no matter how many fossils are faked or wrongly interpretted, macro-evolution (ME) isn't going anywhere.
This is untrue. If the majority of fossils are shown to be fake, then their is a good chance the theory of evolution did not predict them. That means that portion of the theory has been proven false. It's called science.
the broader question is how come not a single series of obvious fossils shows the path of ME for an animal.
Given how few fossils exist compared to how many organisms have existed, this is not surprising at all. We've found plenty of creatures that seem to have evolved in a progression, but obviously we'll never have a complete record because 99.9999999999% of the time animals die they don't leave a fossil.
this is subjective
You misunderstand. I didn't say disprove a fossil was not an ancestor of a current organism. I said show a scientific reason why fossils could not be the ancestors of existing creatures. I mean if they aren't surely there is some proof of that, right?
do tell how someone would prove something such as this.
Without falsifying a lot of existing scientific knowledge it would probably be very difficult. You could find a body part that is not passed on genetically or you could find a body part that can only physically exist in conjunction with a significant number of other traits that are statistically improbable (given trillions of changes over millions of years). Either would be evidence, but I don't expect you will find much. The point is this is a falsifiable criteria, just one that is hard to find since it probably does not exit.
ME has never been observed in the wild. micro-evolution has, but not macro-evolution. it has never been observed. repeat that 20 times. now, how does anyone prove that something that has never been observed can't happen? don't you need to prove IT ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN, FIRST?
First, define macro evolution. Thus far the definition has been something like, "animals evolving really large changes like.. no wait larger than that, err and larger than that too, and wow that's pretty major, I guess larger than that too." We've seen animals change color, grow more fur, develop resistances to poisons, etc., etc. That takes care of proving animals evolve to suit conditions. Proving it doesn't happen would pretty much require you to prove all those observations and experiments were hoaxes. Good luck.
genes carrying information doesn't validate macro-evolution. it is a different issue.
There is no such theory, neighbor. We were discussing disproving the theory of evolution (and touching on the theory of evolution of man). This criteria is one way it could be disproved.
nobody has ever observed the creation of new adaptive genes due to environmental stress. you assume something that hasn't been established. yes, GENES THAT ALREADY EXIST may be expressed and selected due to environmental stress, but no new adaptive genes have been created.
This may or may not be true; I'm not going to bother to look it up. It does not matter since we have observed genes being added and removed naturally to species via both mutation and interbreeding. We've also witnessed changes to those genes in response to environment. There is no reason to think that (aside from being very uncommon) changes conferred by new genes would not benefit organism in a natural selection environment. Do you have some hypothesis as to why this would not be the case?
evolutionary theory predicted the gradual change of species over geologic time. this is false. the fact is that lots of different animals and birds appeared on the scene in BIG BANG fashhion. macro-evolution's prediction was wrong, SO THEY JUST ADJUSTED THE THEORY.
First, there is nothing wrong with changing a theory to suit observations it is part of the scientific method. Second, you're wrong on this. Changes to genetic material seem quite constant over time. Th
Um... Can you be more specific than that? Just asserting something as true doesn't make it so, and is hardly convincing. Irreducible complexity poses a huge problem to naturalistic evolution... I use the term naturalistic, because many IDers are evolutionists, like Dr. Michael Behe for example.
Simplicity is defined by human perception. Nothing can not be made simpler in someone's view. The entire concept that something can be complex in a way that it cannot have evolved makes no sense. Complexity does not preclude less complex versions existing even if they serve no discernible purpose since so many biological features serve no discernible purpose, even when we can view them in action.
As to "naturalistic evolution" versus "ID evolution" it is a red herring. We were talking about disproving evolution, which is a well defined theory. ID is primarily a creationist speaking point and there are so many different opinions as to what it means you need to define it before making any arguments for or against. Either are outside the scope of this argument.
Also, your list of discoveries that would supposedly falsify naturalism are very vague and are generally compatible with ID anyway:
Who cares if they are compatible with some sort of ID. The argument we were discussing was about falsifying the theory of evolution.
IDers would say they're not faked, but are really the remains of very old animals/plants.
I've read arguments by ID proponents claiming that they are not in fact old and others arguing that satan put them there and they are fake. It does not matter. We're talking about falsifying evolution, not proving ID. If you have any concept of the scientific method you'd know these are completely different things.
Same thing... IDers have no problem with this...
Ditto, we're talking about evolution not ID.
Irreducible complexity.
As I said, logically a dead end. Now provide real evidence of any biological feature that could not have evolved. Go ahead, any one. What could not have evolved and why?
Most IDers believe this to some extent, but even when they do, they're only able to adapt because of already designed, irreducibly complex systems.
That animals evolve is the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution of man, says that we evolved from a less complex organism, which is what (according to your definitions) they disagree with.
The problem that many darwinian evolutionists have, is that they're assuming an overly simple system, and deal with evolution at the macroscopic level, but have not answered the biochemical challenge of irreducible complexity.
What challenge? We've observed creatures evolving. We postulated that given the rate of changes we saw, most animals probably descended from something significantly different and that there would be a mechanism to pass on traits. We found the method (DNA) exactly as we predicted and we found a progression of significantly different animals in the fossil record that seem to follow an evolution. Every other prediction evolution has made has also held up. No one has shown any evidence that it is not the case.
Do tell, what "biochemical challenge" are you talking about. I've seen people hypothesize that evolution must be wrong because they did not see how some feature could evolve, but time and again we've found primitive versions of those features on other creatures. Either state a hypothesis that contradicts evolution and show evidence or stop spreading FUD.
"Find genetic evidence that genes do not carry information about how/what we grow into."
Of course they do, both IDers and naturalistic evolutionists believe this. This is no criteria for proving evolution!
Do you even understand the scientific method at all? The theory of evolution predicted a mechanism for parents to pass on genetic traits. We then found that method. This is a useful prediction by the theory. It has
What of this comparison indicates a clear Intel advantage in processing power?
Nothing, but that comparison also does not include the latest generation of Intel chips, including the 65nm Intel Core Duo. Intel has leapfrogged AMD for portables as far as performance and power consumption right now. AMD still seems the winner for price/performance for desktops and servers. AMD may well catch up when they release their own 65nm chip which was last scheduled for Q4 of this year. In the mean time, Intel is definitely winning the performance/power consumption battle. Also, this announcement of the first 45nm test fab provides some indication that they may leapfrog AMD again sometime next year when they beat AMD to market with the next smallest die by another year (although a lot can happen in that time).
