Gates donates at least half that amount to charity.
I don't know the figures from the Microsoft corporation (or their charitable employee matching programs etc...) but I'd assume they contribute enough in combination with Bill to surpass that 10 billion.
I just thought it was interesting and as others have pointed out, it's not all an evil conspiracy with no redeming public value.
The truth is that Google news simply shows results that are more left and right instead of just stuff in the middle. I like to see this approach more than a homogenized result. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050520-1325 05
As far as staple feeds showing bias, well you can do an RSS search (called "Create a Section" on the bottom left) an add anything you like to your news feeds such as Fox News or whatever you care for such as a specific conservative blog. It's actually quite easy and simple to use. It avoids having to use a seperate RSS reader and removes some of the technical intimidation that RSS offers an average user. Just for grins I tried Shacknews.com and instapundit.com, both feeds worked like a charm.
Is the definition of "close as possible" translate to an alien virus instead of a portal to hell? It's not Doom, it's the Doom monster studio wrapped around some other story that some Hollywood script writer thought would be appealing to the mass market.
I'm going to keep it simple and say that I'm convinced. I'll be purchasing the 360 and not waiting the additional year for PS3.
I'm not really ready to give a consice bullet point break down of 360 vs. PS3. I just think it looks fun, is in my budget and is next generation enough for me with features that appeal to me.
The only thing PS3 has going for it is the Blu-ray. Even if I take that at face value and assume it's the next generation movie playing format and there will be movies available in this format... I have to ask myself, did I get my previous console and NOT buy a DVD player? Well, I still bought DVD players.
But the bottom line is that PS3 doesn't even factor in to my buying decision because they aren't even part of the equation when the 360 comes out. As long as there are compelling games to play I think the first out the gate will pay big dividends for 360.
Excuse me but who are these customers that use both of these products?
OH, I think I understand now. By "customers" they really mean "of people given a demonstration".
So if we go in to the way-back machine and do the same thing with VHS vs Beta would we find that these same "customers" chose Beta?
Real customers prefer something when it has been used by them in a non-controlled environment. Especially when the old Coke vs Pepsi taste testers aren't wearing large large Pepsi T-shirts and hand you a flat, luke-warm Coke.
How seriously can you take such a poll when it the artile begins, "A poll conducted by the group backing the Blu-ray next-generation DVD standard shows..."?
So I'm clear, Blu-ray promoters take a "poll" and it somehow it turns in to "A majority of customers prefer Blu-ray"? It's amazing how informal polls of people trying to avoid survey takers in a mall somewhere turns in to "customers prefer". I find marketing very fasinating because of how inept it appears when I get hit up for a tampon commercial during a football game. Then I see something like this when a promoter can get headlines such as this one. Nice job guys, you earned every penny on this one.
You, like many others believe Google is still the company they were before they went public. I'm sad to say that while this might be relatively true in the short term it will quickly degrade.
Google is no longer beholden to their owners who were ok with pulling in several hundred million in profit. Guys who managed a business culture and direction because it's THEIR reputation as owners. Now it's been sold to the public and it is beholden to their shareholders. Shareholders care about only one thing with a newer company, growth. They are now a growth stock.
What does that really mean? Well, for one they can't get away with turning 300 million profit in to 305 million the following year while hiring a bunch of people, giving raises, philathropy and all that good stuff. They are now measured quarter by quarter. The profit doesn't mean squat in comparison to revenue growth. Grow, grow, grow and then grow some more. Grow those revenues to give the company as a whole more value and investors buy, stock goes up. Your profits were increased by.05% for the quarter? Who cares, you grew! It doesn't matter if you did so without regard to expenses, it doesn't matter if you did so without regard to long term health of the company. Great, you grew 10% this quarter! Thank you Google board of directors! Now, what are you going to do for us next quarter? If you did 10% then surely you can do 10.5% next quarter. And you know what we'll do when you hit 10% instead of 10.5? We will say you didn't meet investors expectations and you stock will sink 2%. Again, we don't give a rat's butt you made an extra 200 million in profit because you discovered a new and innovative way to market/develope a core product. Who do you think we are? That's right, we are stockholders and you are a number on my web ticker and my number 4 horse in the race that Jimmy down at the stables told me about. Get back to work and grow.
