These are estimated costs from the Gamestop Website.
Sony PSP: $170 ($120 refurbed) Nintendo DS: $170 ($80 refurbed) Nintendo Wii: $250
Apple Touch8G: $229 32G: $399
Apples Potential Strategy:
1. Alter the touch to add an up/down/left/right and A, B button (10 extra bucks from a manufacturing standpoint!? I'm pulling this number out of my ass... but adding something that simple and mass producing can't be expensive)
2. Release the 16gig as the new 8gig ($225... maybe bring it down down $199 to combat current systems)
3. Now hardcores get what they want, wii crowd gets a portable wii like system
4. Introduce a massive new crowd to the iTunes store who might not have used it before
5. Massive profit
Having spent a large amount of my youth playing games like real-time strats and shooters... and having gone to competitions and doing really well, I can give you the simple answer as to why the "games" would not do well.
Real time strategies... are too slow. I've played games with people of equal caliber that latest 5 minutes, and others that lasted well over 3-5+ hours. It's not consistent and most people don't understand what is happening. It's like watching chess, sure it's intriguing, but it's boring after a bit, let alone watching it over and over. Playing it yourself is much more fun.
Shooters. I'm by no means the best, but I'm usually very high ranked on many of the GAMING servers (not competitions). The reason why is because i'm constantly moving and I react quickly. This has been shown on many shows that that's how the GOOD gamers do it too. The problem with this is that I've been told countless times by my friends watching me play that I make them motion sick from moving to much and so fast. I can't imagine what it would be like to actually watch "professionals" do that for a half hour straight. The only way it would work is if they showed small 3-5 second clips, or just random frags... and then focused on the PLAYERS. The problem with that of course is that PLAYERS are just sitting in front of screens clicking a mouse and keyboard... so that gets old after a few seconds.
I can see there being gamer competitions, and i'm sure that the TOP players will do well $$ wise, but I don't think that the "professional gaming" will ever really become "mainstream". There is too little happening, too few things that changes in the game, and it's too difficult to understand for people who don't already play.
In the end, the people who would watch it the most, would be the people PLAYING the games. Except, that after watching it for a few minutes, they'd probably turn off the tv, and start playing the games themselves.
I'm debating if I should post this since it's been an idea of mine for a LONG while now. Sadly, reality is that I do not know people in the market, nor do I have the startup funds (nor time) to try and GET the funds / make the contacts from scratch. The whole point of this is for a FOR PROFIT / Partial OSS company... and even if I personally don't do it, if someone else can... I'll still win (better game = I... the player... wins). That being said, if any major game devs, or people out there read this, feel free to contact me for more ideas, or to get me on board to help run this... I have lots more ideas than what is just written here...
Now... The point...
It sickens me that companies don't want to take chances on games that might lose a little money, or make only a measly few million (this is when everyone will say wtf is wrong with a few million). This is the same problem with Hollywood and why tv shows like Firefly were canceled for only having a few million views (few million!!)
The idea then... is to make a company encourages GOOD GAME DEVELOPMENT. I know... horrible idea right? Why make a game that can make 20-50 million in the first year... then never make money again.. when you can make a game that will make 100+ million over 5 years.. potentially make tons on money on toys like game figurines, maybe make a movie out of it and profit even more? I guess greed = quick money... not smart investments.
Here is how I see this. All game engines / code created under the name of the company are 100% owned by said overall company. If the game engine is developed from scratch under the name of the overall company... then only say... 5-10% of all profits go to the company, and the game devs/company makes most of the money. (wow... could this mean that a gaming company with more money can hire better / more devs to make games faster / better in the future?! BRILLIANT!!). On the other hand, if you simply use a PRE-DEVELOPED game engine (all engines the overall company owns can be used for any project), with no payment upfront, depending on the age / newness factor, anywhere between 30-70% of the profits go to the overall company.
BUT, no worries, as there is an in between! If you make a significant alteration / addition to an existing engine (how long has the unreal engines been used?!), then the overall company makes less profit, and the gaming company makes more profit. Example, take a REALLY new awesome engine.... One that the company might charge 70% of profit for... have a predefined set of goals established for the engine from the gaming company for what they want to do (additional modules... potential clean up of lots of known issues from the first game that was using the engine... etc). If they do / add/ make the changes... then that 70% can be brought down to 40-60%... they didn't do all the work, but they made the product better. This would encourage using the engines and fixing / cleaning them.
Final money thought... Caps could be put on to profit for the OVERALL COMPANY (NOT the game company). Example... overall company would take 70% of all profits... up to 50 or 100 million dollars. Games like WoW would have hit that limit... and then suddenly would be making a TON more money. This is actually motivation for the game companies to make a better game, because if they make a long lasting game... eventually they'll get over that hump and make 100% profit!
BTW, the overall company would NOT set the price on the game... the overall company would make recommendations.. but if the game company wanted to set the price at half of what the overall c
My understanding of Google is that they are smart because they do NOT want a monopoly on almost anything (other than being the search engine of choice). Do not misread this as they don't WANT to be on top, all I'm saying is that they are willing to step down a rank or two if they can get a % of money from the companies who take those top postions... less work, and there is still pay while pushing competition. The public wins, and google keeps making more money. This is an interesting business concept and very smart. No one who is "on top" will ever stay on top, but the person who is friends with those on top will always be popular and in "good relations". This is what Google has done. It's made tons of alliances with open source groups, and if google creates competition between all those smaller groups, but has it's hand in all of them even taking only 1% or 2% profits, in the end, everyone is still paying google, and google never get the bad rep if one of those OTHER companies changes.
It's brilliant if you think about it!
By educating users that IE is broken (by breaking popular sites and putting but a big banner saying "Your browser is broken, try these:...", That is something that even the most simple users of the internet (non-savvy types) can understand.
Chrome = webkit. Webkit = w3c compliant. By pushing firefox and chrome, they are in fact pushing Safari (webkit based), Konqueror (Webkit), and Opera (I forget what is running opera, but it's almost always 90%+ w3c compliant). In the end, the very few companies / people loose from this move. Microsoft being one of the few that does.
I'm curious to see benchmarks. I've read a couple articles recently from windows reviewers who in the past have been painfully biased, but none show anything other than screens and "It's Snappier"... or "Works on 512mb ram". If I remember right, Vista was suppose to work with 512mb ram too, but with pretty much any of the features turned on, it's useless.
I think the better question is... is W7 actually "snappier", or in the past 2 years have more people simply upgraded their computers?
You sell it to her as being able to see the stars. There is some pretty crazy math involved in this, and you could probably get her looking at NASA and stuff like that.
While I realize that this is still nerdy, there is some really fun things / ideas about being an astronaut (or at least directly helping them) that can come from space. Hell, have her look into space business, space travel / space hotels and stuff... it is the future after all.
