As far as the postal service is concerned it's a state.
Why? Because it has a usps state abbreviation?
Because so do Guam (GU), Micronesia (FM), Palau (PW), Mariana Islands (MP), Marshall Islands (MH), Virgin Islands (VI), American Samoa (AS) and Puerto Rico (PR)
Not to mention they have state codes like: AP (Armed Forces Pacific)...
Or do they just consider the Craig Kilborn years to be a completely different show?
I know I consider them to be a completely different show.
Not that I have anything against Craig Kilborn or the show while he hosted it, but Jon really did take the show in a significantly different direction. And I think its a significantly better show as a result.
You just can't find the original version anywhere these days! I think a great idea for the original game makers would be to release the original version.
Nintendo is one step ahead of you. Its available as a 500 point download on the Wii virtual console. (approx $5)
100% complete. And the Wii remote held sideways works brilliantly as a classic NES controller, and is wireless. I spend almost as much time playing Virtual Console games like R-Type, Gradius, Super Mario Brothers, Galaga, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Lode Runner as I do playing Wii titles.
I also liked Pong. It gets boring and repetitive after a while and is nowhere as good as Super Mario Bros. but it was fun.
I was never a fan of Pong, but I still enjoy Arkanoid and Breakout style games which are obvious pong derivatives.
For ages 5 to 7, the PC is the only place you're going to get games.
The PC has the widest library maybe, but the consoles feature better controls. My kids are actually in the 3-5 range, and right now, I'd say the best system for them is the Wii. And that's not a 'nintendo is for kids' thing, because they were far less successful on the cube. (They like Donkey Congo (with the bongoes), and Soul Calibur II (because even with just random button mashing your fighters are reasonably effective). But overall the cube controller is too big and too complicated.
The wii on the other hand fits in their hand, and the controlls are simple and intuitive...
My 3 and 5 year olds can both do most of the Wii sports - boxing, tennis, bowling, golf. Only baseball is generally too hard. (with tennis if they swing and miss there is often time to swing again, in baseball you only get one swing, and its less forgiving than tennis)
Same with Wii Play - the 'find a mii' game they can both do if someone reads the instructions, they can both do target shooting and fishing, the 5 year old can play all the games except pool.
They can play Mario party 8 together successfully even without supervision, provided we set it to the 'simple mini games' set.
They can play the new Carnival game without supervision. (although they only play a subset of the games)
They can do most of the activities in Big Brain Academy with supervision/assistance. Though the three year old needs a fair bit of help, and some activities are simply beyond him. (e.g. Math)
They can both play Warioware smooth moves well enough to have to fun, as well as enjoy most of the multiplayer mini-games.
As they move towards the 5-7 range, I see a *lot* more games opening up to their abilities.
As far as PC gaming at this age (3-5). Its really not great. The 3 year old can use the mouse, but clicking the mouse without moving it away from where he wants to click takes more than one try so most games are just out of reach. The 5 year old is better at it, but as you said, the games are largely insufferable, and after mario party 8, soul calibur 2, and wii sports even the 5 year old looks at most free pc games as the crap they are. At 3 and 5 They tend to actually prefer a blank notepad window with a large font to 'practice their letters and numbers' and type their names.
Mac Mini was also just a little too "cool" for the hardware it contained or the market it was competing with. If it had been twice the size, and $150 cheaper it would have sold a lot better.
It would still have been a fraction of the size of a comparable PC.
And not pushing so hard at being so small would have brought the price down a decent chunk, and made refreshing the hardware that much easier to do.
And its ok, for an overly high punishment, to send a message to the defendant, if the 'normal fine' would be something that would not likely deter them. But its not okay to over punish a defendant to send a message to everyone else.
That clearly violates even the most basic principles of justice.
I thought gift cards generally were completely useless unless activated, to make stealing them pointless? Is this a recent thing, or are the Best Buy cards not like this, or something?
Yes, they were completely useless, insofar as that nothing can be charged against them. But they still have a number, and a functioning mag-strip. And if the system just requires a mag strip swipe with a valid number. (and by valid, we only mean "properly formatted"), then its good to go.
Nothing is actually ever attempted to be "charged" or "authorized" against the card number until the 6 month trial is up, at which point it doesn't work, of course, because the card is useless.
I have asked numerous people why they still have AOL over the years and almost all of them said that they have had it for so long that they are uncomfortable changing for whatever reason. AOL does a great job locking its customers into its systems and making it seem counter-intuitive to switch.
don't blame AOL for customers being 'comfortable'.
That's the same reason most people give for using Eudora or Pegasus mail clients. Its not that these companies/products have 'locked customers in' or made it counter intuitive to switch, its simply that people have gotten comfortable, and they don't perceive enough value in changing.
(Not that there is anything wrong with Eudora or Pegasus. But most people using it aren't "choosing to use it", its simply the case that they've used it for so long its just what they use, it works, and they don't want any hassles.)
While I would agree that Halo and GTA are worlds apart, and hope that this controversy catalyzes much-needed revamping of the ESRB's functionality,
Why? Movies are rated what they are for a variety of reasons, and there's no grand failure of the system that there are movies rated for Teens that I'll let my 3 and 5 year old watch, and others that I wouldn't.
I still find it out of place that churches are using Halo to bring young men to services. "Thou shalt not kill" does not mesh well with "Thou shalt kill aliens in copious numbers".
