This is often the IT departments fault. The company I work for has two major cost centres which bill back to the various business units, IT and document printing. Together these two make up the bulk of the business costs.
IT bills the business units in a way that makes it unclear what they are actually paying for, just presenting the internal customers with 'this is what we had to spend and this is your chunk of it' with very little detail and no indications on why it cost so much.
Document printing present the internal customers with detailed breakdowns of exactly what they spent money on, why it cost what it did, what they did to keep costs to a minimum and what could be improved on to reduce costs more.
As a result the business areas are willing to spend additional money on new printers and document finishing machines (automailers and mailsort machines to cut postage costs) to increase capacity and provide additional services but are insisting that IT either detail exactly what the money goes on or cut back on spending.
Management will spend money if they see a benefit but often IT departments fail in explaining exactly what those benefits are...
That isnt the case with wireless access. Not true. Most broadband is limited bandwidth. If you use someones access point you will be limiting their use and if you are maxing it out you are potentially causing them problems with dropped packets and poor latency if they are doing things like online gaming.
Also here in the UK some ADSL providers limit you to a certain amount of data per month and either charge you per MB beyond that or just cut you off until the next billing period potentially causing financial loss or significant inconvenience to the person who you are taking the access from.
Hmm... a Moo based in XML... takes me back to my Uni days, the days before WWW where online gaming meant using a flaw in a Gopher telnet gateway, to get a telnet prompt, to work around the draconian university overlords policy on no games, and access MUDs/MOOs/MUSHs etc... the cutting edge of online gaming:)
I remember the first game I ever played on a computer... it was at primary school (age 6) and was simple 5+3=? type questions on a screen. It was fun and interesting because back then computers were very rare (there were 2 in the school and one was for admin).
These days, however, with computers and consoles and games on mobile phones all commonplace anything educational has to be at least as interesting to the children as the non educational competition.
PS: anyone think that its a bit of a coincidence that these articles come out at the same time as Nintendo releases Brain Training 2 (Called Brain Age in some other regions I think...) on the DS?:)
The feature I still miss from UO was you could retrain you character into any roll (class) you wanted at any time (with a little work) instead of having to create alt after alt if you wanted to change the direction of your gameplay.
FTA:"catch a glimpse of the subatomic particles that are thought to have last been seen at the Big Bang."
Who was at the Big Bang to see them then? I suspect that the numbers are a lot lower than the number of people that heard that tree fall in the woods and heard the sound of one hand clapping put together.
Anyone remember when Demon used to be good? I'm talking about 15 years ago now at the dawn of the internet, one of their selling points was their usenet news server (the newsborg!), when they were a small company and close to their customers. They've never been the same since they were bought up by Thus.
I keep my Demon account open purely because I have used the TAM account for a long, long time and a large number of people know that as my contact email. Recently they wrote to me to say I hadn't paid for 3 years, even tho my bank statement says otherwise. Why would they would still be providing a service for me after that long if I hadn't been paying?
Almost an hour on a phone with someone who I could barely understand and couldn't understand my accent, kept insisting I give my credit card details and didn't know how to handle my request, a supervisor that wasn't very helpful and then a 10 minute hold where presumably they transfered me back to an office in the UK from some offshore phone center I finally got it sorted. Having not had to deal with them direct for several years I was gravely disappointed on how far they have fallen.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/patent/35uscs286.html would seem to suggest that anything older than 6 years can't be pursued. I would imagine that most if not all of the patents against 'the core of the free Linux operating system' as well as many others may have been added over 6 years ago now.
FTA: "Microsoft could have chosen to litigate many years ago, but we have decided not to do that," Gutierrez said.
If 'many years' is 6 or more this is probably nothing more than an empty threat,designed to pull in more money for MS, for any existing software.
They can. If a developer has budget to make a game and then has to spend 90% of it making it look good only 10% goes to make it a good game. On the other hand if he only has to spend 30% or so... 70% goes into the game proper.
What it *could* mean is IBM are beginning to think that, after seeing the sales figures, using these in just the PS3 won't be the cash cow they had hoped for and are trying to boost sales of the cell processor in any way possible.
Don't forget Red Steel. That game rocks. It kicks the ass out of other similar games for no reason other than you don't need to worry about 'do I press X+left or Y+right to block his swing to the left?' just move your hand as if to block and you do.
People keep dismissing the Wii control system as a 'gimmick' when it is a really strong feature. It really makes a huge difference to games when you no longer need keep thinking 'how do I do that again?', followed by 'Crap! wrong button' and having to repeat the last 20 minutes of gameplay.
