A while back I was interested in DVRs but when I looked around they all seemed to require a monthly subscription from Tivo or some similar service. So now I have to pay a monthly cable bill AND a monthly tivo bill to be freed from the Great Glass Gogoonga? No thanks, I'll stick to dvds. That's closer to "TV on my own schedule, on my own terms."
I guess I could build myself a linux DVR if I ever get around to fully researching it. Have they released any commercial DVRs that don't require a monthly service charge yet? When they do I may start to seriously consider it.
My sister's been trying to hunt a wii down. She doesn't call stores to ask if they have wiis in stock. She calls to ask when they expect their next shipment. They typically know around when the UPS truck comes and they may know they aren't expecting another shipment until X date. This can be valuable information because she can't camp out at all stores all the time.
Unfortunately, she was told that the coasts get priority (at least at Kmarts). So as long as WA, OR, CA, NY, etc. keep selling out they will keep sending most of the Wiis there and only a few will trickle in to the center of the country. That's why some people claim they found some in WA just by going around to a few stores while it still really is next to impossible to get one out in Utah. The store owners here are saying they just aren't getting anymore for a while.
The guy was sending emails to himself. 9/10 emails from himself lost indicates that either there's a problem with lost mail or there's a problem with his whitelist.
Something like that actually happened to me when I was using the free Juno email about 10 years ago. I wasn't even sure to believe her when she told me she'd only received the last one until others I'd emailed let me know they hadn't ever received my email either.
It's important to note that there's at least a decent possibility that a large number of PS3 buyers are sitting on their system to sell on ebay right before Christmas. I know of one person who says he got 4 ps3s and sold one right at the beginning for top dollar and is holding the rest until a week before Christmas. He's anticipating supply to dry up and demand to pick up (resulting in higher profits). I imagine he's not alone. How many more are doing this is anyone's guess at this point.
On the other hand, many people expect (perhaps foolishly) a stream of Nintendo Wiis to come in each week until Christmas. For those people, they may think it's smarter to sell their units on ebay NOW (before more shipments come in) rather than later. So it becomes difficult to compare ratios of wii and ps3 units sold to gamers vs. ebay sellers. Who knows how many more ebay auctions are coming for each system.
in order of overall score in six factors: annual turnover, number of releases, average review score, quality of producers, reliability of milestone payments and the quality of staff pay and perks. Note that this is not a ranking by revenue
It seems unusual to say a company is the number one video game publisher because of staff pay and perks...unless you are an employee. Somehow I don't think Ubi is saying they'll move up to number two based on this way of measuring.
But fuck this childish mocking! Are there really people here who take actual pleasure in seeing once-great companies falter? If so, that's just pathetic.
There have been a number of reports of Sony making what seem like very arrogant comments. Do a google search with Sony, arrogant, and PS3 for starters. People tend to feel some pleasure when an arrogant showoff finds out he isn't all he made himself out to be. Childish mocking can be found in nearly every slashdot thread but I think the perceived arrogance of the company lately is the reason that the mocking is more common in Sony threads.
There are other once-great companies that falter and most people will defend and mourn for them. It's only when the companies seem to see themselves as greater than we see them that large numbers of people start rooting for them to fail.
It's hard to know how the PS3 is faring because so few were shipped and so many were sold on ebay and may just barely be getting into actual players' hands.
If.1% of all the wiis sold have problems that might be enough to form noticable clusters on forums. If the same percentage have problems on the ps3 what are the odds that any of them will even find each other on the same forums? You might hear of one or two people tops. If the number of wiis sold (and actually played already) is 10 times more than the ps3s sold (and actually played already) then the percent bad would have to significantly higher for anyone to take notice of ps3s.
I've never been to Africa or Asia but I suspect that it may be more a matter of spots you visited. I've been to Peru and Mexico and some places in each country have very much the mindset you describe in Africa but those places tend to be real tourist traps. Beggars know the places to go to get the best money. You'll even see this to an extent in the U.S. Go to Salt Lake City during the LDS church's conference time. I've seen similar hotspots in Colorado Springs. It's far from universal in the U.S. and it's not even all over in those cities I mentioned but you will see it.
A lot of people visit Africa expecting to see dirt poor people starving to death and I imagine that some there may play the part to get a decent profit. That doesn't mean that people can't provide computers in a smart way to help people...it just depends on how it's done and where.
We nerds drink lots of soda. If we just make sure the villagers get a coke bottle each then they won't fight over it like they did in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".
I agree there's definitely some significant differences between the two cases. I didn't read up on everything but a lot of people on slashdot were making the argument that if it was fair use to create and watch your own edited version then it ought to also be fair use to pay someone to do that for you. The courts disagreed (if they even heard such an argument).