Again, why? No *killing* is happening. Not of people, and not even of aliens. Its less real violence than going on a fishing trip. Or a contact football game.
Also, it just strikes me of bribery - they should be there because they're interested in the religion, not because they wanna get a mad sic deathmatch in after church lets out. But maybe that's just me.
The healthier the church is - the more relevant it and its activies are because its congregation is made up of lots normal healthy people who want those activies. Its not really a recruiting drive although people are attracted to them... simply because they're normal people doing fun stuff. The religion isn't hidden but its not in your face either. Because that's how normal healthy church goers are: They watch hockey games. They go mountain biking. They play Halo.
A healthy church is a reflection of its congregation.
I'm not saying some some churches aren't 'trying to fit in and be cool' because some do. But just because a church is doing cool stuff doesn't mean its trying to be something its not. If the teens already going to that church want to play halo, then a church sponsored halo night is a perfectly natural eventuality. And if they bring their friends, great. If they have the slightest interest in religion or church, they're going to want to choose one full of people who enjoy the same things they do.
When I was growing up I went to a church where the 'youth' activies were stiff and awkward and felt like a timewarp to the 50's because the people in charge of arranging things clearly weren't listening to us. It was unpopular and attendance was generally on life support. I avoided going.
They switched the people in charge, and suddenly the activies were fun and relevant and things I actually wanted to do, and people showed up in droves. Not just from within the church but they brought their friends, because it was fun. The fact that it was church sponsored activity was never hidden under the carpet, but at the same time the fact that it was a church sponsored activity didn't make it automatically lame either. And you could play soccer, or go mountain biking, or watch the hockey game and hang out with and make new friends. There was no sense that you were being cornered into a come-to-Jesus sermon the moment you let your guard down.
The church was leading by example. You said "they should be there because they're interested in the religion", well why would they ever be intrested in the religion if they thought the religion and everyone in it was a bunch of idiot fundy-zealots singing about Jesus and praising Lou Dobbs. Showing the community that the church was actually made up of regular normal from the community was the best 'advertising' it could ever do. And it wasn't dishonest advertising, because it really was made up of regular normal people from the community who wanted to do regular normal things. Sure there were a few fundy zealots in the corners; every church has them, but they didn't represent the church as a whole.
Even figuring that you might get slightly more efficient cells and by putting them in orbit might be able to get more power out of each, you're still talking about a *huge* station.
I was under the impression that solar cell technology had recently made significant advances. Sure its still expensive per square meter, but when your developing a system that costs thousands per pound due to the cost of lifting it into space, using the expensive technology is a no-brainer and may actually be cheaper because its smaller.
I was also under the impression that the atomoshpere does a hell of a lot of diffusion so putting them in space should be a significant improvement.
Also, the atmosphere effectively blocks/reflects away the vast majority of the highest energy radiation levels (e.g. UV, X-ray, gamma radiation, etc). I'd think that solar panels able to absorb and convert that high energy radiation would be considerably more...more... I don't know what word to use, not 'efficient', but the more energy you put into a panel, the more enegry you'll get out. And there is a lot more energy in those high energy wavelengths, so the amount of energy we'll get out at a given efficiency is that much higher...
College books are not cheap, however. [/payed $450 this semester]
Buy used, and buy the previous edition. Or even 2 editions back.
College/University texts aren't cheap, and even the 2ndary market for 'in use' books can be scary. However, once an edition is a couple revisions old, its too much hassle for students to try and use them for classwork and trying to keep syncing with the page numbers and sections the professors/teachers are referring to... and their value plummets to near zero. Making them a bargain for someone who just wants a decent text on the subject.
And lets face it, high school to first year calculus mathematics hasn't changed in 30+ years.
Its not comp.sci.
[PS just to clarify this post comment is addressed at the OP, not the person I'm responding too. Obviously, if your in school and can buy used great; I did this whenever possible, but I'd never advocate a -student- buy a significantly older edition. Its just hassle you don't need. But they'd be great for the OP.]
U.K., Australia, Canada, Poland, and many other countries sent troops.
Canada was and is in Afghanistan. They declined to participate in Iraq, and were against it.
The US sent 250,000 As for the 'many other countries' sent troops, you are referring to:
Of the 41 countries involved: 39 of them sent 2000 or less. (Of that 39, 33 sent less than 500, and of that 33, 12 sent less than 100.) A few sent less than 10.
But ok, it was still a US led coaltion. No real argument there.
The U.S. didn't invade Iraq unilaterally, either. Unilateral would mean ONLY U.S. troops.
Uni = one, Lateral = side.
The US war on Iraq was "unilateral" or "one sided" because the other side (the Iraq side) never attacked America either before or after the US attacked them.
In the US/Japan conflict both sides struck each other in a number of conflicts during the war, and Japan struck America first, making American retaliation completely justifiable and uncontroversial.
But don't let the facts interfere with your religion of liberalism.
I'm not the one who has issues with 'facts' Mr "Canada was there too". But hey, don't let actual facts interfere with your narrow minded grandstanding.
On a console like the 360, it's only a matter of clicking X and selecting the new profile.
You are answering soley in terms of consoles. My original post was primarily referring to keyboard/mouse PC games, and I said so in that post.
but i really don't think it is. It would make menus overly complicated for something as trivial as this.
When switching from a left handed person to a right handed person in your average PC game its a completely different setup. Its not remotely trivial to change it. A lot of lefties don't even use "W/A/S/D" for movement in FPSes.