Don't kid yourselves, Google entered that corporate hell as soon as the owners decieded to cash it in.
I'd say it's a pretty damn well run organization despite being run by the US Government.
I understand your point but even the WHO has their critisms like PBS does.
The fundamental issue isn't that it's not being run well right now but that it's... American! The horror!
When politicians (yes, UN officials are certainly politicians) want something it's inevitably for power. Let's just start with the first two quotes from TFA;
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."
Oh, I get it. The US government controls the spam which they refuse to stop sending because they benefit by being the only force in the world that can develope equipment to deal with the spam (that they themselves encourage somehow). Brilliant!
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."
Oh, I get this too. Pronography will get worse if ICANN approves the xxx domains because it doesn't prolifirate freely on other domains now. I guess the US government should not allow this to happen so pronography doesn't have anywhere to go. There is obviously no benefit to this designation but simple US incompentence that would effect the values of other countries.. you know besides the US because we have none apparently. From inference I'd take it that such content on the internet is somehow unacceptable or deserves a moral judgement from a political entity such as the UN. I just want to know if the brazen capitalism of Woot.com will be properly admonished on the UN board of Internet free markets chaired by China.
I would be willing to listen to reasoned argument of some intelligence but this all reads as typical anti-americanism. By all means, let's put the UN in charge because evil Americans have certainly screwed up the whole thing.
You could search for a Blockbuster address, zoom in on the map and Hollywood video could have a little symbol close by or visa versa. I guarantee if google maps got enough traffic they'd pay for that.
Put in a directions query. Say San Diego to Irvine. Map displays route and sponsers like Shell Gas Stations, McDonalds and Starbucks show their little symbols you can click on to get more information. Or better yet they could list next to the query and you could click on them. After, they would show up on the map. I want to know where the Starbucks is by the time I hit La Jolla, boom there it is. Sponsor gets a hit, everyone makes money and I get wired enough to ride the shoulder past the horrid Orange County 405 onramp.
Sunbeltblog reports:
A brief check of our database updates from Microsoft shows that Claria adware has been set to a default action of "Ignore" since at least early June (Claria continues to be listed in our database with a default action of "Quarantine").
You might recall that Microsoft acquired its antispyware application from GIANT, who had a close business relationship with Sunbelt Software. As part of the deal, Sunbelt continues to receive definitions from Microsoft until June 2007. Sunbelt, however, has its own research team and adds its own definitions to the database in addition to what they get from Microsoft.
In the current Spyware Weekly newsletter, Mike Healan of SpywareInfo.com comments:
I can't imagine what they are thinking at Microsoft. I would be hard pressed to think of a better way for Microsoft to alienate their users. I certainly hope that the opposition from within Microsoft prevails and that this deal dies on the negotiating table.
Ben Edelman has updated his write up to include the news of the changed detections.
This is exactly the kind of conflict of interest I worried about three paragraphs above--but I didn't anticipate how quickly this problem would come into effect!
Wayne Porter, blogging at ReveNews calls it Conflict of Interest 102 His site at SpywareGuide.com reports, interestingly enough, that Gator (Claria) is currently the top detection. See the site for full the top 10 list.
Since this AI in question is a 'learning' AI, couldn't you control the learning with various parameters? What if you calculated a kill ratio for a particular unit and basically limited the unit to stop learning when they achieved a kill ratio over 50%? Go with a philosophy that too high of a kill ratio and they begin to lose some of what they learned. That way the AI of the units remain dynamic. You could even implement certain ceilings or floors to learning to prevent manipulation or implement your easy,normal and hard functions of game options.
You could even assign 'wisdom' for lack of a better term on different units for certain game developement. That way you could face high learning and slow learning foes etc... As long as the learning AI has a solid foundation I can imagine a lot of useful implementations from zombies to seal ops to rousing mods of Capture the Chicken.
What do you call a Climatologist that doesn't find any trend of global warming from his research?
Unemployed. Or barren of further grants, same thing.
For this kind of research I'd only put some faith in NASA or other entities that aren't beholden to results to further their existance (or grant money in the case of universities).
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Arctic.htm It's becoming fashionable to claim rapid Antarctic warming too - from NYT yesterday:
"Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable" - "A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why." (New York Times)
Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating.
