the price tag.
The quality of both XBox Live and Skype are both atrocious compared to hosted solutions. I've given up long ago on both where instead I'm using my own "solutions". I'm not sure the value is in doing this migration beyond the cross platform capability.
You don't need to justify watching Fox then when NPR, PBS, and foreign sources like BBC or Times of India. BBC in particular has the unique perspective that often rings more true than many domestic sources.
Fox does not deserve attention because they suck at journalism (sourcing in particular). Fox should not get praise for covering "other stuff" because multiple sources do journalism so much better without the taint. On the entertainment side, I would take one episode of "This American Life" or "Frontline" over the entire programming week as well.
What the parent is partially suggesting is that Microsoft intentionally sabotages their own product to boost future profit which seems to me a bit like "Broken Window Fallacy" in economics. If you are in the business of building and installing windows, wouldn't be a good idea to sneak around and break people's windows? It turns out that this is a bad idea because people end up spending their budgets more on Windows and less on other items. With that in mind, suggesting Microsoft purposely released a borked Windows 8 to improve sales for Windows 9 is crazy due to the amount of money they would have to knowingly flush. And just like the window company, there is a big risk where if they are caught they are DOOMED because customers will flee to competitors and alternatives.
Sales where big on Win95, XP and Win7. Was that because of the stuff between? Partially but for a reason not mentioned: time. If people hear how clunky and broken Windows ME was they sit on their Win95 machine until XP came out. By the time that happened hardware had nearly turned over to completely different class so buying an entirely new machine made a lot of sense. Sure WinME sucked but it was more the case that many had to buy new hardware by the time XP released. Do we have a window when Win9 will come? If the pace of hardware dev from AMD and Intel keeps moving on track then people will feel they need to buy a new machine regardless of how much they love or hate Win8 or how much they love or hate Win9.
In my experience, my TV habits have shift radically since getting a Google TV. Instead of connecting a bunch of boxes to it, they've all gone to the older HDTV. Things I've noticed off the top of my head and in no particular order:
- The DLNA features is a necessary thing for all my TVs now. I've relied on less and less live TV due to this feature alone. - Apps like Netflix run just as well if not more directly when it is on the TV itself instead of a secondary box. - Since Google TV has Chrome, if there is not an app for something that offers video or a stream I can just browse to it, play it at full screen and enjoy it like watching a TV channel.
The only "traditional" thing I can think that TV does any longer is that it has a console connected to it where the console has duplicate features too which I would never run since they are all on the TV.
I wish it was smart enough to "scrape" a web page that has been book marked for video or audio content or stream and show it like a channel. Although Youtube and Chrome works fine, crossing between them is a still a bit clunky since it requires minimizing one/activating the other but that is something all tablets and phones. I also wish it would have a more intelligent guide where the information on a show should be available across all sources instead of "Now search Live TV", "Now search Internet" etc.
In the end I will admit that I'm not sure having "fancy TV" changed how I use it as much as my taste and habits changed. I no longer spend much time watching "Live TV" where an net aware and internet connected TV has been more useful.
I think we should put all the waste in Reid's basement.
I don't live in Nevada or have a stance either way on this issue but it isn't "put all of the waste in Reid's Basement" is exactly why Reid would object? He and others from that area of the country have been dealing with fallout (pun intended?) with this waste and probably doesn't want any more in his basement.
Saying "smart user" means that such a user never makes a mistake or clicks the slight off or any number of accidental things that happen in Windows.
No the best thing to do is engineer a solution where bolting on software to monitor the user is the cheapest way to do it and it is inadequate because it never solves the fundamental problem: Malware software are doing things no software probably shouldn't be allowed to do. Forget about detection where instead the focus should be on why those features and hooks into the OS exist at all.
Even with that citation that is odd. Many of Google's apps out of that era were all built in the same manner which were pale shadows of the version on Android. There was controversy when Google launched their G+ app for both Android and iOS where the iOS version was primitive and missing a lot of functionality! I am pretty sure Apple wasn't dictating "Make G+ as crudely as possible" unless there is some Apple plan to move into that app space.
