Basically the article says "They made some games people liked, and then Battle.net became the first profitable gaming service- even though it was free. And now they are really awesome. I love Blizzard!" It was an informative piece about Blizzard's history, but didn't tell me anything about why they were successful (other than the above).
Oh hell, there went another two minutes of my life spent on mindless drivel that I'll never get back.
If those minutes of your life were so important, you shouldn't be reading slashdot anyway.
Re:Video Games as the Next Art Medium?
on
In Defense of Games
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
In case you missed it, I was making a point by copying what the original poster said about video games and replacing 'video games' with 'movies'. There are good, artistic movies out there, and there are also movies that are unoriginal, trite, and dull. The same is true of video games- you have good ones and bad ones. In any entertainment area- books, newspapers, video games, movies, television- most of what you see is crap designed to make a quick buck. That doesn't mean that everything in that area is crap, though.
Unfortunately, most movies are produced just to give the user a previous story with a 'big screen feel'. Look at how many 'Romeo and Juliet' movies there are out there. Look at how many movies are spurred from a successful book or video game. Is this really necessary? Do movie makers lack so much imagination that they are relying upon games or books for their storylines? If this is the case, then movies are doomed to be a mere wanna-be art medium.
I don't work for Nintendo or Target, but my understanding is that they would have a contract that states that a condition of Target getting to sell the DS is that they don't sell them before a specific date. If Target breaks the contract, they will suffer some sort of penalty- it might be fines or it might just be Nintendo refusing to sell Target their systems before the release date in the future. Probably the manager who is letting his Target store sell them early will get fired (unless he generates more money from selling early than the fines would be, in which case he might get promoted).
Are you saying that people should blindly follow the laws of their country without questioning? That you should obey laws that you see as morally wrong? Even in America there have been many laws that were plain evil- the Alien and Sedition acts being one famous example.
Besides, Wired is technically not doing anything illegal, from what I can tell. AT&T can try to sue them for releasing trade secrets, but I don't think there are any trade secrets in those documents to give such a lawsuit any merit.
Having looked through the documents that Wired provided, I didn't see anything that should qualify as a trade secret of AT&T. The documents do list a bunch of equipment that is located in AT&T's server rooms, including the splitter that lets 'Authorized persons' monitor the data flowing through the fiber optics cable- but it doesn't say how the equipment is connected to each other or what software programs the machines are running. This data is not enough for anyone to duplicate AT&T's network, not even in a small part. The only damage AT&T can expect to receive from the publication of these documents is even more of their customers convinced that they have been letting the NSA take all their information.
I think you mean the Second Law of Thermodynamics. For those who don't link to click links, that bascially says that the amount of usable energy in the universe is always decreasing, meaning that you can't have a perpetual motion machine (or a perpetual motion universe).
Scientists and Philosophers have been waving this theory around for at least 30 years. The problem in the past has always been that even though they really, really wanted this theory to be true, they didn't have any good evidence for it. As far as I can tell from TFA, that is still the case.
You perhaps missed that it is 2000 scientists per year that they expect to use it. Of course, someone else has pointed out that it can serve 20 researchers at 1 time, making it a more reasonable $4100 per day per person electricity cost.
From the article: 'The machine is so powerful that in one year it will use about the same amount of electricity as a town of 30,000.'
If we assume that the average person has an electric bill of $1000/yr, that would be $30,000,000/yr, or about $82,200/day just in electricity costs.
I imagine that lots of scientists would want to play around with this- I would certainly have fun with it given the chance. At that price, though, only extremely well-funded researchers could afford to use this machine.
If BlueSecurity wasn't hurting Spammers they would ignore it. If they are fighting back it must mean that BlueSecurity is actually doing damage to them.
On this page they mention the controversies surrounding the 'pyramid'.
April 28, 2006 | 11:40 p.m. ET
Pyramid problems: Is the tale of the Bosnian pyramid too good to be true? Last week, The Associated Press reported evidence that a 2,120-foot-high hill in central Bosnia-Herzegovina might actually be a buried step pyramid. This week, Archaeology magazine questioned the scientific soundness of the operation and its leader, amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagic. Archaeology quotes experts who say there's little more to the project than "sensationalism and grandstanding," and worry that it may be damaging legitimate artifacts from medieval, Roman and Illyrian times.
There's certainly a good deal of kookiness surrounding the story. Osmanagic, for example, links his pyramid theories to Atlantis and the Maya, while an online petition aimed at stopping Osmanagic's dig refers darkly to U.S.-orchestrated conspiracy theories. Stay tuned for further twists in the tale, and feel free to send in your comments after you read Archaeology magazine's report.
