I get that part of it but I do that with just Google Maps instantly anywhere on the Internet. I guess I don't see what you gain from installing Earth versus just using Google Maps online.
I think all of this stuff is cool but I don't think it overshadows any and all accomplishments in our history (and I'm sure that's not what you really meant).
I have an HDMI enable HDTV and I use it. It's good I guess but the problem I have with HDMI is that it's limited to one stream of information per connection. Look at firewire, it allows you to daisy chain multimedia and other devices and it works pretty well. I'm sure HDMI has way more bandwidth but most people aren't looking to get 8 streams of digital audio and 1080p. I'd be much happier if I could daisy chain a cable high-def box with a DVD player or game console and send that to my TV. In my setup I run an HDMI cable from my cable box to my TV but since my TV (a panasonic) doesn't have any digitial audio output I still need to run a S/PDIF optical cable from my cable box to my audio receiver.
What a truly revolutionary digital interface would provide in my opinion is all the goodness of digital audio and video over one cord for several devices with a common protocol for controlling what's being used. This would simplify cable hook-ups plus make it easier to switch between sources (I know my parents have a horrible time switching from DVDs to TV to VCR, etc.).
I'm trying not to troll here but I don't really "get" the point of Google Earth. I understand that it's cool to look around cities and famous places but is that it? Am I missing something?
I'm a huge fan of Google maps, I think they're really handy for getting quick directions with a super easy and pretty cool AJAX interface. I don't see what downloading and installing Google Earth gives me other than novelty.
Plus Google maps are very "Web 2.0" whereas Google Earth is still program that needs to be downloaded and installed. It seems like Google is going after both web (gmail, spreadsheets, etc.) and windows/mac/linux (Earth, Picasa) apps at the same time which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since their revenue comes from online advertising and from my perspective they've excelled(no pun intended) at the Web 2.0 stuff and been just so-so with the more traditional applications.
Off the top of my head answer:
The 32-bit version and 64-bit version have separate binary files that need to be complied for two different platforms. If you had them together you'd basically have to download two versions of every program that's been compiled for both the x86 and x64 processors.
Most "average joe" consumers won't be downloading Vista anyway and those that will eventually buy in the store instead of having it come on their new Dell PC will either only be offered the 32 bit version or will have to ask the computer sales guy which version to buy if they don't know. But considering the hardware requirements for Vista I think the number of people upgrading by buying it in their local store will be pretty low.
In general I agree with you about XBox Live. I've got it for my original XBox and I think it's great but let's not get carried away. There are still plenty of racists on XBox Live as well as its fair share of immature people in general. But I'm sure I've never seen any cheating on it - not that I play a whole lot but my brother plays the SOCOM games on PS2 and according to him there's lots of cheating on that system.
The thing that is much better on PCs is dedicated servers. Maybe this is different for some games or on XBox 360 but playing Halo 2 online often includes waiting to reconnect when somebody gets frustrated and quits and happens to have been the game's randomly chosen host.
Another example of people making laws about things they don't have the foggiest idea about.
This is exactly why Congress delegates responsibility for specific technical areas to regulatory authorities (e.g. FCC for communications, FDA for food and drugs). Say what you want about those authorities (certainly there's a lot of negative feeling towards those two in particular) but at the very least they're a specialized unit with people who are focused on issues that they understand better than the average member of Congress.
Congress should realize that copyright issues have become too complex for them to regulate without expert help. And unfortunately the expert help that has their ears right now seems to be the extremely biased media industries.
Of course the real authoritiy on all of these issues ultimately lies with the voters. It's to them that Congress and all authoer authorities are held accountable and it's them who'll need to be upset about these issues for their elected representitives to be more aware.
It's nice of Google to interoperate with the Excel file format. I'm glad they've embraced the industry standard even if it's a proprietary format from their chief competitor. Even better they've managed to extend it to a new online medium. I wonder where they'll go next with this spreadsheet thing...
