Firstly, the physics of mobile communications limits the amount of communication that can happen per second. In the USA, the current structure allows companies to buy spectrum and use it exclusively; nobody forces you to share. A merger of the two smallest of the four biggest companies would combine their physics resources, allowing them to compete on a larger scale.
Secondly, nature abhors a vacuum. If fourth place opens up, somebody could fill it. While this could mean combining the next five largest to make a company or coalition that can compete with the next three largest, as long as there's nothing to stifle that company or coalition, it should thrive and create more options for customers.
It's my opinion that if it weren't for these regional monopolies, internet service pricing would be much much lower.
If a good or service becomes a commodity, and the price of that commodity levels out at a sufficiently low cost, why wouldn't a municipality take out a bond and develop its own fiber service. How is it unlike a water and sewer department?
Slashdot will correct me if I'm wrong but if memory serves me correctly, part of the reason we don't recycle spent fuel rods is because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Treaties?) we signed in the 1970s. Apparently recycling old rods yields weapons-grade materials, even if their final purpose is not for weapons.
I was sitting in our office when all of a sudden all the phones in the office rang at the same time. The number that came up was 800.555.1212, or 800-Directory Assistance. Since there are only a handful of us in the office today, it was ironic that only a few of us experienced it.
According to our phone clocks, this happened about 2:55PM EDT. That's a little off from the article report time of attack but is it merely a coincidence? I'm curious if any other Slashdotters out there experienced this same phenomenon today.
One time I was riding with my brother down a familiar stretch of busy road. All of a sudden we saw a burst of smoke and someone tumbled out of the car in front of us. After dodging her we realized that there was no one driving the car anymore and it was approaching a busy intersection. We looked at each other, nodded, and I proceeded to pull alongside it. He jumped from his door into the car and attempted to regain control, while I sped ahead to get in front of the car with my own, just in case he couldn't. As he regained control of the car I let it run into the back of mine while flashing my lights. He pulled the car over after the intersection and we proceeded to look for the previous occupant. A state trooper then arrived on-scene.
Apparently the driver thought her car was going to explode so she jumped from it. She had some cuts and a little road rash but was no worse for wear. The state trooper told my brother he was a hero, to which he nonchalantly responded "I was just doing what was right."
Just another day.
I'm from NH and I can tell you that my fondest memories of my grandfather are traveling into the White Mountains and partaking of all the views, the most spectacular of which was The Old Man of the Mountain. Just staring up at the rocks while my grandfather drove I-93 and watching as they changed from rocks to a discernible profile remains a very good memory. It's sad that no new kids will experience this again.
As for replacing it, I disagree with anything that has to do with replacing on the mountain face The Old Man; I don't think it's worth the resources. IMO the best idea is to take the pieces that fell and construct a scale model with similar attributes and set it next to the lake below where the original stood.
Does this give Oracle the ability to offer total package "solutions" to their customers? Do they no longer need to go into a meeting with a potential or existing customer with a preferred hardware vendor at their side to make a co-deal? IMO this gives a lot of power to Oracle and sets up against each other two massive players in the development market.
I'm surprised that Microsoft didn't bid on Sun. I would speculate that they would want Sun for the MySql and Java markets. Had they bid and won they would control a vast proportion of the development market, from Database through to front-end, and over the next release or two of Visual Studio could unify Java and C#. As for the hardware, they could have spun it off to an interested party at an attractive price. IMO since Bill Gates left there's been a vision vacuum and the company is scrambling to find it's path through brute force instead of innovation and this is why they didn't entertain an offer.
Perhaps some of the things Blizzard are considering are how to maintain existing players while bringing in new ones.
I think there is an obvious advantage to experienced players because there are nuances they can take advantage of the newer players might not yet know. What happens when an experienced player grows up, gets a 9-5 job, starts a family? They evolve from hard-core gamer to casual gamer.
Adding variable difficulty dungeons raises the competitive player vs. game challenge value. Adding achievements raises the competitive passive player vs. player challenge value. Adding the ability to dual-spec allows users to become more versatile within the game with a single character instead of making multiple characters for different uses. Adding more quests creates a longer story. Adding more races allows new story perspectives.
I have never raided a dungeon before so there's still content that I've never experienced. Being a casual gamer I can't commit more than a couple of hours per gaming session, maybe once or twice a week. When I have kids this will become less but as long as the stories are interesting and entertaining I'll continue playing. I believe this same technique is used in TV shows?
One question to those people who state "If Blizzard continues with this crap I'll be leaving WoW:" Where will you go?
a germanic name made up of the elements "col", possibly meaning "cool", and "beraht", meaning "bright".
