I bought the G1 months after it came out. I bought it knowing that Samsung, HTC, and about 7 other companies have already announced that they are making new Android phones. At least 1 of them will be better than the one I have, and it'll probably be within 6 months. I signed a 2 year contract with my provider to get the phone as cheap as possible.
So yes, even knowing that newer, better things were coming out, I did buy the current offerings.
With computers, this is -always- the case. Every computer will be replaced by a better model the next year. Cars, too. And just about everything that has to do with technology.
Yes, there are some people who will say 'oh, there's a better one coming' and wait 6 months for it... But most people won't wait more than a month.
Maybe you should read it yourself. Here's the first sentence.
Mung is computer jargon for "to make repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item."
Again, check this out: "which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item."
The email address is not munged, or you couldn't un-mung it.
I don't think it's 'taxing' that's the problem so much as that if your eyes are on the satnav, they aren't on the road. No amount of concentration will allow you to look in 2 places at once.
Mine doesn't. Waiting for my HDDVD to start up is extremely painful. It's 2-3x the startuptime of my ps3, more, if you include the time to actually start playing the movie on each.
"have less expensive players,"
At the time, yes. (Of course, the best BluRay player at the time also plays video games...)
" and less expensive movies."
Now, but not then. Back then, I was paying the same for both, when you compare the same movie in each format.
And who buys AMD? People looking to get better bang for the buck. In other words, people who are unlikely to double the cost of the video card for only 50% more performance.
While I think this is a silly move by nVidia (it makes them look bad to their customer base), it probably isn't nearly as dumb a move as it looks at first glance. They probably have a pretty good idea of what portion of their customers use AMD and SLI currently, and it's probably pretty low.
Actually, since we only got the queue to 0 twice in the 6 months I was there, I seriously doubt that money was the issue here. After pushing the 'accept call' button, you'd get a call within 10 seconds. (They changed it to having to hit the button to go off duty later, after I left, because some people would forget to hit it for a minute.)
So as much as I'm sure we got paid per minute, I'm also sure there were rules about call queue length and customer happiness.
Stupid metrics are part of the problem. When I worked for Gateway, they wanted your call average to be between 7 and 11 minutes. If you went above for the week/month, you were too slow and bad at your job. If you went below, you were probably just getting people off the phone without solving their problems.
That metric worked for most people, because they talk slow and have to look up every single issue.
For me, it was killer. I was consistently getting 5 minutes averages, even with that inevitable once-a-day 1-hour phone call. I got reprimanded twice about it before I gave up and quit. Almost every caller was happy with how I helped them. The others couldn't be helped, or I made a mistake. (I told a guy he could clean his keyboard, once... They had switched to keyboards that fall apart if you try to open them, apparently. In my defense, I had offered to send one, but the guy thought cleaning it would be a lot faster.)
Also note that a certain percentage of calls were recorded and reviewed, and I -never- got talked to about any of my calls. The only complaint I had was the keyboard guy. And yet I still got yelled at for short call times.
Again, stupid metrics are stupid. Call-time has nothing to do with customer satisfaction.
Yes, it won't be 'evolution' any more. Instead, it will be guided progression. There are risks, of course, but there are also many benefits. To ask humans not to meddle is to ask them to stop being human.
That works great for individual users. This is -not- meant for individuals. This is meant for companies, schools, etc. You can block that domain at your firewall/proxy/dns/whatever and make -sure- none of your users see it, no matter what settings they choose.
I can't for the life of me imagine where you live. I've traveled all over the country, north, south, east, and west, and there's nowhere that I've been that my T-Mobile cellphone doesn't work, without roaming charges.
Yes, there are some very rare instances where I end up on someone else's network (but with no roaming charges!) or some really backwoods places where there's no signal at all... But in no way am I forced to use 1 carrier in any area.
Oh? How exactly is this? Can no other wireless carriers compete on the same turf? Oh! They can now!
AT&T had a stranglehold on landlines at the time, and that's how they managed to hold back 'innovation'. They do not have the market on wireless phones cornered, nor are they close.
If you don't like them, don't sign up for their service!
I'm of 2 minds about this. On 1 hand, this is really neat and could lead to some nice games. On the other hand, the Wii has produced the crappiest set of games of any console I've ever owned. No console of mine has ever had so much off-time before. The Wii showed the same promise that this does...
Also, the driving games... They insist they will be perfectly responsive and all that, but there's no way that much processing can go on and add no lag whatsoever. And any time it glitches and thinks my hands are in the wrong spot, I'll go out of control.
Another reason I am so down on this is the 360's current camera based games. They all suck. I bought a camera just for them and they are horrid.
Oh noes! People care about our products so much they won't stop talking about them! Whatever shall we do!?
Cripes. I wish -I- had high-class problems like this. I'm sure I could capitalize on them.
Or maybe he is. I mean, he managed to get a/. frontpage post about -nothing- this time. And he'll probably get one for each and every 'leak'. And each and every official notice.