Google apps in the past have a history of working but often were limited on iOS. I have always said "It takes two to tango" where this appears to be a failure on both Google and Apple where neither wins. Apple walked away but Google wasn't trying hard either.
I've been waiting for years for the AMD + ATI merger to payoff but there are parallels with what is going on with graphics as with processors. This was supposed to be a synergy that would lead to optimized and amazing PC technology for games but has that happened? Especially after the last machine I built for myself both AMD and ATI have been slipping in quality.
I have my complaints with how Nvidia but their cards have gotten reliable and each new generation has had not only the standard performance increases but new features as well. Features like Adaptive VSync are a "why didn't they have this before?" kind of feature that I can't find if ATI supports yet. Meanwhile ATI has been...around. I have noticed that hardware and driver quality and stability differ from card to card and game to game.
I can't figure out what happened. I used to think AMD got distracted with ATI causing them to lose focus in processor but I wonder if something deeper happened in management that caused company to wander.
I believe the issue with Apache (and I suspect any other web server software service) is that to honor the "Do Not Track" would break its architecture. To do its own internal work Apache must TRACK the request as it handles the request.
The real issue is that DNT requires a "trust" when there is no mechanism for trust. On the web client side there is no mechanism to make sure the server honors the request. On the server side there is no reason why it would honor a remote setting over its own configuration. We might as well implement the GOOD setting in HTTP as well so servers know that when GOOD is enabled that information is not allowed to be stolen.
The "life span" of other consumer hardware can be measured in months while consoles, which are supposed to be high tech pieces of equipment, move at a glacial pace. It isn't surprising that some believe this is why consoles as a "sealed set top box" is done. Hell 5 years from now the TV itself could have a hardware that is more advanced and powerful than console released next year.
It feels like the industry is shifting more towards a PC-style "We provide the software, you provide the hardware" which would seem to favor Android. Apple can stay in the game if they are aggressive with design and hardware releases with proper generation support. The classic players need to adjust to a more "sliding spec" platform that others feature or be left in the dust by simple technology drift.
I've come across no UI design that is perfect but these guys pick something that Apple actually does "correctly" and as well as trying to cite Windows 8 Metro as the better way to do it which is extraordinarily dubious stance to take???
I am not a professional UI designer but from the things I've learned about skeuomorphism is that skeuomorphisms are powerful when used correctly. For instance: Present a group of people a large cornflower blue square and ask them "What is this used for?" and you will get a lot of different answers (an output area, a blank picture, an empty container, no idea). Present the same group of people a square with a wood grain texture and ask them "What is this used for?" and many will immediately gravitate to "this looks like a flat wooden surface" and often calls up "an area I can put other things on". Even though functionally both the blue square and the wood texture square can be coded to the same thing, the texture adds a skeuomorphism that gives a big hint on the function.
Now look what was just pointed out here with Metro and the various gadgets found on Mac OSX. I think it is dubious when people are looking a colored square with text as "better" than a something that looks like a notepad with a check list on Mac. There are drawbacks to doing that way on the Mac but it sure as hell isn't "confusion"!
Although there is plenty to lament that games are failing in story there are still bright spots. Plenty of smaller games seem to be able to focus on crafting story and environments that the AAA games can't seem to afford to spend time on. In particular, "Journey" is one of the first games in a long long long time where I cared that another character "died" let alone that other character was a player. Just this one game is a demonstration of the power of a well crafted game without blowing a big budget and it gives me hope that developers still strive for story.
I agree the idea of a universal binary is neat because writing software for a desktop, a tablet, and a phone is a lot of effort but I have to ask what kind of apps would those be? The ones I can think of that would be useful across a desktop, a tablet, and a phone can all be created by HTML 5 systems where if nothing else it is a solid "fallback". There are things like Kindle that are "universal" but not the same binary and has some benefit from platform specific behavior. There is some cross platform sharing between Android phone and tablet as well as iPhone and iPad but this is due to sharing so much in the form factor.