Please note, I'm not in any way partisan here. I haven't bought an non-PPC chip in years.
Here's how to falsify portions of the current theory of evolution:
Find evidence that fossils are faked and are not really the remains of very old animals and plants.
Find evidence that those fossils could not have been the descendants of current animals for any reason.
Find evidence of any biological feature that could not have evolved from some other biological feature for some reason.
Demonstrate that living creatures subjected to a challenge do not adapt over generations to deal with the challenge.
Find genetic evidence that genes do not carry information about how/what we grow into.
Find evidence to explain why animals, when subjected to environmental conditions, eventually changed in ways that made them better suited to those conditions that differs in some way from evolutionary theory, and demonstrate evidence.
Falsify any of the other claims and predictions made by evolutionary theory.
So, no matter how complex, even if the system if irreducibily complex, the evolutionist could just say "we haven't figured it out yet"... this excuse could be used on and on with no chance for falsification.
The entire concept of "irreducibly complex" is logically flawed. As for falsifying Darwinism, just prove a creature did not evolve from an early animal. Show proof of how one creature was created from scratch. We know evolution happens because we've watched it happen hundreds of times. We strongly suspect all animals on earth evolved because it seemed logical and when we made predictions about what we would find, if that were the case, those predictions proved correct.
The problem is, you're asking for proof to prove something that has mountains of evidence supporting it. The proof would need to overcome those mountains of evidence. In the beginning, most people did not believe in evolution. Then we did a whole lot of experiments that indicated evolution was right. Falsifying it would have been doing those experiments and not finding any evidence. If we subjected short-lived animals to a biological pressure and they did not adapt through survival of the fittest evolution would have been disproved. That did not happen.
Yes, organisms will development develop minor
DNA changes as a result of the environment.
But evolution THEORY is that somewhere along the
line there were MAJOR DNA changes, there is no
proof of this happening, did a dog just give birth
to a cat one day?
So what do you think billions of minor changes over millions of years will result in? Anyway, we have observed plenty of major DNA changes, although the majority result in death. Some have persisted and affect a large portion of society. Obviously a dog did not give birth to a cat, but some common ancestor of both split into different breeds, which evolved into different species. Can you really not conceive of such a thing? I have a hard time seeing how this wouldn't happen over millions of years.
I remember a farside where a scientist is trying to
explain a formula, right in the middle there is the
words "some miracle occurs". Reminds me of the
big bang theory, evolution theory, etc etc.
Obviously any theory can be refined and more evidence can always be gathered. Over time opponents of the theory evolution have repeatedly used the argument, well if this evolved from this, shouldn't there be records of something halfway in between? Over and over again we've found records of something in between and then they argue, well shouldn't there be fossils of something in between those? The answer is no. Only so many fossils are created and eventually we'll find them all on the planet and guess what, there will still be gaps between fossilized variants of some creature. Evolution has successfully predicted what we will find and nothing has ever been shown to disprove it. Only someone who is irrational or uninformed would conclude that evolution is not the most likely theory for how life changes over time.
This is one of the reasons Evolution has been rejected by a lot of people.
This is entirely true. People are idiots and react emotionally, rather than considering facts logically. Many people will never change their minds about evolution/intelligent design simply because they are so emotionally invested in the issue that they can't think about it straight.
Personally, I don't believe in Evolution. That doesn't make me an idiot.
Not necessarily, no. It does, however, mean that you that you are one of the following:
...poorly informed and uninterested in being well informed.
...someone who is unable to logically assess facts.
...someone who has completed experiments that provide extraordinarily clear proof that evolution is a terrible hoax being perpetrated by aliens or some sort of secret cabal of of people pretending to be scientists and has then had those experiments secretly confirmed by a third party. And you've not revealed all this research because you are afraid they will retaliate against your family with their evil death rays.
...the same as the above, but you're insane and just believe that is what is happening.
...you're lying.
...you're an idiot.
I simply disagree with the theory. That doesn't mean I don't understand it, I simply don't agree with it. It doesn't mean I'm ignorant either - I know more about Evolution than most people I know.
You see the thing is, there is this method called "science" that has proved very successful at determining facts understanding how things work. This process has been used, over time, to refine our understanding of the world. Now via this method the theory of evolution has developed with thousands of experiments and predictions from thousands of people, all of which have led to our current understanding. We've witnessed evolution in action and made useful predictions about what types of fossils would be found before they were found. Is it possible that evolution is wrong? Certainly, but the only reasonable way a person can believe that is if they have a great deal of extraordinary proof that outweighs all that has come before it. An example of this might be several independent people producing video of aliens using a machine to produce fake fossils, while chatting about how they sure are tricking those silly humans. Even so, science would have to be able to evaluate those tapes to look for reasons why they would be fake and some sort of experiment should show that the fossil they created differs from the way a fossil would naturally form.
Just as the Theory of Gravity has some problems and needs to be understood better/differently, I believe the Theory of Evolution needs to be understood better/differently - in Evolution's case I think it needs to be drastically different.
Obviously all theories need refining, but your comparison is very valid. The theory of gravity needs to be refined to explain a number of things. But, if you tell me you don't believe the theory of gravity, you'd better have some very good evidence as to why. You see, gravity has been shown to exist and have certain properties, just as evolution has. There is a huge difference between saying you don't believe in evolution or gravity and that you think evolution and gravity need to be understood more fully. Otherwise, you may as well jump off a building, after all you don't believe in gravity, right?
Fact is, there has never been an experiment with macro-evolution - until there is, Macro-Evolution is simply a theory and, IMO, a weak one at that.
Ummmm, you kind of have to define, scientifically, macro evolution before you can claim it is an exception to the rule, and then you have to show why you believe (based upon experimentation and evidence) why you think it is different from any other evolution. I've heard "macro-evolution" as an intelligent design speaking point, but never defined scientifically. We'
Gee, really? I never would have guessed that. The people have not overthrown him and abide by his rule. I'd say that is ruling with the consent of the governed. If he makes a decision to copyright his speeches and they don't do anything about it, then I don't see how anyone else has a right to tell them what to do.
But if reaching 96% accuracy requires you to process 1 BILLION pages, it's probably not worth the time or the effort.
You're assuming it took significantly more work. They just pulled all of these from Google's cache, so the extra work may have been letting their script run overnight instead of for an hour in the morning. More pages will make it more accurate and I'm sure they are more qualified to judge the proper amount of work/reward more-so than anyone not doing the project.
Can I turn off the click-to-front behavior of windows? I don't want them moving to the front unless I move them to the front. I could never find a way to change that but I've only briefly played with OSX in a store.