If you're playing Quake4 or Unreal Tournament, or Ghost Recon, or almost anything else, its a royal pain to switch from player to player.
Lets look at some games sales stats for October... DS 135,851 Xbox 360 129,986 Wii 95,800 PSP 91,966 PS3 29,718
I'd be happier if you posted world wide game sales stat. Those numbers are just America, cover just one week, and its the 1st week following the launch of Halo 3 no less.
Moreover the Wii is still only moderately available, and once the christmas shopping picks up, most people predict its going to go back to 'seriously unavailable'.
Add in the numbers for Japan or World Wide, and the Wii is still right up there with the xbox. And this is at a time when the Xbox is riding the peak of popularity with Halo3 launch madness, possibly one of the most highly hyped and anticipated games ever.
If any console is in a 'bubble' right now, its the xbox 360.
The dual nature of patents leads me to a counterintuitive position. I actually think patents should be weak in fields that enjoy lots of innovation, and strong in fields that lack innovation.
How is that counter intuitive? Seems perfectly logical to me. Obvious even.
(Which means you should flesh out your idea, somehow get a computer involved, and patent it.)
who thinks that the US gov't would pay any foreign-levied fine of $100B?
They don't have to 'make the US pay' to effect a win. They'll just take it out of what other countries owe the US. Refuse to hear any complaints the US makes about any other country, and so on.
The US for the most part has benefitted from the WTO, and has won many complaints and settlements.
Its used the WTO on behalf of Monsanto to force US GMO's into the EU despite bans based on health concerns, its demanded reparations for loans Great Britain and France made to Airbus despite providing tax cuts to Boeing, and recently its even complained to the WTO about China on behalf of the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
It won't be able to use the WTO against the rest of the world to its own advantage. And it won't be able to collect on any settlements its won. That will rapidly add up.
She purchased the OS on the suggestion of her 13 year old daughter, so apparently her opinion mattered at some point.
No the childs opinion "that it was good value" NEVER mattered, was never even considered. The childs desire for it, and the fact that it would make them happy to get it, (even if it had no value) was all that mattered.
Either her 13 year old is worth listening to or she isn't, but using her age as an excuse or ignoring her opinion is pretty underhanded when mom didn't have a problem with that very same opinion previously.
My 2 year old asks for a cookie and points to a bag. I indulge the child and buy that particular type of cookie. It turns out it tastes like ass and has the texture of shit. If I call the company and tell them so, should the CEO respond, "well the 2 year old saw value in them."
If I retort, "she's 2", what then? Is it really the case that "either my 2 year old is worth listening to, or she isn't, and using her age as an excuse is pretty underhanded when I didn't have a problem with that same opinion previously."?
See the logical flaw there? The mother never judged the 2 year olds desire for the cookie based upon reasoning that the child has made a thoughtful adult value judgement before asking for the cookie. The mother is saying the kid saw a cookie and wanted it, and she decided to indulge the kid. There is nothing dishonest or underhanded in that. Its a perfectly reasonable reason to buy something.
And that's what happened here.
So by saying "She's 13" she is saying "She didn't want it because saw value in it. She wanted it because it was shiny and her friend had it. And when I bought it for her I didn't do so because I thought she had determined that their was good value. I bought it to indulge her, to be a cool mom, because I can easily afford it, and because I didn't think it would be such an utter disaster."
Precisely. She's not willing to be held accountable for the fact that, in the end, she made the operating system purchase and was not pleased with it. So she's blaming Steve because her precious daughter 'doesn't know any better'... even though she was apparently the sole motivation for the purchase. It's sad how little personal accountability people have these days.
Its sad how much bullshit can come out of one persons mouth.
He comment that 'she's 13' was in response to Ballmer's:
"She saw value in Vista".
THAT is the bullshit statement, because its an idiotic thing to say about a 13 year old who wants a new shiny. Do you think the teen 'sat down and evaluated her needs, weighing the costs and risks of upgrading against continuing with what she had and concluded there was value in upgrading'.
No, she saw something her friend had, thought it looked neat, and said she wanted it. Its the same reason kids want Ferraris instead of Volvos. If this mother had bought her kid a Ferrari and it broke down immediately and spent 6 months waiting for parts, and the mother blasted the Ferrari ceo that their cars were junk and the ceo responded with...
"Well your son clearly saw value in our latest model Ferrari."
It would be the same thing. Its idiotic to say that a 15 year old sees value in Ferrari. They see shiny new and cool, and want it. That's not seeing **VALUE** in the adult sense of the word.
Now it would be fair to say, "what kind of idiot parent buys their kid a ferrari anyway?" Its an excessively expensive car well known for being high maintenance with long repair times due to general parts un-availability. But the Ferrari CEO could hardly go -THERE- now could he?
And that pretty much describes Vista too. It may be true that the mother bought Vista on a lark to please her kid and should accept responsibility for the fact that it was her bad decision. But could Ballmer have said that? "What kind of mother buys Vista on a lark to piease their kid? Its overpriced and largely broken, with mostly cosmetic features, and nearly everyone knows it it should still be in beta."
Of course not, MS wants people to buy Vista on impulse, and they market it as a cool and easy upgrade that everyone wants. If they can't deliver deliver on that, then the problem lies with Microsoft. Not the mother for trusting them. Not when they put so much effort into convincing us to trust them. They can't then turn around and BLAME US for going along with it.