South Polar air samples record atmospheric CO2 rising from 328 ppmv to 373 ppmv subsequent to the 1949-1974 temperature increase - almost 15% increase apparently without affecting Polar temperatures, while startling temperature changes of ~4 C (+ve and -ve) are recorded in periods when we know atmospheric CO2 was increasing at a more leisurely rate.
A treasured hypothesis insists increasing atmospheric CO2 should lead to increasing temperature and the South Polar super-cold, super-dry air mass should respond dramatically. Well, we looked for the CO2 increment and it is obvious. We looked for the temperature increment and... what? Found it missing? There it was, gone?
Revenge of the Creature
Play Misty for me
The Enforcer
The Gauntlet
Sudden Impact
Absolute Power
True Crime
Or my preference, Two Mules for Sister Sara. Which could double as a really cool name for a band.
Troll me all you like but the facts are it isn't 50% of the retail take, it's closer to a third (RTFA). Also, you make a broad assumption that all subscribers pay $15 each month. That's not accurate either considering there are lower pricing options for 3 and 6 month subscriptions. You also fail to account for the weak dollar and the subscription numbers of overseas customers. If you make a large leap of faith that they too are at the same price point as North America you still need to account for the exchange rate to the US dollar.
You label me a 'tool' yet go in to yet another post despariging my examination of expenses because M59 is "chumpy", whatever that means. Tell you what, as soon as you can discover the vast mystery of DNS resolution and simple whois inquiries I'll take all your assumptions more seriously.
If you really want an inside look at the finances of how MMOs work I'd suggest you read a thred commented on by the owner of Meridian 59 here at slashdot. Explore the parent thred and you will find several posts from him discussing this subject in detail.
He does talk about revenue calculations as you have but I found the expenses more interesting...
Okay, now we come to bandwidth. Here's some numbers for you: Meridian 59 uses 1 kilobyte per player per second. Remember, this is for a game designed to be played on 14.4k modems on the client side; a game like WoW is going to require much higher rates. But, let's assume that players play an average of 10 hours per week (quite low, "hard core" players usually go 20-30 hours per week), there's 4 weeks per year, and use the numbers from Dave Rickey above, rounded to 500k to make my math easier.
1 kilobyte/s/player * 500k players * 40 hours/month * 60 minutes/hour * 60 s/minute = 67 Terabytes per month.
M59 currently spends about $3/GB per month. That puts bandwidth costs closer to $200,000 per month, four times your number. Keep in mind that 1) WoW probably uses more bandwidth per player per second , and 2) this bandwidth usage is constant, not bursty like most network traffic is. This means you're going to be filling up fat pipes easier and longer than most other server types will. A T3 isn't going to cut it for this type of bandwidth usage. Keep in mind that you cannot skimp here; saturating your bandwidth will result in lag which will irritate your customers. You're going to have to routinely oversubscribe in order to keep the game playable...
Do I get troll status if I said 32.54% of statistics are made up?
On a serious note, since when have consumers done what's practicle? Consumers don't buy 40 GB Ipods because they've really mapped out the fact they will one day have 10,000 songs loaded on to the thing. They buy them because in their minds "one day I will need it".
I can't tell you how many products I've bought because of so called features that I will never use nor probably need. My fridge has humidifier controls, crushed ice dispenser and other stuff I thought was really important when I overpaid for it. I can't remember the last time I looked at that humidifier control nor switched the ice make from cube ice to crushed. My new lawnmower not only has a special blade for criss-cross mulching but also has a special ejection cover on the side for mowing exceptionally longer grass that you don't want to bag nor mulch. This thing I've never used but contributed towards my purchase decision. I regret to inform you that consumers simply aren't practicle when the promise of some unexperienced utopia of the refrigerator, mowing a lawn or gaming is just out of reach. The examples go on and on. Need AA x12 with Anthropology hyper-smoothness at 90fps, no problem consumer I've got just the thing for you. Practicle? Probably not but it's too enticing for you to purchase our competitor's product that doesn't do this.
People feign that they are fed up with the posing and back and forth banter of these companies but I for one welcome as much vitriol these companies can muster against each other. I hope they both remain very strong and we have a long term competitive relationship like we've seen with Intel/AMD and ATI/Nvidia.
