I don't want to sound like a Mel-Gibson-style conspiracy nut, but it's hard not to reach for the tinfoil when you read anecdotal reports like this. It would take such a small shift of votes to change an election... I dunno, can the party in power resist that temptation? Given that they can't resist any other temptations?
Uh, Signs cost $72 million in production costs alone. Factor in advertising and promotion, and you're looking well over the $100 million mark. Walk the Line, at $28 million production, was a bargain by comparison.
I was so afraid that Sony and LucasArts would stop supporting their bland, broken game! What would I do if I couldn't have my dancer running on macros 24/7? My little Twilek girl would cease to exist, and I would cry like a little girl.
People with no lives can breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you Sony. Thank you LucasArts. God bless us every one (and Tiny Tim too).
You do realize that arguing about this list makes you sound like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons, right? I'm serious. Just read some of the threads in his voice, and it sounds like a custom-made script, a soliloquy of unrequited geek passion.
I've never seen anyone address the issue of the batteries. So I save a lot of gas by driving a hybrid, and I'm doing good by the enviroment, right?
What about the batteries? Aren't most batteries toxic as hell? Isn't the manufacture and disposal of batteries a colossal headache? Am I really doing anything productive at all, trading a few gallons of Saudi crude for a lithium/ion toxic waste site? Somebody, please, set me straight. What do they do with the batteries?
Oh, and what if you live in a place with real winters? Last I heard, batteries die a quick and silent death in subzero conditions.
In the article, they recound how they had to tone down some of the facial tech since too much realism was "just creepy." I would be fascinated to see it in action. How, exactly, does it creep the gamer out?
Would I hesitate to kill a combine soldier if the face was too real? Would I develop a pathetic geek crush on Alex? I'm really curious about this. And I want to see this level of realism that they deemed to be too much.
Need? What is this "need" you speak of? I'm having a very hard time understanding the post's question. If only the poster would use words I can comprehend, such as "want," "desire," "lust" and "pointless splurge."
Maybe I'm showing my age, but this really makes me think of Terminator 2, with the early CGI liquid metal cop doing all sorts of naughty things. Who knew? He could have been productively cooling computer parts instead of killing people.
SOmething's really odd here -- the people who would most need this are folks who are in wheelchairs. And yet the tube is clearly too narrow for any sort of handicapped person.
Why invent a freaking elevator for the people who don't need one? Do they have a handicapped version? Looking at the size of the capsule, I doubt a person with arm braces could fit in there.
It seems really cruel to make an easy-to-install elevator that won't fit the people who need it.
Google has no secret plan - posted March 17,2005 Hey look. Someone else is predicting that Google will user their super-mega-ultimate-supreme server farm to replace your PC's operating system.
That sounds familiar.
I do not buy it. Let's look at some of the arguments:
"Google has hired OS experts like Rob Pike and Marc Lucovsky! Clearly they are toiling away on the Manhattan project of OS research, which will culminate in some kind of...SOMETHING! Some kind of something which will sweep Microsoft from the face of the earth!"
A more likely scenario is that Google does indeed perform OS research, but not for you and I. For themselves. Their clusters use a custom filesystem. They run linux, but it's been modified from the original Red Hat. They need (and can attract) smart folks to build and extend these systems. But it's all for the benefit of storage and search. They didn't hire Rob and Marc to work on giving you online spreadsheets. Sorry.
"Google uses wowie-zowie javascript for Gmail and Google maps! Clearly this is the harbinger of their browser-based OS-like-thingy!"
I think they use javascript because it works well. It's one step beyond html. Like any other technology-driven company, they'll use the best tools they can, even if those tools aren't mainstream yet. I've looked at the source code for both Gmail and Google maps, and I believe they are two entirely different projects, run by two separate groups. The goal of one is to make a good web-based email service. The goal of the other is to make a good online map service. I find it difficult to fit those pieces together into a master strategy. I think they evolved independently.
"Google has invested in native clients like Picasa and Keyhole maps and Desktop Search! Clearly this is an aggressive move into the consumer application space!"