If that doesn't work... use her interests. Ex: if she likes drawing, go for a civil engineering degree. Don't be an engineer though, be an architect / designer. Lots of money opportunities for an architect who can prove that the buildings not only look good, but will actually stand! Either way, and engineering degree might be good no matter what she does, since it's a BIG resume booster... even if she ends up going into pottery making or becoming a chef.
Even though they were showing it used for games and such, I honestly doubt that they mean it to be used for normal home use (at least initially)
As everyone says, the lack of tactical feedback, and the tiredness factor would keep it out of use for most people. I can on the other hand see a MAJOR markets for these elsewhere:
1. Presentations. Having someone just point towards a screen in a meeting would be great for collaborative use. It's better than a touch screen since people wouldn't need to crowd around the projector and block out the image.
2. How cool would it be if something like this was set up with a "reverse camera"... Then you would point at something, and a system would look to where you are pointing at and pull up information. Example: At the aquarium, you point at a specific fish or shark, and it'll recognize it, and pull up a little information window about that animal.
3. Something MUCH MORE futuristic. This is the beginning of using 3d holographics. With this part done, we just need to show a 3d hologram, use this technology on it, and we can poke certain parts of the hologram image to "select" it. Example: Doctors have a 3d hologram of their patients x-ray, they could use this as a "multitouch" hologram to grab the image and move/rotate it. That would be freakin sweet!
The key here is that it would be used for LOTS of things that don't involve constant use for long periods of time (gaming, computer work, etc). That's just my $.02 though...
In response to this, I feel that I should explain why I, also a republican, will be voting for Obama. Keep in mind the first 2 points are based on "chance". Non-verifiable, but HOPEFULLY are true.
Interestingly, his "lack of experience" is in fact one of the things that I LIKE. Almost NO ONE has ever has "presidential experience". Why? Because there is only 1 job like that. As a result, it's the general ideals you go into office with that sets the premise for how you will do, as well as the team you have around you. Obama hasn't been in a Government position as long as many of the others... and therefor has much less chance of being corrupted. I'm not saying he's NOT, I'm just saying that he might not be as corrupt.
He's black. I'm not saying this as a bad thing. But the point is, he's black. This means he's "the first of his kind". The same applies for any minority, or gender. Someone who is a "first" will LIKELY try THAT MUCH HARDER to make it known that "their kind" can not only do a good job, but can actually do a great job. This is of course speculation, but history shows that many of the first women in major positions have worked their asses off to prove that they can be just as good, or better then their male counterparts. In this case, we now have a black man who, if elected, "will have to"/"will try to" prove to all the racist folks AND people who didn't vote for him, that he was worth it! Of course, he might not care at all... but there is a good chance that he WOULD make it a point to work hard to give himself, and all black folks out there, a good name!
Last of all, I'm voting not JUST voting for Obama, but actually for Biden. I'm an American, born in New Jersey.. but both my parents are Hungarian. I was raised to speak it and at 18 could already speak 3 languages fluently. I've lived my whole life around foreigners and I realize the power of foreign aid, and foreign help. It's KILLS me when I hear American's ramble on about "we are the best, we don't need anyone else"... have you checked the label on ALMOST ANYTHING you own? We RELY on everyone else. Biden is one of the best foreign issues/policy people in the American gov. on either the republican/democratic side (admitted by both sides in a few articles I've read). If anyone can do a good job on helping to clean up our name with the rest of the world, might as well choose the guy who's been doing it almost his whole career in government!
There is a little more to why "dvd's" won't be replaced by flash drives any time soon.
Not only is it more expensive to make flash drives, but they're not "convenient" when it comes to things like movies. Ex: I like my cd / dvd binders. I write all over my cd's and I know LOTS of people who print out cd covers to actually put on to those cd/dvd's instead of just writing on it. Therefor they're easier to look at / look up. Ever tried writing / scratching your name into a Flash drive?
Cd's by design are round. Therefor they made them with holes in the middle. This makes it REALLY easy to stack them. If I was going to buy 10-15 flash drives... where would I put them so that they wouldn't get lost everywhere... I have a hard time keeping track of 1! I can only imagine what it would be like for my employer who makes a backup every week onto a new dvd / blueray. They keep those stacked by the years (52 per year)
The last reason I'll give... which partially ties to the last thing I said is the argument that "Oh, but you won't NEED to buy 100 cd/dvd's to store things on"... actually yes I will. Wedding? 5-20 dvd's of pics out the door to different people. New cd of music for the car? Backing up of old documents (look at the last paragraph for this one). You want to separate the data into different chunks... so there is actually merit to using many dvd/blue rays vs a handful of 300gig flash drives in the future.
I look forward to the big flash drives for stuff, i'm just saying that it won't "replace" cd/dvd's... But That's just my $.02
So far it seems that the fastest AND most affordable internet (combo) here in the states is available in the Cincinnati area (that I've personally seen). It's got 3 major cities within about 1.5 hours, one of the busiest airports in the mid-west (I'm still EST time zone), a few major train rails and highways 70,71 and 75 all very near by. This makes it a prime location for major companies, except that there aren't THAT many (proctor and gamble is here for example).
I mention this because there aren't too many nerdy types like me out here.. except that they set up the broadband out here to handle major *potential* commercial needs.
So here I sit paying $50 a month for "20 meg download" (which is literally about 2.4-2.5 megabytes per second at maxed connection). That's the upgraded package. Normally it's $40 for "10 meg download"... but 10$ more for double the connection? Easy choice for me! What is interesting is that my speeds actually can hit that through usenet / bittorrents.
Just curious, do these speeds at that low of a price exist anywhere else out there for that cheap? I've not yet heard of that elsewhere. I use Insight Broadband. Note: Internet speeds are great, but the commercials and customer service / "pay-by-internet" really really suck.
As a person playing RPG's for 18+ years.. and MMO's for about 12+ years, I can confidently say that this would fail. It's nice on paper, but would fail badly if set into motion when 20,000+ people are playing. Here is an example:
1. World of Warcraft. Horde vs Alliance. Alliance in some servers when i last played was almost 2 to 1. With double the alliance, the alliance would get bored because there would be a line to "destroy the town" (or insert any other 2 sided quest here) because it would take so long for a Horde group to finish all of the stuff to "rebuild" it.
2. Give the Horde (one specific side) better equipment? Let me re-introduce to you the bane of all MMORPG's... The NERF-STICK of +480328423. Suddenly, in PVP, Horde is better than Alliance since equipment is better. OR because equipment works better with certain stats.. Or because (insert one of many of reasons why nerfing happens). Sadly, PvP and PvE don't work well together, and things get horribly nerfed because of it, so this negates giving better equipment to one side.