That's good to hear. I experience the exact same thing. On my old laptop running with low graphics I didn't have any problems. On a newer laptop with the details turned up I was instantly affected. And I've never had any problems with video games, boats, car ride, OmniMax, you name it.
Has Valve solved the issue that some users (including me and my brother on a different computer) were having with motion sicknes when playing Half-Life 2? I've played a lot of computer and video games my whole life and I'd never gotten motion sickness until I played HL2. On my old laptop I could play for a while without any trouble but after updating to a newer one - and nothing state-of-the-art - I couldn't play at all without feeling sick. I know there were some possible work arounds but I couldn't make it work.
Anybody else have these problems? Or know if it's better in episode 1?
I've been hearing a lot of chatter about how the PS3 is difficult to program for, developers don't like it, Sony isn't providing quality libraries, blah, blah, blah. These exact same things were said about the PS2 when it first came out six years ago and it still managed to dominate its generation of console gaming. And it certainly wasn't true that developers avoided the PS2 in favor of XBOX or GameCube. As always the winner and losers of the console wars will be decided by the buying public, in the US, Japan, and Europe.
I think being too connected to the online debates about this stuff can make you lose sight of what the more average public thinks and bases their purchase decisions on. That's why the only real argument for the PS3's failure so far is the high price, not questions about performance or developer issues.
I'd gladly give up any attempts at innovation and start following if I could get the money those guys at MS have.
The real perpetual state isn't Microsoft's, it's the IT world which is so dependent on Microsoft. That's why Microsoft is so successful/entrenched, consumers, developers, administrators, managers, they all have strong and hard to break ties with Microsoft.
The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
Now if they could outlaw movies and TV shows for similar reasons we'd get rid of about 90% of the garbage coming out of hollywood these days.
Regarding the law itself, aren't laws required to be unambigious and clear as to what's legal and what isn't? How is a video game store supposed to determine what's acceptable by the adults in the local society?
What about "Microsoft" as a service mark for some of the ED medicines out there?
Microsoft? Try Viagra! Macrohard for more than 4 hours? Contact your doctor.
I think ATI is going to have to do more than cover its tracks to get out of this one. Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag there's no way some enterprising lawyer and disgruntled techies aren't going to start up a class action law suit. And this shouldn't even be hard to prove since it's obvious it just doesn't work/isn't supported unlike some lawsuits where they argue a product didn't "live up" to expectations.
Halo for PC came out long after the Xbox version and it still managed to sell very well. I think you're underestimating how many people would like to play Halo 2 on PC. Granted the xbox version of Halo couldn't be played online like the PC version, but I'm sure the Halo 2 PC version will add some new features that will make it better than the xbox version.
Also note that Gamespy stats show that Halo is still being played by lots of people on PCs. Good games sell for a long time.
It's nice that MS is making this change but I'm more curious about whether their web applications will work without MSIE specific technologies. Example: Outlook Web Access isn't feature full on non-IE browsers. Also live.com and the new hotmail interface are still limited. Project Web Access is another one. Until these applications work without IE it won't be possible for a lot of businesses to move away from IE.
Considering the majority of personal blogger write about their personal lives and reveal the most secret of details does it surprise anybody that they're extremely susceptible to targeted attacks? If you're writing about your latest illegal activities or at least embarrassing moments you probably don't aren't going to be too careful about keeping your username and password secret.
I know I'm generalizing but there have been plenty of stories here and in print media about all the trouble people get themselves into by posting things about their teachers, school mates, etc. on their blogs and myspace type sites.
Of course nobody deserves to have their privacy violated, but some people aren't very careful with it to begin with.
Why does Luxembourg have 9 satellites? I find it odd that they'd have more than countries like Italy and Australia and that China has only 3 times as many. Does Luxembourg handle satellite launches for other European countries or companies as an alternative to the ESA?