In the abstract, one piece of software running perfectly on multiple platforms is a neat idea but as a practical thing I am not sure it is necessary or creates a solid experience. When we get to the design and implementation of a lot of software it is intrinsically tied to the platform design and implementation. Trying to abstract those differences away is like assuming there is a way to build a vehicle that is like a train, a car, and helicopter only because they have something in common (can carry people).
Microsoft's official stance: If you aren't sure what something is, Bing(tm) it. Go to your XBox 360 with Kinnect and shout proudly "XBOX BING OR VAGINA".
Red Hat needs to research and make sure they are compatible with new and changing tech and UEFI is clearly one they need to make sure RH software works with. There are valid application for signed systems like this (think stuff like ATM) so making sure Linux works and even signed and validated to boot isn't a bad idea. But as we already suspect the general desktop environment isn't a good place UEFI should be used which is what people are afraid is going to happen.
I haven't delved deep into the details of UEFI but as long as the restrictions are only to boot valid signatures then RH and any other Linux should be fine and might even be desirable in some deployments. In fact a strong argument could be made that getting Linux and BSD onto these platform helps "keep them honest". Red Hat should be allowed to do this and we should continue to inspect RH's source which is a good goal brought about by Open Source. If it turns out that Red Hat does this and is not allowed to be entirely open about it then that would be the red flag but not before then.
Could it be that Chrome is on every Android platform and Android is on a lot of things? Many more pieces of hardware than Windows Mobile. Although I am a little dubious of the claim that "Chrome is #1" the growth makes a lot of sense where it has nothing to do with "hidden tabs" but that the installbase has exploded.
Is This Progress vs Tradition?
on
Diablo III Released
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· Score: 1, Insightful
I've viewed this "controversy" with curiosity and it somewhat mimics progress vs tradition arguments. I'm not trolling but honestly looking for insight:
- Day after day we have people happy to play single player games in online systems without complaint from consoles to phones to even Facebook. Why is this game different? The explanations so far lacking because the most compelling one is that "Diablo 2" used to do it. That doesn't mean I don't think an offline mode would have been impossible but that it isn't required. - Do we operate under the illusion that all PC games are portable? I remember trying to play "Diablo 2" which has an offline mode, on vacation and on airplanes and other places and it was a miserable experience. "Diablo 3" is not meant to be portable or played in an environment with spotty power or spotty connectivity. Why do people insist on this mode when it seems more like an environment and usability issue instead of a missing feature? I suspect people believe that if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode they could play it anywhere but experience has showed me with "Diablo 2" that never happens nor is worth it. - Are we denying the advantages this tech brings just to enhance the argument of what it takes away? I like the idea of storing characters "on their systems" instead of my computer since I've lost "Diablo 2" saves when machines and hard drives die. I like validation of characters, items, hosted environments because I've also lost a ton of characters to just joining the wrong games. It is not impossible to support both a completely validated system and offline but I would always lean in supporting the validated system when it comes to active support.
Basically I'm unconvinced that an offline mode is valuable let alone an effective workaround. Even if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode, we'd still have an article on/. complaining about how Blizzard/Activision/Blizzard-Activition/Satan is evil and can't handle it. Blizzard needs to address connectivity issues and delivery on the features they said they were supporting.
In college, as part of the engineering degree program there has to be some credits in art/history/etc. I picked up a philosophy track which required an introduction to logic and rehtoric. I don't want to imply these classes ruined anything but it definitely opened my mind to multiple ideas. When you are asking fundemental questions of reality (Why aesthetics important? What defines good? Why is humanity valuable? etc) and find that although religion does have some answers but not all and are encouraged to keep looking and discussing it instead of being quiet and accept "the truth" then that erroded their fundementals.
People forget that you don't need a science to be encouraged about critical thinking.
Although not strictly the Apple II, the IIe was the first real computer brought into my house growing up. Now that I'm a professional working adult, looking back on that box with the green monitor, the one floppy drive, and other details I wondered how in the world my parents were able to justify and afford the thing! As the article correctly points out, at $1200~ 1980 dollars that is around $5000 today! That was probably the most expensive piece of technology in the house at the time and I never realized it at the time where instead I was simply happy to mess around with Applesoft Basic and various games.