The Dreamcast ("failed over time"), following on from the Genesis (popular console, big fanbase), was more like the PS3 (need to wait and see) following the PS2 (popular console, big fanbase) and can't really be compared in any way to the Gamecube ("failed over time", small fanbase) followed with the Wii (popular so far...)
As for software sales, most of the mainstream game producers are only now beginning to release games, after reversing their initial decision not to produce Wii games. The fact that the Wii is outselling the PS3 (and based on units/month the XBox 360) with so few launch titles speaks volumes.
The Wii has one thing that really puts it above the others... After 2 hours of playing I don't have to stop due to the excruciating pain in my hands from having to hold the controller in a way that is uncomfortable. The Wii remote + nunchuck allows me to hold them in a relaxed way that is comfortable for me, while more 'traditional' controllers - all be it new and hightech - force you into holding the controller how the designers want you to, whether it fits your hands or not.
1) Find an online store with stock notification emails and an email account that will send an SMS or message your beeper. 2) Get woken at 4am by phone/beeper 3) ??? 4) Profit!
Of course now the secret is out you will need to be faster to get on in time;)
Isn't there some limitation that if you fail to enforce a patent in a timely fashion from knowing something infringes your patent is rendered invalid? Or am I thinking of copyright or trademarks or something?
Is there qualification of what is meant by "Supreme Being"? If I acknowledge that Elvis was a Supreme Being would that count? How about Pamela Anderson, Linus Torvalds or maybe Steve Jobs? or maybe if I claim Bill Gates is the spawn of all evil?
Aren't Tribbles born pregnant tho? Makes me wonder at what constitutes "Tribble Porn". Most of the results seem to be forum posts about porn by sad blokes calling themselves 'Tribble'.
The way in which people access information is changing. With the amount of user-generated, 'non authoritative' content available these days (from blogs to fan sites to sites like wikipedia), determining how reliable a source of information (including any bias or affiliation an author has) is has become an essential lesson thats needs to be learned by all, at as young an age as is possible. Gone are the days where the only source of information available is the teacher and a couple of really expensive 'approved' books in the school library.
The schools need to focus more on teaching how to make a determination on what a good reliable source is and less on a vain attempt at limiting the information students have access to.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on your karma.
Darkmoon Fair Scheduler... gives you prizes for throwing junk software at it...
This is often the IT departments fault. The company I work for has two major cost centres which bill back to the various business units, IT and document printing. Together these two make up the bulk of the business costs.
IT bills the business units in a way that makes it unclear what they are actually paying for, just presenting the internal customers with 'this is what we had to spend and this is your chunk of it' with very little detail and no indications on why it cost so much.
Document printing present the internal customers with detailed breakdowns of exactly what they spent money on, why it cost what it did, what they did to keep costs to a minimum and what could be improved on to reduce costs more.
As a result the business areas are willing to spend additional money on new printers and document finishing machines (automailers and mailsort machines to cut postage costs) to increase capacity and provide additional services but are insisting that IT either detail exactly what the money goes on or cut back on spending.
Management will spend money if they see a benefit but often IT departments fail in explaining exactly what those benefits are...
Also here in the UK some ADSL providers limit you to a certain amount of data per month and either charge you per MB beyond that or just cut you off until the next billing period potentially causing financial loss or significant inconvenience to the person who you are taking the access from.
Thats true... Space is bad for ping times... Imagine the latency trying to play World of Warcraft from Mars...
Hmm... a Moo based in XML... takes me back to my Uni days, the days before WWW where online gaming meant using a flaw in a Gopher telnet gateway, to get a telnet prompt, to work around the draconian university overlords policy on no games, and access MUDs/MOOs/MUSHs etc... the cutting edge of online gaming :)
I remember the first game I ever played on a computer... it was at primary school (age 6) and was simple 5+3=? type questions on a screen. It was fun and interesting because back then computers were very rare (there were 2 in the school and one was for admin).
:)
These days, however, with computers and consoles and games on mobile phones all commonplace anything educational has to be at least as interesting to the children as the non educational competition.
PS: anyone think that its a bit of a coincidence that these articles come out at the same time as Nintendo releases Brain Training 2 (Called Brain Age in some other regions I think...) on the DS?
The feature I still miss from UO was you could retrain you character into any roll (class) you wanted at any time (with a little work) instead of having to create alt after alt if you wanted to change the direction of your gameplay.
But this poison was unique... it was radioactive!
FTA:"catch a glimpse of the subatomic particles that are thought to have last been seen at the Big Bang."
Who was at the Big Bang to see them then? I suspect that the numbers are a lot lower than the number of people that heard that tree fall in the woods and heard the sound of one hand clapping put together.