--> This i disagree. Profiles actually makes it that each player can have his own save, settings and preferences for himself. I don't want this to go away. I can't remember the number of times my wife or i accidentally wiped a save of each other by accident because there was no "locked" profile.
I agree. Note that I don't have a problem with 'profiles' themselves I just don't want the control settings *locked* away behind one. There is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to import your wifes control settings into your profile. Nor should a single profile be linked to a single control set; let me create multiple control sets and rotate between them within my single profile.
Sorry but that is simply not true. Way to rewrite history. The majority of Japanese citizens believed in what their government was doing.
You misunderstood what I was trying to say. Yes the Japanese believed in what their government was doing, but it was faith in their own government and patriotism not years of ground in hatred of America that would have driven them to fight.
These sneaky little bombs here and there are just not going to do it. Sorry. So they may be pissed about being occupied by a foreign power, but I guess they are not pissed enough to try to really fight.
First any attempt to organize, even if it was in the cards, would be exactly what the US would want. A nice conventional enemy to fight. If one wanted to fight the US, guerilla/terrorist tactics would be one's best bet. You aren't going to go toe to toe with them and win.
Second, they don't have the will to organize and fight collectively because they hate each other just as much. The various factions are more interested in securing their own dominance in Iraq over the other factions than they are interested in driving the American's out. The real coup is getting the American's to take sides. The faction doing that wins control of Iraq.
And that is the key. Defeated enemies tend to become the strongest allies when you take the time to stick around and rebuild the country so that it is nicer than it was when you first showed up. Japan is an ally because we were allowed to finish the job and did not "cut and run".
Oh for crying out loud, the thinly veiled reference to Iraq is ludicrous.
We didn't unilaterally invade Japan. They were at war prior to our involvement with them.
Japan wasn't harboring long term resentment over American oppression and manipulation at the individual level the way many Iraqi's 'hate america'.
Japan wasn't already on the point of a civil war due to multiple mutually hostile internal factions that were barely being contained by the brutal dictator we installed and propped up.
So it was largely the government that was at war with the US, not the 'people'.
So when Japan surrendered after the nuclear weapons attacks, and the government was dissolved and reformed they really did surrender, and the whole country especially the average civilians were pretty unified in their desire to get on with the rebuilding. Iraq has gone a completely different direction; with multiple competing hostile factions that were there all along going at each other with America caught in the middle of it.
Even if the US manages to ultimately succeed, it will be by siding with one of the factions and helping them become dominant and rebuilding with them... this will only alienate the other factions who will just become even more hostile to the US, and they will gather with allies in Afghanistan, Iran, etc.
At -best- its going to be Israel all over again. Sure we have a great ally in the faction we helped dominate and claim and rebuild the space, but at what cost? perpetual war and festering anti-american sentiment from the displaced/neighboring factions.
She was smart enough to try and use the defence that someone "spoofed" her IP for 3 years. If she knows what that is, she's smart enough to know how kazaa works.
Give me a break; she likely learned that from her lawyer. Or at the very least learned it AFTER she was charged.
I don't know about you, but *after* I had a car accident making a left turn I made damn well sure to learn what ALL my possible defences were. It turns out where I live, if someone passes you from behind and impacts your driver side while you are making a left turn it MATTERS whether that left turn was onto a road vs a driveway in terms of how fault is assigned. Finding that out saved me several thousand bucks. [I was turning into a 'road' going into a public park, it could have been classified as a driveway, but the fact that it had its own stop sign, and the the lines painted on the road opened up to acknowledge the 'intersection' lended enough weight to my argument that it was a road to sway the assignment of fault.
(Frankly, I can't beleive that someone pulling out from behind you into the oncoming lane to execute a pass and hitting your drivers door while you execute a left turn could ever be not at fault, but around here at least, that's the law.)
The point is people learn about what there defense options are in a big hurry when it becomes relevant. The fact that she talked about IP spoofing at her trial in no way convinces me she knew anything whatsoever about computers before the trial.
Not only are most mass e-mails spam, but pushing a message with multiple image attachments to tens of thousands of users is a huge waste of bandwidth. Let's reserve e-mail for personal, one to few communication. Companies can use RSS or some similar mechanism to get their newsletters out.
1) How does RSS save bandwidth? The images are loaded when each user checks their newsletter? Assuming the newsletter is legit, then te read rate will be high, and the bandwidth gets used anyway.
2) The newsletters I personally send out are hosted on the web for archival anyway, so we just send them the email with the images linked to the web based images; i'm not sure if bandwidth is overall saved or not. People who don't read the messages consume less, people who read them clear their cache, and read them again use more. On well managed a legit mailing list you'll get most readers at least opening the message.
3) RSS is GREAT for the end user; and I personally prefer to subscribe to rss over email because I get to do it anonymously. Its great for companies too because it dodges the whole 'someone thinks this is spam even though they double opted in' crap. But at the same time, not having the email address of the recipients is a real loss.
But regardless, RSS is moot. Most people out there aren't comfortable with RSS, and the email newsletter is a lot more accessible to less technically savvy people who don't have a clue what RSS is. Anyone doing legit newsletter distribution would be insane to cut over to pure RSS, they'd lose far too many people.
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As far as the postal service is concerned it's a state.
Why? Because it has a usps state abbreviation?