This seems true for the ones that built up the fortune but when they pass it on to their children it seems likely so. What lesson in consequence did they learn by having their parents provide for them? It isn't that passing on property is good or bad but there is no lesson teach or learn either.
For the record I don't believe wealth or poverty automatically gives a bias in mortality but that is due to the fact "getting rich" is a complex and variable. Some people lucky into wealth and others work very hard and achieve poverty where its hard to see the moral base in either activity.
Really the price structure of having a subscription was either ahead of its time or too exotic and especially made no sense with Last.FM or Pandora. In some ways it was ahead of its time and others it was just exotic for being exotic.
I personally never liked the interface. My dad got one and I could never figure it out at a glance where instead I had to "study" it to figure out what I wanted it to do. For instance: While playing it will artistically scroll multiple pieces of text the screen but if I wasn't familiar with the song or artist I had no idea what it meant. Is "Nightfall" the name of the track, the play list or album, the composer, singer, or what??? It could have been the theme or mode for all I knew!
Slashdot Mirror
It is only defamation if it is untrue. If Hingston had a business that went bankrupt and went bankrupt then where is the defamation?
As others have noted their "gaming strategy" has been schizophrenic and scattered because of contrary goals working against each other instead of concert (promoting consoles erodes PC, promoting mobile erodes consoles, etc). So to answer your question: It does make sense if they decide they want to bank everything on Win Phone 8 and Surface where a future XBox is a distraction or partially erode that goal.
Although Microsoft can claim "we win!" the console generation, it cost heavily and might have been a Pyrrhic victory. If the high execs believe the future is all mobile phones and tablets then Microsoft has a much bigger in to "the living room" than it ever did with consoles. Consoles in this view become an expensive anchor that are fraught with more risk than selling another phone.
Of course this thinking only makes sense if you are an exec who really really really really really believes that Win Phone 8 and Surface are really really really really all of that. If the higher ups at Microsoft believe that then it would be a small step to see how selling off that expensive business "makes sense" for as a boost to the company instead of a disaster.
As I mentioned in another post, I very much appreciate my parents for getting an Apple IIe (with the 80 column text card) but it took me long after to consider how expensive that piece of hardware was for them just in 80s US$ let alone what it could cost today!! My fond memories of coding my own stuff (like a school presentation with ASCII graphics) and playing "Agent USA" and "Ultima 4" and "Ultima 5" and other games but it never really sunk in until these anniversaries came around just how expensive the hardware and software really was.
So while I salute my parents and Apple for providing me with a neat little computer to play and do some BASIC code on, I am really shocked it went anywhere due to the price tag.
The quality of both XBox Live and Skype are both atrocious compared to hosted solutions. I've given up long ago on both where instead I'm using my own "solutions". I'm not sure the value is in doing this migration beyond the cross platform capability.
You don't need to justify watching Fox then when NPR, PBS, and foreign sources like BBC or Times of India. BBC in particular has the unique perspective that often rings more true than many domestic sources.
Fox does not deserve attention because they suck at journalism (sourcing in particular). Fox should not get praise for covering "other stuff" because multiple sources do journalism so much better without the taint. On the entertainment side, I would take one episode of "This American Life" or "Frontline" over the entire programming week as well.
Weird, a pun that actually is appropriate?
What the parent is partially suggesting is that Microsoft intentionally sabotages their own product to boost future profit which seems to me a bit like "Broken Window Fallacy" in economics. If you are in the business of building and installing windows, wouldn't be a good idea to sneak around and break people's windows? It turns out that this is a bad idea because people end up spending their budgets more on Windows and less on other items. With that in mind, suggesting Microsoft purposely released a borked Windows 8 to improve sales for Windows 9 is crazy due to the amount of money they would have to knowingly flush. And just like the window company, there is a big risk where if they are caught they are DOOMED because customers will flee to competitors and alternatives.