'Light pollution' is all man-caused light, regardless of the source. Like noise pollution, it doesn't -actually- do any harm, it's just a clever way for someone to say they hate it.
I've never really understood this awe for nature that most people seem to have. It's not like a miracle created them... They were there long before you were born and will be there long after. They look vaguely interesting, but it's nothing to spend hours and hours staring it. They really don't move much, from our point of view.
It's a fine hobby (as most are), and astronomers have come up with some mighty interesting theories... But to say 'everyone should see the sky!' is the same as 'everyone should have a big back yard!' It's nice and all, but just not possible.
Read my post again. I said "original IP", since that's -all- TFA talks about. If you think -any- RPGs are 'original' from the ground up at this point you've got a reality check coming.
I don't give a rat's ass if the IP is 'original' or not. All I care is whether or not the game is fun. WoW, while interesting for a while, is too much grind-fest. If Blizz's new game is the same, I won't be interested at all.
As for 'originality'... Almost ALL the MMOs are original IP. Look at all the ones from Asia. There are -very- few that are based on something else. FreeRealms by SoE is pretty original, too, and it was just released.
No, what we are seeing isn't a 'rise in originality', but the tail end of a big lump of non-originality that didn't work. (Except WoW, which started that lump because of its success.)
Upsides: No fees listed on cable bill Can stream to computer or watch HD channel directly No ads
Downsides: Service is -not- free. Only way to get it is for your Cable provider to subscribe and pass that cost on to every single subscriber, whether they want it or not, as part of their standard cable bill.
This could be a nice service, if you could sign up for it as an individual and it was reasonably priced. I can't see how it could possibly be reasonably priced, though, since they are putting up movies that compete with rentals and PPV. Unless, of course, it's only old crappy movies, and then it's crap you could watch anyhow, but with ads.
Slashdot Mirror
My first thought was 'Yeah, because it can't possibly be a problem with the internet... It has to be China doing something nasty.'
Hell, the article itself said service came back for some before others... That in itself says that it's probably the net and not China.
Nothing to see here, move along.
I bought the G1 months after it came out. I bought it knowing that Samsung, HTC, and about 7 other companies have already announced that they are making new Android phones. At least 1 of them will be better than the one I have, and it'll probably be within 6 months. I signed a 2 year contract with my provider to get the phone as cheap as possible.
So yes, even knowing that newer, better things were coming out, I did buy the current offerings.
With computers, this is -always- the case. Every computer will be replaced by a better model the next year. Cars, too. And just about everything that has to do with technology.
Yes, there are some people who will say 'oh, there's a better one coming' and wait 6 months for it... But most people won't wait more than a month.
Maybe you should read it yourself. Here's the first sentence.
Mung is computer jargon for "to make repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item."
Again, check this out: "which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item."
The email address is not munged, or you couldn't un-mung it.
I don't think it's 'taxing' that's the problem so much as that if your eyes are on the satnav, they aren't on the road. No amount of concentration will allow you to look in 2 places at once.
"HD-DVD loaded faster,"
Mine doesn't. Waiting for my HDDVD to start up is extremely painful. It's 2-3x the startuptime of my ps3, more, if you include the time to actually start playing the movie on each.
"have less expensive players,"
At the time, yes. (Of course, the best BluRay player at the time also plays video games...)
" and less expensive movies."
Now, but not then. Back then, I was paying the same for both, when you compare the same movie in each format.
The iPhone is definitely -not- reasonably priced. Last year's was $600 or $700 ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25478296/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/ ) and this years is $800 ( http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/06/15/rogers-fido-no-contract-iphone-3g-s-pricing-revealed-eh/ ). That's not -reasonable- at all.
The G1 is about $450 outright, which is still too high to be called 'reasonable', but it's a lot closer.
These new toys are expensive. Period.
A few years later, you won't be able to find an identical match to your existing card. That doesn't work. I know, I tried after about a year.
And who buys AMD? People looking to get better bang for the buck. In other words, people who are unlikely to double the cost of the video card for only 50% more performance.
While I think this is a silly move by nVidia (it makes them look bad to their customer base), it probably isn't nearly as dumb a move as it looks at first glance. They probably have a pretty good idea of what portion of their customers use AMD and SLI currently, and it's probably pretty low.
Actually, since we only got the queue to 0 twice in the 6 months I was there, I seriously doubt that money was the issue here. After pushing the 'accept call' button, you'd get a call within 10 seconds. (They changed it to having to hit the button to go off duty later, after I left, because some people would forget to hit it for a minute.)
So as much as I'm sure we got paid per minute, I'm also sure there were rules about call queue length and customer happiness.
Stupid metrics are part of the problem. When I worked for Gateway, they wanted your call average to be between 7 and 11 minutes. If you went above for the week/month, you were too slow and bad at your job. If you went below, you were probably just getting people off the phone without solving their problems.
