It has an 800Mhz bus and can turn off 1 core to boost the other core for single-thread performance. I believe it also has improvements that help improve battery life vs the previous chip.
Oddly enough, for just about every saying like that, there's an opposite one. The old-time opposite is "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." I like to use them because they mean just about nothing, since they all have a saying that negates them, yet most people take it as fact that both sayings are correct, simply because they're said often.
Because it works! There's a saying, 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease.' If Linux users are very vocal about how they expect companies to do business, those companies -will- feel pressured to move more towards that way of doing business.
It's the exact same reason that lobbying a congressman (without money) works. Once they hear it enough, they know it's important to the people that are most important to them: Their customers. (Or voters, as the case may be.)
When people don't tell a company how to behave, you end up with companies like Walmart. Walmart used to be about the country, the consumer, and the profit, in that order. They gave up on the whole 'made in the USA' thing quite a while back. They gave up on customer service even longer ago. They only care about the profit now. They do it by having cheap goods and cheap wages. For people who only care that the goods are cheap, it's a great store. For the rest of us it sucks.
nVidia has the choice of only catering to the mainstream Windows-based gamers, or also adding on a rabidly-loyal group of fanatics that are willing to work for free to make their business better. All nVidia has to do is LISTEN TO THEM and release their drivers open-source.
Yes, there was a great amount of R&D involved in their drivers, but most of the stuff that makes their drivers 'great' on windows just doesn't apply to Linux, like that massive control panel. That doesn't even exist in the binary Linux driver.
The code doesn't have to be GPL or any such. They could release it under their own license that specifically states the code can only be used for a driver for nVidia cards. The only thing necessary is the ability to improve the code at will. (I think they would find it advantageous to go to GPL later, but that's another discussion.)
nVidia really has little reason not to open their source code to the public, unless they are doing something illegal or extremely unethical in their drivers. (Cheating at benchmarks, etc.)
Interesting, I had not heard of him before. Unfortunately, something about his music just doesn't do it for me...
But you know, while I'm typing that, I'm listening to 'A Laptop Like You'... And now I'm nearly about to laugh out loud. Since my co-worker is getting a new mac laptop (today hopefully) this song is perfect. I may buy it for him.
At this point, I'm going to have to assume that his music is best appreciated by listening to the words, while I prefer music that sounds nice, regardless of the message. Still, thanks for the head's up. I definitely respect him for catering to his fans instead of just trying to grab all the money he can.
You know, I didn't remember that from Fallout 1,but somehow the idea of bottle caps being currency post-war is very... Warming.
(I just looked it up... I actually didn't like Fallout at the time, since it was supposed to be the sequel to my then-favorite game, Wasteland, and was nothing like it.)
It's the little things in a game that really make it memorable, and I hope they spend the time for all those little touches.
I think there's too much else going on to make those statistics mean anything in regards to 'file sharing'. There's the new-found hatred of the RIAA, there's new services like Rhapsody that make listening to unknown music easier, there's world-wide communication... And those are just the things in favor of Indie bands.
As for it helping the Indie bands... It would help them more, not less, if artists had to specifically give their music away, instead of people just sharing whatever they like. Indie bands would initially be the only free music available, and their popularity would soar.
But they don't, do they? Even when MP3.com specialized in doing just that, they still didn't take off. I never found a single song on that site that I liked... At the time, I wasn't surprised, since I'm very picky about music. (I like a very tiny bit from about every genre.) But I've been trying Rhapsody's service... And I've already found 2 artists that I really like (a Brit and a Native American) and quite a lot of music that is enjoyable. I'm not sure what that all means yet, but it seems to mean that giving your music away doesn't help your popularity. Only having good music does that.
When you say 'does run under Mono', do you mean the port that's being worked on? because it's apparently still at a very shaky stage and doesn't have any downloads, just the repository, and requires the SVN version of Mono to even run.
Yeah, the summary was so bad that I actually RTFA.