Anyone remember when Demon used to be good? I'm talking about 15 years ago now at the dawn of the internet, one of their selling points was their usenet news server (the newsborg!), when they were a small company and close to their customers. They've never been the same since they were bought up by Thus.
I keep my Demon account open purely because I have used the TAM account for a long, long time and a large number of people know that as my contact email. Recently they wrote to me to say I hadn't paid for 3 years, even tho my bank statement says otherwise. Why would they would still be providing a service for me after that long if I hadn't been paying?
Almost an hour on a phone with someone who I could barely understand and couldn't understand my accent, kept insisting I give my credit card details and didn't know how to handle my request, a supervisor that wasn't very helpful and then a 10 minute hold where presumably they transfered me back to an office in the UK from some offshore phone center I finally got it sorted. Having not had to deal with them direct for several years I was gravely disappointed on how far they have fallen.
Time limitation anyone?
IANAL and I'm sure someone will correct me but...
http://www.law.cornell.edu/patent/35uscs286.html would seem to suggest that anything older than 6 years can't be pursued. I would imagine that most if not all of the patents against 'the core of the free Linux operating system' as well as many others may have been added over 6 years ago now.
FTA: "Microsoft could have chosen to litigate many years ago, but we have decided not to do that," Gutierrez said.
If 'many years' is 6 or more this is probably nothing more than an empty threat,designed to pull in more money for MS, for any existing software.
They can. If a developer has budget to make a game and then has to spend 90% of it making it look good only 10% goes to make it a good game. On the other hand if he only has to spend 30% or so... 70% goes into the game proper.
Parent should be -1 Off topic if you ask me.
Gah! I just spent 10 minutes trying to remember what my dam password is... (well 2 minutes anyway)
What it *could* mean is IBM are beginning to think that, after seeing the sales figures, using these in just the PS3 won't be the cash cow they had hoped for and are trying to boost sales of the cell processor in any way possible.
Don't forget Red Steel. That game rocks. It kicks the ass out of other similar games for no reason other than you don't need to worry about 'do I press X+left or Y+right to block his swing to the left?' just move your hand as if to block and you do.
People keep dismissing the Wii control system as a 'gimmick' when it is a really strong feature. It really makes a huge difference to games when you no longer need keep thinking 'how do I do that again?', followed by 'Crap! wrong button' and having to repeat the last 20 minutes of gameplay.
The Dreamcast ("failed over time"), following on from the Genesis (popular console, big fanbase), was more like the PS3 (need to wait and see) following the PS2 (popular console, big fanbase) and can't really be compared in any way to the Gamecube ("failed over time", small fanbase) followed with the Wii (popular so far...)
As for software sales, most of the mainstream game producers are only now beginning to release games, after reversing their initial decision not to produce Wii games. The fact that the Wii is outselling the PS3 (and based on units/month the XBox 360) with so few launch titles speaks volumes.
The Wii has one thing that really puts it above the others... After 2 hours of playing I don't have to stop due to the excruciating pain in my hands from having to hold the controller in a way that is uncomfortable. The Wii remote + nunchuck allows me to hold them in a relaxed way that is comfortable for me, while more 'traditional' controllers - all be it new and hightech - force you into holding the controller how the designers want you to, whether it fits your hands or not.
How to buy a Wii (online)....
;)
1) Find an online store with stock notification emails and an email account that will send an SMS or message your beeper.
2) Get woken at 4am by phone/beeper
3) ???
4) Profit!
Of course now the secret is out you will need to be faster to get on in time
Isn't there some limitation that if you fail to enforce a patent in a timely fashion from knowing something infringes your patent is rendered invalid? Or am I thinking of copyright or trademarks or something?
And if there isn't, there should be.
I mean PC/Mac of course :)
1.3 million? Thats nothing compared to the number of WoW players... and thats just one PC game.
Is there qualification of what is meant by "Supreme Being"? If I acknowledge that Elvis was a Supreme Being would that count? How about Pamela Anderson, Linus Torvalds or maybe Steve Jobs? or maybe if I claim Bill Gates is the spawn of all evil?
Aren't Tribbles born pregnant tho? Makes me wonder at what constitutes "Tribble Porn". Most of the results seem to be forum posts about porn by sad blokes calling themselves 'Tribble'.
The way in which people access information is changing. With the amount of user-generated, 'non authoritative' content available these days (from blogs to fan sites to sites like wikipedia), determining how reliable a source of information (including any bias or affiliation an author has) is has become an essential lesson thats needs to be learned by all, at as young an age as is possible. Gone are the days where the only source of information available is the teacher and a couple of really expensive 'approved' books in the school library.
The schools need to focus more on teaching how to make a determination on what a good reliable source is and less on a vain attempt at limiting the information students have access to.