The GP post is stupid. These trolls forget that Directx != Direct3D. And it is just after you have programmed something using DirectSound, DirectPlay and DirectInput and say something as SDL that you *understand* why cant "MSFT simple (sic) sbumit a proposal to extend OpenGL in an open way".
Really, people please read more or do not comment. You only show that you are stupid.
If you read my line again you will see I, in any way wrote anything to imply that I did not wanted to be moded down. Did I?
"Go ahead, mod my day"
Did you understood this as "Go ahead sucker, make my day by modding me down!"?, wow, I think you may have a problem.
Personally, I knew my comment was controversial so I expected to be highly moderated (in *number* of mods, good or bads). You can see it was. So, you should have not wasted YOUR time trying to add words to my mouth (or hands) and typing that:)
Microsoft still has an obligation to (legal) users of XP. These users supposedly paid for a product. Basically Microsoft is giving the finger to it's XP consumer base. Although, no surprises there.
Wow, one of the most stupid comments I have read in some time. First, Microsoft has no obligation in giving you anything after you bought a LICENSE to use their software (XP). However, they will SURELY give an upgrade discount to acquire the license to use their new Operating system (Vista) which will be cheaper than buying the new license.
Come on! it is really tiring the amount of fanboy trolls that appear in a Microsoft story, please try to make interesting discussions! this is no digg
What's keeping MS from backporting some of the new Longhorn kernel/driver niftiness to XP? Oh, right. Money. There's no money in adding new things to an already-sold product. It's all about selling the new hotness.
So, one of the first complains I read over here about Windows is how they have been carrying a legacy of compatibility from Win 3.11 days. Now, they try to simplify the platform (didnt Mac did that when going from OS9 to OSX?, and from PPC to Intel?) and everybody starts whining.
What is keeping Microsoft from backporting is the complexity it would yield, Windows XP is a mess, thats why they had to restart the development of Longhorn to a new model. They decided to throw away the compatilibity and improve the technology.
I do not know how good or bad will vista be, I use Fedora anyways, but I think there is just so much bullshit people can throw at Microsoft, IMHO they are *trying* to do something fine, for a change.
I completely agree with you. When I was at University (4 years ago) I used to install a different distro in my computer almost each week or every other week, I tried it a bit and then installed the next. I got amazed with Mandrake's ease of use, and with Debian's package management, I was enterntained by the several different spanish-language distros and what not, and even Corel Linux! .
At the end, I stayed with Red Hat (fedora), which, was one of the ones that I did not liked back then because it had not so many "bells and whistles", the installation was not as easy as Mandrake for example, but for a really productive environment, I have found it is the best distribution to have, because if you have any problem you know there are a hell lot of people with the same problem and someone may have solved it.
There is only another distribution I use, it is th Damn Small Linux project, I have it in an USB disk and It has been useful once or twice
The real problem is not the aviability of the tools, but the *will* to develop in the platforms. Some developers use OpenGL as the 3D platform, I believe SDL is mature enough to develop on it. There are several multiplatform 3D engines with BSD (Irrlicht is zlib/libpng, OGRE and CrystalSpace are LGPL).In the Audio side you have OpenAL and SDL (the ones I know).
But development houses do not want to program on them, What is needed is that a company like ID software creates a multi plataform game engine and license it to others (like Unreal or Quake engines),
The problem only problem I see is for the 3D libraries creators to stay "int the edge" of technology as DirectX is, supporting the last-generation uber-cool multi-texel-heightmap-voxel-rendering-pipeline for the graphic cards. Unfortunately that is the work of OpenGL for example, and as we know, DirectX is more "dynamic" than OpenGL, supporting more features in less time.
And then some, their search engine is sucking a bit too much lately (personally I think search.yahoo.com returns more relevant results). And as you state, they are focusing in nothing and trying to compete with every technology available. As has been stated before they are a public company and as this they enter into the set named "Corporations" which only target and focus is to get more money for the shareholders. When their usual "ways" (i.e. the initial things they did to get money as Adsense in searches) stops to work they cant help but look for other ways of revenew, or die.
