Isn't Blizzard a company offering a voluntary product that you can purchase or not purchase?
Bigots are allowed to publish newspapers and collect subscription rates for them.
Where does civil rights or gay rights fit in to a legal equation anywhere? It's perfectly acceptable for the public to place pressure against Blizzard or for various interest groups to stage boycots, demonstrations, petitions or what have you. Where are these civil rights being conjured from?
I'm not sure how I trolled the subject when I addressed the issue in question (true, it is not the popular political view of many slashdotters) and I demonstrated how the entire issue centers around an individual who shows clear indications of having an agenda against his current boss.
The hypothesis here is that Bush is appointing heads of departments to supress scientific truths in the name of his agenda. Yet the person that brings this to light is just as guilty of having a political agenda.
I guess if you read every popular media outlet you'd get the impression that Bush is pushing an agenda and thus suppressing information by his appointees to achieve this goal. I'd still like to see any evidence what so ever of this but I digress. It's always very interesting to explore the background of those claiming political shenanigans.
James Hansen is the man getting headline news for his claims that Bush is supressing scientific data. This is the same James Hansen that attacked President Bush with a speech one week prior to the presidential elections in the key state of Iowa. Besides taking the unusal step of making a climate policy speech under the employment of the Federal Government right before the election he also recieved $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation, run by Mrs. Kerry. He claimed he was speaking as a private citizen because he paid his own way to the event. Apparently the 250k didn't count.
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate...scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.
That seems reasonable except he implies it's ok to exagerrate one's findings when the percieved awareness of policy makers is lacking. This fits in with Mr. Hansen's predictions on Global warming when he initially predicted higher warming trends and has revised those predictions to lower increases recently (at the low end of IPCC model).
In summary, I'd take the "Father of Global Warming" a lot more seriously if he weren't so political himself. They say that passion is poison to science but it seems like the only people that get paid attention to are those that pour passion in to their results.
While attempting to be as politically agnostic as possible with this whole thing, I really don't see what the problem is. For those that are open minded enough to set aside their political hatred please ask yourself the following questions.
What if it works? What if this wire tapping is actually effective and it's being properly briefed to other branches of the federal government so it's not soley overseen by the executive branch?
The FISA law was established in 1978. At the time it was designed for the US to monitor Soviet spys in the US. It was an era of rotary phones. Today It's way more complicated and dynamic with satellite, wireless and Internet communication. Today people have way more control over how information is distributed and how quickly the self identifying nature of those communications are changed. Getting to my point and question, what if Al Queda knows about FISA (it's no secret), how does the NSA track operratives that change their email address every 30 seconds? What if these legal attacks are successfull and the NSA has to chase down these dynamic identifiers but can't effectively do their job because they have to follow FISA? What if Al Queda knows this and even with communications outside the country they simply CC some random US email to implement some FISA protocol?
If you agree that intelligence agencies should act with alacrity in these situations is not the oversight of congress enough? Or, should the administration keep IP logs etc... that might number in the thousands let's say, retroactively to FISA so they might obtain the 1000 warrants for that tracking?
A related power to the use of force is the ability to gain intelligence about the enemy so one might use that force as effectively as possible. Presidents since at least Franklin Roosevelt have used the authority driven by the use of force to intercept communications by members of the enemy. Do you believe the authority given to the President does not allow him to order such taps in communication regardless of a non wartime law? If your answer is "no", then it might interest you to know that the FISA review board themselves believe it does, http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fiscr111802 .html. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.
Partisans operate like some sports fans. They have blind commitment to their favorites regardless of their performance.
I'm not sure who'll come out on top in the '08 presidential election. I'm sure I'll pick a side. However, when our president is elected I'll support them as I'm interested in my team (the USA) prospering, regardless of who the leader is.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the Red Wings suck.
I love the logic used here to backhand Thompson at his own game. Use progressional logic until you've come to the far reaching conclusion that Postal 2 is the "most politically correct game every made". Absolutely brilliant.
This is a refreshing change from the Hollensworth/id answer dressed in legalese. Why not address Thompson with the same level of ridiculous logic he uses himself.