Because so do Guam (GU), Micronesia (FM), Palau (PW), Mariana Islands (MP), Marshall Islands (MH), Virgin Islands (VI), American Samoa (AS) and Puerto Rico (PR)
Not to mention they have state codes like: AP (Armed Forces Pacific)...
Or do they just consider the Craig Kilborn years to be a completely different show?
I know I consider them to be a completely different show.
Not that I have anything against Craig Kilborn or the show while he hosted it, but Jon really did take the show in a significantly different direction. And I think its a significantly better show as a result.
You just can't find the original version anywhere these days! I think a great idea for the original game makers would be to release the original version.
Nintendo is one step ahead of you. Its available as a 500 point download on the Wii virtual console. (approx $5)
100% complete. And the Wii remote held sideways works brilliantly as a classic NES controller, and is wireless. I spend almost as much time playing Virtual Console games like R-Type, Gradius, Super Mario Brothers, Galaga, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Lode Runner as I do playing Wii titles.
I also liked Pong. It gets boring and repetitive after a while and is nowhere as good as Super Mario Bros. but it was fun.
I was never a fan of Pong, but I still enjoy Arkanoid and Breakout style games which are obvious pong derivatives.
For ages 5 to 7, the PC is the only place you're going to get games.
The PC has the widest library maybe, but the consoles feature better controls. My kids are actually in the 3-5 range, and right now, I'd say the best system for them is the Wii. And that's not a 'nintendo is for kids' thing, because they were far less successful on the cube. (They like Donkey Congo (with the bongoes), and Soul Calibur II (because even with just random button mashing your fighters are reasonably effective). But overall the cube controller is too big and too complicated.
The wii on the other hand fits in their hand, and the controlls are simple and intuitive...
My 3 and 5 year olds can both do most of the Wii sports - boxing, tennis, bowling, golf. Only baseball is generally too hard. (with tennis if they swing and miss there is often time to swing again, in baseball you only get one swing, and its less forgiving than tennis)
Same with Wii Play - the 'find a mii' game they can both do if someone reads the instructions, they can both do target shooting and fishing, the 5 year old can play all the games except pool.
They can play Mario party 8 together successfully even without supervision, provided we set it to the 'simple mini games' set.
They can play the new Carnival game without supervision. (although they only play a subset of the games)
They can do most of the activities in Big Brain Academy with supervision/assistance. Though the three year old needs a fair bit of help, and some activities are simply beyond him. (e.g. Math)
They can both play Warioware smooth moves well enough to have to fun, as well as enjoy most of the multiplayer mini-games.
As they move towards the 5-7 range, I see a *lot* more games opening up to their abilities.
As far as PC gaming at this age (3-5). Its really not great. The 3 year old can use the mouse, but clicking the mouse without moving it away from where he wants to click takes more than one try so most games are just out of reach. The 5 year old is better at it, but as you said, the games are largely insufferable, and after mario party 8, soul calibur 2, and wii sports even the 5 year old looks at most free pc games as the crap they are. At 3 and 5 They tend to actually prefer a blank notepad window with a large font to 'practice their letters and numbers' and type their names.
Mac Mini was also just a little too "cool" for the hardware it contained or the market it was competing with. If it had been twice the size, and $150 cheaper it would have sold a lot better.
It would still have been a fraction of the size of a comparable PC.
And not pushing so hard at being so small would have brought the price down a decent chunk, and made refreshing the hardware that much easier to do.
And its ok, for an overly high punishment, to send a message to the defendant, if the 'normal fine' would be something that would not likely deter them. But its not okay to over punish a defendant to send a message to everyone else.
That clearly violates even the most basic principles of justice.
I thought gift cards generally were completely useless unless activated, to make stealing them pointless? Is this a recent thing, or are the Best Buy cards not like this, or something?
Yes, they were completely useless, insofar as that nothing can be charged against them. But they still have a number, and a functioning mag-strip. And if the system just requires a mag strip swipe with a valid number. (and by valid, we only mean "properly formatted"), then its good to go.
Nothing is actually ever attempted to be "charged" or "authorized" against the card number until the 6 month trial is up, at which point it doesn't work, of course, because the card is useless.
I have asked numerous people why they still have AOL over the years and almost all of them said that they have had it for so long that they are uncomfortable changing for whatever reason. AOL does a great job locking its customers into its systems and making it seem counter-intuitive to switch.
don't blame AOL for customers being 'comfortable'.
That's the same reason most people give for using Eudora or Pegasus mail clients. Its not that these companies/products have 'locked customers in' or made it counter intuitive to switch, its simply that people have gotten comfortable, and they don't perceive enough value in changing.
(Not that there is anything wrong with Eudora or Pegasus. But most people using it aren't "choosing to use it", its simply the case that they've used it for so long its just what they use, it works, and they don't want any hassles.)
While I would agree that Halo and GTA are worlds apart, and hope that this controversy catalyzes much-needed revamping of the ESRB's functionality,
Why? Movies are rated what they are for a variety of reasons, and there's no grand failure of the system that there are movies rated for Teens that I'll let my 3 and 5 year old watch, and others that I wouldn't.
I still find it out of place that churches are using Halo to bring young men to services. "Thou shalt not kill" does not mesh well with "Thou shalt kill aliens in copious numbers".
Again, why? No *killing* is happening. Not of people, and not even of aliens. Its less real violence than going on a fishing trip. Or a contact football game.
Also, it just strikes me of bribery - they should be there because they're interested in the religion, not because they wanna get a mad sic deathmatch in after church lets out. But maybe that's just me.
