The big problem I have with the TFA is that it states that the purpose of niche products is to drive innovation among the market leaders. From a whole-market perspective, that may be the role they end up fulfilling, but that is not their purpose at all... their purpose is to make money for their producers. Failure to enter the market strongly is still failure.
There are many different ways to look at the purpose of a thing. You seem to be identifying the intention of the company which owns the console. Another definition of purpose (more in line with telos) would be the actual effect it is destined to produce. That seems to be how this usage is to be understood.
Dreamcast wasn't the first with online play. The Famicom (similar to our NES) in Japan had an extensive network, with not only online play but other features such as online banking, as early as 1988.
But if you filter words like "crack" and "keygen", you'd basically have to do that manually by making special rules for those sorts of things. But then why wouldn't folks just start using different words?
And what about if those words were being used for legitimate purposes? (Admittedly, I can't think of any legitimate reason most people would do so)
At any rate, I think Google is on the right side trying to remain value-neutral with respect to content as much as possible. They have to respond to pressure on things like pornography sometimes, but if the system is built upon the way people are actually using it, the less they mess with their system the better it should be.
I'm not sure what you meant by "Not many groups have been bothering with that setting"... Everybody I know loves eberron, and the books seem to be selling well enough.
Well last I heard, Xbox is going to have an HD-DVD add-on and not blu-ray. That probably means Msft will be helping to market the technology, which at least should keep it in the running for a while.
>>With that attitude, why don't you just ban everything from being sold to kids? There's certainly a lot worse things for kids to have than video games.
I agree. There's no good reason to allow children to buy or own anything.
It's more like, they promote a free and open market whenever it doesn't work against their immediate interests.
A free market works in everybody's favor, and big buisnesses know this. That doesn't prevent them from being shortsighted and trying to go after their individual goals in the short-term which might conflict with the long-term benefits of a free market.
Well, nothing's free. If the mail looked free before, it must've been paid for somehow, and rather than let quality slip they should stop providing the "free" service when the bills stopped getting paid.
Real Artists Ship.
But seriously, there is such a thing as "good enough" and sometimes waiting too long is a sure way to someone else eating your lunch.
Was anyone really still excited about Starcraft Ghost?
It seems like there are a lot of things that PDA's should do but they don't. I have a Palm Tungsten E, and I keep thinking it should be more useful. For instance, the other day I needed some information I had on my USB flash drive, but I had nothing handy it could interface with; shouldn't this be the job of my PDA? Doesn't anyone who designs these things have this kind of inspiration?
In other news, a professor was denied a grant to research the potential effect of a meteor striking earth, because he had failed to provide sufficient evidence that the theory of gravity was correct.
That's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. I'm afraid I missed that particular work by the founder of Taoism. I don't suppose you have a copy of Siddhartha Gautama's "Wealth of Nations"?
I really don't understand what was good about this judge's ruling. By the wording of the ruling, I'd think this sounds like stupid social posturing, and whatever way Microsoft tried to "cast" anyone should not interfere with what information they should have access to for a legal proceeding.
It seems like if they're looking for information relevant to their case, they should not be stopped from getting it by they way they characterized their opponent.
Maybe I've just been listening to the "information wants to be free" crowd too much
Bah. Big government is the new libertarianism. Having a big, stupid government that can't do anything right is far superior to having a sleek, functioning government that can oppress its people at a moment's notice.
In addition to the replies that are already here, the situation where an elector would vote for the wrong person is a very strange case. Electors are chosen as an honorary position by the party - they are people who have spent years devoting themselves to working for the party.
I can't think of when it would be reasonable for such a person to go against his loyalty to his party (and his long-time friends) and against the law. I doubt, for instance, that the Republicans would send in a mole to do devoted work for the Democrats for decades so that he could become an elector and screw up the election (maybe). Though I suppose that might be an interesting story.
But if people really think wal-mart should be paying for health insurance, then they won't shop there if wal-mart doesn't pay for health insurance. If they shop there anyway, then it really isn't as valuable to the shoppers as it seems.
Making a law about it just takes that sort of decision out of the hands of the people who are actually paying for it.
If ethics are really valuable to people, then an ethical CEO is a profitable CEO.
And someday the state of healthcare may aspire to the level of convenience, customer-service, cleanliness, and efficiency now held only by such agencies as the DMV.
The picture quality of the ones I've seen was laughable (RCA is the only one I've seen with a worse picture).
