I'm a big Nintendo fan but they don't always get it right.
N64 controller analogue stick wasn't particularly robust and failed on all controllers I've had, particularly galling as although the consoles are cheap to pick up second hand, yet the controllers they come with are invariably wornd out.
I'd also suggest the Gamecube could have been better - particularly the flaky memory card connection and the optical drive being intermittent in older machines, the cover on the analogue sticks wore and came loose and they were terrible for overheating.
Anyone else notice that BT are taking this seriously - log on to the router's home page and it tells you they have changed the default admin password (well it will when you enter the unit's serial number as the admin password.
With due respect, don't get used to it - vote with your wallet. Invasive advertising irritates me so I won't but into it. Now is the time for such action. If people reject it when developers are testing the water then they might think twice of investing in it in the future.
The thing is that advertisers wont sit back and accept that - if people aren't looking then they will try and force more obtrusive advertising. It is easier to reject the model now than rely on distributors/developers integrity in the future.
Remember some of the lengths advertisers have tried to go to: Tivo banner ads that show when fast forwarding and unskippable ad patent for example.
Personally I think this is a terrible model for games to develop as a medium, yet it does not surprise me the EA would promote it. Having worked in game retail in the past, it's not a secret that (in the UK at least) EA's backbone is in the sportsgames with annual updates.
Advertisers are more likely to but space in, say Fifa '09 which will have much lower development costs than a new concept and such a model may even off set the development cost.
He does say in the article that it's "infant mortality", although I have never heard it called that - I think he means the failures lie on the bathtub curve. In other words if its going to fail it'll fail early or late in the products life span.
I don't know about the others but Scotland is not the home of creationism - certainly not in the 1600s as we were in the middle of the reformation. Although Calvinism was particularly prevelant amongst those who set sale for the New World, Scottish colonization was notoriously unsuccessful (especially the Darien scheme that arguably bankrupted Scotland forcing the act of union with England). So to say it came from Scotland is unlikely.
Given your dates, you may also want to check out the Scottish Enlightenment - James Hutton (admittedly a little later) was one of the earliest to suggest that Science should determine understanding rather than tradition/religion.
Of course users should have certain functionality out of the box. The problem is that IMHO that should be responsibility of who ever I buy the PC from.
To use your own analogy, Windows is the engine - does that mean that Microsoft should be able to pick the AC and CD player that Ford puts in the car? And when I buy that car, what if I don't want AC?
The system of copyright we have today is already voluntary.
I'm not saying you're wrong but that is a little simplistic with some media - particularly where the artist needs the funding of investors to get their content out there, at that point they no longer necessarily have the control to later release it.
Firstly, how on earth can you teach school kids what is going to be used several years in the future? No - you need to give them the ability to learn new skills. If the public sector needs you to have Office skills then you can do short courses to make you familiar, often sponsored, free by the employer. I know my public sector employer does.
Secondly, the vast majority of places that I have worked, the majority of employees are using a specific piece of software - often in house developed to carry out their work, really how many people can any organisation have that do nothing but write letters and send emails? The fact it takes them twice as long to type a letter is irrelevant if it's only a small part of their job.
In fact, in many industries here having your employees in house trained on some in house software that is completely non-transferable to other employers is considered a bonus. The banking industry has been doing that for years.
As for your conjecture about Active Directory and Exchange, how many day to day users need to have experience in these systems? How does it matter?
would have to fire their existing Windows-only IT staff and/or hire new staff to support it
An excellent point, with one problem - the vast majority of UK schools have no IT staff, they use science/maths teachers who are interested in IT. That's certainly the experience I've had with the many schools my kids have attended (we move a lot with work).
Now you may be right that these teachers know little about Linux but they really don't have to, given that the networks they are typically supporting are far from complex. This is the entire reason for people complaining about MS products and Dell PC's in use in the first place because a huge support contract for a handful of PCs and a printer is excessive. Especially when the majority of software that is used is web based in any event.
If the calories eaten outweigh the calories burned then weight is gained. Steve Easterbrook is stating the blisteringly obvious, and in doing so completely misses the point.