DRM isn't the area of concern I was addressing. I was refrencing the issue of people HD TVs that do not have HDMI inputs.
Sure, it could be a failure on the sales front but it's an option. I don't see it costing MS much as if the components don't sell they just don't manufacture as many.
I think Microsoft made the best move they could in that with a battle over formats it's a pretty large financial risk to commit to one format. If Blu-Ray wins the format war could not the 360 offer that as an add on? Seems to me the PS3 has commited itself to one side of the VHS vs Beta war and might end up on the wrong end.
Don't take the author's conclusion as fact here. It wasn't the US that gave up top level domain control to those countries, it was ICANN. The causation between the US support of such policies and ICANN granting such actions has no evidence. It's probably also important to note that if the UN had such control over the Internet that they wouldn't hesitate to give those domains to said governments. All of which makes the US controlling the Internet instead of the UN made ICANN give away the TLD threory a bit hard to swallow.
Am I missing something or is this an article that's drawing a conclusion based on no evidence? The first thing that tips off a reader is the sensationalized introduction of...
2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world.
Well now I'm interested, pray tell why?
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. The previous owners, KazNIC, had been created from the country's Internet community.
All right, the article is getting away from me here. I supposed the reader will need to get through "jumping the shark" on this one to figure out what this "government-provided reason" is. I do know that now it wasn't a US government power-grab or direct involvement because ICANN made the decision and used some sort of "reason" to make a decision according to this author.
What you come to discover is that this insidious intrusion by the US Government comes down to the fact that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made four declarations prior to the UN meetings on Internet governance. Contrary to what the author contends these weren't a "warning shot" for the international community. Instead they were statements of reassurance to the international community. Specifically, other government concerns regarding their country top level domains. Do not think for a second a UN body wouldn't have granted these governments control over their top level domains. Here is what the NTIA said...
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/USDNSp rinciples_06302005.htm The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Intern
I am not brand loyal to your company. I enjoy my Tivo units because of the ease of use and the utility of that service. I'm not enamoured with your interface, the GUI of your guide nor the speed of such interfaces. I am not thrilled with Tivo's inability to dynamically recognize sporting events that go in to OT or the fact that LOST might be running two minutes ahead of schedual. A competitor could easily sway this consumer. One that speeds up and improves the interface and doesn't require computer gymnastics to operrate.
Except that the Antarctic ice sheets are getting thicker and the Anarctic ice shelf is much larger than the arctic, thus drawn down the oceans. You can blame that on global warming because of greater snowfall (that's obviously open to various levels of debate). Global warming doomsayers don't help the global climate cause by exagerrating. They should stick with the science.
You are confusing profits and revenue. The profitering mantra of corporations trying to squeeze out ever last drop of profit is a fallacy. Stockholders of public corporations are in general obsessed with "growth" which is generally focused on revenue increases. If a company is increasing their revenue then they are becoming more valuble as a commodity that investors might wish to own for increasing stock values. Profits can be in the red within reason or investor expectations with no negitive consequence.
The days of your grandparents income stocks are nearly extinct like corporate pensions. The corporations aren't the root of evil, it's the manner in which their "owners" demand growth to increase their shareholder wealth that create problems. Ironically those shareholders are people like myself and millions of others with 401ks. Problem is I own one tenth of one percent in X corporation in my well diversified portfolio and the power of proxy vote, board of director pressure etc... is in the hands of large portfolio managers. These investors like myself aren't interested in examining the profit philosophy of the 5000 companies I have a stake in for a variety of reasons. The least of which is the fact you have no power in such a minority stake and the biggest of which is I'm more concerned about making my mortgage payment, saving for my kid's education and selfishly the results of this weekends Bronco game. Call me self centered if you will but do take a quick look in the mirror before you throw those stones.
It's called Capatilism. Microsoft did their job. Slashdot editors also did theirs when they posted stories of interest regarding a highly anticipated tech product. You seem to take some issue with the fact a corporation developed a product, marketed this product and in the end sold that product. The "same old same old" has been practiced in the free market for a very, very long time. It is no different than the ipod, the ISP you use nor Slashdot themselves.
Pray tell, how were we all dissapointed? What exactly did the public relations team for this console do that resulted in such a restrospect of bitterness?