3. The next problem that is added in (which partly relates to my #1) is what you mention about sides taking control of maps = organized raids. Organized raids = time. Time = complaining that "Oh but I have a job in real life, I don't want to work in a game", or "I don't have 6 hours to play" or "My class isn't needed for this raid?? WTF? LFG!! (Looking For Group)"... Basically, now you have all the casual gamers complaining that only 13 year olds are doing this since only 13 year olds (or rich spoiled kids, or fat slobs in their underwear in their parents basement) have the time, unless it's the weekend, in which case the "teams" will be HUGE and lag will kill things. =/
4. Server Populations. The other problem is that as server populations change, or as the game has been out a while.. slowly the average level changes. A System that involves needing others to effect things suddenly creates issues if there is no one going to that town anymore (new towns from expansions? Level 10 town out of 80 levels when the game has been out for 2+ years?). Suddenly no one does those quests any more since it takes forever for the "other side" to do their part.
Please understand, I LIKE the ideas and LIKE how you are thinking about it, the problem here is that too many people are going to complain about this or that.
Here is MY answer to the problem:
a. Make a PvE game ONLY.
b. Make a Grinding game ONLY.
c. Make a PvP Game ONLY. (Already done, Play Eve-Online (http://www.eve-online.com/ Warning: You will have to "work" to do anything in game. Little to no free-be's.
d. Make an Instance game ONLY where it's really easy and no one has to play the "Massive Multi-Player"... with any other players (hmm.. weird eh?)
The end result is that you can't have a fully persistant world, have PvE and PvP, have Full economies etc etc. all in one game since it's almost the same as putting 5 holy men of different religions into a room and asking them to decide which is better. All will agree that there is something bigger than them, but none will agree on the "perfect method" to find / get to / understand that greater being. (sorry for the religious reference, it was just an easy example to stress how many different sides there are). In the end, making smaller games to individually target those groups I listed above (instead of making ONE game.. most likely badly... with all aspects in there) would fix a lot of issues. After that we can work on trying to make things persistent. (Like EVE which has some good persistent aspects already!)
I mention America specifically as a generic example that everyone understands for one reason. "Unlimited Internet Bandwidth". This type of a model (even if it is a model where MOST of the OS is on current hardware but then randomly checks the internet for it's main "modular" pieces, vs having it all on the Hard Drive as we current do) cannot work well because other countries actually have to pay for speicifc amounts of bandwidth.
And even now, I've read random articles talking about ISPs (in america) which are considering moving to the "Pay for Bandwidth Tiers" models. WTF is the point of getting an OS that eats up all of your bandwidth just to stay turned on and be running a screen saver? It would need to randomly connect out and update things after all...
Some might argue that this is already being done, and that "caching" would solve the problem... except that caching would negate the whole purpose of an online-OS (it needs to always have the latest thing to work well). Currently windows ALREADY connects out and randomly checks things and uses bandwidth, but it's NOT downloading entire modules as something like that would require.
Sorry, but if I lived somewhere with Pay-As-You-Go internet (I'm considering moving to Australia) I sure as hell wouldn't pay more money to an ISP on a monthly basis just so that I can use the "latest and greatest" windows.
We "put up with it" because we have no choice in the matter.
It always makes me laugh when people post something like "If you don't like it, don't use it!"... Explain to me how I'm suppose to do that when I don't have a choice.
I'm a professional Web developer. Dial up is out of the question. But wait! It doesn't matter what my job is since 90%+ (I'm pulling this out of my ass) of webpages now assume that JS is turned on AND that you have "broadband" (there was a/. post about this a while ago and I'm too lazy to look it up). So that means for me to really do anything, I need "high speed". I'm an hour south west of Pittsburg in the state of Pennsylvania. My options are 1. Comcast for $50 american a month. 2. DSL. for 50$ a month, 3m/b download -- note: 3m/b download as BEST CASE --, AND you are forced to pay 20-25$ a month to ALSO have a phone line (required). Even though I use VOIP for business(25$ a month). That means that DSL would cost me 75$ a month, for much less options and access AND staticy lines.
So what are my options? Pay more for less with DSL? Or hold hands with the devil (comcast) and let them do anything they want to me?
Thanks to the government here not doing anything about it (since they're probably well paid by lobbyists) a LOT of us really don't have options.
What CAN I do? Vote? HA! that would involve us actually getting that option from the people running the country who mostly think that "that internet is some new fangled thingy running on those tubes in a closet". Those who don't think that are people like Al Gore *cough*dumbass*cough* - "The inventor of the internet"
This sueing is some of the best news I've seen in quite a while
Before anyone starts pestering me on this, I want to mention that I've been using *nix based systems for a long while now. I'm a software engineer, and I worked at a linux based ISP for two years on top of it. I've installed countless distro's and eventually stopped using them all (mostly for gaming reasons). The one problem I have every time I go back to loading up gentoo (still my fav) is lack of applications I like.
Example: Trillian for windows / Adium for mac (click on Xtras, top right of screen). They're pretty looking, they're functional and have lots of addons. Linux has gaim (which I love actually, but it's the point of the matter. I don't have the option to switch from "clean and basic interface" to "fun with extras").
I'm a web developer, and my favorite database program to date was for Mac (Yoursql.. or look at this image). It's small, it's light, and it does 99% of what I need (which is just quick look ups and checking data). In this case, I LIKE not having 20 ways to do the same thing with an interface with a billion options. And no, don't tell me to use phpMyAdmin, or to use the command line, that's the easiest way to DETER someone from using linux. Yes I CAN use the command line (all my queries are written from scratch, I dislike those gui query builders).
Next is editors. Simple fixes here and there, I use Vi(m). But for my Php/xml/html/javascript/css, I want to see a program that just does web languages. For Windows and Mac there are TONS of them. For linux, there are a few, and most are either bloated to hell (eclipse, since it handles ALL programming languages for the most part) or just unstable with practically no features (line numbers? good color switching between php/html/css? tabs for multiple windows?). Given Bluefish is good stuff, but programs like this (IMHO) are few and far between.
Mac, I believe has it down the best. There are many programs, and (which is also the problem IMHO) many of them are not meant to do EVERYTHING. In the end though, you have a bunch of options(programs) to choose from, and they're really well built for what they need to do (lots of planning to put only what is generally NEEDED, while spending time to make sure the DESIGNS look good and are simple. The whole "i don't like it because it took too many mouse clicks" mentality that mac users have), instead of one or two programs that are meant to try and do everything =/. As much as I hate to admit it, eye candy is a major player. It's sad because Desktop wise, linux is AMAZING at it Linux vs Vista (I'm not trying to bash Vista here, i'm just making a point).
While I mentioned web development based things, I'm sure this is generally true for most people in most aspects of computing (I've had a lot of friends mention this about various things). I believe that biggest problem is the idea that "a program should do everything" mentality. When we build some more basic programs that are quick, clean and easy to use for any and all purposes (even basic text editors), then I believe that many more people will start to use linux because they won't be so lost from needing to search all over the internet for "a program to do X" (ubuntu / gentoo / suse all that those threads in their forums, the stuff really isn't that easy to find...) or overwhelmed by seeing the 500 options when they just wanted to write a few notes to themselves. Ubuntu was a great step at simplifying and getting people curious to install, now we just need to add more "stuff" to keep people here! The "Ready for Desktop" can be thrown out as it IS ready for desktop. Now we just need to work on the "Simple and Easy to Use".. which will eventually lead to the new,shi
Install linux... Keeps the virus' and "bad people" out.