The idea is not 'let's create something new', it's 'let's break into this genre'. To do so, one of the keys is to innovate something IN that genre, instead of just copying everything that came before. One of the suggested methods is to remove something that is extremely common-place in the genre and replace it with something (hopefully) better. One example was removing health packs and placing 'healing poles' that heal nearby places. This has actually been done a decade ago, but we won't tell him that... He thinks he's clever.;)
The point is valid, though. The same old crap will only get you a best-seller IF you do it amazingly well. Since that's not likely, it's smarter to use some tactics, like the article mentioned.
The FPS genre is amazingly easy to 'break into', though... Simply throw a lot of money at it and make sure it's a game that players can use tactics. The rest doesn't really matter.
Sadly, this is not the only genre like that... Others just have more complex rules to implement.
It's also important to note that this doesn't mean 'casual games' like Arkanoid and 'Yet Another Diner Simulator 8'. Those games sell from flashy graphics alone. You don't need to even do it well.
I tried paint.net when it first came out, and there was no doubt it was everything MS Paint should have been. But that was a pre-1.0 beta, and I haven't tried it since.
Does it have layers? Can you set the layers to Multiply/Screen/etc? Does it have animation capability? Does it support PNG?
And sadly, I know it doesn't run on Linux, which is my primary 'work' OS now. I still have Windows, but it's on my gaming rig. Adobe has this same issue, though, so can't say much against it there.
I might agree with you if there were a -single- person that works for the RIAA willing to speak out and say 'what we are doing is wrong', and -not anonymously. By not doing so, they are each personally condoning the tactics of the entire organization. Even the US Government has people that say 'well, maybe that was wrong.' The RIAA has nobody like that.
So let's say you find your 3-10 (relatively few) people and 'oust them'. Who replaces them? The same people that backed them the entire time. You haven't changed anything except the faces.
So you think that the only way a 'unique cooler design' could be impressive is to -look- cool? How very sad. The only thing that could impress most geeks is to get the CPU/GPU/ambient an extra few degrees cooler. THAT is impressive.
Is that filter builtin, or was it the GAP addon? Last time I tried to do animation in GIMP (about a year ago) GAP was the only choice, and it didn't support layers. The only choice was to create a ton of images on disk, and if you had any changes to make, make them individually, or (manually!) delete the entire image set and start over.
It was painful enough that I've never felt the need to repeat that mistake.
He obvious doesn't hate the people that pirate it. He only stated that he -did- buy a copy and was legit. He made no disparaging remarks on the pirates, and merely noted that they exist.
Adobe isn't likely to lower their prices if everyone bought instead of pirating. They basically have a monopoly on the market at the moment because they -are- the best, and nobody else is even close.
Also, everyone keeps saying that CS3 costs $2500... That may be true, but isn't actually relevant to the question at hand. Photoshop by itself is only $650 for the normal version, or $1000 for the 'extended' version. The cheapest version of CS3 is only $1500. I very much doubt that most people buy the maximum. It's much more likely they purchase the absolute minimum that will do the job for them.
I'm insterested in that program, but I worry about it... The downloads page lists a different build for each OS, only 1 of which is a RC, the rest are various Betas... 1.0 was never released, and the last released was over 6 months ago?
The price has also been cut in half.
If it's stable, why was no final release made? If it's not, why was it abandoned?
With GIMP, at least if I have a problem I can submit a bug report or (maybe) fix it myself. I'd have a very hard time trusting that this program would work.
I tried GimpShop (in Windows) a few months ago. It crashed repeatedly and was absolutely worthless.
Installing the same version of Gimp on the same computer had no crashes in the time I used it.
My main complaint with Gimp isn't the interface, but rather the way it handles things like animation and such. The GAP plugin was a lot of work, I'm sure, but instead of handling the issue properly (with layers maybe?) they went for the worst workaround possible, creating a ton of files and no undo/redo functionality. It probably would have been better to just have a separate program, doing it that way.