In aqua, no, in X windows, yes. Here's the breakdown. On OS X you can run Aqua, Gnome, KDE, or a number of window managers, each with different possible configurations. On Linux, you can do the same thing, except you can't run Aqua. Claiming, therefore, that you can't configure the UI on an OS X box as easily is sort of misleading.
Yes it is. If the people there consent to be ruled by their government, then what is the problem? It is up to them to say what they can and cannot do, not any of us.
Even at constant 100% CPU usage, the fans run at a moderate enough speed that my house's HVAC fans drown them out.
Was mostly speaking hypothetically. I wonder what PCI cards you could add that would produce the most amount of heat. Maybe some heavy duty graphics cards filling all slots. It may or may not be possible to get the fans to run full blast using non-broken hardware and properly functioning software. It sounds like a fun experiment.
The Pope is also a head of state. Imagine if you can copyright Bush's speeches and and only allowed to distribute them via permission of the White House.
That is an interesting point. Still, it is mostly a matter for the people of said sovereign state to decide. I mean, it again might make me less trusting of the pope, but it is up to him as an individual and his government to decide.
Meanwhile the Vatican is defending copyrighting the Pope's pronouncements. Which, IMHO, is right up there with copyright of MLK's 'I Have A Dream' and Co$'s copyrighted "Trade Secrets"
What is wrong with copyrighting the pope's pronouncements? I'm the pope of a religion, but I still want any speeches I make to be under copyright so that I can sell them. Now I think that copyright should only last a few years, but I don't see any reason why the catholic pope's speeches should be excepted. Although doing so might make me rethink the values of said organization, were I a member.
If they had done so, the installation of Windows (which is already running on the hardware found in the iMacIntel) and Linux would have been a month or more ahead of where we find ourselves...not to mention it would have been a very interesting and welcome tip of the hat to the geeks and early adopters that Apple NEEDS in order to grow marketshare (and who everyone with a braincell KNEW would jump right off and try such dual-booting shenanigans).
I'd like to mention two points for your consideration. First, the number of people that want to dual boot rather than use virtualization on top of OS X or a WINE-like solution, is fairly small compared to the amount of effort it would take for them to write and test the legacy options for EFI. Second, although probably unintended, Apple is getting a lot of free press through the attempts of people to get alternate OS's running in conjunction with OS X.
Personally, I'd prefer that they included more options in their EFI implementation, but I'd also prefer that they included virtualization built into the OS that allowed me to run OS's and applications within neat, secure little sandboxes with easily customized permissions. We can't get everything I suppose.
Mass transit system leads to high density housing - even if it doesn't exist before.
And high density working environments, provided it is cost effective compared to autos. The thing is artificially increasing the price of using automobiles while at the same time investing in mass transit systems would result in basically an entire country moving to new housing and new work places at the same time. It will also kill the US auto industry and significantly decrease the quality of life, due to all the crowding and resultant small housing and smaller work environments. Further it would require huge imminent domain claims moving many people out of their traditional homes and forcing them into more cramped environments. All of this is likely to get any politician voted out of office, or possibly lynched.
All that time and money in order to create a system with significant drawbacks is a debatable idea. The money might be better spent finding better energy sources and improving energy storage technologies. Mass transit only makes sense for a small minority of the US right now. Trying to change the way everyone lives, where they live, and where they work all at once is a dubious endeavor.
OK, Macs used to have a reputation for having nice hardware, that was probably 50% of the reason for owning one (25% being marketing BS, and 25% for the nice GUI they put on FreeBSD).
Actually, I'd say about 80% of Mac users buy them for the OS, which you mischaracterize as "the nice GUI they put on FreeBSD." You obviously don't understand the real architectural advances/differnces in OS X.
So, Apple move to a regular Intel processor, a regular ATI graphics card, and a regular Intel motherboard with some modifications to remove a regular BIOS. That nice Apple hardware that we would have paid a premium for is essentially now a Dell PC.
Dell sells the cheapest junk they can buy in bulk thrown together with little or no design work. The same machine bought in bulk may have significantly different parts inside. The only constant is they are really cheap. As a result Dells break, often. Dell's support model is basically ship a lot of DOA and funky machines and replace them if anyone complains. Dell has mediocre customer satisfaction.
Apple has shipped mostly commodity gear for a long time. They did have some advantages and disadvantages being a PPC shop, but they were largely unimportant compared to the other differences (from an end user perspective). Apple, however, buys middle of the road quality components and then spends significant time engineering them into a machine and they spend time tweaking the software to utilize all the features of the hardware. Take the g5 towers. They put off a lot of heat, but still run fairly quietly. The reason for this is Apple put in a lot of fans and wrote software to run them slowly or not at all in the areas that were not putting off much heat. Should you peg the processors and run a bunch of heat producing cards, they may get loud, but few people do that. As a result they can sell a quiet machine that produces a lot of heat. Since Dell does not bother trying to engineer small variable speed fans and then tweak the OS to use them properly, Dell cannot really do the same thing. As a result of all of this, Apple machines tend to be some of the most reliable machines in their price range and Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction in the industry.
Soooooo, if we no longer have nice hardware, then why bother trying to run Windows or Linux on this thing, when we can do it for a third of the cost and without hacks, on regular x86 hardware?
Obviously this statement is built upon the previous implying that Apple hardware is no longer "nice." The truth is, you just did not understand what makes Apple's hardware well regarded.
Personally I'd see getting official support for it running under VMWare, like Solaris x86 now has, or even under Xen3 would be more exciting.
It is possible OS X will run under VMware some day, but unlikely. It is probable that a VMware workstation edition for the mac will be sold that can run Linux and Windows.
Simon I agree, I'm tired of reading this crap, the whole "Who would run Linux on a Mac? OS X is Unix after all" type of comments do not help.
I agree with this. The fact is there are a number of reasons to want to dual boot a system, including lowering the cpu and memory footprint for a operation.
The idea that anyone who does this hasn't seen what OS X has to offer, and after they will they'll dump Linux on the desktop.
Well, to be perfectly fair, I know a lot of people who have dumped Linux on the desktop to go to OS X and I only know one person who uses Linux on the desktop, regularly on the mac. For the most part OS X is a superior workstation UI and many of the people I know who did switch did so because either they saw people they were working with using it and became interested or they bought a system with the plan to try OS X, knowing they could just use Linux if they did not like it.
Other comments like "You can run all the apps you can run in Linux on OS X" also don't take into account that some people *prefer* to work in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.
