Some of this utopic rationalization of why the UN should control DNS or participate in control of internet controls is really nice. However, like the US and everywhere else the UN is controlled by professional politicians. Just listen to the UN themselves, they are telling you why they want control of the internet. http://www.wgig.org/June-scriptmorning.html
Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable."
Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of.xxx domains: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."
China: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework...For instance, spam, network security and cyberspace--we should look for an appropriate specialized agency of the United Nations as a competent body."
Ghana: "There was unanimity for the need for an additional body...This body would therefore address all issues relating to the Internet within the confines of the available expertise which would be anchored at the U.N."
These are the people that want to control the internet. They don't want some hands off technical control, they have specific cultural, moral and economic ideals they wish to implement in relation to the Internet. Yes, spam is bad. But "stopping spam" by a macro control mechanism is a control on information. This is contrary to the legal and user technological controls we are implementing now. Do you trust the UN to actually handle specific information on the Internet via their multicultralism moral compass? I don't.
Ok, I just don't buy this take that because it's China's laws Yahoo doesn't have any choice. I think they do have a choice they simply decide to pander to China's desires. It's a very interesting case of corporate morals and if or when they play any role in their decision making. The fact that it's a US company IS important because it's listed as a public owned company in the US. Fair or not, Yahoo and other corporations do represent our morals as a whole because they are owned by Amercian stakeholders (by and large).
Officials from the Changsha security bureau detained Shi near his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, on November 24, 2004, several months after he e-mailed notes detailing the propaganda ministry's instructions to the media about coverage of the anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Authorities confiscated his computer and other documents and warned his family to stay quiet about the matter.
On December 14, authorities issued a formal arrest order, charging Shi with "leaking state secrets." On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court found Shi guilty and sentenced him to a 10-year prison term.
I'm sorry, but what a shocker. China tosses a journalist in jail for 10 years for a mislabled "crime". Here is a picture of this Chinese James Bond http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/China25aug05na.html
It should be of no suprise to anyone that Tao's appeal was rejected without reason nor public hearing. As is correctly pointed out at http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14884 does Yahoo! simply state they are just following a countries law? When do they have ANY ethical considerations? Can the law in China stipulate that child labor is lawfull and Yahoo could practice this under the same defense?
Yahoo is the ONLY American search engine that has agreed to self sensor it's search results. They have invested heavily in China and as a result bow to their every request. "Just follwing the law" is not a defense for Yahoo in my opinion. Self censoring your search results is one thing, cooperating with Chinese security officials to track down an IP address is another.
He really doesn't give the reasons he thinks children will be more creative with internet access. Perhaps he meant better informed?
For my sixth grade science project I made the monumental decision to do it on mold. I did not have Encarta on CD nor did the Internet exist. All I had was my science text book and those books at the library. I put bread in petri dishes and exposed them to various amounts of light, moisture, heat etc... These I used in my science display. I also remember my buddy Tim doing his on aerodynamics and his various balsa wood carvings placed in front of a fan. I can only imagine in todays era I would have used the Internet to print out color displays, found how-to guides on mold creation etc... Instead I experimented and created my own ways. I don't know if that was better because in the end I'm sure I was less informed that today's youth but I do think I was forced to be more creative.
At this point there is little doubt that Blizzard is doing very well. However, the math isn't always that simple and the profit structure behind the revenue is even more complicated.
$15 a month is very simplified, that's the fee for a month to month subscription. There are price points for three month and six months subscriptions that are less than that. No monthly payment plan is at a 100% return rate. You have bankruptcy, challenged payments (on credit cards), general default, collection issues and simple fraud. In the grand equation of 60 million a month vs 50 million what's the difference? Well, perhaps not much but for those MMO games that walk a much tighter line between revenue and expenses it can be a very big deal.
On these very boards the owner and operrator of Meridian 59 posted several times on the realities of expenses MMOs and what they have to deal with regarding infrastructure and the unique challenges they face in supporting it. http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=140914&c id=11811417
He comments specifically regarding WOW and has some very insightfull thoughts on how the cost structure really works. Explore that parent thred and you'll find several more detailed posts on the costs associated with MMOs.
Someone in this thred mentioned a 74 million dollar production cost. That's a very large investment risk. Sure, you can point to the Everquests and the World of Warcrafts as huge financial successes. Just as you could point to Titanic instead of Waterworld in the movie industry.