Just remember, don't trust the picture quality in any of the retail stores. Unless you're at a specialized home theatre showroom (and be cautious of those too) or someone's actual well-setup system, you're probably looking at bad source and cables and badly-maintained equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many different ways to look at the purpose of a thing. You seem to be identifying the intention of the company which owns the console. Another definition of purpose (more in line with telos) would be the actual effect it is destined to produce. That seems to be how this usage is to be understood.
I think that was from one of his later works, "Why I design such good game consoles"
Dreamcast wasn't the first with online play. The Famicom (similar to our NES) in Japan had an extensive network, with not only online play but other features such as online banking, as early as 1988.
But if you filter words like "crack" and "keygen", you'd basically have to do that manually by making special rules for those sorts of things. But then why wouldn't folks just start using different words?
And what about if those words were being used for legitimate purposes? (Admittedly, I can't think of any legitimate reason most people would do so)
At any rate, I think Google is on the right side trying to remain value-neutral with respect to content as much as possible. They have to respond to pressure on things like pornography sometimes, but if the system is built upon the way people are actually using it, the less they mess with their system the better it should be.
I'm not sure what you meant by "Not many groups have been bothering with that setting"... Everybody I know loves eberron, and the books seem to be selling well enough.
Well last I heard, Xbox is going to have an HD-DVD add-on and not blu-ray. That probably means Msft will be helping to market the technology, which at least should keep it in the running for a while.
>>With that attitude, why don't you just ban everything from being sold to kids? There's certainly a lot worse things for kids to have than video games.
I agree. There's no good reason to allow children to buy or own anything.
It's more like, they promote a free and open market whenever it doesn't work against their immediate interests.
A free market works in everybody's favor, and big buisnesses know this. That doesn't prevent them from being shortsighted and trying to go after their individual goals in the short-term which might conflict with the long-term benefits of a free market.
>>So you mean they're parasites since we're using biological terminology
Yeah, just like end-users.
<g>
Well, nothing's free. If the mail looked free before, it must've been paid for somehow, and rather than let quality slip they should stop providing the "free" service when the bills stopped getting paid.
Real Artists Ship. But seriously, there is such a thing as "good enough" and sometimes waiting too long is a sure way to someone else eating your lunch. Was anyone really still excited about Starcraft Ghost?
I neither claimed that there are not SD card readers that look like a USB memory stick nor that there are not SD cards with built-in USB ports.
It seems like there are a lot of things that PDA's should do but they don't. I have a Palm Tungsten E, and I keep thinking it should be more useful. For instance, the other day I needed some information I had on my USB flash drive, but I had nothing handy it could interface with; shouldn't this be the job of my PDA? Doesn't anyone who designs these things have this kind of inspiration?
In other news, a professor was denied a grant to research the potential effect of a meteor striking earth, because he had failed to provide sufficient evidence that the theory of gravity was correct.
Didn't wireless electricity come out years ago?
Click here to read an interesting BBC story about it
I really don't understand what was good about this judge's ruling. By the wording of the ruling, I'd think this sounds like stupid social posturing, and whatever way Microsoft tried to "cast" anyone should not interfere with what information they should have access to for a legal proceeding.
It seems like if they're looking for information relevant to their case, they should not be stopped from getting it by they way they characterized their opponent.
Maybe I've just been listening to the "information wants to be free" crowd too much
It works, empirically speaking. That's why we keep doing it.
Bah. Big government is the new libertarianism. Having a big, stupid government that can't do anything right is far superior to having a sleek, functioning government that can oppress its people at a moment's notice.
well, one of the stories is about trademark, which is explicitly a rights-related issue (specifically, for instance, the right to property)
In addition to the replies that are already here, the situation where an elector would vote for the wrong person is a very strange case. Electors are chosen as an honorary position by the party - they are people who have spent years devoting themselves to working for the party.
I can't think of when it would be reasonable for such a person to go against his loyalty to his party (and his long-time friends) and against the law. I doubt, for instance, that the Republicans would send in a mole to do devoted work for the Democrats for decades so that he could become an elector and screw up the election (maybe). Though I suppose that might be an interesting story.
But if people really think wal-mart should be paying for health insurance, then they won't shop there if wal-mart doesn't pay for health insurance. If they shop there anyway, then it really isn't as valuable to the shoppers as it seems.
Making a law about it just takes that sort of decision out of the hands of the people who are actually paying for it.
If ethics are really valuable to people, then an ethical CEO is a profitable CEO.
And someday the state of healthcare may aspire to the level of convenience, customer-service, cleanliness, and efficiency now held only by such agencies as the DMV.
Just remember, don't trust the picture quality in any of the retail stores. Unless you're at a specialized home theatre showroom (and be cautious of those too) or someone's actual well-setup system, you're probably looking at bad source and cables and badly-maintained equipment.