So, behold the new Google Inc. 10 years from now (if not less) Google will be what IBM was 20 years ago, and what Microsoft has been these 10 years.
My mother leaves in what was my home (before I moved to UK). She has a 512 DSL connection that we use every now and then with Skype. We also use it to download some BIG torrents (when I am at Mexico) without fear:-)
But aside from that the connections is sitting there 24/7 and she pays something like $40 a month (I do not know if that is the price now, although I believe it was like that 1 year go, but with Telmex you can bet it is more now).
If I had the oportunity to share my connection and charge someting I will setup the account for her immidiatley.
Sleep mode is something Windows should have had half a decade or more ago, it's practically a goddamn necessity with a portable.
Yeah, because half a decade ago there was ANY operating system that had that support in an installation out of the box. And these days, the only operating system that supports it out of the box is OSX.
With any other OS you have to install what not extensions to the kernel and/or recompile, and that only if you chipset is supported.
Anyway, I agree that Windows Vista will be a resource beautification.
One thing that pisses me of, is that, Microsoft guys should make Service Packs that improve the functionallity of the software, and not only patches system bugs. For example, this so called "Everyone is a User " model could have easly been implemented with the installation of a service pack, just changing the pollicies. Or even the super duper User Interface, it will only be a DirectX-10 install and a Service Patch to add the UI functions.
That comment was really stupid. Most users doing PC to PC and PC- to Phone calls are using Skype.
Having said that, I recently migrated to Fedora Core from Windows XP, and although I am happy becaus now I can say I "eat my dogs food" I have been having difficulties with VoIp (among other things that ar offtopic).
I know Microsoft would *never* provide any service for unix but, does anyone know if there is a good Skype replacement for Linux?, I have not downloaded it but I believe Skype for linux stalled in the 1.4 version (which means, no video, although it wont matter a lot as I have had difficulties getting FC4 recognize my webcam). Now, if anyone knows, is it possible to run for example voipbuster (calls are really cheap to Mexico[outside Mexico city], where I call frequently). I remember reading about an open source VoIp project, but, does it provides PC to POTS service? and How much?.
As a shameless plug, I would like to wonder, how difficult could it be to make a peer 2 peer VoIp service that included the PC to POTS service, for example, if I downloaded the free PC2POTS server and installed the infraestructure in my home country I could charge (or not) for *connecting* calls to my country or state. How difficult is to do that? is it possible at all?.
Look, if I was unemployed (as I believe I will be after finishing my PhD) I surely would accept (at least try sending my resume) in whatever company I can. In this world (at least that has been in my experience) there is more people than jobs, so if there are jobs that no one wants to do (or places where no one wants to go) I do not care.
I think a lot of people is in the same place as that, so I wont blame anyone trying to get a job.
I agree, as much as I hate Microsoft or some of its very bad software, here at the University of Liverpool Bill Gate's fundation has given a huge amount of money ( $50.7 million ) to improve research in Malaria disease.
A lot of people could be pissed of about Microsoft's practices but, it would be nice to compare the 10 first billionaries from Forbes (from which the 3rd one is a Mexican [as I am BTW]) and see what is the amount of money these people has donated. It does not matter if the donations are tax deductible or whatever, the only thing that matters is that, from the *corporate-evil* borg, I believe Bill Gates is one of the less evil around there.
Personally, I admire him from what he is doing, and from his vision. And for all of the people that says he is not a true geek or whatever, I believe he was more "geek" as more than the half of geeks that consider themselves "geeks" nowadays. If you think it like that, a lot of people that program in kiddos languages like Python, Pearl and javascript/html would explode at the idea of programming a programming-language at an emulator.