There's been a few other things that really irked me the way they were done, but that was the worst.
I still use it because I don't feel like paying Adobe's insane price, but I definitely don't do as much graphic design as I would if I had a better program.
And before anyone suggests PaintShopPro, it's worse than Gimp.
Your assumption about the price of gasoline doubling... I think that's pretty much a given. We -know- there's a limited amount of fuel in the world. We think we know about how much. We know we use more every year than the previous year.
At some point, gasoline is going to be too expensive to use as common fuel. It maybe in 10 years, like they've predicted for the last 15 or 20 years, or it maybe in in 30 or 40... But I expect to live that long. If the price hasn't doubled again in the next 10 years, I'll be very surprised.
You said 'lifetime', and I assume you meant yours. But let's assume you meant 'lifetime of the generator', because they won't last forever. At current prices, it definitely makes sense to buy the gas generator, as it's unlikely they'll both last more than 10 or 15 years.
But the price of a brand new product is always inflated to make back R&D costs quickly, then drops for sale to the less affluent folk in the world. Better production technology helps bring the cost down, too. I seriously doubt the hardware itself actually costs $175k... At a guess, let's say it comes down to 1/100th of that, $17.5k... It won't be long until it's a lot cheaper than the gas version.
In short, comparing the price of a newly-announced product to the price of a product that's been common for years doesn't work well in the long run.
I definitely agree with the 'screw over opec/etc', though... Even if it costs more, many people will be willing to adopt it for just that purpose.
First of all, I'm against the whole 'I thought of it first so I have the only rights to it forever' thing.
But if a song is IP, why does it matter how it was copied? Copying it by looking at the paper, or copying by listening... It only takes a more talented individual.
It's like saying that it's legal to copy DVDs, but only if you're talented enough to crack the encryption yourself, with no help.
It either IS or IS NOT legal to copy it, there should be no 'only if by this method' BS.
You don't think that as soon as people learned space was out there, and the sky wasn't just painted on, that they imagined traveling to the moon? And that there were plenty of people that said it was impossible?
And the same goes for pocket computers. Even 50 years ago, people would have said it was impossible. You just couldn't miniaturize like that. Well surprise, now we can!
And there's absolutely no reason we can't put lasers on the heads of sharks. Controlling them and making it not be completely pointless is the problem, not physically putting the lasers on their heads.
Well, the -original- point of dvr/pvr was that you could watch your show later, without having to be tied to the TV at certain times. Some of us actually use it that, and the ad-skipping is a bonus.
Man, if only there was a way that parents could -choose- what electronics they buy for their children, and force the companies to do the right thing because it's profitable, instead of mandated. It's really too bad that they are forced to buy certain products and have no say-so at all.
Other things there's never been a working system of:
Antigravity. Perpetual Motion. Sharks with Frickin Lasers on their heads. Space Flight. -- Wait, we did that one. Pocket Computers. -- No, sorry, that one too.
Seriously, just because it's never worked before is -not- proof that it never will. There's -plenty- of reasons, but this is -not- one of them.
To companies, copy protection is -not- completely useless, so we'll never see content completely free from DRM. Expensive DRM is pointless, though, as it provides nothing extra.
Why isn't it completely useless? Because their work is covered under additional laws other than just copyright. Cheap vs Expensive DRM makes no difference here, the law doesn't differentiate.
Programmers hate politics like this. The recent emphasis on it is simply an attempt to make it go away. Sadly, that never works and instead only gets the participants mired in politics for the rest of their lives.
I used to be extremely anti-GPL. Now I'm just slightly anti-GPL, and actually like the LGPL. In a politics-free world, BSD is pretty much the 'obvious' license for a FOSS project. It's just too bad that that'll never be the way the world works.