It's not surprising that the MPAA would also jump after this kind of service as well. They don't want anyone making money off of any service that gives people something different than what they've sold (including all copy protections) unless they are also getting a cut of it.
Sure, the CleanFlicks arguably changes the "artistic integrity" of the movie but I'm sure the MPAA is more concerned about the money and the copy protection than any artistic integrity anyway.
Out of curiosity. Those who have ipods, is it just as easy to take a movie off of the ipod and burn it to a DVD? What kind of copy protection is there on the final pre-loaded ipods these guys were selling?
I'm guessing that the copy protection is removed to put the movie on the ipod and no copy protection is put back on the movie at that point. Would people on slashdot be defending a service that takes your dvd and sends it back to you along with a copy of it on an unprotected dvd? Do you think the MPAA would be fine with that?
I got Nintendo Power ages ago for my birthday. Back then, they often gave maps of a game (sometimes just a level or two) that showed where hidden items were. This worked back then because most games were sidescrollers and not terribly big. Added to that, I didn't have internet access back then so the tips and tricks were useful.
Nowadays games are too big to give much more than a very generic map. Better and more tips and tricks can be found on the internet. I have no idea what the format of Nintendo Power is like now.
Remember a while back all the hubbub around a couple of the OPM editors revealing in their blogs that they likely will get an xbox 360 instead of a playstation? I wonder if this had anything to do with the decision to end OPM.
The "great games" in the summary is referring to dreamcast and xbox360 games. Same with superior online service, and ease of development.
It said:
"PS2: Released one year after the lower priced Dreamcast, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service.
It would have been clearer had it said:
"PS2: Released one year after the lower priced Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service.
Even if it just said, "which was" after dreamcast and xbox 360. The commas can throw people off into thinking the lower priced console was one point and what followed were unrelated additional points when in fact what followed was a description of the lower priced console.
They're self-employed ebay sellers, obviously. They probably figure that the profits from their one week of standing in line will equal months of their regular sales. Personally, I think it may backfire on them. Too many people heard about profits from xbox 360 and want to get in on the action. I think there may be more sellers than buyers on ebay this time around bringing bid prices down big time.
Slashdot Mirror
A while back I was interested in DVRs but when I looked around they all seemed to require a monthly subscription from Tivo or some similar service. So now I have to pay a monthly cable bill AND a monthly tivo bill to be freed from the Great Glass Gogoonga? No thanks, I'll stick to dvds. That's closer to "TV on my own schedule, on my own terms." I guess I could build myself a linux DVR if I ever get around to fully researching it. Have they released any commercial DVRs that don't require a monthly service charge yet? When they do I may start to seriously consider it.
At the time I'm looking now, all the ones above $700 don't have any bids at all (except a few large bundles). I just saw a 60 gig model sell for $560 (plus $60 shipping). http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-PlayStation-3-Game-consol e-GET-IT-NOW-1-DAY_W0QQitemZ180066522847QQihZ008QQ categoryZ62054QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I'm surprised that Opera didn't implement their Fit To Width feature. Maybe it'll be put in the final version.
My sister's been trying to hunt a wii down. She doesn't call stores to ask if they have wiis in stock. She calls to ask when they expect their next shipment. They typically know around when the UPS truck comes and they may know they aren't expecting another shipment until X date. This can be valuable information because she can't camp out at all stores all the time.
Unfortunately, she was told that the coasts get priority (at least at Kmarts). So as long as WA, OR, CA, NY, etc. keep selling out they will keep sending most of the Wiis there and only a few will trickle in to the center of the country. That's why some people claim they found some in WA just by going around to a few stores while it still really is next to impossible to get one out in Utah. The store owners here are saying they just aren't getting anymore for a while.
The guy was sending emails to himself. 9/10 emails from himself lost indicates that either there's a problem with lost mail or there's a problem with his whitelist.
Something like that actually happened to me when I was using the free Juno email about 10 years ago. I wasn't even sure to believe her when she told me she'd only received the last one until others I'd emailed let me know they hadn't ever received my email either.
sticking with Word 97. It's apparently not affected by this.
Sales tax in the US varies from state to state. I'm pretty sure Oregon, at least, doesn't have any sales tax.
It's important to note that there's at least a decent possibility that a large number of PS3 buyers are sitting on their system to sell on ebay right before Christmas. I know of one person who says he got 4 ps3s and sold one right at the beginning for top dollar and is holding the rest until a week before Christmas. He's anticipating supply to dry up and demand to pick up (resulting in higher profits). I imagine he's not alone. How many more are doing this is anyone's guess at this point.