One thing people have issues with on the Kameleon remotes and things like that is that touchscreens generally don't give any feedback to the touch. You can't see the buttons unless you use a backlight which eats up batteries. You have to physically look at the unit to see if you're touching the right button which is just plain annoying.
Touchpads on laptops work well because there's no specificity to the touchpad itself, it's simply a pointing device, ie mouse. I'm not sure what the Nintendo people are doing but touchpad technology is ok if used right but people do not want to be looking at their hands when they want to be looking at the screen.
Good point, I could have google or other third party programs automatically check my horrid spelling. Then I could look intelligent, yet have horrid logic or education behind said position. I appreciate your anonymous advice yet I'd still love for someone to rebuttle my position. Ice samples are used for atmospheric investigation, not anything as cold, dry and high as the stratosphere and the ozone layer.
Ok, can you please point me where where I can learn more about this discovery 100 years ago?
You're talking about ice samples to learn about stratospheric phenomena, specifically in this day and age Chlorine in it's gasious form. You're supposed to extrapolate this Chlorine data from ice samples from 100 years ago from a substance that doesn't touch the stratosphere. Clouds that RARELY form in the stratosphere generally have no percipitation at all and any percipitation that might occur is highly likely to never reach the ground.
Now all of that is compeletly mute because you cannot begin to even guess the size of the ozone hole based on Chlorine samples found in ice because of the highly volitile nature of the ozone layer. The ozone layer is not a prestine bubble that has circled the Earth before Man arrived to screw things up. The ozone layer is constantly destroyed by solar radiation. 03 break down to 01, which readily bond to 02 particles and regenerrates itself. It's a HIGHLY volitile stratopheric condition.
Any attempt to correlate Chlorine particles in ice samples with a highly volitile stratospheric condition is a reach. One reason I'd like to see this data is because I want to know what the magic foruma of ice based Chlorine particles is to determining the size of the ozone hole at that place and time.
I know what he was trying to say but he's made the same mistake others have and that is that CO2 and the global warming issue have nothing to do with the ozone hole. Study of these ice samples isn't about ozone, frankly it can't be. I was just being Socratic.
Well that, and plants have been holding their breath for a LONG time if that stuff is still up there. Oh and has been stated before CO2 is different thatn 03.
You're not suggesting that ozone samples are trapped in snowfall and that 'hole size' could be extrapulated from such samples with core ice drilling and what not. Are you?
As is true with all relative statistics people need to look at what they are relative to. I think most educated persons know that statistics at face value don't mean much until you investigate how they were collected.
To be even more specific to this study it's important for casual observers to understand that this data has only been collected since 1995. It's much sexier in a news report to say that, "This is one of the largest ozone holes in the past decade". That sells papers, gets people to pay attention to your news broadcast etc... It's less provocative to say that since 1995 only two other measured ozone holes have exceeded the size of the one measured today (1996 and 2000, which oddly enough is conflicting information with the BBC report but I find the European Space Agency a little more reliable than the BBC personally).
I think it's important for people to understand that the ozone hole flutuates in size, we have no data on how big it's supposed to be and while 1996 and 2000 ozone holes were the largest we've measured, they could be significantly smaller (or larger) than those same holes 30 years ago. There's simply not enough data to make any kind of conclusion and scientists that reach such conclusions are simply pandering for their next government grant rather than delivering accurate evaluations in my opinion.
I don't know. But if there have been five billion mice over history and by some random chance one lucky mouse had the ability to regrow his toes that might not really be a competitive advantage that allows said mouse to breed/survive better than other mice. Also, I can't imagine that a mouse gets it's biggest survival benefit from regrowing a foot. They generally get eaten whole:). So while some lucky mouse may have been lucky enough to enjoy this mutation to some limited extent it probably didn't ensure it's survival to a greater extent in relation to other mice so it might breed more successfully and pass on that trait. Instead, mice with longer wiskers, lower profiles, nocturnal eyesight and thicker fur likely enjoyed better survival etc... That's just my guess work but I suppose this is contradicted by lizards that regrow tails. Some lucky reptile back in the day was able to pass this along, perhaps he was just better looking and got all the action with his tail regrowing mojo.
I think that's a relative statement directly to the number of people that bought and subscribed to the game. No one, including Blizzard knew they were going to have a launch like that. In spite of that they pulled it off with some minor difficulties and compensated those customers that experienced outtages with extentions to their subscriptions.