Well, that's partly true. But Google isn't primarily interested in selling consumer apps. I think Picasa and Keyhole were acquired because Google wants to own delivery channels (browsers) for data that doesn't currently have a good delivery channel. Html data is delivered by a web browser, and it's probably a bit late for Google to own that. But Geographic data (the real thing, not road maps) has no browser, except either a full-blown GIS system or a lightweight client like keyhole. Photos on your hard drive have no browser (unless you have a mac).
I think Google desktop search was kind of a fluke. Something they could do fairly easily (right?) with some market opportunity (because windows default search BLOOOOOOOOOOWS). A low-investment play that incidentally forced MS and Yahoo to play catch-up.
Let's talk about business strategy. It's fun to imagine that Google has some awesome master plan for controlling all computerdom. But I have a simpler theory that I think fits the evidence:
A) Google cares first and foremost about web search. Most of their architect-level employees will be working on making search better. I think one of Google's big shots said something similar right out loud. Search is what they do.
B) Google cares secondly about new kinds of search. Book search. Place search. Image search. Discussion group search. Product search. Email search. Because they have an advertising model that can be targeted to most any type of search. (Google also cares about new kinds of search because web ads may not work forever.)
C) Google cares thirdly about interesting new things. These come from employees. Depending on which source you believe, Google employees spend either 10% or 20% of their time working on personal projects. (Update: It looks like 20% is the correct number) The really successful projects get publicized via Google labs. Google maps started as one of these. I bet Gmail did too.
I'm especially interested in (C). 20% is a lot of time. Would your company willingly slash 20% from its developer-hours? Why is this important?
For one thing, it's the world's best marketing department. Those Google labs pro
It seems that saying someone is the "new Microsoft" is a lot like saying something's the "new black." Will the word Microsoft wind up being an adjective or a verb?
Personally, I aspire to be the New Symantec. But that's just a matter of preference. Anybody here want to be the new Lotus?
If Apple had won the desktop, there would be no Mac Mini. Compare Apple's behavior now to their actions when they owned a much larger chunk of the desktop. They were arrogant and awful. Much as I loved their machines, I never suffered any illusions about the company. And if you think the magig sauce that makes Apple so good is Steve Jobs, just look at the Next Cube. Very similar philosophy, very similar price point. Again, the behavior only changed when the market share dove.
This sort of behavior has a lot to do with why I never moaned about Microsoft taking over the desktop. As a longtime Mac user, I've seen Apple's weird paternalistic culture close-up for a couple of decades.
Microsoft wants to infiltrate every device bigger than a toothbrush, agreed. But how much worse would it be if Apple took over? (I realize this is verging way out into hypothetical land.) In Bizzarro Apple Land, only rich, Blaupunkt-owning, BMW-driving hipsters would be allowed to compute. Your Mac could be taken away by armed fashionistas roaming the streets. Every PC would cost at least $5,000 and developers would be expected to grovel for the supreme privilege of creating apps for the One True Operating System. Businesses in non-sexy segments would be denied licenses, and instead use elaborate abaci manned by legions of idiot savants.
In a netowrking class I was obliged to take, the instructor's favorite rant about Linux was, "Who you gonna sue when something goes wrong? The penguin? The penguin!?!?" He would repeat this over and over; thought it was really witty.
I pointed out to the yob that you can't really sue Microsoft either, because of their restrictive EULA, but it didn't make a dent in him. "You gonna sue the penguin?" he'd yell.
Guys like him make me never want to take a course ever again. Just gimme the damn books, and let me work it out on my own, bozos.
I sure hope CowboyNeal is considered special enough to get schwag. Maybe there should be a sort of anti-special list, consisting entirely of subgenii, who get nothing but weird swag.
At any rate, it's wrong to create any sort of poll or list and not have a CowboyNeal option. 'Nuff said.
I've never understood why more attention isn't paid to punishing the businesses who advertise via spam. However well the spammers hide their tracks, there's a real company somewhere that wants to exchange services for cash. Why not attack this at the root? Why not make it a fineable offense to advertise via spam? Or would it be all-too-easy for a company to claim it never asked for the spam to be sent in the first place?
