What would be cool is if most game demos weren't 10 minutes of the very best the game has to offer, or a single level that happened to be the most interesting level. Obviously they're not going to pick the worst, but video games are probably one of the worst offenders of "uneven quality." Tons of games where the first level is the coolest thing, followed by boring, repeating hallways or nonsense puzzles that just pad out the game.
Only if he charges people to download the torrent.
The number of people who have potential access to it isn't the issue. Copyright infringement is illegally copying something you don't have permission to. Piracy is the sale of illegally copied or reproduced goods. Its meaning has been slaughtered thanks to the media conflating piracy with copyright infringement, but one is far worse. Why? Because what does the kid gain by posting it to a torrent? Nothing. What do the chinese duplicators gain? A nice $4.90 profit for each disc sold.
And then wonder why NewApp 1.0 won't work on their "fast, souped-up" system, and how FancyHardware is the buggiest piece of shit because they can't install the driver for it.
Which inevitably leads to the method most Windows users resort to when their computer seems irrevocably mangled -- Format&Install.
It shifts all the time. It's even slowly moved westward as cities on an eastern time zone border have pushed to get lumped into the next time zone. Why? Because the vast majority of businesses aren't flexible in their staffing hours and people can't choose to simply go in when they wake up.
My wife says that she wishes DST was all the time, as she has no problems waking up in the dark but tends to work long hours and we regularly stay up until 11 or 12.
And yeah, as a reminder to programmers it's great, but it's also great for all people to realize that time is abstract and can pretty much be whenever. I don't think I've ever heard an elderly person lament the time when we were all standard time.
I gave up on them when I realized that the 2 near me never put any prices on their products. Nothing on the displays, or on the boxes. So you pick up, say, a video game that sells for $30 everywhere else, and go buy it, only to have it ring up at $40? I swore I'd never even bother looking in the store again after that.
Next time you have two Word documents open, try hitting apple+` (the key above tab). You may be pleasantly surprised, and it does conform to the OS X methodology of separating windows from applications quite nicely. I agree that Expose is overkill for such purposes.
the idea behind the apple TV works great for someone like me, who is familiar with codecs and also has a Pro copy of Quicktime. It's easy to spend a little time converting video into something iTunes can recognize.
But for your average user, figuring how to get that latest episode of The Office into iTunes? I get the feeling a lot of people will skip it as they'll feel it's really focused towards buying movies/shows off iTunes. And it kind of is, as iTunes doesn't really handle video conversion on its own.
I like the idea, and will probably get one once they actually ship out (barring bad reviews), but I rely heavily on iTunes for enjoying my music library already and would like to have a video device, rather than just a little airport express thing. For me, it's great. For your average Windows user? Perhaps not so much, as I'm not sure how well iTunes integrates with Windows' wireless stuff. And there's no service for Linux, although I'm sure Apple feels that Linux-heads already have such a device:D
The only saving grace for the device, as far as I can see, is that it doesn't try to do everything, and relies more on the computer for the nitty gritty. Subsequently, it has a relatively low price. How well people can get video into iTunes (without the quality going to shit) is going to be the real deciding factor for a lot of people, I think.
Exactly. It's rare to encounter a dentist or oral surgeon who uses "impact" in superfluous ways. Similarly, someone skilled in argument and communication to use "rhetorical" without thinking.
Yeah, I love how the article makes it sounds like lawyers don't almost always work for winning case payouts. I'm sure lawyers would love if retainer fees could pay for running an independent business, but that's simply not the case.
If people are anti-lawyer, they should stop suing people. But then other people would have to stop trying to break the law. <sigh>
And his 20 friends who haven't bought anything from iTunes are theoretically free to buy any other player. But, for some reason, they all seem to keep buying iPods...
Mr. 29.5k probably owns so much because he's so happy with his iPod and iTunes. If his dies, why would he *want* to switch?
And I'm sure Jobs would LOVE to move those programmers to work on another project. Devoting a good chunk of his staff simply to appease the record companies, when they could be working on products that actually make profit, isn't exactly the best use of employee time.
it's a perfectly fine example. Say I would pay $10 for a delicious orange. But a delicious orange only costs $2. Should the grocery store jump in and say "Sorry sir, you said you would pay $10 for this orange, so that's its new price"?