Space is pretty cold and an orbiting space station is a pretty bright object that can be seen with the naked eye.
What I think could come out of this is a specific analysis of internet sociology. I could speculate that had the "Serenity" fans known what Colbert and his fans were up to, and had they been as well connected as the Colbert and his fans, this would be a different conversation.
One solution is to separate the Internet Service Provider from the Content Provider.
Let the cable companies become the ISP and focus solely on that. A decision like this would allow them to simplify their business and maintenance model. Since content is becoming cheaper to access then why bother trying to get guaranteed revenue from it. If you have 1 Million customers and you charge them US$100 per month for 50/10 d/u you're pocketing $100 Million in revenue PER MONTH. You cannot tell me that amount of money, if used properly back into the infrastructure, does nothing to support and improve a cable-based internet infrastructure.
The content providers, not having to worry how the customers get the content, could then make their revenue from regular access (revenue based on advertising; e.g., ABC does this) or premium access (revenue based on subscribers; e.g., HBO does this now). This gets them direct access to the consumer and immediate feedback; no need to go through the Nielsen's anymore to find out what people want. Look at who is actually buying episodes or whole seasons. ROI from consumer to content provider is faster.
I'm more about the storyline and I can't muster the manpower or the time for raids, so one of the things that my friends and I have been doing is going back to older dungeons and raids. For example, the content in the Scholomance instance hasn't changed much since Burning Crusade, so 3 of us go into it playing as level 70s just to experience the content.
Blizzard probably doesn't have the manpower but what I think would be exciting would be to refresh some of the content in Scholomance and link it back to (new?) quests that occur or overlap in the Outlands. Perhaps a book is on a shelf in Scholomance or a portal to a plane where you have to collect an item of power through a previously inert portion of Dire Maul. This idea would allow them to reuse (and refresh) existing content.
Currently this still sort of happens with class-specific quests, like the Paladin or Warlock epic mounts.
Sound is in octaves, right? So do-re-mi-...-do is a byte. And the top and bottom sections look like piano keys. Use this image as a reference. Wasn't there a base7 checksum in FAX-heavy days?
It's not just in Microsoft's plans to go the route of digital downloads. Remember Apple? They're also betting on digital downloads as your preferred method of getting HD movies.
I think that if the business model for getting the movies becomes (stays?) acceptable to the majority and the pipes between the distributors and the devices gets wider than Blu-Ray will have won a Pyrrhic victory. Afterall, a subscription is on-going whereas a disc sale is a one-time and is meant to cover not only the license to watch that movie but also the prodution costs, distribution costs, advertising, etc.
Here's a question: If the studios offered you a subscription to get unlimited on-demand of their HD content, where you were paying US$12.95 per month for this access, would you accept it? There are 10,000,000 World of Warcraft users that follow this model for game play, why not for movie play?
...according to the story yesterday regarding the uber def format the Japanese are working on, why should I upgraded to BR or HDDVD only to have to upgraded again to support the crazy resolutions of yet another format in 2015?
That's an interesting point which reminds me of a college class, Television and Broadcasting. In that I learned that Filo T. Farnsworth had developed HD back when TVs were first being distributed by RCA, but that David Sarnoff saw no need for people, who had recently invested in a home appliance, would want to re-invest in another one so soon in their purchase.
The TV today is no longer an appliance but a disposable tool for entertainment. So it makes sense that once the people pushing TVs realize a new technology (e.g., HD vs SD) helps shift a new brand of TV from appliance (or commercial-level) to commodity (or consumer-level) in this category it doesn't matter how many times the consumer has to re-up, it will sell more. In the end even the most frugal consumer will a) not buy it, or b) find a really good deal s/he can't argue with. So I think that when a commercial technology becomes consumer-edible it is going to get pushed.
On the major difference between VHS and DVD, the technology shifted from a magnetic tape to laser-read disc, so existing libraries needed to be re-upped. Since here we're shifting from laser-read disc to laser-read disc, the backwards compatibility with my DVD collection should not be as big an issue, if one at all. Only movies that I own that I absolutely want to see and hear newer and better would I buy again, otherwise only new content will be bought.
Slashdot Mirror
Firstly, the physics of mobile communications limits the amount of communication that can happen per second. In the USA, the current structure allows companies to buy spectrum and use it exclusively; nobody forces you to share. A merger of the two smallest of the four biggest companies would combine their physics resources, allowing them to compete on a larger scale. Secondly, nature abhors a vacuum. If fourth place opens up, somebody could fill it. While this could mean combining the next five largest to make a company or coalition that can compete with the next three largest, as long as there's nothing to stifle that company or coalition, it should thrive and create more options for customers.