When I beta tested Everquest and experienced that lauch subsequently, the WOW difficulties pale in comparision. EQs issues went on for months and months. Their unexpected popularity shorty after launch prompted Verant's ISP to litterally dig up roads to lay down more bandwidth to their server locals. I can't imagine the infrastructure and expense flexibility you have to have when your estimated user base explodes as quickly as Wow's did.
"In Ultra quality, we load each texture; diffuse, specular, normal map at full resolution with no compression. In a typical DOOM 3 level, this can hover around a whopping 500MB of texture data. This will run on current hardware but obviously we cannot fit 500MB of texture data onto a 256MB card and the amount of texture data referenced in a give scene per frame ( 60 times a second ) can easily be 50MB+. This can cause some choppiness as a lot of memory bandwidth is being consumed. It does however look fantastic and it is certainly playable on high end systems but due to the hitching that can occur we chose to require a 512MB Video card before setting this automatically.
High quality uses compression ( DXT1,3,5 ) for specular and diffuse and no compression for normal maps. This looks very very close to Ultra quality but the compression does cause some loss."
The other option to keep some armchair graphics guru's obliviously quiet was to just never offer this ultra option, instead just compressing some lighting effects and no one would notice. BUT, because id does put a graphics setting in the options that people can see and it's called, "ultra" they are convinced they are missing something and spew their expert opions on how unreasonable id is.
In response id and companies like them can market themselves better. First, simply don't tell you about the compression of certin aspects of the graphics engine and give you an option that's called Super Ultra Mega Fantastic Quality. The lesson here is don't give more options but give less. Market your target audience with feel good language so they percieve a higher level of satisfaction instead of a percieved underachievement of some graphical utopia they can never quantify anyway.
Me? I'll take more options and disclosure rather than a marketing feel good approach.
I'm not sure where you get this impression of a "release-date war" nor the impression of Microsoft rushing their product out.
Microsoft has been clear about the developement time-line on their console and the fact they've been investing and developing for the last four years. Several articles have been published that expound on how long they worked on and developed things such as the physical design of the console itself and the user interface of the software.
Microsoft has never officially given a release date but has always said the end of '05. As far as I know this has never changed.
In conclusion, what support do you have that Microsoft is rushing their developement or release dates?
My personal observation about this most recent rumor of delaying the PS3 so they can develope a stronger title library to crush MS, is that it just doesn't make sense. Delaying a release just gives Xbox360 developers more time to release additional titles and to bridge that gap (if any) between developed titles between the two consoles. I suppose you could look at this one of two ways depending on which side of the fence you stand on in so far that you could infer that Sony is delaying release so they have more time to get their titles developed to begin with.
Sony is a public company and not a professional sports franchise. It may be true that Sony wishes to crush the Xbox360 to gain greater market share and increase their revenue but in my corporate experience you do not delay revenue generation out of some competitive desire to "win" over your competition. You strive to generate as much revenue as quickly as possible because stockholders demand of their board that they do so. I simply don't see the powers that be at Sony happily waiting for Microsoft to gain new customers while they delay release so they can "win". Also, Sony can't be Jonesing to give Halo3 more production time.
Well, despite saying they weren't going to commit to a medium, Warner, Paramount and Universal Studios has come out saying they are releasing titles on HD-DVD http://www.cq-ef.net/index.php?sid=2310.
So if PS3 comes out with a Blu-Ray HD DVD then who's not thinking ahead and/or being foolish?
I'm also curious how many of you use your current console to play DVDs.
MS has already said certain games will be included on the hard drive so there's already functionality to where games can play just off the HD. Does that mean that all games can be played without the disk, probably not but maybe. They've said you can rip music the HD. Why can't you copy the game data? Think they will run a cd check on game execution? I suppose.
So just for the record you haven't heard anything about disc-required play either. But we do know some games will run without one. Evidence leans twoard the original assumption.
There's also a much nicer pic of the UI there. He says that it can instantly overlay any existing screen on the 360 which is pretty cool since it will interface over any game you're playing, visualization you're running during music or stuff like that. That seems relatively mundane but to incorporate an overlay system over third party developed graphics is no small feat. Sounds interesting to me.
"Am I the only one that sees this as a collossal waste of time, money and effort? Am I the only one that just wants a game console to play games? Why do I need an interface with three years and millions of dollars put into it?"