Using the grandparent's example, say he knew something always went for $50. But he absolutely needed this one, and wanted to make sure he wasn't outbid. There was another new auction that had just listed so there was no reason for anyone to pay more than $50. So he bid $100, knowing that if he was sniped he wouldn't lose the auction. Only he then discovers that there were a series of $1 bids in the last 3 minutes in order to "max out" the auction price.
eBay's incrementing system isn't perfect, and unless you can perfectly guess what everyone's bids will be, the chance of having your bid fall exactly on an increment value will, at some point, reveal what your high bid actually is. Times where the next increment should make the price, say, $52.50, but for some reason it only went to $50.50? Yeah, that's fishing for the max bid price.
Part of the same deal with eBay is that sellers should sit with *whatever the price sellers are willing to pay, and no more*. It's a two way street. Yes, people shouldn't bid more than they actually want to pay, but sellers shouldn't shill bid in order to profit more than the market actually demands.
Or remove the advertising incentives. They only make money because companies like Google and Yahoo pay them. To me, that's no different than the "aggregator" sites that are just links and news about asbestos.
Cingular is surprising in how open its phones are. If there's a USB plug, or bluetooth, you can pretty much be sure that if you got it through Cingular you can sync up your address book and move files onto/off of the device simply by connecting it.
Which, of course, means that its features get used that much more. I can experiment with ringtones based on my own music library, or actually use it to take pictures that aren't stuck on the phone. I can't do *everything* on it, but most of the important things people want to do to customize their phones are possible out of the box.
So, to me, this iPhone thing isn't surprising at all. Cingular isn't out to nickel/dime people for inherent features, and they're already using GSM (so Apple only has to support one network for the whole world). The only thing I'm skeptical of is the internet features. It's still a f'n expensive phone, though.
If fair use truly comes under fire, there'll be far more of an outcry than what we hear now. Hopefully, at least. I will admit that when I was in college I had a few professors who had "booklets" that were simply photocopies of recently published works that cost dozens of dollars, to cover licensing fees. But it's for educational use, and therefore should be exempt.
Reviewers would be the next party to worry, but they usually get things for free in order to pump up promotion.
Hmm, now that I mention it, their slow widdling away at fair use seems to be working surprisingly well...
I like how the only thing that's even remotely relevant today is that Nethack is still around and still entertaining. The complaint about the Web's organization has been solved mostly by the fact that there's a lot of stuff you don't want to find anyway!
Cingular is definitely region-specific. I've got a friend in New England and he says that everyone who has tried Cingular hates it, as they have poor reception and crappy service.
In Baltimore, though, it's great. I've never had any problem anywhere, except for places where there's an obvious problem (basements w/ no windows, for instance). When I visit my parents in minnesota, though, my coverage and service is only mediocre, although it has started to improve (I don't visit frequently enough so I actually notice a difference).
Since cell phone service is based on geography and tower strength, I'm not at all surprised that there are pockets and regions that receive poor service.
That's because TV news reports love sensationalism (higher ratings) and constantly tell parents that their neighborhoods aren't safe, and their kids should stay indoors. Watching more TV.
Really, this is just TV talking heads pissed off that the TV is being used for more than watching their shows. If the TV is used for video games, it's not used for talking heads.
Re:Some new things are more than souped-up old thi
on
NY Times Review of PS3
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· Score: 1
Or, uh, "souped up" things like NES>SNES, and N64>GameCube, and PS1>PS2. Oh, and Master System>Genesis. Oh and Xbox>Xbox 360.
The biggest change for most systems was 2d>3d, and the change in controllers to accomodate that. Otherwise, New is relatively rare -- which is why stuff like the Wii makes pretty big news.
Even more interesting is the fact that I don't think I've spoken to a single person who is actually buying the machine to play. Everyone's just buying them to sell on eBay, for "mega profit."
Which, of course, makes me wonder -- if people only want it to sell on eBay, who's going to buy it on eBay?