We did have a leap second this year, and next year is a leap year, so there's really nothing to see here.
It's my opinion that if it weren't for these regional monopolies, internet service pricing would be much much lower.
If a good or service becomes a commodity, and the price of that commodity levels out at a sufficiently low cost, why wouldn't a municipality take out a bond and develop its own fiber service. How is it unlike a water and sewer department?
They want their concepts back. M.A.S.K. series V.E.N.O.M. Switchblade: http://www.albertpenello.com/mask/switchblade.html But who needs fixed wings when you've got Airwolf, a Mach 1+ Chopper: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwolf#The_Airwolf_helicopter
Slashdot will correct me if I'm wrong but if memory serves me correctly, part of the reason we don't recycle spent fuel rods is because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Treaties?) we signed in the 1970s. Apparently recycling old rods yields weapons-grade materials, even if their final purpose is not for weapons.
Since there are only a handful of us in the office today, it was ironic that only a few of us experienced it.
No, it was not.
I concede that it was not ironic at all.
So can I infer that all my calls are going through an HBGary trunk? Interesting...
I was sitting in our office when all of a sudden all the phones in the office rang at the same time. The number that came up was 800.555.1212, or 800-Directory Assistance. Since there are only a handful of us in the office today, it was ironic that only a few of us experienced it. According to our phone clocks, this happened about 2:55PM EDT. That's a little off from the article report time of attack but is it merely a coincidence? I'm curious if any other Slashdotters out there experienced this same phenomenon today.
One time I was riding with my brother down a familiar stretch of busy road. All of a sudden we saw a burst of smoke and someone tumbled out of the car in front of us. After dodging her we realized that there was no one driving the car anymore and it was approaching a busy intersection. We looked at each other, nodded, and I proceeded to pull alongside it. He jumped from his door into the car and attempted to regain control, while I sped ahead to get in front of the car with my own, just in case he couldn't. As he regained control of the car I let it run into the back of mine while flashing my lights. He pulled the car over after the intersection and we proceeded to look for the previous occupant. A state trooper then arrived on-scene. Apparently the driver thought her car was going to explode so she jumped from it. She had some cuts and a little road rash but was no worse for wear. The state trooper told my brother he was a hero, to which he nonchalantly responded "I was just doing what was right." Just another day.
Do polls work so well because the people voting in the earlier polls influence the later polls?
If the predictions were shared in real-time with the people they were to predict upon, would they still have the same accuracy?
It seems to me that predicting is only useful when its use is unknown to those it's used on.
Tabloid?
I'm from NH and I can tell you that my fondest memories of my grandfather are traveling into the White Mountains and partaking of all the views, the most spectacular of which was The Old Man of the Mountain. Just staring up at the rocks while my grandfather drove I-93 and watching as they changed from rocks to a discernible profile remains a very good memory. It's sad that no new kids will experience this again.
As for replacing it, I disagree with anything that has to do with replacing on the mountain face The Old Man; I don't think it's worth the resources. IMO the best idea is to take the pieces that fell and construct a scale model with similar attributes and set it next to the lake below where the original stood.
Does this give Oracle the ability to offer total package "solutions" to their customers? Do they no longer need to go into a meeting with a potential or existing customer with a preferred hardware vendor at their side to make a co-deal? IMO this gives a lot of power to Oracle and sets up against each other two massive players in the development market.
I'm surprised that Microsoft didn't bid on Sun. I would speculate that they would want Sun for the MySql and Java markets. Had they bid and won they would control a vast proportion of the development market, from Database through to front-end, and over the next release or two of Visual Studio could unify Java and C#. As for the hardware, they could have spun it off to an interested party at an attractive price. IMO since Bill Gates left there's been a vision vacuum and the company is scrambling to find it's path through brute force instead of innovation and this is why they didn't entertain an offer.
Perhaps some of the things Blizzard are considering are how to maintain existing players while bringing in new ones.
I think there is an obvious advantage to experienced players because there are nuances they can take advantage of the newer players might not yet know. What happens when an experienced player grows up, gets a 9-5 job, starts a family? They evolve from hard-core gamer to casual gamer.
Adding variable difficulty dungeons raises the competitive player vs. game challenge value. Adding achievements raises the competitive passive player vs. player challenge value. Adding the ability to dual-spec allows users to become more versatile within the game with a single character instead of making multiple characters for different uses. Adding more quests creates a longer story. Adding more races allows new story perspectives.