This is entirely true. Having a familiar work environment that you like can make a huge difference. For some, moving to something different is just too hard. The people I know in this category are mostly old timers. People who have been using X-windows forever and aren't about to try some newfangled windowing system for their primary setup. That is OK, but don't expect not to take some teasing or ridicule for being inflexible and not wanting change.
I'm used to being able to change every thing I can so it's how I just like it, in OS X you're pretty much stuck with the options they allow you to tweak.
...unless you bother to learn how to tweak OS X, the way you learned how to tweak X.
Yep, you can drop to a term and bang around, but wait,/User/Library...what the hell is this? Does it work for their intended audience? Sure, but people that talk down to ppl that suggest that Linux is a great fit on ppc/laptops are annoying; just because they don't get it doesn't mean it's not for anyone.
See this is what I was talking about earlier. Is/Users (it's/Users not/User) or/Library in some way a poorer design than you'd find on Linux or is it a simpler, more easily understood design with some real advantages. You're unwilling to even evaluate a slightly different file structure simply because it is different. Further you go on to try to imply some sort of ambiguous quality by stating it it works "for their intended audience." You're the one talking down here. Their intended audience is people who are not afraid of beneficial changes. Now if you feel like arguing a real reason why you think the difference is inferior, then go ahead. But if you don't like being derided for complaining about changes in general, perhaps you should quit whining about it. Next you'll be telling me all music today sucks and back in your day people had respect and did not dress funny.
The fact of the matter is,/Users makes a lot more sense to most people as a name and provides a location for user data that is less prone to breaking than/usr./Library allows for the easy, flexible, and multi-user aware storage of application specific data that can persist across versions (simplifying upgrades and allowing multiple versions of software to coexist easily). It also allows for some of the real advantages of folder-is-the-app that lets users more easily install, uninstall, and copy functional applications than with the traditional Linux process. The system allows for the additional benefits of easily navigated/edited application resources, FAT binaries, and a number of other benefits. Arguing against an improvement that offers significant functionality on the basis that it is different, does not really help you
Public transportation works everywhere in civilized world except US. And that's because fuel is too cheap there.
Public transportation works in the U.S. too, just not for people living in areas with low population densities, which is a lot of them. I attended a University in a medium sized town. We used to drive two hours to the nearest taco place. It was four hours of driving to the nearest Indian food place. I've never seen a public transportation system that was cost effective for a small number of people living a long way from the nearest anything. Add to that a harsh climate and spotty phone service and your life, or the life of a family member can depend upon owning a good truck. I'm all for better public transportation and the reorganization of living and working space to allow for it to function. You, however, are just not comprehending the scope of the problem.
the new Intel Macs are only 1/4 faster (rather then 2-4 times faster as Jobs claimed)
If you bothered to read the keynote speech, you'd know he said no such thing. He said the processors were 2-4 times faster and then specifically qualified it by saying running applications would not be 2-4 times faster, since so many other parts of the machine were the bottlenecks. You're linking to application tests, the part he actually told you would not run 2-4 times faster.
Slightly more ontopic - I've been reading that the mere presence of the fat binaried itunes on a powerpc mac can cause the disk utility not to run - stripping intel code from the binary fixes the problem.
How is that on topic? This is an article about bugs in the intel processors. How does some obscure possible bug that only affects PPC systems relevant?
Mac Powerbooks and G5s are WIDELY used as THE copmuter for editing film on. The new MacBook does not properly run Final Cut Pro 4, one of the biggest names in editing software. BIG mistake apple, big mistake.
Ummm, because some company is going to run out and buy new machines right away and expect the software to have been ported, even though anyone who follows either the video editing or Apple news knows they announced Final Cut pro would be ported in March? Do people really use imacs for pro video editing? I'd think they would be going with towers, which work fine now and will likely not be intel before march or with powerbooks, which won't ship till Feb, only a month before Final Cut Pro is ported. The only people who might get burned by this are the clueless.
Obviously AMD processors are perfect and have no bugs. Or Maybe AMD just does not publish those bugs. Which scenario do you find more likely? Personally, I'd much rather that I and developers had access to know what bugs exist rather than just hoping we don't run across one that is well known to AMD, but which they won't release for PR reasons. To me, the fact that this list exists publicly is a selling point for Intel, not a reason to avoid them. Perhaps AMD does publish such a list, but I could not find it with a quick search. Intel wins a point in my book for future purchasing decisions.
Point taken, but real estate is expensive, and so is staffing. Even traditional video arcades in the United States are said to be dropping like flies. Who will front the money for such a venture?
Who fronted the money for the first theaters? The content producers should get the ball rolling, since they are the ones with the means and the most to gain. It would be a minor investment in many cases to rent out some space and install hardware and staff, compared to the rest of the cost of creating games. Once they prove the business model in the US others will probably notice and open similar establishments.
Both have been available for home consoles since NES (Zapper and Power Pad). Both are available for PS2 (GunCon2 and Ignition). It also looks as if the Nintendo Revolution, with its point-and-shoot gyroscopic remote control, is about to revitalize the first-person rail shooter genre.
Yes but everyone does not have them and everyone does not feel like buying expensive hardware that is not as nice as what you can use at an arcade for the amount of gaming they do.
A lot of these are priced out of many United States arcades' reach or liability magnets or both.
Well, at least three large arcades near me all have them. That is beside the point anyway. We're talking about advantages that a gaming cafe can have over home play and how they can benefit game publishers revenues.
What of this is not true of Xbox Live?
First, an xbox Live setup, is akin to internet gaming, rather than a LAN party. There is no face to face contact and you have to worry about the internet lagging and causing problems, which is common. Next, the xbox live in the average home is not hooked up to a large monitor or projector and probably does not have nice enough graphics to properly take advantage of it. Third, and xbox live cannot easily release a game several months before it gets to stores without it being massively copied, wheras a gaming cafe can. Thus the tiered pricing sales strategy will not net any more money for the game developers. The point is to sell them the premium gaming experience in cafes first, then sell them the game for home use as well.
Look it up. Movie revenues have been off, year to year. Hollywood likes to blame growing piracy as the problem. I happen to think that many of the movies are crap, which is why I don't go to as many anymore.
Movie revenues have been growing steadily for the last decade. Theater sales are slightly down and ticket sales are down even further but this is due to many factors. First, rising prices naturally result in lower ticket sales, but increased profit per sale. Second, the theater experience has been steadily getting worse as cell phone proliferate and more and more commercials are added to the beginning of each film. Third, home theater systems and DVD rental services are becoming higher quality and more common.