Slashdot Mirror
What would be cool is if most game demos weren't 10 minutes of the very best the game has to offer, or a single level that happened to be the most interesting level. Obviously they're not going to pick the worst, but video games are probably one of the worst offenders of "uneven quality." Tons of games where the first level is the coolest thing, followed by boring, repeating hallways or nonsense puzzles that just pad out the game.
Only if he charges people to download the torrent.
The number of people who have potential access to it isn't the issue. Copyright infringement is illegally copying something you don't have permission to. Piracy is the sale of illegally copied or reproduced goods. Its meaning has been slaughtered thanks to the media conflating piracy with copyright infringement, but one is far worse. Why? Because what does the kid gain by posting it to a torrent? Nothing. What do the chinese duplicators gain? A nice $4.90 profit for each disc sold.
And then wonder why NewApp 1.0 won't work on their "fast, souped-up" system, and how FancyHardware is the buggiest piece of shit because they can't install the driver for it.
Which inevitably leads to the method most Windows users resort to when their computer seems irrevocably mangled -- Format&Install.
It shifts all the time. It's even slowly moved westward as cities on an eastern time zone border have pushed to get lumped into the next time zone. Why? Because the vast majority of businesses aren't flexible in their staffing hours and people can't choose to simply go in when they wake up.
My wife says that she wishes DST was all the time, as she has no problems waking up in the dark but tends to work long hours and we regularly stay up until 11 or 12.
And yeah, as a reminder to programmers it's great, but it's also great for all people to realize that time is abstract and can pretty much be whenever. I don't think I've ever heard an elderly person lament the time when we were all standard time.
I imagine the 30+% increase in their stock price made Microsoft quite happy, if they still have the shares.
I gave up on them when I realized that the 2 near me never put any prices on their products. Nothing on the displays, or on the boxes. So you pick up, say, a video game that sells for $30 everywhere else, and go buy it, only to have it ring up at $40? I swore I'd never even bother looking in the store again after that.
Oh my. The effect is almost disorienting with the application windows "coming forward" and separating like that. I like!
Next time you have two Word documents open, try hitting apple+` (the key above tab). You may be pleasantly surprised, and it does conform to the OS X methodology of separating windows from applications quite nicely. I agree that Expose is overkill for such purposes.
the idea behind the apple TV works great for someone like me, who is familiar with codecs and also has a Pro copy of Quicktime. It's easy to spend a little time converting video into something iTunes can recognize.
:D
But for your average user, figuring how to get that latest episode of The Office into iTunes? I get the feeling a lot of people will skip it as they'll feel it's really focused towards buying movies/shows off iTunes. And it kind of is, as iTunes doesn't really handle video conversion on its own.
I like the idea, and will probably get one once they actually ship out (barring bad reviews), but I rely heavily on iTunes for enjoying my music library already and would like to have a video device, rather than just a little airport express thing. For me, it's great. For your average Windows user? Perhaps not so much, as I'm not sure how well iTunes integrates with Windows' wireless stuff. And there's no service for Linux, although I'm sure Apple feels that Linux-heads already have such a device
The only saving grace for the device, as far as I can see, is that it doesn't try to do everything, and relies more on the computer for the nitty gritty. Subsequently, it has a relatively low price. How well people can get video into iTunes (without the quality going to shit) is going to be the real deciding factor for a lot of people, I think.
Exactly. It's rare to encounter a dentist or oral surgeon who uses "impact" in superfluous ways. Similarly, someone skilled in argument and communication to use "rhetorical" without thinking.
Yeah, I love how the article makes it sounds like lawyers don't almost always work for winning case payouts. I'm sure lawyers would love if retainer fees could pay for running an independent business, but that's simply not the case.
If people are anti-lawyer, they should stop suing people. But then other people would have to stop trying to break the law. <sigh>
And his 20 friends who haven't bought anything from iTunes are theoretically free to buy any other player. But, for some reason, they all seem to keep buying iPods... Mr. 29.5k probably owns so much because he's so happy with his iPod and iTunes. If his dies, why would he *want* to switch?
So who's that? Sure seems like the vast majority is perfectly happy buying iPods, and then buying more iPods.