Interview with Richard Huddy of ATI. In a nutshell he basically says that CPU power of the PS3 will face a bottle neck with it's GPU. Pretty interesting
This time around, they don't have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn't worthwhile. But in the future, they'll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they've cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn't unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful.
You do know that, "See you tonight honey. Wear the red dress" is code for bagging on one's company. Oh, and "The Frog is in the water" means you should leave the building immediately.
Seriously, do companies truely believe that any employee willing to give trade secrets would use company email? You don't prevent a bank robbery by requiring ID for withdrawls. It seems like a waste of company resources to have someone reading email all day. Sounds like paranoid management to me.
This is what I don't get about management in general. Employees have a job to do. They either do it well or they don't. But that's not good enough for some. It creates an atmosphere of some employees acting busy when they aren't, and a poor long term working environment. Managers that want to squeeze blood from a turnip will find that micro-analysing employee's time does not lead to greater long-term productivity. If your company has the resources to read every email you send to make sure YOU are being productive then they have got their priorities messed up. Measure employees on how well they do their job not on what % of time worked is work related. I'd rather have intelligent people that are happy with their work environment. Ones that execute their duties swiftly and accurately with ample room to breath between than a US Postal worker who ALWAYS works but takes 10 minutes to walk from the freeking counter to the freeking package drop off, back to the freeking counter while there are 50 customers waiting in line.
Where was I? Oh yeah, I think this is an IT learning curve for management too paranoid to keep their eye on ball.
That could very well be true. However, they all need to play the games which can't come in the Yugo to Ferrari spectrum of quality (yet). So, just like a Neon can get you from location A to B it can't do it with the reponsiveness of a BMW etc... Basically, the quality of that travel experience is effected by this spectrum. Gaming consoles can't do this because the games can't change from one pimped out platform to another. Halo is Halo.
Now, you could have consoles with different perks, DVD players, media consoles and all that other stuff. But, Cars make you a captive audience and historically are none-modular. Gaming consoles aren't like that. I can use competitor DVD players, media components etc... Even Cars are becoming less monopolistic by nature (to a degree) because of modular/portable technologies like sat radio, navigation gps' and of course MP3 players/radios.
In sum, your analogy is appealing but I don't think gaming consoles will ever evolve in to segments like cars can and do. Simply because the base medium they serve cannot be altered in quality greatly by doing so.
That's all fine and good but I'm an IT tech and even I don't want to deal with more gadgets than I need to. I have built in cabinets in my house that can store a lot of equipment but I remember what it was like to have limited space for TV equipment. Right now I have a DVD player, DirectTivo (substitute your cable box or what have you), Stereo (patched in to my surround speakers) and a video game box. I'm at my limit. I'll take any consolidation I can get.
Just thinking ahead, I hope my remote can find a code that works the Xbox360. Now my couch could have two wireless game controllers and 20 other remotes! I know, I know.. Harmony, Pronto, Bluetooth Palms and bottomless guilt and looks from my lovely wife that still doesn't understand why I have to have all this crap. All right, I'm done.
These blockbuster buildings aren't just typical business lease space areas most of the time. They just opened a brand new one hear near my home in Colorado. It's in a seperate building with a wide open floorplan. It's characterised by 10 foot windows surrounding three sides of the building with One double door entry in the front. It's very "Blockbusteresque" and while it may not be quite as identifiable as the real estate office that's in what used to be a Taco Bell, it certainly has a significant amount of custom features that make remarketing troublesome and somewhat expensive to retrofit. Retail space is a significant financial consideration for many more reasons than just the lease. Insurance, utilities, janitorial services, security and all the fun stuff that comes with it.
Blockbuster has the size, marketing and money to TRY and crush Netflix. However, they also have overhead, tons and tons of overhead. Retail consumer locations cost money but nothing in comparison to the empolyment costs of having people in those buildings. When you run a company that floats a margin above large amounts of overhead your company's profit margins look like the DOW with very high Highs and very low Lows. Overhead produces the types of losses you see from Airlines and car manufacturers. They have fixed costs in this massive retail chain that don't change without significant closings, firings etc...
Netflix on the other hand has a much more flexible overhead structure. They have fewer customers? Well first, they KNOW how many fewer they have because they have subscribers and a predictable cash flow regardless of customer usage unlike Blockbuster. Second, if they get fewer customers they spend less on postage. Perhaps they reduce purchasing on new titles. At worst perhaps they lay off employees.