In fact, I've heard that some producers are trying to change the system so that the DVD comes out at the SAME TIME the movie is released.
Yeah, I've heard of several similar schemes to try to boost sales of poorly made movies. Most blockbusters, however, seem to benefit more from a gradual, tiered release.
In any case, movie profits are doing very well and returning far more than most other entertainment industries. Their model is working and something similar could probably benefit video game sales, especially ones paired with movie releases.
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no matter how many fossils are faked or wrongly interpretted, macro-evolution (ME) isn't going anywhere.
This is untrue. If the majority of fossils are shown to be fake, then their is a good chance the theory of evolution did not predict them. That means that portion of the theory has been proven false. It's called science.
the broader question is how come not a single series of obvious fossils shows the path of ME for an animal.
Given how few fossils exist compared to how many organisms have existed, this is not surprising at all. We've found plenty of creatures that seem to have evolved in a progression, but obviously we'll never have a complete record because 99.9999999999% of the time animals die they don't leave a fossil.
this is subjective
You misunderstand. I didn't say disprove a fossil was not an ancestor of a current organism. I said show a scientific reason why fossils could not be the ancestors of existing creatures. I mean if they aren't surely there is some proof of that, right?
do tell how someone would prove something such as this.
Without falsifying a lot of existing scientific knowledge it would probably be very difficult. You could find a body part that is not passed on genetically or you could find a body part that can only physically exist in conjunction with a significant number of other traits that are statistically improbable (given trillions of changes over millions of years). Either would be evidence, but I don't expect you will find much. The point is this is a falsifiable criteria, just one that is hard to find since it probably does not exit.
ME has never been observed in the wild. micro-evolution has, but not macro-evolution. it has never been observed. repeat that 20 times. now, how does anyone prove that something that has never been observed can't happen? don't you need to prove IT ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN, FIRST?
First, define macro evolution. Thus far the definition has been something like, "animals evolving really large changes like.. no wait larger than that, err and larger than that too, and wow that's pretty major, I guess larger than that too." We've seen animals change color, grow more fur, develop resistances to poisons, etc., etc. That takes care of proving animals evolve to suit conditions. Proving it doesn't happen would pretty much require you to prove all those observations and experiments were hoaxes. Good luck.
genes carrying information doesn't validate macro-evolution. it is a different issue.
There is no such theory, neighbor. We were discussing disproving the theory of evolution (and touching on the theory of evolution of man). This criteria is one way it could be disproved.
nobody has ever observed the creation of new adaptive genes due to environmental stress. you assume something that hasn't been established. yes, GENES THAT ALREADY EXIST may be expressed and selected due to environmental stress, but no new adaptive genes have been created.
This may or may not be true; I'm not going to bother to look it up. It does not matter since we have observed genes being added and removed naturally to species via both mutation and interbreeding. We've also witnessed changes to those genes in response to environment. There is no reason to think that (aside from being very uncommon) changes conferred by new genes would not benefit organism in a natural selection environment. Do you have some hypothesis as to why this would not be the case?
evolutionary theory predicted the gradual change of species over geologic time. this is false. the fact is that lots of different animals and birds appeared on the scene in BIG BANG fashhion. macro-evolution's prediction was wrong, SO THEY JUST ADJUSTED THE THEORY.
First, there is nothing wrong with changing a theory to suit observations it is part of the scientific method. Second, you're wrong on this. Changes to genetic material seem quite constant over time. Th
Um... Can you be more specific than that? Just asserting something as true doesn't make it so, and is hardly convincing. Irreducible complexity poses a huge problem to naturalistic evolution... I use the term naturalistic, because many IDers are evolutionists, like Dr. Michael Behe for example.
Simplicity is defined by human perception. Nothing can not be made simpler in someone's view. The entire concept that something can be complex in a way that it cannot have evolved makes no sense. Complexity does not preclude less complex versions existing even if they serve no discernible purpose since so many biological features serve no discernible purpose, even when we can view them in action.
As to "naturalistic evolution" versus "ID evolution" it is a red herring. We were talking about disproving evolution, which is a well defined theory. ID is primarily a creationist speaking point and there are so many different opinions as to what it means you need to define it before making any arguments for or against. Either are outside the scope of this argument.
Also, your list of discoveries that would supposedly falsify naturalism are very vague and are generally compatible with ID anyway:
Who cares if they are compatible with some sort of ID. The argument we were discussing was about falsifying the theory of evolution.
IDers would say they're not faked, but are really the remains of very old animals/plants.
I've read arguments by ID proponents claiming that they are not in fact old and others arguing that satan put them there and they are fake. It does not matter. We're talking about falsifying evolution, not proving ID. If you have any concept of the scientific method you'd know these are completely different things.
Same thing... IDers have no problem with this...
Ditto, we're talking about evolution not ID.
Irreducible complexity.
As I said, logically a dead end. Now provide real evidence of any biological feature that could not have evolved. Go ahead, any one. What could not have evolved and why?
Most IDers believe this to some extent, but even when they do, they're only able to adapt because of already designed, irreducibly complex systems.
That animals evolve is the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution of man, says that we evolved from a less complex organism, which is what (according to your definitions) they disagree with.
The problem that many darwinian evolutionists have, is that they're assuming an overly simple system, and deal with evolution at the macroscopic level, but have not answered the biochemical challenge of irreducible complexity.
What challenge? We've observed creatures evolving. We postulated that given the rate of changes we saw, most animals probably descended from something significantly different and that there would be a mechanism to pass on traits. We found the method (DNA) exactly as we predicted and we found a progression of significantly different animals in the fossil record that seem to follow an evolution. Every other prediction evolution has made has also held up. No one has shown any evidence that it is not the case.
Do tell, what "biochemical challenge" are you talking about. I've seen people hypothesize that evolution must be wrong because they did not see how some feature could evolve, but time and again we've found primitive versions of those features on other creatures. Either state a hypothesis that contradicts evolution and show evidence or stop spreading FUD.
"Find genetic evidence that genes do not carry information about how/what we grow into."
Of course they do, both IDers and naturalistic evolutionists believe this. This is no criteria for proving evolution!
Do you even understand the scientific method at all? The theory of evolution predicted a mechanism for parents to pass on genetic traits. We then found that method. This is a useful prediction by the theory. It has
Fossils clearly are not the descendants of current animals ...
So you've disproved time travel have you, well let me tell you... err, I mean quite right, my bad.
What of this comparison indicates a clear Intel advantage in processing power?