Yeah, pivot tables are great. But what's also handy and AFAIK pretty new is the easy ability to make quick lists from your spreadsheets. Adding a list creates filter options at the top and gives you a totals row at the bottom. It's like pivot tables lite and it's great for sorting through data quickly.
I do time tracking in Excel and it's simple to select one customer or one project with the lists and see a total of hours for the week.
As an ipod owner the two reasons I purchase all my music now are:
1) I'm not longer in university
2) I really like the iTunes music store.
I know a lot of people are nervous about DRM and being locked in to ipod but I'm comfortable buying all my music on ITMS. It's fast, easy, and almost always cheaper. The only time I get CDs is if they're not available online. And since I'm happy with my ipod I have no worries about being locked into it.
It seems like the trend in broadband video access is towards small fees for ownership. Apple charges a few bucks for a TV show or music video, google's doing the same thing with media partners, News Corp. is doing the same thing. It seems like they're all trying to take the ITMS model and use it for video. The thing that's different here is that there's widespread usage of legal free video already. Before iTunes sold music videos you could watch them, full length, for free. A lot of web sites let you watch music videos for free. Digital cable (I've used RCN and Comcast) offers video on demand for free.
My question is how are these services going to affect the existing offerings? If HBO sells their shows on DVD and as downloads why would they offer free video on demand?
Another problem I see with paying for video is that DVR is becoming wide spread. If you have Lost auto-recorded each week why would you need to pay for it in a few days? I'm sure there are people who'll pay for this, look at how many people pay money for ring tones, but I have doubts that video will be as popular as ITMS has proved to be with audio.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 1
The super market cards aren't used to keep tab on customers per se. Do you think stop and shop really wants to spy on you? The idea behind the cards is to track purchase patterns so that they can better sell to their customers. Maybe they notice that people buying soda frequently buy doritos so they put the two items in the same isle, things like that. Obviously they could keep track of individual purchases without a card but the card let's them track across visits and stores.
Slashdot Mirror
I get that part of it but I do that with just Google Maps instantly anywhere on the Internet. I guess I don't see what you gain from installing Earth versus just using Google Maps online.
I think all of this stuff is cool but I don't think it overshadows any and all accomplishments in our history (and I'm sure that's not what you really meant).
I have an HDMI enable HDTV and I use it. It's good I guess but the problem I have with HDMI is that it's limited to one stream of information per connection. Look at firewire, it allows you to daisy chain multimedia and other devices and it works pretty well. I'm sure HDMI has way more bandwidth but most people aren't looking to get 8 streams of digital audio and 1080p. I'd be much happier if I could daisy chain a cable high-def box with a DVD player or game console and send that to my TV. In my setup I run an HDMI cable from my cable box to my TV but since my TV (a panasonic) doesn't have any digitial audio output I still need to run a S/PDIF optical cable from my cable box to my audio receiver.
What a truly revolutionary digital interface would provide in my opinion is all the goodness of digital audio and video over one cord for several devices with a common protocol for controlling what's being used. This would simplify cable hook-ups plus make it easier to switch between sources (I know my parents have a horrible time switching from DVDs to TV to VCR, etc.).
I'm trying not to troll here but I don't really "get" the point of Google Earth. I understand that it's cool to look around cities and famous places but is that it? Am I missing something?
I'm a huge fan of Google maps, I think they're really handy for getting quick directions with a super easy and pretty cool AJAX interface. I don't see what downloading and installing Google Earth gives me other than novelty.
Plus Google maps are very "Web 2.0" whereas Google Earth is still program that needs to be downloaded and installed. It seems like Google is going after both web (gmail, spreadsheets, etc.) and windows/mac/linux (Earth, Picasa) apps at the same time which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since their revenue comes from online advertising and from my perspective they've excelled(no pun intended) at the Web 2.0 stuff and been just so-so with the more traditional applications.
Off the top of my head answer:
The 32-bit version and 64-bit version have separate binary files that need to be complied for two different platforms. If you had them together you'd basically have to download two versions of every program that's been compiled for both the x86 and x64 processors.