I think this is a bit of re-writing history. It's said so often it's taken for granted now it seems. Halo was anticipated pretty highly when Bungie released the first screen shots of the game. Then the game got delayed. After that the game was gobbled up by Mircosoft Game Studios and was delayed even further due to the fact it was going to wait for the Xbox release. During these delays other released games rapidly caught up to Halo in the graphics department. Those original screenshots that hyped Halo so early in it's developement were quickly forgotten. Subsequently previews of Halo prior to the xbox release were friendly but not of the Earth shaking variety. There was limited anticipation, another decent looking FPS to share market with Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and any number of other FPS games out on the market. It wasn't until Halo gathered a bit of a following with the Xbox that it started to really become a bigger deal. What I'm trying to say is that Xbox did not come to market with a higly anticipated game that made the units sell, no one said this about Halo before the Xbox release. In retrospect it certainly helped Xbox stay afloat and Halo 2 gave it another large boost. That next Halo type game that will help push the 360 could already be in production. It could be Oblivion or Gears of War. Just like the original xbox release no one can be sure quite yet. This constant drum of how the 360 is worse off because it didn't have that "must have" game at launch is incorrect. No one felt that way about Halo when the Xbox first went to market.
Color me a skeptic because I don't see how removing properties of a food would promote higher cholesterol. Regular coffee still has all the properties of decaf plus some additional chemicals that are removed during the decaf process. The study seems to suggest that there's something in coffee that promotes higher LDL levels yet is also counter-acted by the caffeine. The removal of which exposes decaf drinkers to this risk. With all due respect to the American Heart Association, 187 people seems to be an insignificant sample size, especially when that sample of testors are split in to three seperate test groups. Not to mention that the control group is part of that split. Essentially the test sample size is 124 that is split in to two test groups. Anyway, more information on decaf processes and how decaf coffee still has cafeine. http://www.chilipaper.com/FNCC/decaf_coffee.htm
Caffeine, which is found in coffee and other foods (cocoa, tea), is that substance that keeps us awake, both when we need it and when we don't want it. Unfortunately, to some people this and other side effects of caffeine are not welcome.
Decaffeinated coffee or "decaf" is coffee that has had most of the caffeine removed. By weight, the amount of caffeine found naturally in coffee is only about 1% for the Arabica and 2% for the Robusta coffee beans.
When you read "97% Caffeine Free", 97% of that 1% or 2% has been removed.
There are currently two methods used commercially that remove caffeine from coffee:
European Process Swiss Water Process
European Process
Most decaf coffees are made using a chemical process first used in Europe. This process involves soaking the beans in water and then "washing" them in methylene chloride to absorb the caffeine from the bean. After this, the beans are rinsed clean of the chemicals, dried and shipped to the coffee roasters. The advantage of this method is that it provides decaf coffee with more flavor than the Swiss water processing. Although there is virtually no trace of any chemicals left in the bean after roasting, some people are uncomfortable knowing that the coffee they are drinking was chemically processed.
Swiss Water Process
The second method is known as "Swiss water processing". This process uses no chemicals, but rather hot water and steam to remove the caffeine from the coffee. The "life" of the bean is taken into the water, and then the water solution put through activated charcoal filters to remove the caffeine. Once the caffeine is removed, these same beans are then put back into the decaffeinated solution to re-absorb everything except the caffeine. The beans are then dried and shipped to the roasters. The disadvantage is that the water processing removes more than just the caffeine. Some of the oils from the coffee bean are removed as well, making it less flavorful.
If you have a large library of xbox games could I not conclude that you still, in fact have an Xbox console? So the lamentations of the betrayed are perhaps a bit exagerrated? It's a matter of convieniece rather than a matter of wiping out "x" dollars of games.
Hey, why don't YOU find us one of these steller preveiws of Halo before it released for Xbox?