In all honesty, I can only assume that their laptop searches will be short and narrowed down to using the windows search option. I doubt that they'll have *nix "experts" on hand at the airport security checks.
Right now, we're NOT getting the promised rate (if we actually use the access to our full benefits as the "Unlimited Access" claims).. so people always talk about doing the Pay-As-You-Go model... The problem with that is this:
The top 5 ISP's will still own everything because the government isn't steping in as it should be!
So the "pay as you go" model from comcast, will now tell you that you can use up to 200 gigs in a month, throttle you at 25 gigs, charge you the 500% more than you currently are paying to get the 200 gigs a month, and then they will say "well we are still allowing you to download up to that much since that's the plan you're paying for. After that we'll just cut you off!".
When the government puts its foot down and smacks these huge ISP's / telco's / communication companies around a little to put them in line... then something like this might be useful... but a change before that will leave most of us more broke than we already are with tons more to loose than gain.
I Disagree with this. I understand your outlook (and fully agree) that making things cross platform would be great, but i feel there are TOO MANY devices already.
I like RPGs. I'm a big fan of the final fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest series. I own a wii, and i had a ps2/ps1. But now, the other day at best buys i was roaming around bored and i saw that there was final fantasy game for the DS, for the PSP, and random other games that used to stick to one platform have now split between 2 or 3. And they are DIFFERENT games (so it's not one game ported to multiple systems). Which means, for me to keep playing the games i love, i need 1. A PC, 2. xbox 360 (fable) 3. PS3 4. DS 5. PSP 6. Wii. I can't afford that! you are looking right here at around 3,000$ just to have basic systems with a couple games. AHH!
I'm fine with competition. But more than 3 or 4 consoles is just getting to be too much! If they just turned around and made a cross platform, open source (or at least half open . half closed... like MySQL which keeps opening and closing)... That would be AMAZING! Hell, i'd donate 100$ easily to a company that laid out a full plan publicly with plans to create the fully cross-platform environment
This post assumes that the lottery numbers are chosen from one of those machines where they drop a bunch of balls into, and they use air to randomize them all.
Haveing worked as a bingo caller and in a bingo center for a few years, i've heard the craziest talk from people about how us workers are/were cheating. To be honest with you.. we're not cheating, but there "are" better chances of winning. Here is the reason why:
Depending on the machine that is used, either lighter or heavier balls will be sucked up more often. I honestly doubt that he companies who many the balls... have machines that PERFECTLY calibrate (perfectly = 100%, not 99.99%) the weight of the ball vs the ink on it to make sure that they are all 100% exactly the same weight. Next. The person who TOUCHS these lottery balls will leave greasy residue on the ball which will add weight. After the games, a lot of places will use alcohol to rub them clean. Sometimes this will change the weight of the ball too, especially if not all the grease from the fingers are taken off. After a few weeks / months of using the same balls, you actually WILL see a pattern show up.
That being said, those are bingo balls vs lottery ones, which means the bingo ones are touched much more often. Depending on how cheap those people are, they may change the balls out often, or never at all in which case a small pattern WILL emerge.
On the other hand, if they use new balls every time... the pattern emerges from how the company they get those balls from, weighs them. If it's before or after ink.. blah blah
As a final note: If you REALLY REALLY honestly think that you can win by figuring out the system, research the company that the balls come from, research how they ink / weigh them... research the TYPE of ink to see if it will help catch the wind from the machine or repel it more (more ink might mean less chance of being sucked up)... and find out from the lottery company (from an insider of course, not what they tell you over the phone) how often they ACTUALLY change the balls out.
If you DO all of that, i will consider you another crazy gambling nutcase (or a math statistician... in which case you've got other issues)... But hey, if you win from it, all the more power to you.
Are you saying that because a computerized knowledge base, owned, operated, and edited by people with computers, has a lot of stuff about computers in it, that it must therefore have a lot of stuff about everything in it? What about needlepoint? String collecting? Mayan hunting techniques? No, my friend, there's a lot more stuff to wiki about.
That's where I see the problem. Mayan Hunting techniques? Sure! Let me get some of those tribal mayan hunters... or some of the tribal africans who've never seen a computer.. to log in and write up an ar... wait, what?!
I think the issue at hand, is that the people who actively contribute, are running out of things to write about. There is a TON more that can go into wiki, but the "experts" or... people who even CARE about those subjects, are not the type who care about writing up articles about it.
The problem we need to solve for is... how to get the rest of the world to open up about their knowledge so that we can share from it. If the contributers don't KNOW of a new subject... how can they research it to find out about it and to eventually write it up?
I don't know if this already exists, and after a quick look i wasn't seeing it... but is there a "request an article" section? Example... I want to know about "Kings Mail", a specific type of way of making chainmail. It would be cool to post my request into a repository of "requests" for contributes to be able to look through?
- I guess he thought hot pants here back in season
- His little toy got too hot while he was playing with it in his pants
- I knew those ipods were hot, but i didn't think they were flaming
- He was so flaming he literally needed an extinguister to put him out
- Maybe he was listening to a Farenheit 451 audio book
- If he wanted to be a fire crotch... red hair dye is cheaper than an ipod...
I warned you.. they were bad...
In my opinion... for linux to go "mainstream"... it's actually NOT linux that's the issue.
First of all, people claim "hardware problems.. blah blah". Why? Because people are building their own systems. "Mainstream" means that people will buy PRE-MADE desktops from places like Dell and HP. Hardware problem solved (assuming those vendors properly build them and install them). This is what Apple has been doing for a long time... it's no wonder they work so well... they're very specific pieces of equipment!
The next issue. This one is FINALLY changing. Prettiness. As much as i love me some Linux... Compare it with XP, and OSX. A year ago... so crap. But this IS NOT Linux. This is KDE / Gnome / Insert_other_OS_name_here. The same with the OS logos on load up... images, icons etc. There are SO MANY pre-built icon sets out there... SO MANY that look freakin awesome... yet KDE and gnome continue to look like late 90's early 2000 desktops (compare to OSX). Again, this IS changing and the new KDE looks nice! But if they get all the bells and whistles tossed in there (AKA: Beryl Project)... Then people will "Ooohh and Ahhh".
LINUX is already in a state that could have gone mainstream a LONG time ago. It's the additional things out there that are the limiting factor. Thankfully, all that is changing... and slowly people are starting to see that. The same with the "linux is hard to install"... When was the last time a common user installed WINDOWS to see how hard that was!? They didn't... because it was vendor pre-installed.
... Get the vendors... Update Gnome / KDE in there with REALLY easier to use "Theme" options (as in... stick a big icon on the desktop to get to that theme section).. and pre-package a ton of the awesome icons and themes which are already available.... and most importantly (for me anyways)... PRAY that gaming companies STOP making games on directx. THEN it will be TRUELY mainstream.