"I want to turn the machine on, have it be instantly accessible, put a game in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a game console. In fact, anything more than that is just clutter."
Am I the only one that sees this as a collossal waste of time, money and effort? Am I the only one that just wants a music player to play music? Why do I need an interface with three years and millions of dollars put into it?
I want to turn the mp3 player on, have it be instantly accessible, load a song in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a mp3 player. In fact, anything more than that is just clutter.
Would the ipod have been half as successful without it's interface?
I could also substitute mobile phone in there as well. Convergence of technologies isn't always a good thing, I agree. But it's worked with phones, PDAs etc... If you can reduce the number of devices in your living room then I think that has some appeal for customers. Besides, you may be able to do exactly as you described anyway and never touch the other items. Hell, from what I read you don't even have to get your ass off the couch and turn the thing on nor put in a game disk if you don't want to. Hit the power up on your remote, load the game from the included HD and go at it.
I think you're confusing Microsoft charitable donations and the Gates Foundation charitable donations. When Microsoft and Bill make a huge deal out of giving microsoft office software to libararies in Austrailia I do agree there's a total alterior motive. But the Gates foundation giving money for vaccinations doesn't hold the same issues.
You know, Drew Rosenhaus just saved a three year old's life when he saved him from drowning and performed CPR. Drew is the biggest A hole in terms of sports agents, he's infamous for his money grabbing etc... He's as shallow in the business world as they come. Many people joke around about his act of saving the kid. You know, like when's he going to get his retainer? Did he sign a contract right there? Me, I'm more inclined to say the guy saved a kids life period. No qualifications, no rationalizations etc..., he simply did the right thing and should be commended for it.
I feel the same way about Gates. Maybe it all was a selfish ploy to shelter money. If he's commended and encouraged then perhaps he will see the light and see that there are other things in life than accumulation of wealth. I don't know man, I just see that and say it's a good thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gates is evil as must all persons who hold wealth. He just HAS to have an alterior motive. I mean, there all kinds of rich people in this world that donate 37% percent of their income to charity.
There are all kinds of rich bastards that give 1 billion to the United Negro College Fund.
By law their foundation MUST give at least five percent of their assets to charity to maintain their charitble foundation status. That means that since the Gate's Foundation has an endowment of around 28.8 BILLION, they must contribute 1 BILLION to charity each year.
Pray tell, what influence or control does the evil Bill Gates want over the United Negro college fund? (Of which the money is 100% controlled by that fund after it's donated).
I'm sure there's some vast conspiracy that pushes Melinda and Bill to vaccinate children or help Tsunami victims.
You know, I don't blame people for creating plausable conspiracy theories when it comes to people of such power and influence. However, when someone donates money for kids to get shots or victims of a disaster to get food I'm one to just say, "That's a good thing". I don't qualify it and I don't really care that it's because of finance laws, social pressure or hell, by accident. I don't care of the how and why of it, it's a great thing and they should be congradulated for doing it.
You know what? Bill probably started this philathropy from a tax side and continues it in large part because of that. But if 100 million people made 1 million dollars a year each instead of one man do you believe they would donate 37% of their income towards a charitble cause? Gates in recent years has come out and said that he was reluctant to start this philathropy but as the years have gone on he's said it's been liberating and he's spoken out for people to give more, especially people like him that can afford to.
None of this will change the opinions of people who think he's only interested in building wealth and the cold blooded Mr. Burns has simply found a loop-hole to shelter his hoard of cash.
Slashdot Mirror
Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable."
Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of .xxx domains: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."
China: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework...For instance, spam, network security and cyberspace--we should look for an appropriate specialized agency of the United Nations as a competent body."
Ghana: "There was unanimity for the need for an additional body...This body would therefore address all issues relating to the Internet within the confines of the available expertise which would be anchored at the U.N."
These are the people that want to control the internet. They don't want some hands off technical control, they have specific cultural, moral and economic ideals they wish to implement in relation to the Internet. Yes, spam is bad. But "stopping spam" by a macro control mechanism is a control on information. This is contrary to the legal and user technological controls we are implementing now. Do you trust the UN to actually handle specific information on the Internet via their multicultralism moral compass? I don't.
I'm letting Netflix and Blockbuster decide. Whatever they choose to stock will be the player I choose to purchase.