That metric worked for most people, because they talk slow and have to look up every single issue.
For me, it was killer. I was consistently getting 5 minutes averages, even with that inevitable once-a-day 1-hour phone call. I got reprimanded twice about it before I gave up and quit. Almost every caller was happy with how I helped them. The others couldn't be helped, or I made a mistake. (I told a guy he could clean his keyboard, once... They had switched to keyboards that fall apart if you try to open them, apparently. In my defense, I had offered to send one, but the guy thought cleaning it would be a lot faster.)
Also note that a certain percentage of calls were recorded and reviewed, and I -never- got talked to about any of my calls. The only complaint I had was the keyboard guy. And yet I still got yelled at for short call times.
Again, stupid metrics are stupid. Call-time has nothing to do with customer satisfaction.
Only for so long. Eventually you burn them out and they just decide not to bother doing extra if they company can't be bothered to fund things.
Yes, it won't be 'evolution' any more. Instead, it will be guided progression. There are risks, of course, but there are also many benefits. To ask humans not to meddle is to ask them to stop being human.
That works great for individual users. This is -not- meant for individuals. This is meant for companies, schools, etc. You can block that domain at your firewall/proxy/dns/whatever and make -sure- none of your users see it, no matter what settings they choose.
I can't for the life of me imagine where you live. I've traveled all over the country, north, south, east, and west, and there's nowhere that I've been that my T-Mobile cellphone doesn't work, without roaming charges.
Yes, there are some very rare instances where I end up on someone else's network (but with no roaming charges!) or some really backwoods places where there's no signal at all... But in no way am I forced to use 1 carrier in any area.
And by the same token, that's just as useless as "der, it's obvious!".
Oh? How exactly is this? Can no other wireless carriers compete on the same turf? Oh! They can now!
AT&T had a stranglehold on landlines at the time, and that's how they managed to hold back 'innovation'. They do not have the market on wireless phones cornered, nor are they close.
If you don't like them, don't sign up for their service!
I'm of 2 minds about this. On 1 hand, this is really neat and could lead to some nice games. On the other hand, the Wii has produced the crappiest set of games of any console I've ever owned. No console of mine has ever had so much off-time before. The Wii showed the same promise that this does...
Also, the driving games... They insist they will be perfectly responsive and all that, but there's no way that much processing can go on and add no lag whatsoever. And any time it glitches and thinks my hands are in the wrong spot, I'll go out of control.
Another reason I am so down on this is the 360's current camera based games. They all suck. I bought a camera just for them and they are horrid.
Oh noes! People care about our products so much they won't stop talking about them! Whatever shall we do!?
Cripes. I wish -I- had high-class problems like this. I'm sure I could capitalize on them.
Or maybe he is. I mean, he managed to get a /. frontpage post about -nothing- this time. And he'll probably get one for each and every 'leak'. And each and every official notice.
I am -so- looking forward to the year of the Dragon now.
The G1 also does not have a strap hole.
Since those are the 2 main phones that have accelerometers right now... Meh.
'Light pollution' is all man-caused light, regardless of the source. Like noise pollution, it doesn't -actually- do any harm, it's just a clever way for someone to say they hate it.
I've never really understood this awe for nature that most people seem to have. It's not like a miracle created them... They were there long before you were born and will be there long after. They look vaguely interesting, but it's nothing to spend hours and hours staring it. They really don't move much, from our point of view.
It's a fine hobby (as most are), and astronomers have come up with some mighty interesting theories... But to say 'everyone should see the sky!' is the same as 'everyone should have a big back yard!' It's nice and all, but just not possible.
Read my post again. I said "original IP", since that's -all- TFA talks about. If you think -any- RPGs are 'original' from the ground up at this point you've got a reality check coming.
I don't give a rat's ass if the IP is 'original' or not. All I care is whether or not the game is fun. WoW, while interesting for a while, is too much grind-fest. If Blizz's new game is the same, I won't be interested at all.
As for 'originality'... Almost ALL the MMOs are original IP. Look at all the ones from Asia. There are -very- few that are based on something else. FreeRealms by SoE is pretty original, too, and it was just released.
No, what we are seeing isn't a 'rise in originality', but the tail end of a big lump of non-originality that didn't work. (Except WoW, which started that lump because of its success.)
Is this really a good idea?
Upsides:
No fees listed on cable bill
Can stream to computer or watch HD channel directly
No ads
Downsides:
Service is -not- free. Only way to get it is for your Cable provider to subscribe and pass that cost on to every single subscriber, whether they want it or not, as part of their standard cable bill.
This could be a nice service, if you could sign up for it as an individual and it was reasonably priced. I can't see how it could possibly be reasonably priced, though, since they are putting up movies that compete with rentals and PPV. Unless, of course, it's only old crappy movies, and then it's crap you could watch anyhow, but with ads.
Not TFS. TFA. TFA is dated TODAY. Go click the link. It really doesn't hurt.