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These are estimated costs from the Gamestop Website.
Sony PSP: $170 ($120 refurbed)
Nintendo DS: $170 ($80 refurbed)
Nintendo Wii: $250
Apple Touch 8G: $229
32G: $399
Apples Potential Strategy:
1. Alter the touch to add an up/down/left/right and A, B button (10 extra bucks from a manufacturing standpoint!? I'm pulling this number out of my ass... but adding something that simple and mass producing can't be expensive)
2. Release the 16gig as the new 8gig ($225... maybe bring it down down $199 to combat current systems)
3. Now hardcores get what they want, wii crowd gets a portable wii like system
4. Introduce a massive new crowd to the iTunes store who might not have used it before
5. Massive profit
Having spent a large amount of my youth playing games like real-time strats and shooters ... and having gone to competitions and doing really well, I can give you the simple answer as to why the "games" would not do well.
Real time strategies ... are too slow. I've played games with people of equal caliber that latest 5 minutes, and others that lasted well over 3-5+ hours. It's not consistent and most people don't understand what is happening. It's like watching chess, sure it's intriguing, but it's boring after a bit, let alone watching it over and over. Playing it yourself is much more fun.
Shooters. I'm by no means the best, but I'm usually very high ranked on many of the GAMING servers (not competitions). The reason why is because i'm constantly moving and I react quickly. This has been shown on many shows that that's how the GOOD gamers do it too. The problem with this is that I've been told countless times by my friends watching me play that I make them motion sick from moving to much and so fast. I can't imagine what it would be like to actually watch "professionals" do that for a half hour straight. The only way it would work is if they showed small 3-5 second clips, or just random frags... and then focused on the PLAYERS. The problem with that of course is that PLAYERS are just sitting in front of screens clicking a mouse and keyboard... so that gets old after a few seconds.
I can see there being gamer competitions, and i'm sure that the TOP players will do well $$ wise, but I don't think that the "professional gaming" will ever really become "mainstream". There is too little happening, too few things that changes in the game, and it's too difficult to understand for people who don't already play.
In the end, the people who would watch it the most, would be the people PLAYING the games. Except, that after watching it for a few minutes, they'd probably turn off the tv, and start playing the games themselves.
I'm debating if I should post this since it's been an idea of mine for a LONG while now. Sadly, reality is that I do not know people in the market, nor do I have the startup funds (nor time) to try and GET the funds / make the contacts from scratch. The whole point of this is for a FOR PROFIT / Partial OSS company ... and even if I personally don't do it, if someone else can ... I'll still win (better game = I... the player ... wins). That being said, if any major game devs, or people out there read this, feel free to contact me for more ideas, or to get me on board to help run this... I have lots more ideas than what is just written here ...
Now ... The point...
It sickens me that companies don't want to take chances on games that might lose a little money, or make only a measly few million (this is when everyone will say wtf is wrong with a few million). This is the same problem with Hollywood and why tv shows like Firefly were canceled for only having a few million views (few million!!)
The idea then... is to make a company encourages GOOD GAME DEVELOPMENT. I know... horrible idea right? Why make a game that can make 20-50 million in the first year ... then never make money again .. when you can make a game that will make 100+ million over 5 years .. potentially make tons on money on toys like game figurines, maybe make a movie out of it and profit even more? I guess greed = quick money ... not smart investments.
Here is how I see this. All game engines / code created under the name of the company are 100% owned by said overall company. If the game engine is developed from scratch under the name of the overall company ... then only say ... 5-10% of all profits go to the company, and the game devs/company makes most of the money. (wow ... could this mean that a gaming company with more money can hire better / more devs to make games faster / better in the future?! BRILLIANT!!). On the other hand, if you simply use a PRE-DEVELOPED game engine (all engines the overall company owns can be used for any project), with no payment upfront, depending on the age / newness factor, anywhere between 30-70% of the profits go to the overall company.
BUT, no worries, as there is an in between! If you make a significant alteration / addition to an existing engine (how long has the unreal engines been used?!), then the overall company makes less profit, and the gaming company makes more profit. Example, take a REALLY new awesome engine .... One that the company might charge 70% of profit for ... have a predefined set of goals established for the engine from the gaming company for what they want to do (additional modules... potential clean up of lots of known issues from the first game that was using the engine... etc). If they do / add/ make the changes ... then that 70% can be brought down to 40-60% ... they didn't do all the work, but they made the product better. This would encourage using the engines and fixing / cleaning them.
Final money thought ... Caps could be put on to profit for the OVERALL COMPANY (NOT the game company). Example ... overall company would take 70% of all profits ... up to 50 or 100 million dollars. Games like WoW would have hit that limit ... and then suddenly would be making a TON more money. This is actually motivation for the game companies to make a better game, because if they make a long lasting game ... eventually they'll get over that hump and make 100% profit!
BTW, the overall company would NOT set the price on the game ... the overall company would make recommendations.. but if the game company wanted to set the price at half of what the overall c
My understanding of Google is that they are smart because they do NOT want a monopoly on almost anything (other than being the search engine of choice). Do not misread this as they don't WANT to be on top, all I'm saying is that they are willing to step down a rank or two if they can get a % of money from the companies who take those top postions... less work, and there is still pay while pushing competition. The public wins, and google keeps making more money. This is an interesting business concept and very smart. No one who is "on top" will ever stay on top, but the person who is friends with those on top will always be popular and in "good relations". This is what Google has done. It's made tons of alliances with open source groups, and if google creates competition between all those smaller groups, but has it's hand in all of them even taking only 1% or 2% profits, in the end, everyone is still paying google, and google never get the bad rep if one of those OTHER companies changes.
It's brilliant if you think about it!
By educating users that IE is broken (by breaking popular sites and putting but a big banner saying "Your browser is broken, try these: ...", That is something that even the most simple users of the internet (non-savvy types) can understand.
Chrome = webkit. Webkit = w3c compliant. By pushing firefox and chrome, they are in fact pushing Safari (webkit based), Konqueror (Webkit), and Opera (I forget what is running opera, but it's almost always 90%+ w3c compliant). In the end, the very few companies / people loose from this move. Microsoft being one of the few that does.
I'm curious to see benchmarks. I've read a couple articles recently from windows reviewers who in the past have been painfully biased, but none show anything other than screens and "It's Snappier" ... or "Works on 512mb ram". If I remember right, Vista was suppose to work with 512mb ram too, but with pretty much any of the features turned on, it's useless.
I think the better question is ... is W7 actually "snappier", or in the past 2 years have more people simply upgraded their computers?
You sell it to her as being able to see the stars. There is some pretty crazy math involved in this, and you could probably get her looking at NASA and stuff like that.
While I realize that this is still nerdy, there is some really fun things / ideas about being an astronaut (or at least directly helping them) that can come from space. Hell, have her look into space business, space travel / space hotels and stuff... it is the future after all.