More detail for you: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/09/ 06/warning-yahoo-wont-protect-you/
Officials from the Changsha security bureau detained Shi near his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, on November 24, 2004, several months after he e-mailed notes detailing the propaganda ministry's instructions to the media about coverage of the anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Authorities confiscated his computer and other documents and warned his family to stay quiet about the matter.
On December 14, authorities issued a formal arrest order, charging Shi with "leaking state secrets." On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court found Shi guilty and sentenced him to a 10-year prison term.
I'm sorry, but what a shocker. China tosses a journalist in jail for 10 years for a mislabled "crime". Here is a picture of this Chinese James Bond http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/China25aug05na.html
It should be of no suprise to anyone that Tao's appeal was rejected without reason nor public hearing. As is correctly pointed out at http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14884 does Yahoo! simply state they are just following a countries law? When do they have ANY ethical considerations? Can the law in China stipulate that child labor is lawfull and Yahoo could practice this under the same defense?
Yahoo is the ONLY American search engine that has agreed to self sensor it's search results. They have invested heavily in China and as a result bow to their every request. "Just follwing the law" is not a defense for Yahoo in my opinion. Self censoring your search results is one thing, cooperating with Chinese security officials to track down an IP address is another.
Here is Mr. Tao's verdict http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Verdict_Shi_Tao.pdf
For my sixth grade science project I made the monumental decision to do it on mold. I did not have Encarta on CD nor did the Internet exist. All I had was my science text book and those books at the library. I put bread in petri dishes and exposed them to various amounts of light, moisture, heat etc... These I used in my science display. I also remember my buddy Tim doing his on aerodynamics and his various balsa wood carvings placed in front of a fan. I can only imagine in todays era I would have used the Internet to print out color displays, found how-to guides on mold creation etc... Instead I experimented and created my own ways. I don't know if that was better because in the end I'm sure I was less informed that today's youth but I do think I was forced to be more creative.
$15 a month is very simplified, that's the fee for a month to month subscription. There are price points for three month and six months subscriptions that are less than that. No monthly payment plan is at a 100% return rate. You have bankruptcy, challenged payments (on credit cards), general default, collection issues and simple fraud. In the grand equation of 60 million a month vs 50 million what's the difference? Well, perhaps not much but for those MMO games that walk a much tighter line between revenue and expenses it can be a very big deal.
On these very boards the owner and operrator of Meridian 59 posted several times on the realities of expenses MMOs and what they have to deal with regarding infrastructure and the unique challenges they face in supporting it. http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=140914&c id=11811417
He comments specifically regarding WOW and has some very insightfull thoughts on how the cost structure really works. Explore that parent thred and you'll find several more detailed posts on the costs associated with MMOs. Someone in this thred mentioned a 74 million dollar production cost. That's a very large investment risk. Sure, you can point to the Everquests and the World of Warcrafts as huge financial successes. Just as you could point to Titanic instead of Waterworld in the movie industry.
Touchpads on laptops work well because there's no specificity to the touchpad itself, it's simply a pointing device, ie mouse. I'm not sure what the Nintendo people are doing but touchpad technology is ok if used right but people do not want to be looking at their hands when they want to be looking at the screen.
Good point, I could have google or other third party programs automatically check my horrid spelling. Then I could look intelligent, yet have horrid logic or education behind said position. I appreciate your anonymous advice yet I'd still love for someone to rebuttle my position. Ice samples are used for atmospheric investigation, not anything as cold, dry and high as the stratosphere and the ozone layer.
Now all of that is compeletly mute because you cannot begin to even guess the size of the ozone hole based on Chlorine samples found in ice because of the highly volitile nature of the ozone layer. The ozone layer is not a prestine bubble that has circled the Earth before Man arrived to screw things up. The ozone layer is constantly destroyed by solar radiation. 03 break down to 01, which readily bond to 02 particles and regenerrates itself. It's a HIGHLY volitile stratopheric condition.
Any attempt to correlate Chlorine particles in ice samples with a highly volitile stratospheric condition is a reach. One reason I'd like to see this data is because I want to know what the magic foruma of ice based Chlorine particles is to determining the size of the ozone hole at that place and time.
Well that, and plants have been holding their breath for a LONG time if that stuff is still up there. Oh and has been stated before CO2 is different thatn 03.
You're not suggesting that ozone samples are trapped in snowfall and that 'hole size' could be extrapulated from such samples with core ice drilling and what not. Are you?