Sales where big on Win95, XP and Win7. Was that because of the stuff between? Partially but for a reason not mentioned: time. If people hear how clunky and broken Windows ME was they sit on their Win95 machine until XP came out. By the time that happened hardware had nearly turned over to completely different class so buying an entirely new machine made a lot of sense. Sure WinME sucked but it was more the case that many had to buy new hardware by the time XP released. Do we have a window when Win9 will come? If the pace of hardware dev from AMD and Intel keeps moving on track then people will feel they need to buy a new machine regardless of how much they love or hate Win8 or how much they love or hate Win9.
In my experience, my TV habits have shift radically since getting a Google TV. Instead of connecting a bunch of boxes to it, they've all gone to the older HDTV. Things I've noticed off the top of my head and in no particular order:
- The DLNA features is a necessary thing for all my TVs now. I've relied on less and less live TV due to this feature alone.
- Apps like Netflix run just as well if not more directly when it is on the TV itself instead of a secondary box.
- Since Google TV has Chrome, if there is not an app for something that offers video or a stream I can just browse to it, play it at full screen and enjoy it like watching a TV channel.
The only "traditional" thing I can think that TV does any longer is that it has a console connected to it where the console has duplicate features too which I would never run since they are all on the TV.
I wish it was smart enough to "scrape" a web page that has been book marked for video or audio content or stream and show it like a channel. Although Youtube and Chrome works fine, crossing between them is a still a bit clunky since it requires minimizing one/activating the other but that is something all tablets and phones. I also wish it would have a more intelligent guide where the information on a show should be available across all sources instead of "Now search Live TV", "Now search Internet" etc.
In the end I will admit that I'm not sure having "fancy TV" changed how I use it as much as my taste and habits changed. I no longer spend much time watching "Live TV" where an net aware and internet connected TV has been more useful.
I think we should put all the waste in Reid's basement.
I don't live in Nevada or have a stance either way on this issue but it isn't "put all of the waste in Reid's Basement" is exactly why Reid would object? He and others from that area of the country have been dealing with fallout (pun intended?) with this waste and probably doesn't want any more in his basement.
Saying "smart user" means that such a user never makes a mistake or clicks the slight off or any number of accidental things that happen in Windows.
No the best thing to do is engineer a solution where bolting on software to monitor the user is the cheapest way to do it and it is inadequate because it never solves the fundamental problem: Malware software are doing things no software probably shouldn't be allowed to do. Forget about detection where instead the focus should be on why those features and hooks into the OS exist at all.
Even with that citation that is odd. Many of Google's apps out of that era were all built in the same manner which were pale shadows of the version on Android. There was controversy when Google launched their G+ app for both Android and iOS where the iOS version was primitive and missing a lot of functionality! I am pretty sure Apple wasn't dictating "Make G+ as crudely as possible" unless there is some Apple plan to move into that app space.
Google apps in the past have a history of working but often were limited on iOS. I have always said "It takes two to tango" where this appears to be a failure on both Google and Apple where neither wins. Apple walked away but Google wasn't trying hard either.
I've been waiting for years for the AMD + ATI merger to payoff but there are parallels with what is going on with graphics as with processors. This was supposed to be a synergy that would lead to optimized and amazing PC technology for games but has that happened? Especially after the last machine I built for myself both AMD and ATI have been slipping in quality.
I have my complaints with how Nvidia but their cards have gotten reliable and each new generation has had not only the standard performance increases but new features as well. Features like Adaptive VSync are a "why didn't they have this before?" kind of feature that I can't find if ATI supports yet. Meanwhile ATI has been...around. I have noticed that hardware and driver quality and stability differ from card to card and game to game.
I can't figure out what happened. I used to think AMD got distracted with ATI causing them to lose focus in processor but I wonder if something deeper happened in management that caused company to wander.
I believe the issue with Apache (and I suspect any other web server software service) is that to honor the "Do Not Track" would break its architecture. To do its own internal work Apache must TRACK the request as it handles the request.