The healthier the church is - the more relevant it and its activies are because its congregation is made up of lots normal healthy people who want those activies. Its not really a recruiting drive although people are attracted to them... simply because they're normal people doing fun stuff. The religion isn't hidden but its not in your face either. Because that's how normal healthy church goers are: They watch hockey games. They go mountain biking. They play Halo.
A healthy church is a reflection of its congregation.
I'm not saying some some churches aren't 'trying to fit in and be cool' because some do.
But just because a church is doing cool stuff doesn't mean its trying to be something its not. If the teens already going to that church want to play halo, then a church sponsored halo night is a perfectly natural eventuality. And if they bring their friends, great. If they have the slightest interest in religion or church, they're going to want to choose one full of people who enjoy the same things they do.
When I was growing up I went to a church where the 'youth' activies were stiff and awkward and felt like a timewarp to the 50's because the people in charge of arranging things clearly weren't listening to us. It was unpopular and attendance was generally on life support. I avoided going.
They switched the people in charge, and suddenly the activies were fun and relevant and things I actually wanted to do, and people showed up in droves. Not just from within the church but they brought their friends, because it was fun. The fact that it was church sponsored activity was never hidden under the carpet, but at the same time the fact that it was a church sponsored activity didn't make it automatically lame either. And you could play soccer, or go mountain biking, or watch the hockey game and hang out with and make new friends. There was no sense that you were being cornered into a come-to-Jesus sermon the moment you let your guard down.
The church was leading by example. You said "they should be there because they're interested in the religion", well why would they ever be intrested in the religion if they thought the religion and everyone in it was a bunch of idiot fundy-zealots singing about Jesus and praising Lou Dobbs. Showing the community that the church was actually made up of regular normal from the community was the best 'advertising' it could ever do. And it wasn't dishonest advertising, because it really was made up of regular normal people from the community who wanted to do regular normal things. Sure there were a few fundy zealots in the corners; every church has them, but they didn't represent the church as a whole.
Do you have a similar five click method to eliminate DRM from checking your permissions 30 times a second while playing "premium" sound files?
By not having any "premium" DRM encumbered sound files on the computer?
That would be your solution on Linux right? Since it can't play them anyway.
Guess what, not using them works on Vista too.
Even figuring that you might get slightly more efficient cells and by putting them in orbit might be able to get more power out of each, you're still talking about a *huge* station.
I was under the impression that solar cell technology had recently made significant advances. Sure its still expensive per square meter, but when your developing a system that costs thousands per pound due to the cost of lifting it into space, using the expensive technology is a no-brainer and may actually be cheaper because its smaller.
I was also under the impression that the atomoshpere does a hell of a lot of diffusion so putting them in space should be a significant improvement.
Also, the atmosphere effectively blocks/reflects away the vast majority of the highest energy radiation levels (e.g. UV, X-ray, gamma radiation, etc). I'd think that solar panels able to absorb and convert that high energy radiation would be considerably more...more... I don't know what word to use, not 'efficient', but the more energy you put into a panel, the more enegry you'll get out. And there is a lot more energy in those high energy wavelengths, so the amount of energy we'll get out at a given efficiency is that much higher...
Right? (I am not a physicist.)
College books are not cheap, however. [/payed $450 this semester]
Buy used, and buy the previous edition. Or even 2 editions back.
College/University texts aren't cheap, and even the 2ndary market for 'in use' books can be scary. However, once an edition is a couple revisions old, its too much hassle for students to try and use them for classwork and trying to keep syncing with the page numbers and sections the professors/teachers are referring to... and their value plummets to near zero. Making them a bargain for someone who just wants a decent text on the subject.
And lets face it, high school to first year calculus mathematics hasn't changed in 30+ years.
Its not comp.sci.
[PS just to clarify this post comment is addressed at the OP, not the person I'm responding too. Obviously, if your in school and can buy used great; I did this whenever possible, but I'd never advocate a -student- buy a significantly older edition. Its just hassle you don't need. But they'd be great for the OP.]
U.K., Australia, Canada, Poland, and many other countries sent troops.
Canada was and is in Afghanistan. They declined to participate in Iraq, and were against it.
The US sent 250,000
As for the 'many other countries' sent troops, you are referring to:
Of the 41 countries involved: 39 of them sent 2000 or less. (Of that 39, 33 sent less than 500, and of that 33, 12 sent less than 100.) A few sent less than 10.
But ok, it was still a US led coaltion. No real argument there.
The U.S. didn't invade Iraq unilaterally, either.
Unilateral would mean ONLY U.S. troops.
Uni = one, Lateral = side.
The US war on Iraq was "unilateral" or "one sided" because the other side (the Iraq side) never attacked America either before or after the US attacked them.
In the US/Japan conflict both sides struck each other in a number of conflicts during the war, and Japan struck America first, making American retaliation completely justifiable and uncontroversial.
But don't let the facts interfere with your religion of liberalism.
I'm not the one who has issues with 'facts' Mr "Canada was there too". But hey, don't let actual facts interfere with your narrow minded grandstanding.
On a console like the 360, it's only a matter of clicking X and selecting the new profile.
You are answering soley in terms of consoles. My original post was primarily referring to keyboard/mouse PC games, and I said so in that post.
but i really don't think it is. It would make menus overly complicated for something as trivial as this.