Netflix is a remarkably proficient business model. The biggest issue is that since they went Public in '02 they have become part of the beast that is stakeholder appeasement. They are a 'growth' stock. Shareholders want growth so a company has to invest in infrastructure, marketing, promotions and everything under the sun to show revenue growth. It frankly doesn't matter if the growth is done smartly as long as it's not slowly. The board of directors gets pressue for stock growth, which bears pressure on the CEO for that same growth (who is beholden to their own income (ie options) to show growth). The days of developing a solid income stock company are dead. Profits be damned if revenues grow by 19.5%!! Who cares if you lost 100 million in a quarter. Anyway, that's all a tangent rant but suffice to say that because Amazon posted losses during their growth years doesn't mean the business model won't work. It also doesn't mean there's no place in the market for retail when a web service is available.
Slashdot Mirror
Gates donates at least half that amount to charity.
I don't know the figures from the Microsoft corporation (or their charitable employee matching programs etc...) but I'd assume they contribute enough in combination with Bill to surpass that 10 billion.
I just thought it was interesting and as others have pointed out, it's not all an evil conspiracy with no redeming public value.
This one claims liberal bias, http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archiv es/2005/05/04/google-accused-of-liberal-bias/
The truth is that Google news simply shows results that are more left and right instead of just stuff in the middle. I like to see this approach more than a homogenized result. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050520-1325 05
As far as staple feeds showing bias, well you can do an RSS search (called "Create a Section" on the bottom left) an add anything you like to your news feeds such as Fox News or whatever you care for such as a specific conservative blog. It's actually quite easy and simple to use. It avoids having to use a seperate RSS reader and removes some of the technical intimidation that RSS offers an average user. Just for grins I tried Shacknews.com and instapundit.com, both feeds worked like a charm.
Is the definition of "close as possible" translate to an alien virus instead of a portal to hell? It's not Doom, it's the Doom monster studio wrapped around some other story that some Hollywood script writer thought would be appealing to the mass market.
I'm not really ready to give a consice bullet point break down of 360 vs. PS3. I just think it looks fun, is in my budget and is next generation enough for me with features that appeal to me.
The only thing PS3 has going for it is the Blu-ray. Even if I take that at face value and assume it's the next generation movie playing format and there will be movies available in this format... I have to ask myself, did I get my previous console and NOT buy a DVD player? Well, I still bought DVD players.
But the bottom line is that PS3 doesn't even factor in to my buying decision because they aren't even part of the equation when the 360 comes out. As long as there are compelling games to play I think the first out the gate will pay big dividends for 360.
OH, I think I understand now. By "customers" they really mean "of people given a demonstration".
So if we go in to the way-back machine and do the same thing with VHS vs Beta would we find that these same "customers" chose Beta?
Real customers prefer something when it has been used by them in a non-controlled environment. Especially when the old Coke vs Pepsi taste testers aren't wearing large large Pepsi T-shirts and hand you a flat, luke-warm Coke.
How seriously can you take such a poll when it the artile begins, "A poll conducted by the group backing the Blu-ray next-generation DVD standard shows..."?
So I'm clear, Blu-ray promoters take a "poll" and it somehow it turns in to "A majority of customers prefer Blu-ray"? It's amazing how informal polls of people trying to avoid survey takers in a mall somewhere turns in to "customers prefer". I find marketing very fasinating because of how inept it appears when I get hit up for a tampon commercial during a football game. Then I see something like this when a promoter can get headlines such as this one. Nice job guys, you earned every penny on this one.
Google is no longer beholden to their owners who were ok with pulling in several hundred million in profit. Guys who managed a business culture and direction because it's THEIR reputation as owners. Now it's been sold to the public and it is beholden to their shareholders. Shareholders care about only one thing with a newer company, growth. They are now a growth stock.