If that doesn't work... use her interests. Ex: if she likes drawing, go for a civil engineering degree. Don't be an engineer though, be an architect / designer. Lots of money opportunities for an architect who can prove that the buildings not only look good, but will actually stand! Either way, and engineering degree might be good no matter what she does, since it's a BIG resume booster... even if she ends up going into pottery making or becoming a chef.
Even though they were showing it used for games and such, I honestly doubt that they mean it to be used for normal home use (at least initially)
As everyone says, the lack of tactical feedback, and the tiredness factor would keep it out of use for most people. I can on the other hand see a MAJOR markets for these elsewhere:
1. Presentations. Having someone just point towards a screen in a meeting would be great for collaborative use. It's better than a touch screen since people wouldn't need to crowd around the projector and block out the image.
2. How cool would it be if something like this was set up with a "reverse camera"... Then you would point at something, and a system would look to where you are pointing at and pull up information. Example: At the aquarium, you point at a specific fish or shark, and it'll recognize it, and pull up a little information window about that animal.
3. Something MUCH MORE futuristic. This is the beginning of using 3d holographics. With this part done, we just need to show a 3d hologram, use this technology on it, and we can poke certain parts of the hologram image to "select" it. Example: Doctors have a 3d hologram of their patients x-ray, they could use this as a "multitouch" hologram to grab the image and move/rotate it. That would be freakin sweet!
The key here is that it would be used for LOTS of things that don't involve constant use for long periods of time (gaming, computer work, etc). That's just my $.02 though...
In response to this, I feel that I should explain why I, also a republican, will be voting for Obama. Keep in mind the first 2 points are based on "chance". Non-verifiable, but HOPEFULLY are true.
Interestingly, his "lack of experience" is in fact one of the things that I LIKE. Almost NO ONE has ever has "presidential experience". Why? Because there is only 1 job like that. As a result, it's the general ideals you go into office with that sets the premise for how you will do, as well as the team you have around you. Obama hasn't been in a Government position as long as many of the others... and therefor has much less chance of being corrupted. I'm not saying he's NOT, I'm just saying that he might not be as corrupt.
He's black. I'm not saying this as a bad thing. But the point is, he's black. This means he's "the first of his kind". The same applies for any minority, or gender. Someone who is a "first" will LIKELY try THAT MUCH HARDER to make it known that "their kind" can not only do a good job, but can actually do a great job. This is of course speculation, but history shows that many of the first women in major positions have worked their asses off to prove that they can be just as good, or better then their male counterparts. In this case, we now have a black man who, if elected, "will have to"/"will try to" prove to all the racist folks AND people who didn't vote for him, that he was worth it! Of course, he might not care at all... but there is a good chance that he WOULD make it a point to work hard to give himself, and all black folks out there, a good name!
Last of all, I'm voting not JUST voting for Obama, but actually for Biden. I'm an American, born in New Jersey.. but both my parents are Hungarian. I was raised to speak it and at 18 could already speak 3 languages fluently. I've lived my whole life around foreigners and I realize the power of foreign aid, and foreign help. It's KILLS me when I hear American's ramble on about "we are the best, we don't need anyone else" ... have you checked the label on ALMOST ANYTHING you own? We RELY on everyone else. Biden is one of the best foreign issues/policy people in the American gov. on either the republican/democratic side (admitted by both sides in a few articles I've read). If anyone can do a good job on helping to clean up our name with the rest of the world, might as well choose the guy who's been doing it almost his whole career in government!
There is a little more to why "dvd's" won't be replaced by flash drives any time soon.
Not only is it more expensive to make flash drives, but they're not "convenient" when it comes to things like movies. Ex: I like my cd / dvd binders. I write all over my cd's and I know LOTS of people who print out cd covers to actually put on to those cd/dvd's instead of just writing on it. Therefor they're easier to look at / look up. Ever tried writing / scratching your name into a Flash drive?
Cd's by design are round. Therefor they made them with holes in the middle. This makes it REALLY easy to stack them. If I was going to buy 10-15 flash drives... where would I put them so that they wouldn't get lost everywhere... I have a hard time keeping track of 1! I can only imagine what it would be like for my employer who makes a backup every week onto a new dvd / blueray. They keep those stacked by the years (52 per year)
The last reason I'll give ... which partially ties to the last thing I said is the argument that "Oh, but you won't NEED to buy 100 cd/dvd's to store things on" ... actually yes I will. Wedding? 5-20 dvd's of pics out the door to different people. New cd of music for the car? Backing up of old documents (look at the last paragraph for this one). You want to separate the data into different chunks... so there is actually merit to using many dvd/blue rays vs a handful of 300gig flash drives in the future.
I look forward to the big flash drives for stuff, i'm just saying that it won't "replace" cd/dvd's... But That's just my $.02
So far it seems that the fastest AND most affordable internet (combo) here in the states is available in the Cincinnati area (that I've personally seen). It's got 3 major cities within about 1.5 hours, one of the busiest airports in the mid-west (I'm still EST time zone), a few major train rails and highways 70,71 and 75 all very near by. This makes it a prime location for major companies, except that there aren't THAT many (proctor and gamble is here for example).
I mention this because there aren't too many nerdy types like me out here.. except that they set up the broadband out here to handle major *potential* commercial needs.
So here I sit paying $50 a month for "20 meg download" (which is literally about 2.4-2.5 megabytes per second at maxed connection). That's the upgraded package. Normally it's $40 for "10 meg download"... but 10$ more for double the connection? Easy choice for me! What is interesting is that my speeds actually can hit that through usenet / bittorrents.
Just curious, do these speeds at that low of a price exist anywhere else out there for that cheap? I've not yet heard of that elsewhere. I use Insight Broadband. Note: Internet speeds are great, but the commercials and customer service / "pay-by-internet" really really suck.
This is only PARTLY true since other players can use scanners and come... "visit" you while doing those missions =)
There are no "100% safe" zones in the game unless you never leave 1.0 space stations.
As a person playing RPG's for 18+ years.. and MMO's for about 12+ years, I can confidently say that this would fail. It's nice on paper, but would fail badly if set into motion when 20,000+ people are playing. Here is an example:
1. World of Warcraft. Horde vs Alliance. Alliance in some servers when i last played was almost 2 to 1. With double the alliance, the alliance would get bored because there would be a line to "destroy the town" (or insert any other 2 sided quest here) because it would take so long for a Horde group to finish all of the stuff to "rebuild" it.
2. Give the Horde (one specific side) better equipment? Let me re-introduce to you the bane of all MMORPG's ... The NERF-STICK of +480328423. Suddenly, in PVP, Horde is better than Alliance since equipment is better. OR because equipment works better with certain stats.. Or because (insert one of many of reasons why nerfing happens). Sadly, PvP and PvE don't work well together, and things get horribly nerfed because of it, so this negates giving better equipment to one side.