I remember in my undergrad years, I had a module called "Computing Fundaments 3" or somthing similar (but in spanish) where the teacher was supposed to teach how to use Excel. He gave us "Computing Fundamets 2" where we programmed in Visual Basic 6 (nothing fancy) and after finishing the module I told him it would be better for the students to learn the "guts" of a spreadsheet instead of learning just how to use the spreadsheet, we had a small discussion about it.
At the beginning of the "C.F.3" module, he told the grups that instead of learning something he was sure everybody knew (excel formulas etc etc) we were going to learn how to *make* a spreadsheet, so there we were programming a spreadsheet in C/C++. It was a really cool experience, it was de 3 semester of the undergrad and none of us had any idea about function parsing mechanisms and the like, the teacher gave us some photocopies of a very easy (albeit not efficient) algorithm. At the end of the course the different teams had different spreadsheets with differnt capabilities, it was really cool.
All this blah blah means that it is up to the teacher what students learn, and after all it is up to the students, I do not know how is in USA but at least from my one time undergrad experience in Mexico, almost all the students just go to the school for the score and the paper, and they do not care what the teacher will give, the other half do not have a clue of what the teacher will teach, so, it is up to YOU (the student[s] that know) to convince the teacher to focus on certain specific areas. It worked for me in a lot of courses during undergrad (granted, not for EVERY course) thus usually the "end of year projects" requeriments where fulfilled with my own home projects.
Yes, I am enjoying the latest N64 games, in my computer with 1964. I usually play Mario Tennis, Mario Kart 64 and Mario Golf, all of them with my girlfriend and sometimes a flatmate.
Oh, and I sometimes also play Army Men (both of them). They are very cool!
So what? anything wrong with that? I do not have to spend hundreds of £££ to compensate a lack of appropiate cock size with uber-expensive boring-as-hell console games.
Yeah, I am waiting for the Wii, and I just bought Worms 1 and 2 from Ebay for £5 (incl shipping) to play in epsxe.
So what? you surely are one of those jerks taht buy EA sport games each year just because to have the sports teams "up to date", when the gameplay has been the same for the last 10 years (yeah, I also love International Super Star Soccer for the N64) oh, and we also play Dr. Mario for the NES.
Since I moved to Liverpool, I have not been able to get broadband because the providers do not have "coverage" in my area
And the incredible thing is that I am at 5 blocks from the city centre and 4 blocks from the "University Of Liverpool". The only way I can get broadband is getting a telephone line, but screw it, I do not call anyone (I am not Briton) here, and I only need Skype and VoIpbuster for my long distance needs. Therefore, I refuse to give away 10 pounds a month PLUS the internet fee (which would be a different provider than BT as from what I have read they are really expensive and bad).
If government is talking about "internet for all" then wake me up when I can get into the net by connecting to a Wifi network from my home IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAJOR CITY, meanwhile, continue with the buzzwords
It appears that gambling is becoming a key component here in order for getting any real $$$ from selling this stuff..
You may have not heard about and Futures (kind of Derivatives) but they can very well used like gambling. It would be interesting to know if these Derivatives are being traded in the Second Life game.
On another more or less relating thing, I tried to run second life on my notebook (3Ghz, ATI-9100 [128MB], 1.5 GB ram) and it was very very slow, anyone knows if it is possible (any tip or something) to run it faster??
Woah, how old do you think NES fans are? Try late 20's and early 30's. I'm 29, and while I had an Atari when I was very young, the Christmas after the NES came out holds the most memorable video game experiences of my childhood
No no, you did not understood. Nintendo is aiming to NON PLAYERS and Casual players in this generation. Have you seen the promotional videos of the Wii? a lot of them have those grandmas and Joe/Jane Sixpack in them.
That was what I was talking about when saying "people nintendo is aiming", and, a lot of them where "non players" when the NES came in. That is why I stated that, for them Nintendo *means* home video-game system.