Increasing obesity levels are not as straight forward as blaming fast food or video games though, there are several other factors:
Sport at school: Sport is not a priority in the majority of state schools now. It isn't funded and the teachers don't seem to be as willing to dedicate the time to run afterschool sessions. I'm not blaming teachers here, I'm sure there are reasons. When I was at school there was sport at least three afternoons a week.
Quality of food: I don't know if this is the case in the US but I haven't noticed it in other European countries so much - supermarkets sell a lot of really nutritionally crap food at low, low prices. Food shopping is bloody expensive as every parent knows.
People don't seem to have a clue how to cook or are too lazy - I mean you can make passatta for a fraction of the price of a prepackaged carton.
Fitness facilities are minimal. Although there are council funded gyms, they vary wildly in cost and quality throughtout the UK and perhaps more importantly don't seem to have as many trained staff there to help.
Education. If we spent half as much time teaching school kids how to look after their health as we do teaching them the ins and outs of half a dozen different religions that they'll probably never have an epihany for then we could make up for some of the knowledge gaps that many parents seem to have.
Restricting the rights and freedoms OF YOUR VOTERS for the benefit of a corporation or trade organization, who will never be happy and will continue to push for more and more restrictions and limitations, is a sure way to decrease your chances of being re-elected...
It's also a good way to open connections, job oppertunities and so on for when you, inevitably, are not re-elected.
Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. It's the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet.
That's not the same as the synopsis:
Last week, seven Swedish MPs wrote a prominent opinion piece saying that fully legalized file sharing is not just the best solution, it's the only solution.
Now, I RTFA and it reads to me that he feels that the media/IP industries will never be satisfied with what the state does and that he doesn't feel it's the states place to police the Internet. Both of these are admirable and sensible statements, in line with what many people actually think.
But I really don't think he is advocating Sweden as some sort of torrent haven as some posters seem to be suggesting.
I'm not disputing that MS is saying it is supporting dual booting, I am suggesting that if the machines have a dual boot capability and the kids are sitting in class then the teacher isn't going to want half the kids on Windows and half on Sugar. So they are all going to be using the teachers preference.
Its also interesting that MS is already influencing design changes such as the SD slot on the motherboard. Now I don't dispute the technical merits of a SD slot but when the whole point of the system is to keep cost down then it's a big step for Negroponte and the OLPC board to start adding hardware to bring MS on board.
In any case, it seems odd to me that Negroponte is happy to deal with a company that I think we can all agree is one of, if not the most, predatory companies in IT when they have just had such a bad experience with Intel.
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In scuba gear? Wouldn't that sound more like "flub, flubble FLUBB flublly bubble".
I don't know about that, but whoever moderated this, very obvious, joke as "insightful" is definitely smoking something.
I'm a big Nintendo fan but they don't always get it right.
N64 controller analogue stick wasn't particularly robust and failed on all controllers I've had, particularly galling as although the consoles are cheap to pick up second hand, yet the controllers they come with are invariably wornd out.
I'd also suggest the Gamecube could have been better - particularly the flaky memory card connection and the optical drive being intermittent in older machines, the cover on the analogue sticks wore and came loose and they were terrible for overheating.
I agree that SCO were unethical and was with you right up until you compared them to the SS. That's just silly.
Anyone else notice that BT are taking this seriously - log on to the router's home page and it tells you they have changed the default admin password (well it will when you enter the unit's serial number as the admin password.
With due respect, don't get used to it - vote with your wallet. Invasive advertising irritates me so I won't but into it. Now is the time for such action. If people reject it when developers are testing the water then they might think twice of investing in it in the future.
The thing is that advertisers wont sit back and accept that - if people aren't looking then they will try and force more obtrusive advertising. It is easier to reject the model now than rely on distributors/developers integrity in the future.
Remember some of the lengths advertisers have tried to go to: Tivo banner ads that show when fast forwarding and unskippable ad patent for example.
Personally I think this is a terrible model for games to develop as a medium, yet it does not surprise me the EA would promote it. Having worked in game retail in the past, it's not a secret that (in the UK at least) EA's backbone is in the sportsgames with annual updates.
Advertisers are more likely to but space in, say Fifa '09 which will have much lower development costs than a new concept and such a model may even off set the development cost.
Here's the story, Yahoo!
While a salient point, I politely refer the gentlemen to this.