There is no mention of Wal-Mart being accused of sexual discrimination by primarily promoting men. That is the controversy about Wal-mart that I have heard most about. If even the 'debates' article is missing that then I think there must be something wrong...
Disclaimer: These are Next Generation's E3 picks which we are hopeful to see or are anticipating highly. This is not the publisher's official E3 lineup announcement.
I'm sure the official list has all the sport and movie titles you are looking for.
From what I can tell (I know someone who used to work at Microsoft) company policy is that software patents are a 'good thing' that foster innovation. I think that software patents could be good, as long as the bar for them is much higher than it is now- people should not be able to patent 95-99% of the stuff they issue patents for now. Obviously, though, the patent system in the US suffers some serious problems, and introducing an equally bad system in the UK would be disaterous.
$2,500,000 - $2,000,000 = $500,000, the additional amount she would gain by selling half the tickets for $250 instead of $100.
Now, if she can sell out at the higher price, she would gain an additional $3,000,000 dollars ($5,000,000 total, not counting taxes and other expenses).
I do agree with your point about how it is supply and demand, though. It has nothing to do with piracy, it has everything to do with maximizing profits. If people are willing to pay $250 to see Madonna sing, then why should they only charge $100?
Sure Microsoft patents stupid things, but they don't go around suing people for using double-clicking... the purpose of those patents is to keep morons from suing Microsoft when Microsoft uses double-clicking. If Microsoft was going around suing people for patent infringement, I would say that they were getting what they deserve. This, however, just encourages companies like Microsoft to patent every simple thing they do, no matter how obvious, because if they don't someone else will and sue them.
From the article:
"The resulting device produces a laser beam when a "pump" beam of normal light is shone onto it. This light excites the electrons in the quantum dots up to a higher energy level. When they drop back down to lower energies, the electrons emit light of their own."
So the energy source is a $2 flashlight (or an LED, or solar power, etc.)
I would love to have a clear EULA like this on software I run- it lets me know exactly what the program is going to do (and any limitations I have on legally using it). Most companies that collect personal information, alter programs, or monitor your system don't want everyone to know exactly what they are doing, though- they want people to agree to the EULA without knowing what they are agreeing to.
Slashdot Mirror
Basically the article says "They made some games people liked, and then Battle.net became the first profitable gaming service- even though it was free. And now they are really awesome. I love Blizzard!" It was an informative piece about Blizzard's history, but didn't tell me anything about why they were successful (other than the above).
Oh hell, there went another two minutes of my life spent on mindless drivel that I'll never get back.
If those minutes of your life were so important, you shouldn't be reading slashdot anyway.
In case you missed it, I was making a point by copying what the original poster said about video games and replacing 'video games' with 'movies'. There are good, artistic movies out there, and there are also movies that are unoriginal, trite, and dull. The same is true of video games- you have good ones and bad ones. In any entertainment area- books, newspapers, video games, movies, television- most of what you see is crap designed to make a quick buck. That doesn't mean that everything in that area is crap, though.
Unfortunately, most movies are produced just to give the user a previous story with a 'big screen feel'. Look at how many 'Romeo and Juliet' movies there are out there. Look at how many movies are spurred from a successful book or video game. Is this really necessary? Do movie makers lack so much imagination that they are relying upon games or books for their storylines? If this is the case, then movies are doomed to be a mere wanna-be art medium.
I don't work for Nintendo or Target, but my understanding is that they would have a contract that states that a condition of Target getting to sell the DS is that they don't sell them before a specific date. If Target breaks the contract, they will suffer some sort of penalty- it might be fines or it might just be Nintendo refusing to sell Target their systems before the release date in the future. Probably the manager who is letting his Target store sell them early will get fired (unless he generates more money from selling early than the fines would be, in which case he might get promoted).
Besides, Wired is technically not doing anything illegal, from what I can tell. AT&T can try to sue them for releasing trade secrets, but I don't think there are any trade secrets in those documents to give such a lawsuit any merit.
Having looked through the documents that Wired provided, I didn't see anything that should qualify as a trade secret of AT&T. The documents do list a bunch of equipment that is located in AT&T's server rooms, including the splitter that lets 'Authorized persons' monitor the data flowing through the fiber optics cable- but it doesn't say how the equipment is connected to each other or what software programs the machines are running. This data is not enough for anyone to duplicate AT&T's network, not even in a small part. The only damage AT&T can expect to receive from the publication of these documents is even more of their customers convinced that they have been letting the NSA take all their information.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Call these fools and let them know how you feel.