What does that really mean? Well, for one they can't get away with turning 300 million profit in to 305 million the following year while hiring a bunch of people, giving raises, philathropy and all that good stuff. They are now measured quarter by quarter. The profit doesn't mean squat in comparison to revenue growth. Grow, grow, grow and then grow some more. Grow those revenues to give the company as a whole more value and investors buy, stock goes up. Your profits were increased by .05% for the quarter? Who cares, you grew! It doesn't matter if you did so without regard to expenses, it doesn't matter if you did so without regard to long term health of the company. Great, you grew 10% this quarter! Thank you Google board of directors! Now, what are you going to do for us next quarter? If you did 10% then surely you can do 10.5% next quarter. And you know what we'll do when you hit 10% instead of 10.5? We will say you didn't meet investors expectations and you stock will sink 2%. Again, we don't give a rat's butt you made an extra 200 million in profit because you discovered a new and innovative way to market/develope a core product. Who do you think we are? That's right, we are stockholders and you are a number on my web ticker and my number 4 horse in the race that Jimmy down at the stables told me about. Get back to work and grow.
Don't kid yourselves, Google entered that corporate hell as soon as the owners decieded to cash it in.
I'd say it's a pretty damn well run organization despite being run by the US Government.
I understand your point but even the WHO has their critisms like PBS does.
The fundamental issue isn't that it's not being run well right now but that it's... American! The horror!
When politicians (yes, UN officials are certainly politicians) want something it's inevitably for power. Let's just start with the first two quotes from TFA;
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."
Oh, I get it. The US government controls the spam which they refuse to stop sending because they benefit by being the only force in the world that can develope equipment to deal with the spam (that they themselves encourage somehow). Brilliant! 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."
Oh, I get this too. Pronography will get worse if ICANN approves the xxx domains because it doesn't prolifirate freely on other domains now. I guess the US government should not allow this to happen so pronography doesn't have anywhere to go. There is obviously no benefit to this designation but simple US incompentence that would effect the values of other countries.. you know besides the US because we have none apparently. From inference I'd take it that such content on the internet is somehow unacceptable or deserves a moral judgement from a political entity such as the UN. I just want to know if the brazen capitalism of Woot.com will be properly admonished on the UN board of Internet free markets chaired by China.
I would be willing to listen to reasoned argument of some intelligence but this all reads as typical anti-americanism. By all means, let's put the UN in charge because evil Americans have certainly screwed up the whole thing.
You could search for a Blockbuster address, zoom in on the map and Hollywood video could have a little symbol close by or visa versa. I guarantee if google maps got enough traffic they'd pay for that. Put in a directions query. Say San Diego to Irvine. Map displays route and sponsers like Shell Gas Stations, McDonalds and Starbucks show their little symbols you can click on to get more information. Or better yet they could list next to the query and you could click on them. After, they would show up on the map. I want to know where the Starbucks is by the time I hit La Jolla, boom there it is. Sponsor gets a hit, everyone makes money and I get wired enough to ride the shoulder past the horrid Orange County 405 onramp.
Part of the article...
Sunbeltblog reports: A brief check of our database updates from Microsoft shows that Claria adware has been set to a default action of "Ignore" since at least early June (Claria continues to be listed in our database with a default action of "Quarantine").
You might recall that Microsoft acquired its antispyware application from GIANT, who had a close business relationship with Sunbelt Software. As part of the deal, Sunbelt continues to receive definitions from Microsoft until June 2007. Sunbelt, however, has its own research team and adds its own definitions to the database in addition to what they get from Microsoft.
In the current Spyware Weekly newsletter, Mike Healan of SpywareInfo.com comments:
I can't imagine what they are thinking at Microsoft. I would be hard pressed to think of a better way for Microsoft to alienate their users. I certainly hope that the opposition from within Microsoft prevails and that this deal dies on the negotiating table.
Ben Edelman has updated his write up to include the news of the changed detections.
This is exactly the kind of conflict of interest I worried about three paragraphs above--but I didn't anticipate how quickly this problem would come into effect!
Wayne Porter, blogging at ReveNews calls it Conflict of Interest 102 His site at SpywareGuide.com reports, interestingly enough, that Gator (Claria) is currently the top detection. See the site for full the top 10 list.
1 Gator 6.55% 2 MySearch 5.53% 3 CoolWebSearch 4.38% 4 180 Search Assistant 4.02%
My Acura TL can play DVD-Audio in surround. It's actually quite impressive when you can find the Audio to purchase.