Anyone remember the movie "Hudson Hawk". In some of the lines, the main girl asks the main character if he "wants to go to her home to play nintendo", he asks "what is to play Nintendo?" as he was in jail for a lot of time [note, she was referring to have a Sublime eXiting eXperience].
I think, that demonstrate the level of "common knowledge" that Nintengo had in those times. And again, as I said before, a lot of that people are now 40 to 60.
Believe it or no, for a lot of people that nintendo is aiming (those in their 40s, 50s or 60s), what you are doing while sitting in front of the TV with that strange controller is "playing Nintendo". My father is one of them, I myself grew up with NES and SNES (although I had a 2600 that my father bought when I was like 5 or 6 Y old, I palyed a bit).
I think Nintendo is still the sinonimous of video game, even between non gamers, and that is because in the NES era, there was nothing else*, just the Nintendo, unlike the Playstation era where you had 3 or 4 different systems making a real competition.
* I know there were the Segas, NECs and even NEO-GEOs, but for your parents, you where always going to "play the Nintendo" to your rich friend house (who happened to have the Neo-Geo)
I have seen manufacturing plants in Mexico where something similar happens, they pay their workers something like USD$0.5 for a 10hour day.
That sucks, from one side, but, for the other that is the way the hand work (mano de obra?) is valued in there, and that is why (in Mexico's case) USA companies/farms like the workers, because they are cheap.
From the company point of view, they look which place offers a better deal in work hours cost, it is up to the country government to establish [and enforce] the minimun fares and minimum health and safety laws.
At least, that is what I think. And no, I do not own any Apple product (as I am a poor Mexican beaner:))
Lo se porque he pasado mucho tiempo en Mexico, y soy "gringo Greg de Texas".
Is it Tecsas or Tejas? =o)
And I am from Mexico (and lived there from 23 years, and plan to go back =op), I think that, if you are in Texas that is the reason why you hear "Americano", usually (at least in: La Paz, BCS;Campeche,Camp.;Mexico,DF; Monterrey,NL and Tampico,Tmp, the places where I have lived) they are called gringos or Estadounidense (if the person is present or somewhat you need to be respectful).
Of course, I believe Gringo is not used as a pejorative. BTW you know where the Gringo comes from no? (green go from vietnam war IIRC). It would be interesting to know how you call Mexicans (I know Beaners and "Ilegal Aliens" although I am not *completely* sure of the second one).
Newsflash: Most people don't pay for porn. Most people don't need that much porn. Most people aren't your target market.
The way I see this is that a (relative) minority of people actually pay for porn. Everyone else just gets it from P2P and that ain't gonna change.
There is a flaw in your logic. I had a similar discussion with some frinends in University, I started saying something like:
"Those people who BUY porn are surely really bad [crazy], I would never get into the point of PAYING for porn"
To what a friend of mine answered something really insightful: "Doh!, thats stupid, you do not PAY for porn because you DOWNLOAD it from internet"
From this, I believe your "newsflash" is a bit wrong. One of the main battles of the pornographic industry has been to "authenticate" (sorry can not think of the exact word) the adult entertainment industry, the problem they have (in USA, the biggest market) is the "morality" issue. You would be surprised about the number of people that DO watch some kind of porn. And, you would be more surprised to know that if the "OMG-think-of-the -Children" hundred year ol "sex-is-wrong" TABOO from USA dissappeared, almost everyone would rent/buy pronographic movies quite regularly.
Secondly, as my friend said, a lot of people that watch porn do not buy it, but the only reason is because they ILEGALLY find a way to get it, it is the same as with non pornographic movies.
Slashdot Mirror
The GP post is stupid. These trolls forget that Directx != Direct3D. And it is just after you have programmed something using DirectSound, DirectPlay and DirectInput and say something as SDL that you *understand* why cant "MSFT simple (sic) sbumit a proposal to extend OpenGL in an open way".
Really, people please read more or do not comment. You only show that you are stupid.