When switching from a left handed person to a right handed person in your average PC game its a completely different setup. Its not remotely trivial to change it. A lot of lefties don't even use "W/A/S/D" for movement in FPSes.
If you're playing Quake4 or Unreal Tournament, or Ghost Recon, or almost anything else, its a royal pain to switch from player to player.
Lets look at some games sales stats for October...
DS 135,851
Xbox 360 129,986
Wii 95,800
PSP 91,966
PS3 29,718
I'd be happier if you posted world wide game sales stat. Those numbers are just America, cover just one week, and its the 1st week following the launch of Halo 3 no less.
Moreover the Wii is still only moderately available, and once the christmas shopping picks up, most people predict its going to go back to 'seriously unavailable'.
Add in the numbers for Japan or World Wide, and the Wii is still right up there with the xbox. And this is at a time when the Xbox is riding the peak of popularity with Halo3 launch madness, possibly one of the most highly hyped and anticipated games ever.
If any console is in a 'bubble' right now, its the xbox 360.
The dual nature of patents leads me to a counterintuitive position. I actually think patents should be weak in fields that enjoy lots of innovation, and strong in fields that lack innovation.
How is that counter intuitive? Seems perfectly logical to me. Obvious even.
(Which means you should flesh out your idea, somehow get a computer involved, and patent it.)
who thinks that the US gov't would pay any foreign-levied fine of $100B?
They don't have to 'make the US pay' to effect a win. They'll just take it out of what other countries owe the US. Refuse to hear any complaints the US makes about any other country, and so on.
The US for the most part has benefitted from the WTO, and has won many complaints and settlements.
Its used the WTO on behalf of Monsanto to force US GMO's into the EU despite bans based on health concerns, its demanded reparations for loans Great Britain and France made to Airbus despite providing tax cuts to Boeing, and recently its even complained to the WTO about China on behalf of the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
It won't be able to use the WTO against the rest of the world to its own advantage. And it won't be able to collect on any settlements its won. That will rapidly add up.
Well, that makes no sense then.
It makes perfect sense.
She purchased the OS on the suggestion of her 13 year old daughter, so apparently her opinion mattered at some point.
No the childs opinion "that it was good value" NEVER mattered, was never even considered.
The childs desire for it, and the fact that it would make them happy to get it, (even if it had no value) was all that mattered.
Either her 13 year old is worth listening to or she isn't, but using her age as an excuse or ignoring her opinion is pretty underhanded when mom didn't have a problem with that very same opinion previously.
My 2 year old asks for a cookie and points to a bag. I indulge the child and buy that particular type of cookie. It turns out it tastes like ass and has the texture of shit. If I call the company and tell them so, should the CEO respond, "well the 2 year old saw value in them."
If I retort, "she's 2", what then? Is it really the case that "either my 2 year old is worth listening to, or she isn't, and using her age as an excuse is pretty underhanded when I didn't have a problem with that same opinion previously."?
See the logical flaw there? The mother never judged the 2 year olds desire for the cookie based upon reasoning that the child has made a thoughtful adult value judgement before asking for the cookie. The mother is saying the kid saw a cookie and wanted it, and she decided to indulge the kid. There is nothing dishonest or underhanded in that. Its a perfectly reasonable reason to buy something.
And that's what happened here.
So by saying "She's 13" she is saying "She didn't want it because saw value in it. She wanted it because it was shiny and her friend had it. And when I bought it for her I didn't do so because I thought she had determined that their was good value. I bought it to indulge her, to be a cool mom, because I can easily afford it, and because I didn't think it would be such an utter disaster."
Precisely. She's not willing to be held accountable for the fact that, in the end, she made the operating system purchase and was not pleased with it. So she's blaming Steve because her precious daughter 'doesn't know any better' ... even though she was apparently the sole motivation for the purchase. It's sad how little personal accountability people have these days.
Its sad how much bullshit can come out of one persons mouth.
He comment that 'she's 13' was in response to Ballmer's:
"She saw value in Vista".
THAT is the bullshit statement, because its an idiotic thing to say about a 13 year old who wants a new shiny. Do you think the teen 'sat down and evaluated her needs, weighing the costs and risks of upgrading against continuing with what she had and concluded there was value in upgrading'.
No, she saw something her friend had, thought it looked neat, and said she wanted it. Its the same reason kids want Ferraris instead of Volvos. If this mother had bought her kid a Ferrari and it broke down immediately and spent 6 months waiting for parts, and the mother blasted the Ferrari ceo that their cars were junk and the ceo responded with...
"Well your son clearly saw value in our latest model Ferrari."
It would be the same thing. Its idiotic to say that a 15 year old sees value in Ferrari. They see shiny new and cool, and want it. That's not seeing **VALUE** in the adult sense of the word.
Now it would be fair to say, "what kind of idiot parent buys their kid a ferrari anyway?" Its an excessively expensive car well known for being high maintenance with long repair times due to general parts un-availability. But the Ferrari CEO could hardly go -THERE- now could he?
And that pretty much describes Vista too. It may be true that the mother bought Vista on a lark to please her kid and should accept responsibility for the fact that it was her bad decision. But could Ballmer have said that? "What kind of mother buys Vista on a lark to piease their kid? Its overpriced and largely broken, with mostly cosmetic features, and nearly everyone knows it it should still be in beta."