3. The next problem that is added in (which partly relates to my #1) is what you mention about sides taking control of maps = organized raids. Organized raids = time. Time = complaining that "Oh but I have a job in real life, I don't want to work in a game", or "I don't have 6 hours to play" or "My class isn't needed for this raid?? WTF? LFG!! (Looking For Group)" ... Basically, now you have all the casual gamers complaining that only 13 year olds are doing this since only 13 year olds (or rich spoiled kids, or fat slobs in their underwear in their parents basement) have the time, unless it's the weekend, in which case the "teams" will be HUGE and lag will kill things. =/
4. Server Populations. The other problem is that as server populations change, or as the game has been out a while.. slowly the average level changes. A System that involves needing others to effect things suddenly creates issues if there is no one going to that town anymore (new towns from expansions? Level 10 town out of 80 levels when the game has been out for 2+ years?). Suddenly no one does those quests any more since it takes forever for the "other side" to do their part.
Please understand, I LIKE the ideas and LIKE how you are thinking about it, the problem here is that too many people are going to complain about this or that.
Here is MY answer to the problem:
a. Make a PvE game ONLY.
b. Make a Grinding game ONLY.
c. Make a PvP Game ONLY. (Already done, Play Eve-Online (http://www.eve-online.com/ Warning: You will have to "work" to do anything in game. Little to no free-be's.
d. Make an Instance game ONLY where it's really easy and no one has to play the "Massive Multi-Player"... with any other players (hmm.. weird eh?)
The end result is that you can't have a fully persistant world, have PvE and PvP, have Full economies etc etc. all in one game since it's almost the same as putting 5 holy men of different religions into a room and asking them to decide which is better. All will agree that there is something bigger than them, but none will agree on the "perfect method" to find / get to / understand that greater being. (sorry for the religious reference, it was just an easy example to stress how many different sides there are). In the end, making smaller games to individually target those groups I listed above (instead of making ONE game.. most likely badly ... with all aspects in there) would fix a lot of issues. After that we can work on trying to make things persistent. (Like EVE which has some good persistent aspects already!)
I mention America specifically as a generic example that everyone understands for one reason. "Unlimited Internet Bandwidth". This type of a model (even if it is a model where MOST of the OS is on current hardware but then randomly checks the internet for it's main "modular" pieces, vs having it all on the Hard Drive as we current do) cannot work well because other countries actually have to pay for speicifc amounts of bandwidth.
And even now, I've read random articles talking about ISPs (in america) which are considering moving to the "Pay for Bandwidth Tiers" models. WTF is the point of getting an OS that eats up all of your bandwidth just to stay turned on and be running a screen saver? It would need to randomly connect out and update things after all...
Some might argue that this is already being done, and that "caching" would solve the problem ... except that caching would negate the whole purpose of an online-OS (it needs to always have the latest thing to work well). Currently windows ALREADY connects out and randomly checks things and uses bandwidth, but it's NOT downloading entire modules as something like that would require.
Sorry, but if I lived somewhere with Pay-As-You-Go internet (I'm considering moving to Australia) I sure as hell wouldn't pay more money to an ISP on a monthly basis just so that I can use the "latest and greatest" windows.
We "put up with it" because we have no choice in the matter.
It always makes me laugh when people post something like "If you don't like it, don't use it!" ... Explain to me how I'm suppose to do that when I don't have a choice.
I'm a professional Web developer. Dial up is out of the question. But wait! It doesn't matter what my job is since 90%+ (I'm pulling this out of my ass) of webpages now assume that JS is turned on AND that you have "broadband" (there was a /. post about this a while ago and I'm too lazy to look it up). So that means for me to really do anything, I need "high speed". I'm an hour south west of Pittsburg in the state of Pennsylvania. My options are 1. Comcast for $50 american a month. 2. DSL. for 50$ a month, 3m/b download -- note: 3m/b download as BEST CASE --, AND you are forced to pay 20-25$ a month to ALSO have a phone line (required). Even though I use VOIP for business(25$ a month). That means that DSL would cost me 75$ a month, for much less options and access AND staticy lines.
So what are my options? Pay more for less with DSL? Or hold hands with the devil (comcast) and let them do anything they want to me?
Thanks to the government here not doing anything about it (since they're probably well paid by lobbyists) a LOT of us really don't have options.
What CAN I do? Vote? HA! that would involve us actually getting that option from the people running the country who mostly think that "that internet is some new fangled thingy running on those tubes in a closet". Those who don't think that are people like Al Gore *cough*dumbass*cough* - "The inventor of the internet"
This sueing is some of the best news I've seen in quite a while
Sure, but only if it doesn't lead to a public squirt session... that turned out messy last time.
Before anyone starts pestering me on this, I want to mention that I've been using *nix based systems for a long while now. I'm a software engineer, and I worked at a linux based ISP for two years on top of it. I've installed countless distro's and eventually stopped using them all (mostly for gaming reasons). The one problem I have every time I go back to loading up gentoo (still my fav) is lack of applications I like.
Example: Trillian for windows / Adium for mac (click on Xtras, top right of screen). They're pretty looking, they're functional and have lots of addons. Linux has gaim (which I love actually, but it's the point of the matter. I don't have the option to switch from "clean and basic interface" to "fun with extras").
I'm a web developer, and my favorite database program to date was for Mac (Yoursql .. or look at this image). It's small, it's light, and it does 99% of what I need (which is just quick look ups and checking data). In this case, I LIKE not having 20 ways to do the same thing with an interface with a billion options. And no, don't tell me to use phpMyAdmin, or to use the command line, that's the easiest way to DETER someone from using linux. Yes I CAN use the command line (all my queries are written from scratch, I dislike those gui query builders).
Next is editors. Simple fixes here and there, I use Vi(m). But for my Php/xml/html/javascript/css, I want to see a program that just does web languages. For Windows and Mac there are TONS of them. For linux, there are a few, and most are either bloated to hell (eclipse, since it handles ALL programming languages for the most part) or just unstable with practically no features (line numbers? good color switching between php/html/css? tabs for multiple windows?). Given Bluefish is good stuff, but programs like this (IMHO) are few and far between.
Mac, I believe has it down the best. There are many programs, and (which is also the problem IMHO) many of them are not meant to do EVERYTHING. In the end though, you have a bunch of options(programs) to choose from, and they're really well built for what they need to do (lots of planning to put only what is generally NEEDED, while spending time to make sure the DESIGNS look good and are simple. The whole "i don't like it because it took too many mouse clicks" mentality that mac users have), instead of one or two programs that are meant to try and do everything =/. As much as I hate to admit it, eye candy is a major player. It's sad because Desktop wise, linux is AMAZING at it Linux vs Vista (I'm not trying to bash Vista here, i'm just making a point).