Hi Mr. 976489
I am not new here.
Sincerely
Mr. 837672
Hi,
:)
If you read my line again you will see I, in any way wrote anything to imply that I did not wanted to be moded down. Did I?
"Go ahead, mod my day"
Did you understood this as "Go ahead sucker, make my day by modding me down!"?, wow, I think you may have a problem.
Personally, I knew my comment was controversial so I expected to be highly moderated (in *number* of mods, good or bads). You can see it was. So, you should have not wasted YOUR time trying to add words to my mouth (or hands) and typing that
But of course, we still are on slashdot no?
Microsoft still has an obligation to (legal) users of XP. These users supposedly paid for a product. Basically Microsoft is giving the finger to it's XP consumer base. Although, no surprises there.
Wow, one of the most stupid comments I have read in some time. First, Microsoft has no obligation in giving you anything after you bought a LICENSE to use their software (XP). However, they will SURELY give an upgrade discount to acquire the license to use their new Operating system (Vista) which will be cheaper than buying the new license.
Come on! it is really tiring the amount of fanboy trolls that appear in a Microsoft story, please try to make interesting discussions! this is no digg
What's keeping MS from backporting some of the new Longhorn kernel/driver niftiness to XP? Oh, right. Money. There's no money in adding new things to an already-sold product. It's all about selling the new hotness.
So, one of the first complains I read over here about Windows is how they have been carrying a legacy of compatibility from Win 3.11 days. Now, they try to simplify the platform (didnt Mac did that when going from OS9 to OSX?, and from PPC to Intel?) and everybody starts whining.
What is keeping Microsoft from backporting is the complexity it would yield, Windows XP is a mess, thats why they had to restart the development of Longhorn to a new model. They decided to throw away the compatilibity and improve the technology.
I do not know how good or bad will vista be, I use Fedora anyways, but I think there is just so much bullshit people can throw at Microsoft, IMHO they are *trying* to do something fine, for a change.
I completely agree with you. When I was at University (4 years ago) I used to install a different distro in my computer almost each week or every other week, I tried it a bit and then installed the next. I got amazed with Mandrake's ease of use, and with Debian's package management, I was enterntained by the several different spanish-language distros and what not, and even Corel Linux! .
At the end, I stayed with Red Hat (fedora), which, was one of the ones that I did not liked back then because it had not so many "bells and whistles", the installation was not as easy as Mandrake for example, but for a really productive environment, I have found it is the best distribution to have, because if you have any problem you know there are a hell lot of people with the same problem and someone may have solved it.
There is only another distribution I use, it is th Damn Small Linux project, I have it in an USB disk and It has been useful once or twice
The real problem is not the aviability of the tools, but the *will* to develop in the platforms. Some developers use OpenGL as the 3D platform, I believe SDL is mature enough to develop on it. There are several multiplatform 3D engines with BSD (Irrlicht is zlib/libpng, OGRE and CrystalSpace are LGPL).In the Audio side you have OpenAL and SDL (the ones I know).
But development houses do not want to program on them, What is needed is that a company like ID software creates a multi plataform game engine and license it to others (like Unreal or Quake engines),
The problem only problem I see is for the 3D libraries creators to stay "int the edge" of technology as DirectX is, supporting the last-generation uber-cool multi-texel-heightmap-voxel-rendering-pipeline for the graphic cards. Unfortunately that is the work of OpenGL for example, and as we know, DirectX is more "dynamic" than OpenGL, supporting more features in less time.
I like google as much as the next /.er,
Do not talk for me, as I do not like Google too much, for one they treat their customer pretty bad. To the extent that they prohibit criticism of their AdSense "service" terms and conditions on participating sites..
And then some, their search engine is sucking a bit too much lately (personally I think search.yahoo.com returns more relevant results). And as you state, they are focusing in nothing and trying to compete with every technology available. As has been stated before they are a public company and as this they enter into the set named "Corporations" which only target and focus is to get more money for the shareholders. When their usual "ways" (i.e. the initial things they did to get money as Adsense in searches) stops to work they cant help but look for other ways of revenew, or die.