The real issue is that DNT requires a "trust" when there is no mechanism for trust. On the web client side there is no mechanism to make sure the server honors the request. On the server side there is no reason why it would honor a remote setting over its own configuration. We might as well implement the GOOD setting in HTTP as well so servers know that when GOOD is enabled that information is not allowed to be stolen.
The "life span" of other consumer hardware can be measured in months while consoles, which are supposed to be high tech pieces of equipment, move at a glacial pace. It isn't surprising that some believe this is why consoles as a "sealed set top box" is done. Hell 5 years from now the TV itself could have a hardware that is more advanced and powerful than console released next year.
It feels like the industry is shifting more towards a PC-style "We provide the software, you provide the hardware" which would seem to favor Android. Apple can stay in the game if they are aggressive with design and hardware releases with proper generation support. The classic players need to adjust to a more "sliding spec" platform that others feature or be left in the dust by simple technology drift.
I've come across no UI design that is perfect but these guys pick something that Apple actually does "correctly" and as well as trying to cite Windows 8 Metro as the better way to do it which is extraordinarily dubious stance to take???
I am not a professional UI designer but from the things I've learned about skeuomorphism is that skeuomorphisms are powerful when used correctly. For instance: Present a group of people a large cornflower blue square and ask them "What is this used for?" and you will get a lot of different answers (an output area, a blank picture, an empty container, no idea). Present the same group of people a square with a wood grain texture and ask them "What is this used for?" and many will immediately gravitate to "this looks like a flat wooden surface" and often calls up "an area I can put other things on". Even though functionally both the blue square and the wood texture square can be coded to the same thing, the texture adds a skeuomorphism that gives a big hint on the function.
Now look what was just pointed out here with Metro and the various gadgets found on Mac OSX. I think it is dubious when people are looking a colored square with text as "better" than a something that looks like a notepad with a check list on Mac. There are drawbacks to doing that way on the Mac but it sure as hell isn't "confusion"!
Is it really a good idea to put computers and hydrocarbons that closely together?
What if there's a fire?
That is easy enough for any software engineer to handle: Code to handle SIGFIRE.
Although there is plenty to lament that games are failing in story there are still bright spots. Plenty of smaller games seem to be able to focus on crafting story and environments that the AAA games can't seem to afford to spend time on. In particular, "Journey" is one of the first games in a long long long time where I cared that another character "died" let alone that other character was a player. Just this one game is a demonstration of the power of a well crafted game without blowing a big budget and it gives me hope that developers still strive for story.
I agree the idea of a universal binary is neat because writing software for a desktop, a tablet, and a phone is a lot of effort but I have to ask what kind of apps would those be? The ones I can think of that would be useful across a desktop, a tablet, and a phone can all be created by HTML 5 systems where if nothing else it is a solid "fallback". There are things like Kindle that are "universal" but not the same binary and has some benefit from platform specific behavior. There is some cross platform sharing between Android phone and tablet as well as iPhone and iPad but this is due to sharing so much in the form factor.
In the abstract, one piece of software running perfectly on multiple platforms is a neat idea but as a practical thing I am not sure it is necessary or creates a solid experience. When we get to the design and implementation of a lot of software it is intrinsically tied to the platform design and implementation. Trying to abstract those differences away is like assuming there is a way to build a vehicle that is like a train, a car, and helicopter only because they have something in common (can carry people).
Microsoft's official stance: If you aren't sure what something is, Bing(tm) it. Go to your XBox 360 with Kinnect and shout proudly "XBOX BING OR VAGINA".
Red Hat needs to research and make sure they are compatible with new and changing tech and UEFI is clearly one they need to make sure RH software works with. There are valid application for signed systems like this (think stuff like ATM) so making sure Linux works and even signed and validated to boot isn't a bad idea. But as we already suspect the general desktop environment isn't a good place UEFI should be used which is what people are afraid is going to happen.