He does say in the article that it's "infant mortality", although I have never heard it called that - I think he means the failures lie on the bathtub curve. In other words if its going to fail it'll fail early or late in the products life span.
I don't know about the others but Scotland is not the home of creationism - certainly not in the 1600s as we were in the middle of the reformation. Although Calvinism was particularly prevelant amongst those who set sale for the New World, Scottish colonization was notoriously unsuccessful (especially the Darien scheme that arguably bankrupted Scotland forcing the act of union with England). So to say it came from Scotland is unlikely.
Given your dates, you may also want to check out the Scottish Enlightenment - James Hutton (admittedly a little later) was one of the earliest to suggest that Science should determine understanding rather than tradition/religion.
You must be a lot younger than me, my wife and I rarely bother these days.
Of course users should have certain functionality out of the box. The problem is that IMHO that should be responsibility of who ever I buy the PC from.
To use your own analogy, Windows is the engine - does that mean that Microsoft should be able to pick the AC and CD player that Ford puts in the car? And when I buy that car, what if I don't want AC?
I'm not saying you're wrong but that is a little simplistic with some media - particularly where the artist needs the funding of investors to get their content out there, at that point they no longer necessarily have the control to later release it.
Slashdot, the only place one can make a flippant remark regarding the state of 20 year old code and successfully find someone who worked on it.
This argument is flawed, at least in the UK.
Firstly, how on earth can you teach school kids what is going to be used several years in the future? No - you need to give them the ability to learn new skills. If the public sector needs you to have Office skills then you can do short courses to make you familiar, often sponsored, free by the employer. I know my public sector employer does.
Secondly, the vast majority of places that I have worked, the majority of employees are using a specific piece of software - often in house developed to carry out their work, really how many people can any organisation have that do nothing but write letters and send emails? The fact it takes them twice as long to type a letter is irrelevant if it's only a small part of their job.
In fact, in many industries here having your employees in house trained on some in house software that is completely non-transferable to other employers is considered a bonus. The banking industry has been doing that for years.
As for your conjecture about Active Directory and Exchange, how many day to day users need to have experience in these systems? How does it matter?
An excellent point, with one problem - the vast majority of UK schools have no IT staff, they use science/maths teachers who are interested in IT. That's certainly the experience I've had with the many schools my kids have attended (we move a lot with work).
Now you may be right that these teachers know little about Linux but they really don't have to, given that the networks they are typically supporting are far from complex. This is the entire reason for people complaining about MS products and Dell PC's in use in the first place because a huge support contract for a handful of PCs and a printer is excessive. Especially when the majority of software that is used is web based in any event.
What does "not even wrong" mean?
Here is the article in the Telegraph.
I particularly enjoyed the phrase:
As they then list two incedents since 1999 and the Boeing 787 concern.
If the calories eaten outweigh the calories burned then weight is gained. Steve Easterbrook is stating the blisteringly obvious, and in doing so completely misses the point.
Increasing obesity levels are not as straight forward as blaming fast food or video games though, there are several other factors:
It's also a good way to open connections, job oppertunities and so on for when you, inevitably, are not re-elected.
FTA:
That's not the same as the synopsis:
Now, I RTFA and it reads to me that he feels that the media/IP industries will never be satisfied with what the state does and that he doesn't feel it's the states place to police the Internet. Both of these are admirable and sensible statements, in line with what many people actually think.
But I really don't think he is advocating Sweden as some sort of torrent haven as some posters seem to be suggesting.
To be fair the home brew folks are not doing it in order to open a market and make a profit.
I'm not disputing that MS is saying it is supporting dual booting, I am suggesting that if the machines have a dual boot capability and the kids are sitting in class then the teacher isn't going to want half the kids on Windows and half on Sugar. So they are all going to be using the teachers preference.
Its also interesting that MS is already influencing design changes such as the SD slot on the motherboard. Now I don't dispute the technical merits of a SD slot but when the whole point of the system is to keep cost down then it's a big step for Negroponte and the OLPC board to start adding hardware to bring MS on board.
In any case, it seems odd to me that Negroponte is happy to deal with a company that I think we can all agree is one of, if not the most, predatory companies in IT when they have just had such a bad experience with Intel.