RMS is far from being my hero, but his tactics and efforts are necessary to balance out a world that has been overrun with greed. There's no other way to explain taking someone else's work and using it for your own ends without even giving credit. (Greed isn't just about money, it's about having things, including fame.)
And because I can't resist, I've reworded your post:
More whinging.. Who really need it? Really don't people have anything better to to? Like, ACTUALLY doing something?
Lost has a pre-planned number of seasons. They aren't just milking the show for all it's worth and dumping it when it's losing money, they have a set plan.
Heroes... I'm pretty sure they just make it up as they go along, as evidenced by the interview with the creators where they said they decided Hiro was too powerful mid-season and nerfed him.
Yeah, I watch both shows and Doctor Who, too. Shows with plot are finally coming back after years and years of Reality TV. I hope they keep getting stronger.
Survivor was great up until Season 9. It peaked at 7 and 8 (all stars), and now it's crap. They pick idiots and people who will cause strife, instead of picking people that will compete well or even just average people. It's not interesting anymore.
I look all around when I walk through the store, too. It's obvious I'm checking out the layout and the cameras. They should kick me out for looking at things, too.
And I look ALL over the store. Another obvious sign of terrorist activity.
And I wear a cellphone. It could be a bomb.
There's a bulge in my pocket. Must be an evil terrorist device. (Car keys, calm down.)
They have no more reason to suspect my taking a picture of a display box than anything else I do. If I was taking pictures of employees or doors or security cameras, yeah. I'd understand.
This isn't the first time I've taken pictures of boxes in stores. My memory is horrid, and pen and paper are a pain to carry around. So I take pictures of things I want to research before I buy. (Which is just about anything these days.)
You can say that they did it for any reason you dream of, but the guy flat-out told me why he approached me. Loss Prevention told him to. No dreams of terrorist threats and saving the day, or covering his ass. His employers have ordered him to approach anyone who takes pictures. This is not 1 employee acting on their own. This is the corporation dictating policy.
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It has an 800Mhz bus and can turn off 1 core to boost the other core for single-thread performance. I believe it also has improvements that help improve battery life vs the previous chip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino
Oddly enough, for just about every saying like that, there's an opposite one. The old-time opposite is "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." I like to use them because they mean just about nothing, since they all have a saying that negates them, yet most people take it as fact that both sayings are correct, simply because they're said often.
And, er... 'Go for the eyes, Boo!'
Because it works! There's a saying, 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease.' If Linux users are very vocal about how they expect companies to do business, those companies -will- feel pressured to move more towards that way of doing business.
It's the exact same reason that lobbying a congressman (without money) works. Once they hear it enough, they know it's important to the people that are most important to them: Their customers. (Or voters, as the case may be.)
When people don't tell a company how to behave, you end up with companies like Walmart. Walmart used to be about the country, the consumer, and the profit, in that order. They gave up on the whole 'made in the USA' thing quite a while back. They gave up on customer service even longer ago. They only care about the profit now. They do it by having cheap goods and cheap wages. For people who only care that the goods are cheap, it's a great store. For the rest of us it sucks.
nVidia has the choice of only catering to the mainstream Windows-based gamers, or also adding on a rabidly-loyal group of fanatics that are willing to work for free to make their business better. All nVidia has to do is LISTEN TO THEM and release their drivers open-source.
Yes, there was a great amount of R&D involved in their drivers, but most of the stuff that makes their drivers 'great' on windows just doesn't apply to Linux, like that massive control panel. That doesn't even exist in the binary Linux driver.
The code doesn't have to be GPL or any such. They could release it under their own license that specifically states the code can only be used for a driver for nVidia cards. The only thing necessary is the ability to improve the code at will. (I think they would find it advantageous to go to GPL later, but that's another discussion.)
nVidia really has little reason not to open their source code to the public, unless they are doing something illegal or extremely unethical in their drivers. (Cheating at benchmarks, etc.)
That's not how it was marketed/hyped at the time. ;) Now, it's quite obvious that it's not a sequel.