To be even more specific to this study it's important for casual observers to understand that this data has only been collected since 1995. It's much sexier in a news report to say that, "This is one of the largest ozone holes in the past decade". That sells papers, gets people to pay attention to your news broadcast etc... It's less provocative to say that since 1995 only two other measured ozone holes have exceeded the size of the one measured today (1996 and 2000, which oddly enough is conflicting information with the BBC report but I find the European Space Agency a little more reliable than the BBC personally).
I think it's important for people to understand that the ozone hole flutuates in size, we have no data on how big it's supposed to be and while 1996 and 2000 ozone holes were the largest we've measured, they could be significantly smaller (or larger) than those same holes 30 years ago. There's simply not enough data to make any kind of conclusion and scientists that reach such conclusions are simply pandering for their next government grant rather than delivering accurate evaluations in my opinion.
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM712A5QCE_environment_0 .html
I don't know. But if there have been five billion mice over history and by some random chance one lucky mouse had the ability to regrow his toes that might not really be a competitive advantage that allows said mouse to breed/survive better than other mice. Also, I can't imagine that a mouse gets it's biggest survival benefit from regrowing a foot. They generally get eaten whole :). So while some lucky mouse may have been lucky enough to enjoy this mutation to some limited extent it probably didn't ensure it's survival to a greater extent in relation to other mice so it might breed more successfully and pass on that trait. Instead, mice with longer wiskers, lower profiles, nocturnal eyesight and thicker fur likely enjoyed better survival etc... That's just my guess work but I suppose this is contradicted by lizards that regrow tails. Some lucky reptile back in the day was able to pass this along, perhaps he was just better looking and got all the action with his tail regrowing mojo.
I think that's a relative statement directly to the number of people that bought and subscribed to the game. No one, including Blizzard knew they were going to have a launch like that. In spite of that they pulled it off with some minor difficulties and compensated those customers that experienced outtages with extentions to their subscriptions. When I beta tested Everquest and experienced that lauch subsequently, the WOW difficulties pale in comparision. EQs issues went on for months and months. Their unexpected popularity shorty after launch prompted Verant's ISP to litterally dig up roads to lay down more bandwidth to their server locals. I can't imagine the infrastructure and expense flexibility you have to have when your estimated user base explodes as quickly as Wow's did.
You know, not like I have or anything...
Lev: "No, I never saw Star Wars."
Lev: "American components, Russian components... all made in Taiwan!"
"In Ultra quality, we load each texture; diffuse, specular, normal map at full resolution with no compression. In a typical DOOM 3 level, this can hover around a whopping 500MB of texture data. This will run on current hardware but obviously we cannot fit 500MB of texture data onto a 256MB card and the amount of texture data referenced in a give scene per frame ( 60 times a second ) can easily be 50MB+. This can cause some choppiness as a lot of memory bandwidth is being consumed. It does however look fantastic and it is certainly playable on high end systems but due to the hitching that can occur we chose to require a 512MB Video card before setting this automatically.
High quality uses compression ( DXT1,3,5 ) for specular and diffuse and no compression for normal maps. This looks very very close to Ultra quality but the compression does cause some loss."
The other option to keep some armchair graphics guru's obliviously quiet was to just never offer this ultra option, instead just compressing some lighting effects and no one would notice. BUT, because id does put a graphics setting in the options that people can see and it's called, "ultra" they are convinced they are missing something and spew their expert opions on how unreasonable id is.
In response id and companies like them can market themselves better. First, simply don't tell you about the compression of certin aspects of the graphics engine and give you an option that's called Super Ultra Mega Fantastic Quality. The lesson here is don't give more options but give less. Market your target audience with feel good language so they percieve a higher level of satisfaction instead of a percieved underachievement of some graphical utopia they can never quantify anyway.
Me? I'll take more options and disclosure rather than a marketing feel good approach.
Microsoft has been clear about the developement time-line on their console and the fact they've been investing and developing for the last four years. Several articles have been published that expound on how long they worked on and developed things such as the physical design of the console itself and the user interface of the software.
Microsoft has never officially given a release date but has always said the end of '05. As far as I know this has never changed.
In conclusion, what support do you have that Microsoft is rushing their developement or release dates?