Nothing, but that comparison also does not include the latest generation of Intel chips, including the 65nm Intel Core Duo. Intel has leapfrogged AMD for portables as far as performance and power consumption right now. AMD still seems the winner for price/performance for desktops and servers. AMD may well catch up when they release their own 65nm chip which was last scheduled for Q4 of this year. In the mean time, Intel is definitely winning the performance/power consumption battle. Also, this announcement of the first 45nm test fab provides some indication that they may leapfrog AMD again sometime next year when they beat AMD to market with the next smallest die by another year (although a lot can happen in that time).
Please note, I'm not in any way partisan here. I haven't bought an non-PPC chip in years.
Here's how to falsify portions of the current theory of evolution:
So, no matter how complex, even if the system if irreducibily complex, the evolutionist could just say "we haven't figured it out yet"... this excuse could be used on and on with no chance for falsification.
The entire concept of "irreducibly complex" is logically flawed. As for falsifying Darwinism, just prove a creature did not evolve from an early animal. Show proof of how one creature was created from scratch. We know evolution happens because we've watched it happen hundreds of times. We strongly suspect all animals on earth evolved because it seemed logical and when we made predictions about what we would find, if that were the case, those predictions proved correct.
The problem is, you're asking for proof to prove something that has mountains of evidence supporting it. The proof would need to overcome those mountains of evidence. In the beginning, most people did not believe in evolution. Then we did a whole lot of experiments that indicated evolution was right. Falsifying it would have been doing those experiments and not finding any evidence. If we subjected short-lived animals to a biological pressure and they did not adapt through survival of the fittest evolution would have been disproved. That did not happen.
Yes, organisms will development develop minor DNA changes as a result of the environment. But evolution THEORY is that somewhere along the line there were MAJOR DNA changes, there is no proof of this happening, did a dog just give birth to a cat one day?
So what do you think billions of minor changes over millions of years will result in? Anyway, we have observed plenty of major DNA changes, although the majority result in death. Some have persisted and affect a large portion of society. Obviously a dog did not give birth to a cat, but some common ancestor of both split into different breeds, which evolved into different species. Can you really not conceive of such a thing? I have a hard time seeing how this wouldn't happen over millions of years.
I remember a farside where a scientist is trying to explain a formula, right in the middle there is the words "some miracle occurs". Reminds me of the big bang theory, evolution theory, etc etc.
Obviously any theory can be refined and more evidence can always be gathered. Over time opponents of the theory evolution have repeatedly used the argument, well if this evolved from this, shouldn't there be records of something halfway in between? Over and over again we've found records of something in between and then they argue, well shouldn't there be fossils of something in between those? The answer is no. Only so many fossils are created and eventually we'll find them all on the planet and guess what, there will still be gaps between fossilized variants of some creature. Evolution has successfully predicted what we will find and nothing has ever been shown to disprove it. Only someone who is irrational or uninformed would conclude that evolution is not the most likely theory for how life changes over time.
This is one of the reasons Evolution has been rejected by a lot of people.
This is entirely true. People are idiots and react emotionally, rather than considering facts logically. Many people will never change their minds about evolution/intelligent design simply because they are so emotionally invested in the issue that they can't think about it straight.
Personally, I don't believe in Evolution. That doesn't make me an idiot.
Not necessarily, no. It does, however, mean that you that you are one of the following:
I simply disagree with the theory. That doesn't mean I don't understand it, I simply don't agree with it. It doesn't mean I'm ignorant either - I know more about Evolution than most people I know.
You see the thing is, there is this method called "science" that has proved very successful at determining facts understanding how things work. This process has been used, over time, to refine our understanding of the world. Now via this method the theory of evolution has developed with thousands of experiments and predictions from thousands of people, all of which have led to our current understanding. We've witnessed evolution in action and made useful predictions about what types of fossils would be found before they were found. Is it possible that evolution is wrong? Certainly, but the only reasonable way a person can believe that is if they have a great deal of extraordinary proof that outweighs all that has come before it. An example of this might be several independent people producing video of aliens using a machine to produce fake fossils, while chatting about how they sure are tricking those silly humans. Even so, science would have to be able to evaluate those tapes to look for reasons why they would be fake and some sort of experiment should show that the fossil they created differs from the way a fossil would naturally form.
Just as the Theory of Gravity has some problems and needs to be understood better/differently, I believe the Theory of Evolution needs to be understood better/differently - in Evolution's case I think it needs to be drastically different.
Obviously all theories need refining, but your comparison is very valid. The theory of gravity needs to be refined to explain a number of things. But, if you tell me you don't believe the theory of gravity, you'd better have some very good evidence as to why. You see, gravity has been shown to exist and have certain properties, just as evolution has. There is a huge difference between saying you don't believe in evolution or gravity and that you think evolution and gravity need to be understood more fully. Otherwise, you may as well jump off a building, after all you don't believe in gravity, right?
Fact is, there has never been an experiment with macro-evolution - until there is, Macro-Evolution is simply a theory and, IMO, a weak one at that.
Ummmm, you kind of have to define, scientifically, macro evolution before you can claim it is an exception to the rule, and then you have to show why you believe (based upon experimentation and evidence) why you think it is different from any other evolution. I've heard "macro-evolution" as an intelligent design speaking point, but never defined scientifically. We'
The vatican is ruled by the pope. look it up.
Gee, really? I never would have guessed that. The people have not overthrown him and abide by his rule. I'd say that is ruling with the consent of the governed. If he makes a decision to copyright his speeches and they don't do anything about it, then I don't see how anyone else has a right to tell them what to do.
But if reaching 96% accuracy requires you to process 1 BILLION pages, it's probably not worth the time or the effort.
You're assuming it took significantly more work. They just pulled all of these from Google's cache, so the extra work may have been letting their script run overnight instead of for an hour in the morning. More pages will make it more accurate and I'm sure they are more qualified to judge the proper amount of work/reward more-so than anyone not doing the project.
Can I turn off the click-to-front behavior of windows? I don't want them moving to the front unless I move them to the front. I could never find a way to change that but I've only briefly played with OSX in a store.
In aqua, no, in X windows, yes. Here's the breakdown. On OS X you can run Aqua, Gnome, KDE, or a number of window managers, each with different possible configurations. On Linux, you can do the same thing, except you can't run Aqua. Claiming, therefore, that you can't configure the UI on an OS X box as easily is sort of misleading.
Not in the Vatican, it's not.
Yes it is. If the people there consent to be ruled by their government, then what is the problem? It is up to them to say what they can and cannot do, not any of us.