There are all kinds of games that have hype but don't live up to it. Microsoft and certainly the guys and Bungie had no idea the game would be as successfull as it turned out to be. I remember some talk about how it was a dissapointment that Halo was not coming out on PC. I remember that the EARLY screenshots were impressive. I also remember that by the time it was ready to roll out everyone was burned out on the wait and thought the graphical steps forward were down right pedestrian by the time it released compared to what was currently available. The previous poster might be a revisionist in so far as bad press it concerned but I certainly don't remember this explosion of back orders for xbox because Halo was going to release for it. The truth is that Halo wasn't a gold mine AAA title when Xbox released but it became one. Not much different than where Xbox sits now except the 360 does have Oblivion in the pipe which seems to have certain people exited.
What kind of audience did Halo I have before it launched?
Answer, none because no one knew what kind of game it would be let alone the fanatical following it would produce. Can we in restrospect say the same things about Gears of War? Perhaps we will.
It's called the "linear effect". They are game review staples that may never die. "It was a great game if not a bit too linear and the color pallette was too limited for my liking". I think it's written without really thinking about it. The fact that linear gaming and a limited color scheme might actually be a good thing just doesn't hold to popular critisms. We really haven't move far beyond Quake 2 vs. Half-Life debate jargon perhaps.
Slashdot Mirror
Especially if you tell them about it.
Bigots are allowed to publish newspapers and collect subscription rates for them.
Where does civil rights or gay rights fit in to a legal equation anywhere? It's perfectly acceptable for the public to place pressure against Blizzard or for various interest groups to stage boycots, demonstrations, petitions or what have you. Where are these civil rights being conjured from?
The hypothesis here is that Bush is appointing heads of departments to supress scientific truths in the name of his agenda. Yet the person that brings this to light is just as guilty of having a political agenda.
James Hansen is the man getting headline news for his claims that Bush is supressing scientific data. This is the same James Hansen that attacked President Bush with a speech one week prior to the presidential elections in the key state of Iowa. Besides taking the unusal step of making a climate policy speech under the employment of the Federal Government right before the election he also recieved $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation, run by Mrs. Kerry. He claimed he was speaking as a private citizen because he paid his own way to the event. Apparently the 250k didn't count.
But of course, that's a straw man if what he says is true. Mr. Hansen said this in 2003's Natural Science Journal http://www.naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns _jeh.html
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate...scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.
That seems reasonable except he implies it's ok to exagerrate one's findings when the percieved awareness of policy makers is lacking. This fits in with Mr. Hansen's predictions on Global warming when he initially predicted higher warming trends and has revised those predictions to lower increases recently (at the low end of IPCC model).
In summary, I'd take the "Father of Global Warming" a lot more seriously if he weren't so political himself. They say that passion is poison to science but it seems like the only people that get paid attention to are those that pour passion in to their results.
What if it works? What if this wire tapping is actually effective and it's being properly briefed to other branches of the federal government so it's not soley overseen by the executive branch?
The FISA law was established in 1978. At the time it was designed for the US to monitor Soviet spys in the US. It was an era of rotary phones. Today It's way more complicated and dynamic with satellite, wireless and Internet communication. Today people have way more control over how information is distributed and how quickly the self identifying nature of those communications are changed. Getting to my point and question, what if Al Queda knows about FISA (it's no secret), how does the NSA track operratives that change their email address every 30 seconds? What if these legal attacks are successfull and the NSA has to chase down these dynamic identifiers but can't effectively do their job because they have to follow FISA? What if Al Queda knows this and even with communications outside the country they simply CC some random US email to implement some FISA protocol?
If you agree that intelligence agencies should act with alacrity in these situations is not the oversight of congress enough? Or, should the administration keep IP logs etc... that might number in the thousands let's say, retroactively to FISA so they might obtain the 1000 warrants for that tracking?
A related power to the use of force is the ability to gain intelligence about the enemy so one might use that force as effectively as possible. Presidents since at least Franklin Roosevelt have used the authority driven by the use of force to intercept communications by members of the enemy. Do you believe the authority given to the President does not allow him to order such taps in communication regardless of a non wartime law? If your answer is "no", then it might interest you to know that the FISA review board themselves believe it does, http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fiscr111802 .html.
We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.
I'm not sure who'll come out on top in the '08 presidential election. I'm sure I'll pick a side. However, when our president is elected I'll support them as I'm interested in my team (the USA) prospering, regardless of who the leader is.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the Red Wings suck.