So, behold the new Google Inc. 10 years from now (if not less) Google will be what IBM was 20 years ago, and what Microsoft has been these 10 years.
(go ahead mod my day)
My mother leaves in what was my home (before I moved to UK). She has a 512 DSL connection that we use every now and then with Skype. We also use it to download some BIG torrents (when I am at Mexico) without fear :-)
But aside from that the connections is sitting there 24/7 and she pays something like $40 a month (I do not know if that is the price now, although I believe it was like that 1 year go, but with Telmex you can bet it is more now).
If I had the oportunity to share my connection and charge someting I will setup the account for her immidiatley.
Sleep mode is something Windows should have had half a decade or more ago, it's practically a goddamn necessity with a portable.
Yeah, because half a decade ago there was ANY operating system that had that support in an installation out of the box.
And these days, the only operating system that supports it out of the box is OSX.
With any other OS you have to install what not extensions to the kernel and/or recompile, and that only if you chipset is supported.
Anyway, I agree that Windows Vista will be a resource beautification.
One thing that pisses me of, is that, Microsoft guys should make Service Packs that improve the functionallity of the software, and not only patches system bugs. For example, this so called "Everyone is a User " model could have easly been implemented with the installation of a service pack, just changing the pollicies. Or even the super duper User Interface, it will only be a DirectX-10 install and a Service Patch to add the UI functions.
That comment was really stupid. Most users doing PC to PC and PC- to Phone calls are using Skype.
Having said that, I recently migrated to Fedora Core from Windows XP, and although I am happy becaus now I can say I "eat my dogs food" I have been having difficulties with VoIp (among other things that ar offtopic).
I know Microsoft would *never* provide any service for unix but, does anyone know if there is a good Skype replacement for Linux?, I have not downloaded it but I believe Skype for linux stalled in the 1.4 version (which means, no video, although it wont matter a lot as I have had difficulties getting FC4 recognize my webcam). Now, if anyone knows, is it possible to run for example voipbuster (calls are really cheap to Mexico[outside Mexico city], where I call frequently). I remember reading about an open source VoIp project, but, does it provides PC to POTS service? and How much?.
As a shameless plug, I would like to wonder, how difficult could it be to make a peer 2 peer VoIp service that included the PC to POTS service, for example, if I downloaded the free PC2POTS server and installed the infraestructure in my home country I could charge (or not) for *connecting* calls to my country or state. How difficult is to do that? is it possible at all?.
Look, if I was unemployed (as I believe I will be after finishing my PhD) I surely would accept (at least try sending my resume) in whatever company I can. In this world (at least that has been in my experience) there is more people than jobs, so if there are jobs that no one wants to do (or places where no one wants to go) I do not care.
I think a lot of people is in the same place as that, so I wont blame anyone trying to get a job.
I agree, as much as I hate Microsoft or some of its very bad software, here at the University of Liverpool Bill Gate's fundation has given a huge amount of money ( $50.7 million ) to improve research in Malaria disease.
A lot of people could be pissed of about Microsoft's practices but, it would be nice to compare the 10 first billionaries from Forbes (from which the 3rd one is a Mexican [as I am BTW]) and see what is the amount of money these people has donated. It does not matter if the donations are tax deductible or whatever, the only thing that matters is that, from the *corporate-evil* borg, I believe Bill Gates is one of the less evil around there.
Personally, I admire him from what he is doing, and from his vision. And for all of the people that says he is not a true geek or whatever, I believe he was more "geek" as more than the half of geeks that consider themselves "geeks" nowadays. If you think it like that, a lot of people that program in kiddos languages like Python, Pearl and javascript/html would explode at the idea of programming a programming-language at an emulator.