I haven't delved deep into the details of UEFI but as long as the restrictions are only to boot valid signatures then RH and any other Linux should be fine and might even be desirable in some deployments. In fact a strong argument could be made that getting Linux and BSD onto these platform helps "keep them honest". Red Hat should be allowed to do this and we should continue to inspect RH's source which is a good goal brought about by Open Source. If it turns out that Red Hat does this and is not allowed to be entirely open about it then that would be the red flag but not before then.
Could it be that Chrome is on every Android platform and Android is on a lot of things? Many more pieces of hardware than Windows Mobile. Although I am a little dubious of the claim that "Chrome is #1" the growth makes a lot of sense where it has nothing to do with "hidden tabs" but that the installbase has exploded.
I've viewed this "controversy" with curiosity and it somewhat mimics progress vs tradition arguments. I'm not trolling but honestly looking for insight:
- Day after day we have people happy to play single player games in online systems without complaint from consoles to phones to even Facebook. Why is this game different? The explanations so far lacking because the most compelling one is that "Diablo 2" used to do it. That doesn't mean I don't think an offline mode would have been impossible but that it isn't required.
- Do we operate under the illusion that all PC games are portable? I remember trying to play "Diablo 2" which has an offline mode, on vacation and on airplanes and other places and it was a miserable experience. "Diablo 3" is not meant to be portable or played in an environment with spotty power or spotty connectivity. Why do people insist on this mode when it seems more like an environment and usability issue instead of a missing feature? I suspect people believe that if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode they could play it anywhere but experience has showed me with "Diablo 2" that never happens nor is worth it.
- Are we denying the advantages this tech brings just to enhance the argument of what it takes away? I like the idea of storing characters "on their systems" instead of my computer since I've lost "Diablo 2" saves when machines and hard drives die. I like validation of characters, items, hosted environments because I've also lost a ton of characters to just joining the wrong games. It is not impossible to support both a completely validated system and offline but I would always lean in supporting the validated system when it comes to active support.
Basically I'm unconvinced that an offline mode is valuable let alone an effective workaround. Even if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode, we'd still have an article on /. complaining about how Blizzard/Activision/Blizzard-Activition/Satan is evil and can't handle it. Blizzard needs to address connectivity issues and delivery on the features they said they were supporting.
In college, as part of the engineering degree program there has to be some credits in art/history/etc. I picked up a philosophy track which required an introduction to logic and rehtoric. I don't want to imply these classes ruined anything but it definitely opened my mind to multiple ideas. When you are asking fundemental questions of reality (Why aesthetics important? What defines good? Why is humanity valuable? etc) and find that although religion does have some answers but not all and are encouraged to keep looking and discussing it instead of being quiet and accept "the truth" then that erroded their fundementals.
People forget that you don't need a science to be encouraged about critical thinking.
Although not strictly the Apple II, the IIe was the first real computer brought into my house growing up. Now that I'm a professional working adult, looking back on that box with the green monitor, the one floppy drive, and other details I wondered how in the world my parents were able to justify and afford the thing! As the article correctly points out, at $1200~ 1980 dollars that is around $5000 today! That was probably the most expensive piece of technology in the house at the time and I never realized it at the time where instead I was simply happy to mess around with Applesoft Basic and various games.
This seems true for the ones that built up the fortune but when they pass it on to their children it seems likely so. What lesson in consequence did they learn by having their parents provide for them? It isn't that passing on property is good or bad but there is no lesson teach or learn either.
For the record I don't believe wealth or poverty automatically gives a bias in mortality but that is due to the fact "getting rich" is a complex and variable. Some people lucky into wealth and others work very hard and achieve poverty where its hard to see the moral base in either activity.
Really the price structure of having a subscription was either ahead of its time or too exotic and especially made no sense with Last.FM or Pandora. In some ways it was ahead of its time and others it was just exotic for being exotic.
I personally never liked the interface. My dad got one and I could never figure it out at a glance where instead I had to "study" it to figure out what I wanted it to do. For instance: While playing it will artistically scroll multiple pieces of text the screen but if I wasn't familiar with the song or artist I had no idea what it meant. Is "Nightfall" the name of the track, the play list or album, the composer, singer, or what??? It could have been the theme or mode for all I knew!