This is a refreshing change from the Hollensworth/id answer dressed in legalese. Why not address Thompson with the same level of ridiculous logic he uses himself.
Sure, it could be a failure on the sales front but it's an option. I don't see it costing MS much as if the components don't sell they just don't manufacture as many.
I think Microsoft made the best move they could in that with a battle over formats it's a pretty large financial risk to commit to one format. If Blu-Ray wins the format war could not the 360 offer that as an add on? Seems to me the PS3 has commited itself to one side of the VHS vs Beta war and might end up on the wrong end.
Why the all or nothing conclusion here? Why should they have waited to put it in the 360 or not do it at all?
For those complaining about the HD DVD HDMI requirement only guess what, here's your component solution.
This is certainly a rallying cry for Mr. Thompson to crusade against digital photography and parks in Santa Rosa.
Don't take the author's conclusion as fact here. It wasn't the US that gave up top level domain control to those countries, it was ICANN. The causation between the US support of such policies and ICANN granting such actions has no evidence. It's probably also important to note that if the UN had such control over the Internet that they wouldn't hesitate to give those domains to said governments. All of which makes the US controlling the Internet instead of the UN made ICANN give away the TLD threory a bit hard to swallow.
2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world.
Well now I'm interested, pray tell why?
At that meeting, consciously and for the first time, ICANN used a US government-provided reason to turn over Kazakhstan's internet ownership to a government owned and run association without requiring consent from the existing owners. The previous owners, KazNIC, had been created from the country's Internet community.
All right, the article is getting away from me here. I supposed the reader will need to get through "jumping the shark" on this one to figure out what this "government-provided reason" is. I do know that now it wasn't a US government power-grab or direct involvement because ICANN made the decision and used some sort of "reason" to make a decision according to this author.
What you come to discover is that this insidious intrusion by the US Government comes down to the fact that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made four declarations prior to the UN meetings on Internet governance. Contrary to what the author contends these weren't a "warning shot" for the international community. Instead they were statements of reassurance to the international community. Specifically, other government concerns regarding their country top level domains. Do not think for a second a UN body wouldn't have granted these governments control over their top level domains. Here is what the NTIA said...
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/USDNSp rinciples_06302005.htm
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Intern
I am not brand loyal to your company. I enjoy my Tivo units because of the ease of use and the utility of that service. I'm not enamoured with your interface, the GUI of your guide nor the speed of such interfaces. I am not thrilled with Tivo's inability to dynamically recognize sporting events that go in to OT or the fact that LOST might be running two minutes ahead of schedual. A competitor could easily sway this consumer. One that speeds up and improves the interface and doesn't require computer gymnastics to operrate.
Except that the Antarctic ice sheets are getting thicker and the Anarctic ice shelf is much larger than the arctic, thus drawn down the oceans. You can blame that on global warming because of greater snowfall (that's obviously open to various levels of debate). Global warming doomsayers don't help the global climate cause by exagerrating. They should stick with the science.
The days of your grandparents income stocks are nearly extinct like corporate pensions. The corporations aren't the root of evil, it's the manner in which their "owners" demand growth to increase their shareholder wealth that create problems. Ironically those shareholders are people like myself and millions of others with 401ks. Problem is I own one tenth of one percent in X corporation in my well diversified portfolio and the power of proxy vote, board of director pressure etc... is in the hands of large portfolio managers. These investors like myself aren't interested in examining the profit philosophy of the 5000 companies I have a stake in for a variety of reasons. The least of which is the fact you have no power in such a minority stake and the biggest of which is I'm more concerned about making my mortgage payment, saving for my kid's education and selfishly the results of this weekends Bronco game. Call me self centered if you will but do take a quick look in the mirror before you throw those stones.
Pray tell, how were we all dissapointed? What exactly did the public relations team for this console do that resulted in such a restrospect of bitterness?