Interesting, I had not heard of him before. Unfortunately, something about his music just doesn't do it for me...
... And now I'm nearly about to laugh out loud. Since my co-worker is getting a new mac laptop (today hopefully) this song is perfect. I may buy it for him.
But you know, while I'm typing that, I'm listening to 'A Laptop Like You'
At this point, I'm going to have to assume that his music is best appreciated by listening to the words, while I prefer music that sounds nice, regardless of the message. Still, thanks for the head's up. I definitely respect him for catering to his fans instead of just trying to grab all the money he can.
You know, I didn't remember that from Fallout 1 ,but somehow the idea of bottle caps being currency post-war is very ... Warming.
(I just looked it up... I actually didn't like Fallout at the time, since it was supposed to be the sequel to my then-favorite game, Wasteland, and was nothing like it.)
It's the little things in a game that really make it memorable, and I hope they spend the time for all those little touches.
I think there's too much else going on to make those statistics mean anything in regards to 'file sharing'. There's the new-found hatred of the RIAA, there's new services like Rhapsody that make listening to unknown music easier, there's world-wide communication... And those are just the things in favor of Indie bands.
As for it helping the Indie bands... It would help them more, not less, if artists had to specifically give their music away, instead of people just sharing whatever they like. Indie bands would initially be the only free music available, and their popularity would soar.
But they don't, do they? Even when MP3.com specialized in doing just that, they still didn't take off. I never found a single song on that site that I liked... At the time, I wasn't surprised, since I'm very picky about music. (I like a very tiny bit from about every genre.) But I've been trying Rhapsody's service... And I've already found 2 artists that I really like (a Brit and a Native American) and quite a lot of music that is enjoyable. I'm not sure what that all means yet, but it seems to mean that giving your music away doesn't help your popularity. Only having good music does that.
When you say 'does run under Mono', do you mean the port that's being worked on? because it's apparently still at a very shaky stage and doesn't have any downloads, just the repository, and requires the SVN version of Mono to even run.
Yeah, the summary was so bad that I actually RTFA.
;)
The idea is not 'let's create something new', it's 'let's break into this genre'. To do so, one of the keys is to innovate something IN that genre, instead of just copying everything that came before. One of the suggested methods is to remove something that is extremely common-place in the genre and replace it with something (hopefully) better. One example was removing health packs and placing 'healing poles' that heal nearby places. This has actually been done a decade ago, but we won't tell him that... He thinks he's clever.
The point is valid, though. The same old crap will only get you a best-seller IF you do it amazingly well. Since that's not likely, it's smarter to use some tactics, like the article mentioned.
The FPS genre is amazingly easy to 'break into', though... Simply throw a lot of money at it and make sure it's a game that players can use tactics. The rest doesn't really matter.
Sadly, this is not the only genre like that... Others just have more complex rules to implement.
It's also important to note that this doesn't mean 'casual games' like Arkanoid and 'Yet Another Diner Simulator 8'. Those games sell from flashy graphics alone. You don't need to even do it well.
I tried paint.net when it first came out, and there was no doubt it was everything MS Paint should have been. But that was a pre-1.0 beta, and I haven't tried it since.
Does it have layers? Can you set the layers to Multiply/Screen/etc? Does it have animation capability? Does it support PNG?
And sadly, I know it doesn't run on Linux, which is my primary 'work' OS now. I still have Windows, but it's on my gaming rig. Adobe has this same issue, though, so can't say much against it there.
I might agree with you if there were a -single- person that works for the RIAA willing to speak out and say 'what we are doing is wrong', and -not anonymously. By not doing so, they are each personally condoning the tactics of the entire organization. Even the US Government has people that say 'well, maybe that was wrong.' The RIAA has nobody like that.
So let's say you find your 3-10 (relatively few) people and 'oust them'. Who replaces them? The same people that backed them the entire time. You haven't changed anything except the faces.