Most "average joe" consumers won't be downloading Vista anyway and those that will eventually buy in the store instead of having it come on their new Dell PC will either only be offered the 32 bit version or will have to ask the computer sales guy which version to buy if they don't know. But considering the hardware requirements for Vista I think the number of people upgrading by buying it in their local store will be pretty low.
In general I agree with you about XBox Live. I've got it for my original XBox and I think it's great but let's not get carried away. There are still plenty of racists on XBox Live as well as its fair share of immature people in general. But I'm sure I've never seen any cheating on it - not that I play a whole lot but my brother plays the SOCOM games on PS2 and according to him there's lots of cheating on that system.
The thing that is much better on PCs is dedicated servers. Maybe this is different for some games or on XBox 360 but playing Halo 2 online often includes waiting to reconnect when somebody gets frustrated and quits and happens to have been the game's randomly chosen host.
This is exactly why Congress delegates responsibility for specific technical areas to regulatory authorities (e.g. FCC for communications, FDA for food and drugs). Say what you want about those authorities (certainly there's a lot of negative feeling towards those two in particular) but at the very least they're a specialized unit with people who are focused on issues that they understand better than the average member of Congress.
Congress should realize that copyright issues have become too complex for them to regulate without expert help. And unfortunately the expert help that has their ears right now seems to be the extremely biased media industries.
Of course the real authoritiy on all of these issues ultimately lies with the voters. It's to them that Congress and all authoer authorities are held accountable and it's them who'll need to be upset about these issues for their elected representitives to be more aware.
It's nice of Google to interoperate with the Excel file format. I'm glad they've embraced the industry standard even if it's a proprietary format from their chief competitor. Even better they've managed to extend it to a new online medium. I wonder where they'll go next with this spreadsheet thing...
That's good to hear. I experience the exact same thing. On my old laptop running with low graphics I didn't have any problems. On a newer laptop with the details turned up I was instantly affected. And I've never had any problems with video games, boats, car ride, OmniMax, you name it.
Has Valve solved the issue that some users (including me and my brother on a different computer) were having with motion sicknes when playing Half-Life 2? I've played a lot of computer and video games my whole life and I'd never gotten motion sickness until I played HL2. On my old laptop I could play for a while without any trouble but after updating to a newer one - and nothing state-of-the-art - I couldn't play at all without feeling sick. I know there were some possible work arounds but I couldn't make it work.
Anybody else have these problems? Or know if it's better in episode 1?
I've been hearing a lot of chatter about how the PS3 is difficult to program for, developers don't like it, Sony isn't providing quality libraries, blah, blah, blah. These exact same things were said about the PS2 when it first came out six years ago and it still managed to dominate its generation of console gaming. And it certainly wasn't true that developers avoided the PS2 in favor of XBOX or GameCube. As always the winner and losers of the console wars will be decided by the buying public, in the US, Japan, and Europe.
I think being too connected to the online debates about this stuff can make you lose sight of what the more average public thinks and bases their purchase decisions on. That's why the only real argument for the PS3's failure so far is the high price, not questions about performance or developer issues.
Ah, Microsoft's perpetual state...
Filthy rich.
I'd gladly give up any attempts at innovation and start following if I could get the money those guys at MS have.
The real perpetual state isn't Microsoft's, it's the IT world which is so dependent on Microsoft. That's why Microsoft is so successful/entrenched, consumers, developers, administrators, managers, they all have strong and hard to break ties with Microsoft.
The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
Now if they could outlaw movies and TV shows for similar reasons we'd get rid of about 90% of the garbage coming out of hollywood these days.
Regarding the law itself, aren't laws required to be unambigious and clear as to what's legal and what isn't? How is a video game store supposed to determine what's acceptable by the adults in the local society?
What about "Microsoft" as a service mark for some of the ED medicines out there?