On the other hand, many people expect (perhaps foolishly) a stream of Nintendo Wiis to come in each week until Christmas. For those people, they may think it's smarter to sell their units on ebay NOW (before more shipments come in) rather than later. So it becomes difficult to compare ratios of wii and ps3 units sold to gamers vs. ebay sellers. Who knows how many more ebay auctions are coming for each system.
I'm guessing that one game company created more than one game that year.
He was probably just referring to the summary's title: Why Vista Took So Long.
There have been a number of reports of Sony making what seem like very arrogant comments. Do a google search with Sony, arrogant, and PS3 for starters. People tend to feel some pleasure when an arrogant showoff finds out he isn't all he made himself out to be. Childish mocking can be found in nearly every slashdot thread but I think the perceived arrogance of the company lately is the reason that the mocking is more common in Sony threads. There are other once-great companies that falter and most people will defend and mourn for them. It's only when the companies seem to see themselves as greater than we see them that large numbers of people start rooting for them to fail.
It's hard to know how the PS3 is faring because so few were shipped and so many were sold on ebay and may just barely be getting into actual players' hands. If .1% of all the wiis sold have problems that might be enough to form noticable clusters on forums. If the same percentage have problems on the ps3 what are the odds that any of them will even find each other on the same forums? You might hear of one or two people tops. If the number of wiis sold (and actually played already) is 10 times more than the ps3s sold (and actually played already) then the percent bad would have to significantly higher for anyone to take notice of ps3s.
I've never been to Africa or Asia but I suspect that it may be more a matter of spots you visited. I've been to Peru and Mexico and some places in each country have very much the mindset you describe in Africa but those places tend to be real tourist traps. Beggars know the places to go to get the best money. You'll even see this to an extent in the U.S. Go to Salt Lake City during the LDS church's conference time. I've seen similar hotspots in Colorado Springs. It's far from universal in the U.S. and it's not even all over in those cities I mentioned but you will see it. A lot of people visit Africa expecting to see dirt poor people starving to death and I imagine that some there may play the part to get a decent profit. That doesn't mean that people can't provide computers in a smart way to help people...it just depends on how it's done and where.
We nerds drink lots of soda. If we just make sure the villagers get a coke bottle each then they won't fight over it like they did in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".
I agree there's definitely some significant differences between the two cases. I didn't read up on everything but a lot of people on slashdot were making the argument that if it was fair use to create and watch your own edited version then it ought to also be fair use to pay someone to do that for you. The courts disagreed (if they even heard such an argument). It's not surprising that the MPAA would also jump after this kind of service as well. They don't want anyone making money off of any service that gives people something different than what they've sold (including all copy protections) unless they are also getting a cut of it. Sure, the CleanFlicks arguably changes the "artistic integrity" of the movie but I'm sure the MPAA is more concerned about the money and the copy protection than any artistic integrity anyway. Out of curiosity. Those who have ipods, is it just as easy to take a movie off of the ipod and burn it to a DVD? What kind of copy protection is there on the final pre-loaded ipods these guys were selling? I'm guessing that the copy protection is removed to put the movie on the ipod and no copy protection is put back on the movie at that point. Would people on slashdot be defending a service that takes your dvd and sends it back to you along with a copy of it on an unprotected dvd? Do you think the MPAA would be fine with that?
This shouldn't be a surprise after what happened to CleanFlicks
I got Nintendo Power ages ago for my birthday. Back then, they often gave maps of a game (sometimes just a level or two) that showed where hidden items were. This worked back then because most games were sidescrollers and not terribly big. Added to that, I didn't have internet access back then so the tips and tricks were useful. Nowadays games are too big to give much more than a very generic map. Better and more tips and tricks can be found on the internet. I have no idea what the format of Nintendo Power is like now.
Remember a while back all the hubbub around a couple of the OPM editors revealing in their blogs that they likely will get an xbox 360 instead of a playstation? I wonder if this had anything to do with the decision to end OPM.
The only problem is that when YOU email someone else you're likely to get automagically filtered into their junk folder.
You may not agree with the parent poster but how in the world is it offtopic?
It said:
It would have been clearer had it said: "PS2: Released one year after the lower priced Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. Even if it just said, "which was" after dreamcast and xbox 360. The commas can throw people off into thinking the lower priced console was one point and what followed were unrelated additional points when in fact what followed was a description of the lower priced console.
They're self-employed ebay sellers, obviously. They probably figure that the profits from their one week of standing in line will equal months of their regular sales. Personally, I think it may backfire on them. Too many people heard about profits from xbox 360 and want to get in on the action. I think there may be more sellers than buyers on ebay this time around bringing bid prices down big time.