I think you mean the Second Law of Thermodynamics. For those who don't link to click links, that bascially says that the amount of usable energy in the universe is always decreasing, meaning that you can't have a perpetual motion machine (or a perpetual motion universe).
Scientists and Philosophers have been waving this theory around for at least 30 years. The problem in the past has always been that even though they really, really wanted this theory to be true, they didn't have any good evidence for it. As far as I can tell from TFA, that is still the case.
The other 2% are CmdrTaco.
"The software giant also plans on releasing the gaming-focused Vista operating system to the public in January 2007."
Since when is MS Vista focused on gamers?
You perhaps missed that it is 2000 scientists per year that they expect to use it. Of course, someone else has pointed out that it can serve 20 researchers at 1 time, making it a more reasonable $4100 per day per person electricity cost.
'The machine is so powerful that in one year it will use about the same amount of electricity as a town of 30,000.'
If we assume that the average person has an electric bill of $1000/yr, that would be $30,000,000/yr, or about $82,200/day just in electricity costs.
I imagine that lots of scientists would want to play around with this- I would certainly have fun with it given the chance. At that price, though, only extremely well-funded researchers could afford to use this machine.
If BlueSecurity wasn't hurting Spammers they would ignore it. If they are fighting back it must mean that BlueSecurity is actually doing damage to them.
April 28, 2006 | 11:40 p.m. ET
Pyramid problems: Is the tale of the Bosnian pyramid too good to be true? Last week, The Associated Press reported evidence that a 2,120-foot-high hill in central Bosnia-Herzegovina might actually be a buried step pyramid. This week, Archaeology magazine questioned the scientific soundness of the operation and its leader, amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagic. Archaeology quotes experts who say there's little more to the project than "sensationalism and grandstanding," and worry that it may be damaging legitimate artifacts from medieval, Roman and Illyrian times.
There's certainly a good deal of kookiness surrounding the story. Osmanagic, for example, links his pyramid theories to Atlantis and the Maya, while an online petition aimed at stopping Osmanagic's dig refers darkly to U.S.-orchestrated conspiracy theories. Stay tuned for further twists in the tale, and feel free to send in your comments after you read Archaeology magazine's report.
Apparently there is so much about Wal-Mart's Employee relationships that there is a third page about Wal-mart. Wal-mart Employee Relations
There is no mention of Wal-Mart being accused of sexual discrimination by primarily promoting men. That is the controversy about Wal-mart that I have heard most about. If even the 'debates' article is missing that then I think there must be something wrong...
I'm sure the official list has all the sport and movie titles you are looking for.
From what I can tell (I know someone who used to work at Microsoft) company policy is that software patents are a 'good thing' that foster innovation. I think that software patents could be good, as long as the bar for them is much higher than it is now- people should not be able to patent 95-99% of the stuff they issue patents for now. Obviously, though, the patent system in the US suffers some serious problems, and introducing an equally bad system in the UK would be disaterous.
$2,500,000 - $2,000,000 = $500,000, the additional amount she would gain by selling half the tickets for $250 instead of $100.
Now, if she can sell out at the higher price, she would gain an additional $3,000,000 dollars ($5,000,000 total, not counting taxes and other expenses).
I do agree with your point about how it is supply and demand, though. It has nothing to do with piracy, it has everything to do with maximizing profits. If people are willing to pay $250 to see Madonna sing, then why should they only charge $100?
Sure Microsoft patents stupid things, but they don't go around suing people for using double-clicking... the purpose of those patents is to keep morons from suing Microsoft when Microsoft uses double-clicking. If Microsoft was going around suing people for patent infringement, I would say that they were getting what they deserve. This, however, just encourages companies like Microsoft to patent every simple thing they do, no matter how obvious, because if they don't someone else will and sue them.
From the article: "The resulting device produces a laser beam when a "pump" beam of normal light is shone onto it. This light excites the electrons in the quantum dots up to a higher energy level. When they drop back down to lower energies, the electrons emit light of their own." So the energy source is a $2 flashlight (or an LED, or solar power, etc.)
I would love to have a clear EULA like this on software I run- it lets me know exactly what the program is going to do (and any limitations I have on legally using it). Most companies that collect personal information, alter programs, or monitor your system don't want everyone to know exactly what they are doing, though- they want people to agree to the EULA without knowing what they are agreeing to.