Microsoft? Try Viagra!
Macrohard for more than 4 hours? Contact your doctor.
This is almost as bad as this guy Linus. He's invented Unix but without all that, you know...money
But can you speak for the Corps?
I think ATI is going to have to do more than cover its tracks to get out of this one. Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag there's no way some enterprising lawyer and disgruntled techies aren't going to start up a class action law suit. And this shouldn't even be hard to prove since it's obvious it just doesn't work/isn't supported unlike some lawsuits where they argue a product didn't "live up" to expectations.
Halo for PC came out long after the Xbox version and it still managed to sell very well. I think you're underestimating how many people would like to play Halo 2 on PC. Granted the xbox version of Halo couldn't be played online like the PC version, but I'm sure the Halo 2 PC version will add some new features that will make it better than the xbox version.
Also note that Gamespy stats show that Halo is still being played by lots of people on PCs. Good games sell for a long time.
It's nice that MS is making this change but I'm more curious about whether their web applications will work without MSIE specific technologies. Example: Outlook Web Access isn't feature full on non-IE browsers. Also live.com and the new hotmail interface are still limited. Project Web Access is another one. Until these applications work without IE it won't be possible for a lot of businesses to move away from IE.
Considering the majority of personal blogger write about their personal lives and reveal the most secret of details does it surprise anybody that they're extremely susceptible to targeted attacks? If you're writing about your latest illegal activities or at least embarrassing moments you probably don't aren't going to be too careful about keeping your username and password secret.
I know I'm generalizing but there have been plenty of stories here and in print media about all the trouble people get themselves into by posting things about their teachers, school mates, etc. on their blogs and myspace type sites.
Of course nobody deserves to have their privacy violated, but some people aren't very careful with it to begin with.
Why does Luxembourg have 9 satellites? I find it odd that they'd have more than countries like Italy and Australia and that China has only 3 times as many. Does Luxembourg handle satellite launches for other European countries or companies as an alternative to the ESA?
Yeah, pivot tables are great. But what's also handy and AFAIK pretty new is the easy ability to make quick lists from your spreadsheets. Adding a list creates filter options at the top and gives you a totals row at the bottom. It's like pivot tables lite and it's great for sorting through data quickly.
I do time tracking in Excel and it's simple to select one customer or one project with the lists and see a total of hours for the week.
Where's my Tab?
As an ipod owner the two reasons I purchase all my music now are:
1) I'm not longer in university
2) I really like the iTunes music store.
I know a lot of people are nervous about DRM and being locked in to ipod but I'm comfortable buying all my music on ITMS. It's fast, easy, and almost always cheaper. The only time I get CDs is if they're not available online. And since I'm happy with my ipod I have no worries about being locked into it.
It seems like the trend in broadband video access is towards small fees for ownership. Apple charges a few bucks for a TV show or music video, google's doing the same thing with media partners, News Corp. is doing the same thing. It seems like they're all trying to take the ITMS model and use it for video. The thing that's different here is that there's widespread usage of legal free video already. Before iTunes sold music videos you could watch them, full length, for free. A lot of web sites let you watch music videos for free. Digital cable (I've used RCN and Comcast) offers video on demand for free. My question is how are these services going to affect the existing offerings? If HBO sells their shows on DVD and as downloads why would they offer free video on demand? Another problem I see with paying for video is that DVR is becoming wide spread. If you have Lost auto-recorded each week why would you need to pay for it in a few days? I'm sure there are people who'll pay for this, look at how many people pay money for ring tones, but I have doubts that video will be as popular as ITMS has proved to be with audio.
The super market cards aren't used to keep tab on customers per se. Do you think stop and shop really wants to spy on you? The idea behind the cards is to track purchase patterns so that they can better sell to their customers. Maybe they notice that people buying soda frequently buy doritos so they put the two items in the same isle, things like that. Obviously they could keep track of individual purchases without a card but the card let's them track across visits and stores.