You could even assign 'wisdom' for lack of a better term on different units for certain game developement. That way you could face high learning and slow learning foes etc... As long as the learning AI has a solid foundation I can imagine a lot of useful implementations from zombies to seal ops to rousing mods of Capture the Chicken.
Unemployed. Or barren of further grants, same thing.
For this kind of research I'd only put some faith in NASA or other entities that aren't beholden to results to further their existance (or grant money in the case of universities).
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Arctic.htm
It's becoming fashionable to claim rapid Antarctic warming too - from NYT yesterday: "Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable" - "A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why." (New York Times) Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating. South Polar air samples record atmospheric CO2 rising from 328 ppmv to 373 ppmv subsequent to the 1949-1974 temperature increase - almost 15% increase apparently without affecting Polar temperatures, while startling temperature changes of ~4 C (+ve and -ve) are recorded in periods when we know atmospheric CO2 was increasing at a more leisurely rate. A treasured hypothesis insists increasing atmospheric CO2 should lead to increasing temperature and the South Polar super-cold, super-dry air mass should respond dramatically. Well, we looked for the CO2 increment and it is obvious. We looked for the temperature increment and... what? Found it missing? There it was, gone?
There really are a lot of options...
Revenge of the Creature
Play Misty for me
The Enforcer
The Gauntlet
Sudden Impact
Absolute Power
True Crime
Or my preference, Two Mules for Sister Sara. Which could double as a really cool name for a band.
You label me a 'tool' yet go in to yet another post despariging my examination of expenses because M59 is "chumpy", whatever that means. Tell you what, as soon as you can discover the vast mystery of DNS resolution and simple whois inquiries I'll take all your assumptions more seriously.
If you really want an inside look at the finances of how MMOs work I'd suggest you read a thred commented on by the owner of Meridian 59 here at slashdot. Explore the parent thred and you will find several posts from him discussing this subject in detail.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=140914&c id=11811417
He does talk about revenue calculations as you have but I found the expenses more interesting...
Okay, now we come to bandwidth. Here's some numbers for you: Meridian 59 uses 1 kilobyte per player per second. Remember, this is for a game designed to be played on 14.4k modems on the client side; a game like WoW is going to require much higher rates. But, let's assume that players play an average of 10 hours per week (quite low, "hard core" players usually go 20-30 hours per week), there's 4 weeks per year, and use the numbers from Dave Rickey above, rounded to 500k to make my math easier. 1 kilobyte/s/player * 500k players * 40 hours/month * 60 minutes/hour * 60 s/minute = 67 Terabytes per month. M59 currently spends about $3/GB per month. That puts bandwidth costs closer to $200,000 per month, four times your number. Keep in mind that 1) WoW probably uses more bandwidth per player per second , and 2) this bandwidth usage is constant, not bursty like most network traffic is. This means you're going to be filling up fat pipes easier and longer than most other server types will. A T3 isn't going to cut it for this type of bandwidth usage. Keep in mind that you cannot skimp here; saturating your bandwidth will result in lag which will irritate your customers. You're going to have to routinely oversubscribe in order to keep the game playable...
Your comment was posted at 8:48am. Your answer was posted at 8:49am at http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152 647&cid=12812948
In summary, it's a bug with Firefox and not a flaw with the site in question.
On a serious note, since when have consumers done what's practicle? Consumers don't buy 40 GB Ipods because they've really mapped out the fact they will one day have 10,000 songs loaded on to the thing. They buy them because in their minds "one day I will need it".
I can't tell you how many products I've bought because of so called features that I will never use nor probably need. My fridge has humidifier controls, crushed ice dispenser and other stuff I thought was really important when I overpaid for it. I can't remember the last time I looked at that humidifier control nor switched the ice make from cube ice to crushed. My new lawnmower not only has a special blade for criss-cross mulching but also has a special ejection cover on the side for mowing exceptionally longer grass that you don't want to bag nor mulch. This thing I've never used but contributed towards my purchase decision. I regret to inform you that consumers simply aren't practicle when the promise of some unexperienced utopia of the refrigerator, mowing a lawn or gaming is just out of reach. The examples go on and on. Need AA x12 with Anthropology hyper-smoothness at 90fps, no problem consumer I've got just the thing for you. Practicle? Probably not but it's too enticing for you to purchase our competitor's product that doesn't do this.