Mmmm no, no es correcto
en Español decimos NOTAS, con A.
So, who is this guy and what is this program Lotus Notus he wrote?, why is it so important?
Correct.
I remember in my undergrad years, I had a module called "Computing Fundaments 3" or somthing similar (but in spanish) where the teacher was supposed to teach how to use Excel. He gave us "Computing Fundamets 2" where we programmed in Visual Basic 6 (nothing fancy) and after finishing the module I told him it would be better for the students to learn the "guts" of a spreadsheet instead of learning just how to use the spreadsheet, we had a small discussion about it.
At the beginning of the "C.F.3" module, he told the grups that instead of learning something he was sure everybody knew (excel formulas etc etc) we were going to learn how to *make* a spreadsheet, so there we were programming a spreadsheet in C/C++. It was a really cool experience, it was de 3 semester of the undergrad and none of us had any idea about function parsing mechanisms and the like, the teacher gave us some photocopies of a very easy (albeit not efficient) algorithm. At the end of the course the different teams had different spreadsheets with differnt capabilities, it was really cool.
All this blah blah means that it is up to the teacher what students learn, and after all it is up to the students, I do not know how is in USA but at least from my one time undergrad experience in Mexico, almost all the students just go to the school for the score and the paper, and they do not care what the teacher will give, the other half do not have a clue of what the teacher will teach, so, it is up to YOU (the student[s] that know) to convince the teacher to focus on certain specific areas. It worked for me in a lot of courses during undergrad (granted, not for EVERY course) thus usually the "end of year projects" requeriments where fulfilled with my own home projects.
Hi,
Yes, I am enjoying the latest N64 games, in my computer with 1964. I usually play Mario Tennis, Mario Kart 64 and Mario Golf, all of them with my girlfriend and sometimes a flatmate.
Oh, and I sometimes also play Army Men (both of them). They are very cool!
So what? anything wrong with that? I do not have to spend hundreds of £££ to compensate a lack of appropiate cock size with uber-expensive boring-as-hell console games.
Yeah, I am waiting for the Wii, and I just bought Worms 1 and 2 from Ebay for £5 (incl shipping) to play in epsxe.
So what? you surely are one of those jerks taht buy EA sport games each year just because to have the sports teams "up to date", when the gameplay has been the same for the last 10 years (yeah, I also love International Super Star Soccer for the N64) oh, and we also play Dr. Mario for the NES.
So suck it loser
Ha, you are not alone
Since I moved to Liverpool, I have not been able to get broadband because the providers do not have "coverage" in my area
And the incredible thing is that I am at 5 blocks from the city centre and 4 blocks from the "University Of Liverpool". The only way I can get broadband is getting a telephone line, but screw it, I do not call anyone (I am not Briton) here, and I only need Skype and VoIpbuster for my long distance needs. Therefore, I refuse to give away 10 pounds a month PLUS the internet fee (which would be a different provider than BT as from what I have read they are really expensive and bad).
If government is talking about "internet for all" then wake me up when I can get into the net by connecting to a Wifi network from my home IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAJOR CITY, meanwhile, continue with the buzzwords
It appears that gambling is becoming a key component here in order for getting any real $$$ from selling this stuff..
You may have not heard about and Futures (kind of Derivatives) but they can very well used like gambling. It would be interesting to know if these Derivatives are being traded in the Second Life game.
On another more or less relating thing, I tried to run second life on my notebook (3Ghz, ATI-9100 [128MB], 1.5 GB ram) and it was very very slow, anyone knows if it is possible (any tip or something) to run it faster??
Woah, how old do you think NES fans are? Try late 20's and early 30's. I'm 29, and while I had an Atari when I was very young, the Christmas after the NES came out holds the most memorable video game experiences of my childhood
No no, you did not understood. Nintendo is aiming to NON PLAYERS and Casual players in this generation. Have you seen the promotional videos of the Wii? a lot of them have those grandmas and Joe/Jane Sixpack in them.