While I mentioned web development based things, I'm sure this is generally true for most people in most aspects of computing (I've had a lot of friends mention this about various things). I believe that biggest problem is the idea that "a program should do everything" mentality. When we build some more basic programs that are quick, clean and easy to use for any and all purposes (even basic text editors), then I believe that many more people will start to use linux because they won't be so lost from needing to search all over the internet for "a program to do X" (ubuntu / gentoo / suse all that those threads in their forums, the stuff really isn't that easy to find...) or overwhelmed by seeing the 500 options when they just wanted to write a few notes to themselves. Ubuntu was a great step at simplifying and getting people curious to install, now we just need to add more "stuff" to keep people here! The "Ready for Desktop" can be thrown out as it IS ready for desktop. Now we just need to work on the "Simple and Easy to Use" .. which will eventually lead to the new,shi
Install linux... Keeps the virus' and "bad people" out.
In all honesty, I can only assume that their laptop searches will be short and narrowed down to using the windows search option. I doubt that they'll have *nix "experts" on hand at the airport security checks.
Right now, we're NOT getting the promised rate (if we actually use the access to our full benefits as the "Unlimited Access" claims) .. so people always talk about doing the Pay-As-You-Go model... The problem with that is this:
The top 5 ISP's will still own everything because the government isn't steping in as it should be!
So the "pay as you go" model from comcast, will now tell you that you can use up to 200 gigs in a month, throttle you at 25 gigs, charge you the 500% more than you currently are paying to get the 200 gigs a month, and then they will say "well we are still allowing you to download up to that much since that's the plan you're paying for. After that we'll just cut you off!".
When the government puts its foot down and smacks these huge ISP's / telco's / communication companies around a little to put them in line ... then something like this might be useful... but a change before that will leave most of us more broke than we already are with tons more to loose than gain.
The more the merrier.
I Disagree with this. I understand your outlook (and fully agree) that making things cross platform would be great, but i feel there are TOO MANY devices already.
I like RPGs. I'm a big fan of the final fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest series. I own a wii, and i had a ps2/ps1. But now, the other day at best buys i was roaming around bored and i saw that there was final fantasy game for the DS, for the PSP, and random other games that used to stick to one platform have now split between 2 or 3. And they are DIFFERENT games (so it's not one game ported to multiple systems). Which means, for me to keep playing the games i love, i need 1. A PC, 2. xbox 360 (fable) 3. PS3 4. DS 5. PSP 6. Wii. I can't afford that! you are looking right here at around 3,000$ just to have basic systems with a couple games. AHH!
I'm fine with competition. But more than 3 or 4 consoles is just getting to be too much! If they just turned around and made a cross platform, open source (or at least half open . half closed... like MySQL which keeps opening and closing)... That would be AMAZING! Hell, i'd donate 100$ easily to a company that laid out a full plan publicly with plans to create the fully cross-platform environment
Guess who has the best internet, phone and cable TV prices and service now?
Japan?
This post assumes that the lottery numbers are chosen from one of those machines where they drop a bunch of balls into, and they use air to randomize them all.
Haveing worked as a bingo caller and in a bingo center for a few years, i've heard the craziest talk from people about how us workers are/were cheating. To be honest with you.. we're not cheating, but there "are" better chances of winning. Here is the reason why:
Depending on the machine that is used, either lighter or heavier balls will be sucked up more often. I honestly doubt that he companies who many the balls... have machines that PERFECTLY calibrate (perfectly = 100%, not 99.99%) the weight of the ball vs the ink on it to make sure that they are all 100% exactly the same weight. Next. The person who TOUCHS these lottery balls will leave greasy residue on the ball which will add weight. After the games, a lot of places will use alcohol to rub them clean. Sometimes this will change the weight of the ball too, especially if not all the grease from the fingers are taken off. After a few weeks / months of using the same balls, you actually WILL see a pattern show up.
That being said, those are bingo balls vs lottery ones, which means the bingo ones are touched much more often. Depending on how cheap those people are, they may change the balls out often, or never at all in which case a small pattern WILL emerge.
On the other hand, if they use new balls every time... the pattern emerges from how the company they get those balls from, weighs them. If it's before or after ink.. blah blah
As a final note: If you REALLY REALLY honestly think that you can win by figuring out the system, research the company that the balls come from, research how they ink / weigh them... research the TYPE of ink to see if it will help catch the wind from the machine or repel it more (more ink might mean less chance of being sucked up) ... and find out from the lottery company (from an insider of course, not what they tell you over the phone) how often they ACTUALLY change the balls out.
If you DO all of that, i will consider you another crazy gambling nutcase (or a math statistician... in which case you've got other issues)... But hey, if you win from it, all the more power to you.
That's where I see the problem. Mayan Hunting techniques? Sure! Let me get some of those tribal mayan hunters... or some of the tribal africans who've never seen a computer.. to log in and write up an ar... wait, what?!
I think the issue at hand, is that the people who actively contribute, are running out of things to write about. There is a TON more that can go into wiki, but the "experts" or ... people who even CARE about those subjects, are not the type who care about writing up articles about it.
The problem we need to solve for is... how to get the rest of the world to open up about their knowledge so that we can share from it. If the contributers don't KNOW of a new subject... how can they research it to find out about it and to eventually write it up?
I don't know if this already exists, and after a quick look i wasn't seeing it... but is there a "request an article" section? Example... I want to know about "Kings Mail", a specific type of way of making chainmail. It would be cool to post my request into a repository of "requests" for contributes to be able to look through?
... that we're getting close to publicly releasing a coffee machine that you pee into and it brews fresh coffee from it!?
- I guess he thought hot pants here back in season
- His little toy got too hot while he was playing with it in his pants
- I knew those ipods were hot, but i didn't think they were flaming
- He was so flaming he literally needed an extinguister to put him out
- Maybe he was listening to a Farenheit 451 audio book
- If he wanted to be a fire crotch... red hair dye is cheaper than an ipod...
I warned you.. they were bad...
First of all, people claim "hardware problems.. blah blah". Why? Because people are building their own systems. "Mainstream" means that people will buy PRE-MADE desktops from places like Dell and HP. Hardware problem solved (assuming those vendors properly build them and install them). This is what Apple has been doing for a long time... it's no wonder they work so well... they're very specific pieces of equipment!
The next issue. This one is FINALLY changing. Prettiness. As much as i love me some Linux ... Compare it with XP, and OSX. A year ago ... so crap. But this IS NOT Linux. This is KDE / Gnome / Insert_other_OS_name_here. The same with the OS logos on load up... images, icons etc. There are SO MANY pre-built icon sets out there... SO MANY that look freakin awesome... yet KDE and gnome continue to look like late 90's early 2000 desktops (compare to OSX). Again, this IS changing and the new KDE looks nice! But if they get all the bells and whistles tossed in there (AKA: Beryl Project) ... Then people will "Ooohh and Ahhh".
LINUX is already in a state that could have gone mainstream a LONG time ago. It's the additional things out there that are the limiting factor. Thankfully, all that is changing... and slowly people are starting to see that. The same with the "linux is hard to install" ... When was the last time a common user installed WINDOWS to see how hard that was!? They didn't ... because it was vendor pre-installed.