So you think that the only way a 'unique cooler design' could be impressive is to -look- cool? How very sad. The only thing that could impress most geeks is to get the CPU/GPU/ambient an extra few degrees cooler. THAT is impressive.
Is that filter builtin, or was it the GAP addon? Last time I tried to do animation in GIMP (about a year ago) GAP was the only choice, and it didn't support layers. The only choice was to create a ton of images on disk, and if you had any changes to make, make them individually, or (manually!) delete the entire image set and start over.
It was painful enough that I've never felt the need to repeat that mistake.
He obvious doesn't hate the people that pirate it. He only stated that he -did- buy a copy and was legit. He made no disparaging remarks on the pirates, and merely noted that they exist.
Adobe isn't likely to lower their prices if everyone bought instead of pirating. They basically have a monopoly on the market at the moment because they -are- the best, and nobody else is even close.
Also, everyone keeps saying that CS3 costs $2500... That may be true, but isn't actually relevant to the question at hand. Photoshop by itself is only $650 for the normal version, or $1000 for the 'extended' version. The cheapest version of CS3 is only $1500. I very much doubt that most people buy the maximum. It's much more likely they purchase the absolute minimum that will do the job for them.
I'm insterested in that program, but I worry about it... The downloads page lists a different build for each OS, only 1 of which is a RC, the rest are various Betas... 1.0 was never released, and the last released was over 6 months ago?
The price has also been cut in half.
If it's stable, why was no final release made? If it's not, why was it abandoned?
With GIMP, at least if I have a problem I can submit a bug report or (maybe) fix it myself. I'd have a very hard time trusting that this program would work.
I tried GimpShop (in Windows) a few months ago. It crashed repeatedly and was absolutely worthless.
Installing the same version of Gimp on the same computer had no crashes in the time I used it.
My main complaint with Gimp isn't the interface, but rather the way it handles things like animation and such. The GAP plugin was a lot of work, I'm sure, but instead of handling the issue properly (with layers maybe?) they went for the worst workaround possible, creating a ton of files and no undo/redo functionality. It probably would have been better to just have a separate program, doing it that way.
There's been a few other things that really irked me the way they were done, but that was the worst.
I still use it because I don't feel like paying Adobe's insane price, but I definitely don't do as much graphic design as I would if I had a better program.
And before anyone suggests PaintShopPro, it's worse than Gimp.
Your assumption about the price of gasoline doubling... I think that's pretty much a given. We -know- there's a limited amount of fuel in the world. We think we know about how much. We know we use more every year than the previous year.
At some point, gasoline is going to be too expensive to use as common fuel. It maybe in 10 years, like they've predicted for the last 15 or 20 years, or it maybe in in 30 or 40... But I expect to live that long. If the price hasn't doubled again in the next 10 years, I'll be very surprised.
You said 'lifetime', and I assume you meant yours. But let's assume you meant 'lifetime of the generator', because they won't last forever. At current prices, it definitely makes sense to buy the gas generator, as it's unlikely they'll both last more than 10 or 15 years.
But the price of a brand new product is always inflated to make back R&D costs quickly, then drops for sale to the less affluent folk in the world. Better production technology helps bring the cost down, too. I seriously doubt the hardware itself actually costs $175k... At a guess, let's say it comes down to 1/100th of that, $17.5k... It won't be long until it's a lot cheaper than the gas version.
In short, comparing the price of a newly-announced product to the price of a product that's been common for years doesn't work well in the long run.
I definitely agree with the 'screw over opec/etc', though... Even if it costs more, many people will be willing to adopt it for just that purpose.
First of all, I'm against the whole 'I thought of it first so I have the only rights to it forever' thing.
But if a song is IP, why does it matter how it was copied? Copying it by looking at the paper, or copying by listening... It only takes a more talented individual.
It's like saying that it's legal to copy DVDs, but only if you're talented enough to crack the encryption yourself, with no help.