Of course not, MS wants people to buy Vista on impulse, and they market it as a cool and easy upgrade that everyone wants. If they can't deliver deliver on that, then the problem lies with Microsoft. Not the mother for trusting them. Not when they put so much effort into convincing us to trust them. They can't then turn around and BLAME US for going along with it.
--> This i disagree. Profiles actually makes it that each player can have his own save, settings and preferences for himself. I don't want this to go away. I can't remember the number of times my wife or i accidentally wiped a save of each other by accident because there was no "locked" profile.
I agree. Note that I don't have a problem with 'profiles' themselves I just don't want the control settings *locked* away behind one. There is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to import your wifes control settings into your profile. Nor should a single profile be linked to a single control set; let me create multiple control sets and rotate between them within my single profile.
Vista x64
Sorry but that is simply not true. Way to rewrite history. The majority of Japanese citizens believed in what their government was doing.
You misunderstood what I was trying to say. Yes the Japanese believed in what their government was doing, but it was faith in their own government and patriotism not years of ground in hatred of America that would have driven them to fight.
These sneaky little bombs here and there are just not going to do it. Sorry. So they may be pissed about being occupied by a foreign power, but I guess they are not pissed enough to try to really fight.
First any attempt to organize, even if it was in the cards, would be exactly what the US would want. A nice conventional enemy to fight. If one wanted to fight the US, guerilla/terrorist tactics would be one's best bet. You aren't going to go toe to toe with them and win.
Second, they don't have the will to organize and fight collectively because they hate each other just as much. The various factions are more interested in securing their own dominance in Iraq over the other factions than they are interested in driving the American's out. The real coup is getting the American's to take sides. The faction doing that wins control of Iraq.
And that is the key. Defeated enemies tend to become the strongest allies when you take the time to stick around and rebuild the country so that it is nicer than it was when you first showed up. Japan is an ally because we were allowed to finish the job and did not "cut and run".
Oh for crying out loud, the thinly veiled reference to Iraq is ludicrous.
We didn't unilaterally invade Japan. They were at war prior to our involvement with them.
Japan wasn't harboring long term resentment over American oppression and manipulation at the individual level the way many Iraqi's 'hate america'.
Japan wasn't already on the point of a civil war due to multiple mutually hostile internal factions that were barely being contained by the brutal dictator we installed and propped up.
So it was largely the government that was at war with the US, not the 'people'.
So when Japan surrendered after the nuclear weapons attacks, and the government was dissolved and reformed they really did surrender, and the whole country especially the average civilians were pretty unified in their desire to get on with the rebuilding. Iraq has gone a completely different direction; with multiple competing hostile factions that were there all along going at each other with America caught in the middle of it.
Even if the US manages to ultimately succeed, it will be by siding with one of the factions and helping them become dominant and rebuilding with them... this will only alienate the other factions who will just become even more hostile to the US, and they will gather with allies in Afghanistan, Iran, etc.
At -best- its going to be Israel all over again. Sure we have a great ally in the faction we helped dominate and claim and rebuild the space, but at what cost? perpetual war and festering anti-american sentiment from the displaced/neighboring factions.
She was smart enough to try and use the defence that someone "spoofed" her IP for 3 years. If she knows what that is, she's smart enough to know how kazaa works.
Give me a break; she likely learned that from her lawyer. Or at the very least learned it AFTER she was charged.
I don't know about you, but *after* I had a car accident making a left turn I made damn well sure to learn what ALL my possible defences were. It turns out where I live, if someone passes you from behind and impacts your driver side while you are making a left turn it MATTERS whether that left turn was onto a road vs a driveway in terms of how fault is assigned. Finding that out saved me several thousand bucks. [I was turning into a 'road' going into a public park, it could have been classified as a driveway, but the fact that it had its own stop sign, and the the lines painted on the road opened up to acknowledge the 'intersection' lended enough weight to my argument that it was a road to sway the assignment of fault.
(Frankly, I can't beleive that someone pulling out from behind you into the oncoming lane to execute a pass and hitting your drivers door while you execute a left turn could ever be not at fault, but around here at least, that's the law.)
The point is people learn about what there defense options are in a big hurry when it becomes relevant. The fact that she talked about IP spoofing at her trial in no way convinces me she knew anything whatsoever about computers before the trial.
Not only are most mass e-mails spam, but pushing a message with multiple image attachments to tens of thousands of users is a huge waste of bandwidth. Let's reserve e-mail for personal, one to few communication. Companies can use RSS or some similar mechanism to get their newsletters out.
1) How does RSS save bandwidth? The images are loaded when each user checks their newsletter? Assuming the newsletter is legit, then te read rate will be high, and the bandwidth gets used anyway.
2) The newsletters I personally send out are hosted on the web for archival anyway, so we just send them the email with the images linked to the web based images; i'm not sure if bandwidth is overall saved or not. People who don't read the messages consume less, people who read them clear their cache, and read them again use more. On well managed a legit mailing list you'll get most readers at least opening the message.
3) RSS is GREAT for the end user; and I personally prefer to subscribe to rss over email because I get to do it anonymously. Its great for companies too because it dodges the whole 'someone thinks this is spam even though they double opted in' crap. But at the same time, not having the email address of the recipients is a real loss.
But regardless, RSS is moot. Most people out there aren't comfortable with RSS, and the email newsletter is a lot more accessible to less technically savvy people who don't have a clue what RSS is. Anyone doing legit newsletter distribution would be insane to cut over to pure RSS, they'd lose far too many people.