It just seems to me that if you punish the money, there would be little to no incentive to spam. Any IANALs (or IAALs) like to comment on why this would/wouldn't work?
I can think of a number of ways in which CRTs beat flatscreens, but this article never gives any. And yet it's a major point -- the thrust of the title and first two paragraphs.
Back to the Basic Essay Dungeon with the author! Support your argument, j-school dropout!
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I don't want to sound like a Mel-Gibson-style conspiracy nut, but it's hard not to reach for the tinfoil when you read anecdotal reports like this. It would take such a small shift of votes to change an election ... I dunno, can the party in power resist that temptation? Given that they can't resist any other temptations?
Uh, Signs cost $72 million in production costs alone. Factor in advertising and promotion, and you're looking well over the $100 million mark. Walk the Line, at $28 million production, was a bargain by comparison.
Many challengers to the mighty Pod have come; all have gone away, weeping in the night like chastened schoolboys. This too shall pass.
People with no lives can breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you Sony. Thank you LucasArts. God bless us every one (and Tiny Tim too).
Check your sarcasm meter. Extreme probability that original post contains facetious elements.
Sometimes you want to patch, reboot and repeat. Stability is so *boring*.
You do realize that arguing about this list makes you sound like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons, right? I'm serious. Just read some of the threads in his voice, and it sounds like a custom-made script, a soliloquy of unrequited geek passion.
What about the batteries? Aren't most batteries toxic as hell? Isn't the manufacture and disposal of batteries a colossal headache? Am I really doing anything productive at all, trading a few gallons of Saudi crude for a lithium/ion toxic waste site? Somebody, please, set me straight. What do they do with the batteries?
Oh, and what if you live in a place with real winters? Last I heard, batteries die a quick and silent death in subzero conditions.
Would I hesitate to kill a combine soldier if the face was too real? Would I develop a pathetic geek crush on Alex? I'm really curious about this. And I want to see this level of realism that they deemed to be too much.
When I first read the title of the post, I was sure it read "More Patent Whores for Mobile Phones." Not ebtirely inaccurate, really.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Maybe I'm showing my age, but this really makes me think of Terminator 2, with the early CGI liquid metal cop doing all sorts of naughty things. Who knew? He could have been productively cooling computer parts instead of killing people.
SOmething's really odd here -- the people who would most need this are folks who are in wheelchairs. And yet the tube is clearly too narrow for any sort of handicapped person. Why invent a freaking elevator for the people who don't need one? Do they have a handicapped version? Looking at the size of the capsule, I doubt a person with arm braces could fit in there. It seems really cruel to make an easy-to-install elevator that won't fit the people who need it.
Google has no secret plan - posted March 17,2005
Hey look. Someone else is predicting that Google will user their super-mega-ultimate-supreme server farm to replace your PC's operating system.
That sounds familiar.
I do not buy it. Let's look at some of the arguments:
"Google has hired OS experts like Rob Pike and Marc Lucovsky! Clearly they are toiling away on the Manhattan project of OS research, which will culminate in some kind of...SOMETHING! Some kind of something which will sweep Microsoft from the face of the earth!"
A more likely scenario is that Google does indeed perform OS research, but not for you and I. For themselves. Their clusters use a custom filesystem. They run linux, but it's been modified from the original Red Hat. They need (and can attract) smart folks to build and extend these systems. But it's all for the benefit of storage and search. They didn't hire Rob and Marc to work on giving you online spreadsheets. Sorry.
"Google uses wowie-zowie javascript for Gmail and Google maps! Clearly this is the harbinger of their browser-based OS-like-thingy!"
I think they use javascript because it works well. It's one step beyond html. Like any other technology-driven company, they'll use the best tools they can, even if those tools aren't mainstream yet. I've looked at the source code for both Gmail and Google maps, and I believe they are two entirely different projects, run by two separate groups. The goal of one is to make a good web-based email service. The goal of the other is to make a good online map service. I find it difficult to fit those pieces together into a master strategy. I think they evolved independently.