Even at constant 100% CPU usage, the fans run at a moderate enough speed that my house's HVAC fans drown them out.
Was mostly speaking hypothetically. I wonder what PCI cards you could add that would produce the most amount of heat. Maybe some heavy duty graphics cards filling all slots. It may or may not be possible to get the fans to run full blast using non-broken hardware and properly functioning software. It sounds like a fun experiment.
The Pope is also a head of state. Imagine if you can copyright Bush's speeches and and only allowed to distribute them via permission of the White House.
That is an interesting point. Still, it is mostly a matter for the people of said sovereign state to decide. I mean, it again might make me less trusting of the pope, but it is up to him as an individual and his government to decide.
Meanwhile the Vatican is defending copyrighting the Pope's pronouncements. Which, IMHO, is right up there with copyright of MLK's 'I Have A Dream' and Co$'s copyrighted "Trade Secrets"
What is wrong with copyrighting the pope's pronouncements? I'm the pope of a religion, but I still want any speeches I make to be under copyright so that I can sell them. Now I think that copyright should only last a few years, but I don't see any reason why the catholic pope's speeches should be excepted. Although doing so might make me rethink the values of said organization, were I a member.
If they had done so, the installation of Windows (which is already running on the hardware found in the iMacIntel) and Linux would have been a month or more ahead of where we find ourselves...not to mention it would have been a very interesting and welcome tip of the hat to the geeks and early adopters that Apple NEEDS in order to grow marketshare (and who everyone with a braincell KNEW would jump right off and try such dual-booting shenanigans).
I'd like to mention two points for your consideration. First, the number of people that want to dual boot rather than use virtualization on top of OS X or a WINE-like solution, is fairly small compared to the amount of effort it would take for them to write and test the legacy options for EFI. Second, although probably unintended, Apple is getting a lot of free press through the attempts of people to get alternate OS's running in conjunction with OS X.
Personally, I'd prefer that they included more options in their EFI implementation, but I'd also prefer that they included virtualization built into the OS that allowed me to run OS's and applications within neat, secure little sandboxes with easily customized permissions. We can't get everything I suppose.
Mass transit system leads to high density housing - even if it doesn't exist before.
And high density working environments, provided it is cost effective compared to autos. The thing is artificially increasing the price of using automobiles while at the same time investing in mass transit systems would result in basically an entire country moving to new housing and new work places at the same time. It will also kill the US auto industry and significantly decrease the quality of life, due to all the crowding and resultant small housing and smaller work environments. Further it would require huge imminent domain claims moving many people out of their traditional homes and forcing them into more cramped environments. All of this is likely to get any politician voted out of office, or possibly lynched.
All that time and money in order to create a system with significant drawbacks is a debatable idea. The money might be better spent finding better energy sources and improving energy storage technologies. Mass transit only makes sense for a small minority of the US right now. Trying to change the way everyone lives, where they live, and where they work all at once is a dubious endeavor.
OK, Macs used to have a reputation for having nice hardware, that was probably 50% of the reason for owning one (25% being marketing BS, and 25% for the nice GUI they put on FreeBSD).
Actually, I'd say about 80% of Mac users buy them for the OS, which you mischaracterize as "the nice GUI they put on FreeBSD." You obviously don't understand the real architectural advances/differnces in OS X.
So, Apple move to a regular Intel processor, a regular ATI graphics card, and a regular Intel motherboard with some modifications to remove a regular BIOS. That nice Apple hardware that we would have paid a premium for is essentially now a Dell PC.
Dell sells the cheapest junk they can buy in bulk thrown together with little or no design work. The same machine bought in bulk may have significantly different parts inside. The only constant is they are really cheap. As a result Dells break, often. Dell's support model is basically ship a lot of DOA and funky machines and replace them if anyone complains. Dell has mediocre customer satisfaction.
Apple has shipped mostly commodity gear for a long time. They did have some advantages and disadvantages being a PPC shop, but they were largely unimportant compared to the other differences (from an end user perspective). Apple, however, buys middle of the road quality components and then spends significant time engineering them into a machine and they spend time tweaking the software to utilize all the features of the hardware. Take the g5 towers. They put off a lot of heat, but still run fairly quietly. The reason for this is Apple put in a lot of fans and wrote software to run them slowly or not at all in the areas that were not putting off much heat. Should you peg the processors and run a bunch of heat producing cards, they may get loud, but few people do that. As a result they can sell a quiet machine that produces a lot of heat. Since Dell does not bother trying to engineer small variable speed fans and then tweak the OS to use them properly, Dell cannot really do the same thing. As a result of all of this, Apple machines tend to be some of the most reliable machines in their price range and Apple consistently has the highest customer satisfaction in the industry.
Soooooo, if we no longer have nice hardware, then why bother trying to run Windows or Linux on this thing, when we can do it for a third of the cost and without hacks, on regular x86 hardware?
Obviously this statement is built upon the previous implying that Apple hardware is no longer "nice." The truth is, you just did not understand what makes Apple's hardware well regarded.
Personally I'd see getting official support for it running under VMWare, like Solaris x86 now has, or even under Xen3 would be more exciting.
It is possible OS X will run under VMware some day, but unlikely. It is probable that a VMware workstation edition for the mac will be sold that can run Linux and Windows.
Simon I agree, I'm tired of reading this crap, the whole "Who would run Linux on a Mac? OS X is Unix after all" type of comments do not help.
I agree with this. The fact is there are a number of reasons to want to dual boot a system, including lowering the cpu and memory footprint for a operation.
The idea that anyone who does this hasn't seen what OS X has to offer, and after they will they'll dump Linux on the desktop.
Well, to be perfectly fair, I know a lot of people who have dumped Linux on the desktop to go to OS X and I only know one person who uses Linux on the desktop, regularly on the mac. For the most part OS X is a superior workstation UI and many of the people I know who did switch did so because either they saw people they were working with using it and became interested or they bought a system with the plan to try OS X, knowing they could just use Linux if they did not like it.
Other comments like "You can run all the apps you can run in Linux on OS X" also don't take into account that some people *prefer* to work in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.
This is entirely true. Having a familiar work environment that you like can make a huge difference. For some, moving to something different is just too hard. The people I know in this category are mostly old timers. People who have been using X-windows forever and aren't about to try some newfangled windowing system for their primary setup. That is OK, but don't expect not to take some teasing or ridicule for being inflexible and not wanting change.
I'm used to being able to change every thing I can so it's how I just like it, in OS X you're pretty much stuck with the options they allow you to tweak.