I have never raided a dungeon before so there's still content that I've never experienced. Being a casual gamer I can't commit more than a couple of hours per gaming session, maybe once or twice a week. When I have kids this will become less but as long as the stories are interesting and entertaining I'll continue playing. I believe this same technique is used in TV shows?
One question to those people who state "If Blizzard continues with this crap I'll be leaving WoW:" Where will you go?
According to Ona via Google Define "colbert" means
a germanic name made up of the elements "col", possibly meaning "cool", and "beraht", meaning "bright".
Space is pretty cold and an orbiting space station is a pretty bright object that can be seen with the naked eye.
What I think could come out of this is a specific analysis of internet sociology. I could speculate that had the "Serenity" fans known what Colbert and his fans were up to, and had they been as well connected as the Colbert and his fans, this would be a different conversation.
This was obviously funded from the Navel Budget.
One solution is to separate the Internet Service Provider from the Content Provider.
Let the cable companies become the ISP and focus solely on that. A decision like this would allow them to simplify their business and maintenance model. Since content is becoming cheaper to access then why bother trying to get guaranteed revenue from it. If you have 1 Million customers and you charge them US$100 per month for 50/10 d/u you're pocketing $100 Million in revenue PER MONTH. You cannot tell me that amount of money, if used properly back into the infrastructure, does nothing to support and improve a cable-based internet infrastructure.
The content providers, not having to worry how the customers get the content, could then make their revenue from regular access (revenue based on advertising; e.g., ABC does this) or premium access (revenue based on subscribers; e.g., HBO does this now). This gets them direct access to the consumer and immediate feedback; no need to go through the Nielsen's anymore to find out what people want. Look at who is actually buying episodes or whole seasons. ROI from consumer to content provider is faster.
But MegaMan is better.
I'm more about the storyline and I can't muster the manpower or the time for raids, so one of the things that my friends and I have been doing is going back to older dungeons and raids. For example, the content in the Scholomance instance hasn't changed much since Burning Crusade, so 3 of us go into it playing as level 70s just to experience the content.
Blizzard probably doesn't have the manpower but what I think would be exciting would be to refresh some of the content in Scholomance and link it back to (new?) quests that occur or overlap in the Outlands. Perhaps a book is on a shelf in Scholomance or a portal to a plane where you have to collect an item of power through a previously inert portion of Dire Maul. This idea would allow them to reuse (and refresh) existing content.
Currently this still sort of happens with class-specific quests, like the Paladin or Warlock epic mounts.
Sound is in octaves, right? So do-re-mi-...-do is a byte. And the top and bottom sections look like piano keys. Use this image as a reference. Wasn't there a base7 checksum in FAX-heavy days?
It's not just in Microsoft's plans to go the route of digital downloads. Remember Apple? They're also betting on digital downloads as your preferred method of getting HD movies.
I think that if the business model for getting the movies becomes (stays?) acceptable to the majority and the pipes between the distributors and the devices gets wider than Blu-Ray will have won a Pyrrhic victory. Afterall, a subscription is on-going whereas a disc sale is a one-time and is meant to cover not only the license to watch that movie but also the prodution costs, distribution costs, advertising, etc.
Here's a question: If the studios offered you a subscription to get unlimited on-demand of their HD content, where you were paying US$12.95 per month for this access, would you accept it? There are 10,000,000 World of Warcraft users that follow this model for game play, why not for movie play?
Yes, this movie was ruthless.
So the recent housing loan problems were not a test to see what would happen when loan companies crash?
That's an interesting point which reminds me of a college class, Television and Broadcasting. In that I learned that Filo T. Farnsworth had developed HD back when TVs were first being distributed by RCA, but that David Sarnoff saw no need for people, who had recently invested in a home appliance, would want to re-invest in another one so soon in their purchase.
The TV today is no longer an appliance but a disposable tool for entertainment. So it makes sense that once the people pushing TVs realize a new technology (e.g., HD vs SD) helps shift a new brand of TV from appliance (or commercial-level) to commodity (or consumer-level) in this category it doesn't matter how many times the consumer has to re-up, it will sell more. In the end even the most frugal consumer will a) not buy it, or b) find a really good deal s/he can't argue with. So I think that when a commercial technology becomes consumer-edible it is going to get pushed.
On the major difference between VHS and DVD, the technology shifted from a magnetic tape to laser-read disc, so existing libraries needed to be re-upped. Since here we're shifting from laser-read disc to laser-read disc, the backwards compatibility with my DVD collection should not be as big an issue, if one at all. Only movies that I own that I absolutely want to see and hear newer and better would I buy again, otherwise only new content will be bought.