And I'm sure Jobs would LOVE to move those programmers to work on another project. Devoting a good chunk of his staff simply to appease the record companies, when they could be working on products that actually make profit, isn't exactly the best use of employee time.
it's a perfectly fine example. Say I would pay $10 for a delicious orange. But a delicious orange only costs $2. Should the grocery store jump in and say "Sorry sir, you said you would pay $10 for this orange, so that's its new price"?
Using the grandparent's example, say he knew something always went for $50. But he absolutely needed this one, and wanted to make sure he wasn't outbid. There was another new auction that had just listed so there was no reason for anyone to pay more than $50. So he bid $100, knowing that if he was sniped he wouldn't lose the auction. Only he then discovers that there were a series of $1 bids in the last 3 minutes in order to "max out" the auction price.
eBay's incrementing system isn't perfect, and unless you can perfectly guess what everyone's bids will be, the chance of having your bid fall exactly on an increment value will, at some point, reveal what your high bid actually is. Times where the next increment should make the price, say, $52.50, but for some reason it only went to $50.50? Yeah, that's fishing for the max bid price.
Part of the same deal with eBay is that sellers should sit with *whatever the price sellers are willing to pay, and no more*. It's a two way street. Yes, people shouldn't bid more than they actually want to pay, but sellers shouldn't shill bid in order to profit more than the market actually demands.
Or remove the advertising incentives. They only make money because companies like Google and Yahoo pay them. To me, that's no different than the "aggregator" sites that are just links and news about asbestos.
It's true though. Apple has been bashing Windows for years now.
Cingular is surprising in how open its phones are. If there's a USB plug, or bluetooth, you can pretty much be sure that if you got it through Cingular you can sync up your address book and move files onto/off of the device simply by connecting it.
Which, of course, means that its features get used that much more. I can experiment with ringtones based on my own music library, or actually use it to take pictures that aren't stuck on the phone. I can't do *everything* on it, but most of the important things people want to do to customize their phones are possible out of the box.
So, to me, this iPhone thing isn't surprising at all. Cingular isn't out to nickel/dime people for inherent features, and they're already using GSM (so Apple only has to support one network for the whole world). The only thing I'm skeptical of is the internet features. It's still a f'n expensive phone, though.
If fair use truly comes under fire, there'll be far more of an outcry than what we hear now. Hopefully, at least. I will admit that when I was in college I had a few professors who had "booklets" that were simply photocopies of recently published works that cost dozens of dollars, to cover licensing fees. But it's for educational use, and therefore should be exempt.
Reviewers would be the next party to worry, but they usually get things for free in order to pump up promotion.
Hmm, now that I mention it, their slow widdling away at fair use seems to be working surprisingly well...
I like how the only thing that's even remotely relevant today is that Nethack is still around and still entertaining. The complaint about the Web's organization has been solved mostly by the fact that there's a lot of stuff you don't want to find anyway!
In Baltimore, though, it's great. I've never had any problem anywhere, except for places where there's an obvious problem (basements w/ no windows, for instance). When I visit my parents in minnesota, though, my coverage and service is only mediocre, although it has started to improve (I don't visit frequently enough so I actually notice a difference).
Since cell phone service is based on geography and tower strength, I'm not at all surprised that there are pockets and regions that receive poor service.
I find it ironic you say that. I wonder what the customers are doing? Floating?
Not working?
That's because TV news reports love sensationalism (higher ratings) and constantly tell parents that their neighborhoods aren't safe, and their kids should stay indoors. Watching more TV.
Really, this is just TV talking heads pissed off that the TV is being used for more than watching their shows. If the TV is used for video games, it's not used for talking heads.
Or, uh, "souped up" things like NES>SNES, and N64>GameCube, and PS1>PS2. Oh, and Master System>Genesis. Oh and Xbox>Xbox 360.
The biggest change for most systems was 2d>3d, and the change in controllers to accomodate that. Otherwise, New is relatively rare -- which is why stuff like the Wii makes pretty big news.
Even more interesting is the fact that I don't think I've spoken to a single person who is actually buying the machine to play. Everyone's just buying them to sell on eBay, for "mega profit."
Which, of course, makes me wonder -- if people only want it to sell on eBay, who's going to buy it on eBay?