"Google has invested in native clients like Picasa and Keyhole maps and Desktop Search! Clearly this is an aggressive move into the consumer application space!"
Well, that's partly true. But Google isn't primarily interested in selling consumer apps. I think Picasa and Keyhole were acquired because Google wants to own delivery channels (browsers) for data that doesn't currently have a good delivery channel. Html data is delivered by a web browser, and it's probably a bit late for Google to own that. But Geographic data (the real thing, not road maps) has no browser, except either a full-blown GIS system or a lightweight client like keyhole. Photos on your hard drive have no browser (unless you have a mac).
I think Google desktop search was kind of a fluke. Something they could do fairly easily (right?) with some market opportunity (because windows default search BLOOOOOOOOOOWS). A low-investment play that incidentally forced MS and Yahoo to play catch-up.
Let's talk about business strategy. It's fun to imagine that Google has some awesome master plan for controlling all computerdom. But I have a simpler theory that I think fits the evidence:
A) Google cares first and foremost about web search. Most of their architect-level employees will be working on making search better. I think one of Google's big shots said something similar right out loud. Search is what they do.
B) Google cares secondly about new kinds of search. Book search. Place search. Image search. Discussion group search. Product search. Email search. Because they have an advertising model that can be targeted to most any type of search. (Google also cares about new kinds of search because web ads may not work forever.)
C) Google cares thirdly about interesting new things. These come from employees. Depending on which source you believe, Google employees spend either 10% or 20% of their time working on personal projects. (Update: It looks like 20% is the correct number) The really successful projects get publicized via Google labs. Google maps started as one of these. I bet Gmail did too.
I'm especially interested in (C). 20% is a lot of time. Would your company willingly slash 20% from its developer-hours? Why is this important?
For one thing, it's the world's best marketing department. Those Google labs pro
Personally, I aspire to be the New Symantec. But that's just a matter of preference. Anybody here want to be the new Lotus?
If Apple had won the desktop, there would be no Mac Mini. Compare Apple's behavior now to their actions when they owned a much larger chunk of the desktop. They were arrogant and awful. Much as I loved their machines, I never suffered any illusions about the company. And if you think the magig sauce that makes Apple so good is Steve Jobs, just look at the Next Cube. Very similar philosophy, very similar price point. Again, the behavior only changed when the market share dove.
Point 2:
I was engaging in much silliness.
Microsoft wants to infiltrate every device bigger than a toothbrush, agreed. But how much worse would it be if Apple took over? (I realize this is verging way out into hypothetical land.) In Bizzarro Apple Land, only rich, Blaupunkt-owning, BMW-driving hipsters would be allowed to compute. Your Mac could be taken away by armed fashionistas roaming the streets. Every PC would cost at least $5,000 and developers would be expected to grovel for the supreme privilege of creating apps for the One True Operating System. Businesses in non-sexy segments would be denied licenses, and instead use elaborate abaci manned by legions of idiot savants.
At least, that's what Mistress Cleo says.
In a netowrking class I was obliged to take, the instructor's favorite rant about Linux was, "Who you gonna sue when something goes wrong? The penguin? The penguin!?!?" He would repeat this over and over; thought it was really witty. I pointed out to the yob that you can't really sue Microsoft either, because of their restrictive EULA, but it didn't make a dent in him. "You gonna sue the penguin?" he'd yell. Guys like him make me never want to take a course ever again. Just gimme the damn books, and let me work it out on my own, bozos.
At any rate, it's wrong to create any sort of poll or list and not have a CowboyNeal option. 'Nuff said.
It just seems to me that if you punish the money, there would be little to no incentive to spam. Any IANALs (or IAALs) like to comment on why this would/wouldn't work?
Turion and Centrino need to have adventures in a magical Roman wonderland. I think Nick Junior could do this justice ...
I can think of a number of ways in which CRTs beat flatscreens, but this article never gives any. And yet it's a major point -- the thrust of the title and first two paragraphs. Back to the Basic Essay Dungeon with the author! Support your argument, j-school dropout!