My personal observation about this most recent rumor of delaying the PS3 so they can develope a stronger title library to crush MS, is that it just doesn't make sense. Delaying a release just gives Xbox360 developers more time to release additional titles and to bridge that gap (if any) between developed titles between the two consoles. I suppose you could look at this one of two ways depending on which side of the fence you stand on in so far that you could infer that Sony is delaying release so they have more time to get their titles developed to begin with.
Sony is a public company and not a professional sports franchise. It may be true that Sony wishes to crush the Xbox360 to gain greater market share and increase their revenue but in my corporate experience you do not delay revenue generation out of some competitive desire to "win" over your competition. You strive to generate as much revenue as quickly as possible because stockholders demand of their board that they do so. I simply don't see the powers that be at Sony happily waiting for Microsoft to gain new customers while they delay release so they can "win". Also, Sony can't be Jonesing to give Halo3 more production time.
So if PS3 comes out with a Blu-Ray HD DVD then who's not thinking ahead and/or being foolish?
I'm also curious how many of you use your current console to play DVDs.
So just for the record you haven't heard anything about disc-required play either. But we do know some games will run without one. Evidence leans twoard the original assumption.
You can read more about the interface by Paul Thurrott at http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xbox360_insid e.asp
There's also a much nicer pic of the UI there. He says that it can instantly overlay any existing screen on the 360 which is pretty cool since it will interface over any game you're playing, visualization you're running during music or stuff like that. That seems relatively mundane but to incorporate an overlay system over third party developed graphics is no small feat. Sounds interesting to me.
"I want to turn the machine on, have it be instantly accessible, put a game in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a game console. In fact, anything more than that is just clutter."
Am I the only one that sees this as a collossal waste of time, money and effort? Am I the only one that just wants a music player to play music? Why do I need an interface with three years and millions of dollars put into it?
I want to turn the mp3 player on, have it be instantly accessible, load a song in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a mp3 player. In fact, anything more than that is just clutter.
Would the ipod have been half as successful without it's interface?
I could also substitute mobile phone in there as well. Convergence of technologies isn't always a good thing, I agree. But it's worked with phones, PDAs etc... If you can reduce the number of devices in your living room then I think that has some appeal for customers. Besides, you may be able to do exactly as you described anyway and never touch the other items. Hell, from what I read you don't even have to get your ass off the couch and turn the thing on nor put in a game disk if you don't want to. Hit the power up on your remote, load the game from the included HD and go at it.
You know, Drew Rosenhaus just saved a three year old's life when he saved him from drowning and performed CPR. Drew is the biggest A hole in terms of sports agents, he's infamous for his money grabbing etc... He's as shallow in the business world as they come. Many people joke around about his act of saving the kid. You know, like when's he going to get his retainer? Did he sign a contract right there? Me, I'm more inclined to say the guy saved a kids life period. No qualifications, no rationalizations etc..., he simply did the right thing and should be commended for it.
I feel the same way about Gates. Maybe it all was a selfish ploy to shelter money. If he's commended and encouraged then perhaps he will see the light and see that there are other things in life than accumulation of wealth. I don't know man, I just see that and say it's a good thing.
There are all kinds of rich bastards that give 1 billion to the United Negro College Fund.
By law their foundation MUST give at least five percent of their assets to charity to maintain their charitble foundation status. That means that since the Gate's Foundation has an endowment of around 28.8 BILLION, they must contribute 1 BILLION to charity each year.
Pray tell, what influence or control does the evil Bill Gates want over the United Negro college fund? (Of which the money is 100% controlled by that fund after it's donated).
I'm sure there's some vast conspiracy that pushes Melinda and Bill to vaccinate children or help Tsunami victims.
You know, I don't blame people for creating plausable conspiracy theories when it comes to people of such power and influence. However, when someone donates money for kids to get shots or victims of a disaster to get food I'm one to just say, "That's a good thing". I don't qualify it and I don't really care that it's because of finance laws, social pressure or hell, by accident. I don't care of the how and why of it, it's a great thing and they should be congradulated for doing it.
You know what? Bill probably started this philathropy from a tax side and continues it in large part because of that. But if 100 million people made 1 million dollars a year each instead of one man do you believe they would donate 37% of their income towards a charitble cause? Gates in recent years has come out and said that he was reluctant to start this philathropy but as the years have gone on he's said it's been liberating and he's spoken out for people to give more, especially people like him that can afford to.
None of this will change the opinions of people who think he's only interested in building wealth and the cold blooded Mr. Burns has simply found a loop-hole to shelter his hoard of cash.