I think you are I are deffinately looking for different things. I want my innovation from the game makers not the console producers.
Here's one for you.
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2005/06/10/richard_hu ddy_ati/1.html
Interview with Richard Huddy of ATI. In a nutshell he basically says that CPU power of the PS3 will face a bottle neck with it's GPU. Pretty interesting
This time around, they don't have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn't worthwhile. But in the future, they'll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they've cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn't unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful.
This is what I don't get about management in general. Employees have a job to do. They either do it well or they don't. But that's not good enough for some. It creates an atmosphere of some employees acting busy when they aren't, and a poor long term working environment. Managers that want to squeeze blood from a turnip will find that micro-analysing employee's time does not lead to greater long-term productivity. If your company has the resources to read every email you send to make sure YOU are being productive then they have got their priorities messed up. Measure employees on how well they do their job not on what % of time worked is work related. I'd rather have intelligent people that are happy with their work environment. Ones that execute their duties swiftly and accurately with ample room to breath between than a US Postal worker who ALWAYS works but takes 10 minutes to walk from the freeking counter to the freeking package drop off, back to the freeking counter while there are 50 customers waiting in line.
Where was I? Oh yeah, I think this is an IT learning curve for management too paranoid to keep their eye on ball.
That could very well be true. However, they all need to play the games which can't come in the Yugo to Ferrari spectrum of quality (yet). So, just like a Neon can get you from location A to B it can't do it with the reponsiveness of a BMW etc... Basically, the quality of that travel experience is effected by this spectrum. Gaming consoles can't do this because the games can't change from one pimped out platform to another. Halo is Halo.
Now, you could have consoles with different perks, DVD players, media consoles and all that other stuff. But, Cars make you a captive audience and historically are none-modular. Gaming consoles aren't like that. I can use competitor DVD players, media components etc... Even Cars are becoming less monopolistic by nature (to a degree) because of modular/portable technologies like sat radio, navigation gps' and of course MP3 players/radios.
In sum, your analogy is appealing but I don't think gaming consoles will ever evolve in to segments like cars can and do. Simply because the base medium they serve cannot be altered in quality greatly by doing so.
What utter garbage, like my Netscape browser is EVER going to lose market share to those Microsoft clowns. Don't even get my started on my Sega.
Just thinking ahead, I hope my remote can find a code that works the Xbox360. Now my couch could have two wireless game controllers and 20 other remotes! I know, I know.. Harmony, Pronto, Bluetooth Palms and bottomless guilt and looks from my lovely wife that still doesn't understand why I have to have all this crap. All right, I'm done.
These blockbuster buildings aren't just typical business lease space areas most of the time. They just opened a brand new one hear near my home in Colorado. It's in a seperate building with a wide open floorplan. It's characterised by 10 foot windows surrounding three sides of the building with One double door entry in the front. It's very "Blockbusteresque" and while it may not be quite as identifiable as the real estate office that's in what used to be a Taco Bell, it certainly has a significant amount of custom features that make remarketing troublesome and somewhat expensive to retrofit. Retail space is a significant financial consideration for many more reasons than just the lease. Insurance, utilities, janitorial services, security and all the fun stuff that comes with it.
Netflix on the other hand has a much more flexible overhead structure. They have fewer customers? Well first, they KNOW how many fewer they have because they have subscribers and a predictable cash flow regardless of customer usage unlike Blockbuster. Second, if they get fewer customers they spend less on postage. Perhaps they reduce purchasing on new titles. At worst perhaps they lay off employees.
Netflix is a remarkably proficient business model. The biggest issue is that since they went Public in '02 they have become part of the beast that is stakeholder appeasement. They are a 'growth' stock. Shareholders want growth so a company has to invest in infrastructure, marketing, promotions and everything under the sun to show revenue growth. It frankly doesn't matter if the growth is done smartly as long as it's not slowly. The board of directors gets pressue for stock growth, which bears pressure on the CEO for that same growth (who is beholden to their own income (ie options) to show growth). The days of developing a solid income stock company are dead. Profits be damned if revenues grow by 19.5%!! Who cares if you lost 100 million in a quarter. Anyway, that's all a tangent rant but suffice to say that because Amazon posted losses during their growth years doesn't mean the business model won't work. It also doesn't mean there's no place in the market for retail when a web service is available.