That was what I was talking about when saying "people nintendo is aiming", and, a lot of them where "non players" when the NES came in. That is why I stated that, for them Nintendo *means* home video-game system.
Anyone remember the movie "Hudson Hawk". In some of the lines, the main girl asks the main character if he "wants to go to her home to play nintendo", he asks "what is to play Nintendo?" as he was in jail for a lot of time [note, she was referring to have a Sublime eXiting eXperience].
I think, that demonstrate the level of "common knowledge" that Nintengo had in those times. And again, as I said before, a lot of that people are now 40 to 60.
Believe it or no, for a lot of people that nintendo is aiming (those in their 40s, 50s or 60s), what you are doing while sitting in front of the TV with that strange controller is "playing Nintendo". My father is one of them, I myself grew up with NES and SNES (although I had a 2600 that my father bought when I was like 5 or 6 Y old, I palyed a bit).
I think Nintendo is still the sinonimous of video game, even between non gamers, and that is because in the NES era, there was nothing else*, just the Nintendo, unlike the Playstation era where you had 3 or 4 different systems making a real competition.
* I know there were the Segas, NECs and even NEO-GEOs, but for your parents, you where always going to "play the Nintendo" to your rich friend house (who happened to have the Neo-Geo)
I have seen manufacturing plants in Mexico where something similar happens, they pay their workers something like USD$0.5 for a 10hour day.
:))
That sucks, from one side, but, for the other that is the way the hand work (mano de obra?) is valued in there, and that is why (in Mexico's case) USA companies/farms like the workers, because they are cheap.
From the company point of view, they look which place offers a better deal in work hours cost, it is up to the country government to establish [and enforce] the minimun fares and minimum health and safety laws.
At least, that is what I think. And no, I do not own any Apple product (as I am a poor Mexican beaner
Lo se porque he pasado mucho tiempo en Mexico, y soy "gringo Greg de Texas".
Is it Tecsas or Tejas? =o)
And I am from Mexico (and lived there from 23 years, and plan to go back =op), I think that, if you are in Texas that is the reason why you hear "Americano", usually (at least in: La Paz, BCS;Campeche,Camp.;Mexico,DF; Monterrey,NL and Tampico,Tmp, the places where I have lived) they are called gringos or Estadounidense (if the person is present or somewhat you need to be respectful).
Of course, I believe Gringo is not used as a pejorative. BTW you know where the Gringo comes from no? (green go from vietnam war IIRC). It would be interesting to know how you call Mexicans (I know Beaners and "Ilegal Aliens" although I am not *completely* sure of the second one).
Newsflash: Most people don't pay for porn. Most people don't need that much porn. Most people aren't your target market.
The way I see this is that a (relative) minority of people actually pay for porn. Everyone else just gets it from P2P and that ain't gonna change.
There is a flaw in your logic. I had a similar discussion with some frinends in University, I started saying something like:
"Those people who BUY porn are surely really bad [crazy], I would never get into the point of PAYING for porn"
To what a friend of mine answered something really insightful:
"Doh!, thats stupid, you do not PAY for porn because you DOWNLOAD it from internet"
From this, I believe your "newsflash" is a bit wrong. One of the main battles of the pornographic industry has been to "authenticate" (sorry can not think of the exact word) the adult entertainment industry, the problem they have (in USA, the biggest market) is the "morality" issue. You would be surprised about the number of people that DO watch some kind of porn. And, you would be more surprised to know that if the "OMG-think-of-the -Children" hundred year ol "sex-is-wrong" TABOO from USA dissappeared, almost everyone would rent/buy pronographic movies quite regularly.
Secondly, as my friend said, a lot of people that watch porn do not buy it, but the only reason is because they ILEGALLY find a way to get it, it is the same as with non pornographic movies.
I-dunno-bout-you-sir but in my opinion Pirates and Pornographers get along togheter very very well.