...unless you bother to learn how to tweak OS X, the way you learned how to tweak X.
Yep, you can drop to a term and bang around, but wait, /User /Library...what the hell is this? Does it work for their intended audience? Sure, but people that talk down to ppl that suggest that Linux is a great fit on ppc/laptops are annoying; just because they don't get it doesn't mean it's not for anyone.
See this is what I was talking about earlier. Is /Users (it's /Users not /User) or /Library in some way a poorer design than you'd find on Linux or is it a simpler, more easily understood design with some real advantages. You're unwilling to even evaluate a slightly different file structure simply because it is different. Further you go on to try to imply some sort of ambiguous quality by stating it it works "for their intended audience." You're the one talking down here. Their intended audience is people who are not afraid of beneficial changes. Now if you feel like arguing a real reason why you think the difference is inferior, then go ahead. But if you don't like being derided for complaining about changes in general, perhaps you should quit whining about it. Next you'll be telling me all music today sucks and back in your day people had respect and did not dress funny.
The fact of the matter is, /Users makes a lot more sense to most people as a name and provides a location for user data that is less prone to breaking than /usr. /Library allows for the easy, flexible, and multi-user aware storage of application specific data that can persist across versions (simplifying upgrades and allowing multiple versions of software to coexist easily). It also allows for some of the real advantages of folder-is-the-app that lets users more easily install, uninstall, and copy functional applications than with the traditional Linux process. The system allows for the additional benefits of easily navigated/edited application resources, FAT binaries, and a number of other benefits. Arguing against an improvement that offers significant functionality on the basis that it is different, does not really help you
Public transportation works everywhere in civilized world except US. And that's because fuel is too cheap there.
Public transportation works in the U.S. too, just not for people living in areas with low population densities, which is a lot of them. I attended a University in a medium sized town. We used to drive two hours to the nearest taco place. It was four hours of driving to the nearest Indian food place. I've never seen a public transportation system that was cost effective for a small number of people living a long way from the nearest anything. Add to that a harsh climate and spotty phone service and your life, or the life of a family member can depend upon owning a good truck. I'm all for better public transportation and the reorganization of living and working space to allow for it to function. You, however, are just not comprehending the scope of the problem.
the new Intel Macs are only 1/4 faster (rather then 2-4 times faster as Jobs claimed)
If you bothered to read the keynote speech, you'd know he said no such thing. He said the processors were 2-4 times faster and then specifically qualified it by saying running applications would not be 2-4 times faster, since so many other parts of the machine were the bottlenecks. You're linking to application tests, the part he actually told you would not run 2-4 times faster.
Slightly more ontopic - I've been reading that the mere presence of the fat binaried itunes on a powerpc mac can cause the disk utility not to run - stripping intel code from the binary fixes the problem.
How is that on topic? This is an article about bugs in the intel processors. How does some obscure possible bug that only affects PPC systems relevant?
Mac Powerbooks and G5s are WIDELY used as THE copmuter for editing film on. The new MacBook does not properly run Final Cut Pro 4, one of the biggest names in editing software. BIG mistake apple, big mistake.
Ummm, because some company is going to run out and buy new machines right away and expect the software to have been ported, even though anyone who follows either the video editing or Apple news knows they announced Final Cut pro would be ported in March? Do people really use imacs for pro video editing? I'd think they would be going with towers, which work fine now and will likely not be intel before march or with powerbooks, which won't ship till Feb, only a month before Final Cut Pro is ported. The only people who might get burned by this are the clueless.
I think I'll stick with AMD.
Obviously AMD processors are perfect and have no bugs. Or Maybe AMD just does not publish those bugs. Which scenario do you find more likely? Personally, I'd much rather that I and developers had access to know what bugs exist rather than just hoping we don't run across one that is well known to AMD, but which they won't release for PR reasons. To me, the fact that this list exists publicly is a selling point for Intel, not a reason to avoid them. Perhaps AMD does publish such a list, but I could not find it with a quick search. Intel wins a point in my book for future purchasing decisions.
Point taken, but real estate is expensive, and so is staffing. Even traditional video arcades in the United States are said to be dropping like flies. Who will front the money for such a venture?
Who fronted the money for the first theaters? The content producers should get the ball rolling, since they are the ones with the means and the most to gain. It would be a minor investment in many cases to rent out some space and install hardware and staff, compared to the rest of the cost of creating games. Once they prove the business model in the US others will probably notice and open similar establishments.
Both have been available for home consoles since NES (Zapper and Power Pad). Both are available for PS2 (GunCon2 and Ignition). It also looks as if the Nintendo Revolution, with its point-and-shoot gyroscopic remote control, is about to revitalize the first-person rail shooter genre.
Yes but everyone does not have them and everyone does not feel like buying expensive hardware that is not as nice as what you can use at an arcade for the amount of gaming they do.
A lot of these are priced out of many United States arcades' reach or liability magnets or both.
Well, at least three large arcades near me all have them. That is beside the point anyway. We're talking about advantages that a gaming cafe can have over home play and how they can benefit game publishers revenues.
What of this is not true of Xbox Live?
First, an xbox Live setup, is akin to internet gaming, rather than a LAN party. There is no face to face contact and you have to worry about the internet lagging and causing problems, which is common. Next, the xbox live in the average home is not hooked up to a large monitor or projector and probably does not have nice enough graphics to properly take advantage of it. Third, and xbox live cannot easily release a game several months before it gets to stores without it being massively copied, wheras a gaming cafe can. Thus the tiered pricing sales strategy will not net any more money for the game developers. The point is to sell them the premium gaming experience in cafes first, then sell them the game for home use as well.
Look it up. Movie revenues have been off, year to year. Hollywood likes to blame growing piracy as the problem. I happen to think that many of the movies are crap, which is why I don't go to as many anymore.
Movie revenues have been growing steadily for the last decade. Theater sales are slightly down and ticket sales are down even further but this is due to many factors. First, rising prices naturally result in lower ticket sales, but increased profit per sale. Second, the theater experience has been steadily getting worse as cell phone proliferate and more and more commercials are added to the beginning of each film. Third, home theater systems and DVD rental services are becoming higher quality and more common.
In fact, I've heard that some producers are trying to change the system so that the DVD comes out at the SAME TIME the movie is released.
Yeah, I've heard of several similar schemes to try to boost sales of poorly made movies. Most blockbusters, however, seem to benefit more from a gradual, tiered release.
In any case, movie profits are doing very well and returning far more than most other entertainment industries. Their model is working and something similar could probably benefit video game sales, especially ones paired with movie releases.