I think this is a bit of re-writing history. It's said so often it's taken for granted now it seems. Halo was anticipated pretty highly when Bungie released the first screen shots of the game. Then the game got delayed. After that the game was gobbled up by Mircosoft Game Studios and was delayed even further due to the fact it was going to wait for the Xbox release. During these delays other released games rapidly caught up to Halo in the graphics department. Those original screenshots that hyped Halo so early in it's developement were quickly forgotten. Subsequently previews of Halo prior to the xbox release were friendly but not of the Earth shaking variety. There was limited anticipation, another decent looking FPS to share market with Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and any number of other FPS games out on the market. It wasn't until Halo gathered a bit of a following with the Xbox that it started to really become a bigger deal. What I'm trying to say is that Xbox did not come to market with a higly anticipated game that made the units sell, no one said this about Halo before the Xbox release. In retrospect it certainly helped Xbox stay afloat and Halo 2 gave it another large boost. That next Halo type game that will help push the 360 could already be in production. It could be Oblivion or Gears of War. Just like the original xbox release no one can be sure quite yet. This constant drum of how the 360 is worse off because it didn't have that "must have" game at launch is incorrect. No one felt that way about Halo when the Xbox first went to market.
Caffeine, which is found in coffee and other foods (cocoa, tea), is that substance that keeps us awake, both when we need it and when we don't want it. Unfortunately, to some people this and other side effects of caffeine are not welcome.
Decaffeinated coffee or "decaf" is coffee that has had most of the caffeine removed. By weight, the amount of caffeine found naturally in coffee is only about 1% for the Arabica and 2% for the Robusta coffee beans.
When you read "97% Caffeine Free", 97% of that 1% or 2% has been removed.
There are currently two methods used commercially that remove caffeine from coffee:
European Process Swiss Water Process
European Process
Most decaf coffees are made using a chemical process first used in Europe. This process involves soaking the beans in water and then "washing" them in methylene chloride to absorb the caffeine from the bean. After this, the beans are rinsed clean of the chemicals, dried and shipped to the coffee roasters. The advantage of this method is that it provides decaf coffee with more flavor than the Swiss water processing. Although there is virtually no trace of any chemicals left in the bean after roasting, some people are uncomfortable knowing that the coffee they are drinking was chemically processed.
Swiss Water Process
The second method is known as "Swiss water processing". This process uses no chemicals, but rather hot water and steam to remove the caffeine from the coffee. The "life" of the bean is taken into the water, and then the water solution put through activated charcoal filters to remove the caffeine. Once the caffeine is removed, these same beans are then put back into the decaffeinated solution to re-absorb everything except the caffeine. The beans are then dried and shipped to the roasters. The disadvantage is that the water processing removes more than just the caffeine. Some of the oils from the coffee bean are removed as well, making it less flavorful.
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=2005- 02-05
Yes, it's true.
If you have a large library of xbox games could I not conclude that you still, in fact have an Xbox console? So the lamentations of the betrayed are perhaps a bit exagerrated? It's a matter of convieniece rather than a matter of wiping out "x" dollars of games.
There are all kinds of games that have hype but don't live up to it. Microsoft and certainly the guys and Bungie had no idea the game would be as successfull as it turned out to be. I remember some talk about how it was a dissapointment that Halo was not coming out on PC. I remember that the EARLY screenshots were impressive. I also remember that by the time it was ready to roll out everyone was burned out on the wait and thought the graphical steps forward were down right pedestrian by the time it released compared to what was currently available. The previous poster might be a revisionist in so far as bad press it concerned but I certainly don't remember this explosion of back orders for xbox because Halo was going to release for it. The truth is that Halo wasn't a gold mine AAA title when Xbox released but it became one. Not much different than where Xbox sits now except the 360 does have Oblivion in the pipe which seems to have certain people exited.
What kind of audience did Halo I have before it launched? Answer, none because no one knew what kind of game it would be let alone the fanatical following it would produce. Can we in restrospect say the same things about Gears of War? Perhaps we will.
Freeking Pirates.
Someone at the Vatican read some Dan Brown and came up with a new theory.
It's called the "linear effect". They are game review staples that may never die. "It was a great game if not a bit too linear and the color pallette was too limited for my liking". I think it's written without really thinking about it. The fact that linear gaming and a limited color scheme might actually be a good thing just doesn't hold to popular critisms. We really haven't move far beyond Quake 2 vs. Half-Life debate jargon perhaps.