It either IS or IS NOT legal to copy it, there should be no 'only if by this method' BS.
You don't think that as soon as people learned space was out there, and the sky wasn't just painted on, that they imagined traveling to the moon? And that there were plenty of people that said it was impossible?
And the same goes for pocket computers. Even 50 years ago, people would have said it was impossible. You just couldn't miniaturize like that. Well surprise, now we can!
And there's absolutely no reason we can't put lasers on the heads of sharks. Controlling them and making it not be completely pointless is the problem, not physically putting the lasers on their heads.
Well, the -original- point of dvr/pvr was that you could watch your show later, without having to be tied to the TV at certain times. Some of us actually use it that, and the ad-skipping is a bonus.
Man, if only there was a way that parents could -choose- what electronics they buy for their children, and force the companies to do the right thing because it's profitable, instead of mandated. It's really too bad that they are forced to buy certain products and have no say-so at all.
Other things there's never been a working system of:
Antigravity.
Perpetual Motion.
Sharks with Frickin Lasers on their heads.
Space Flight. -- Wait, we did that one.
Pocket Computers. -- No, sorry, that one too.
Seriously, just because it's never worked before is -not- proof that it never will. There's -plenty- of reasons, but this is -not- one of them.
To companies, copy protection is -not- completely useless, so we'll never see content completely free from DRM. Expensive DRM is pointless, though, as it provides nothing extra.
Why isn't it completely useless? Because their work is covered under additional laws other than just copyright. Cheap vs Expensive DRM makes no difference here, the law doesn't differentiate.
Programmers hate politics like this. The recent emphasis on it is simply an attempt to make it go away. Sadly, that never works and instead only gets the participants mired in politics for the rest of their lives.
I used to be extremely anti-GPL. Now I'm just slightly anti-GPL, and actually like the LGPL. In a politics-free world, BSD is pretty much the 'obvious' license for a FOSS project. It's just too bad that that'll never be the way the world works.
RMS is far from being my hero, but his tactics and efforts are necessary to balance out a world that has been overrun with greed. There's no other way to explain taking someone else's work and using it for your own ends without even giving credit. (Greed isn't just about money, it's about having things, including fame.)
And because I can't resist, I've reworded your post:
More whinging.. Who really need it? Really don't people have anything better to to? Like, ACTUALLY doing something?
Lost has a pre-planned number of seasons. They aren't just milking the show for all it's worth and dumping it when it's losing money, they have a set plan.
Heroes... I'm pretty sure they just make it up as they go along, as evidenced by the interview with the creators where they said they decided Hiro was too powerful mid-season and nerfed him.
Yeah, I watch both shows and Doctor Who, too. Shows with plot are finally coming back after years and years of Reality TV. I hope they keep getting stronger.
Survivor was great up until Season 9. It peaked at 7 and 8 (all stars), and now it's crap. They pick idiots and people who will cause strife, instead of picking people that will compete well or even just average people. It's not interesting anymore.
I look all around when I walk through the store, too. It's obvious I'm checking out the layout and the cameras. They should kick me out for looking at things, too.
And I look ALL over the store. Another obvious sign of terrorist activity.
And I wear a cellphone. It could be a bomb.
There's a bulge in my pocket. Must be an evil terrorist device. (Car keys, calm down.)
They have no more reason to suspect my taking a picture of a display box than anything else I do. If I was taking pictures of employees or doors or security cameras, yeah. I'd understand.
This isn't the first time I've taken pictures of boxes in stores. My memory is horrid, and pen and paper are a pain to carry around. So I take pictures of things I want to research before I buy. (Which is just about anything these days.)
You can say that they did it for any reason you dream of, but the guy flat-out told me why he approached me. Loss Prevention told him to. No dreams of terrorist threats and saving the day, or covering his ass. His employers have ordered him to approach anyone who takes pictures. This is not 1 employee acting on their own. This is the corporation dictating policy.