The best thing for everyone at this point would be for the investors in the entertainment industry to invest in oil futures and leave entertainment to Youtube. People get their free entertainment and the investors can still make money since oil stocks are likely to climb for the forseeable future. Okay the entertainment will mostly be Weird Al wantabes and uncle Simon getting hit in the nuts by a baseball but hey it'll be free and everyone will be happy.
I like mine better Win 2000. I've never had a Win 2000 machine zombied but my XP machines are all the time. I finally got tired of fighting with security and just keep them off line. I log on with my win 2000 and my Mac. I have to run spyware software every time I log off on the Win 2000 machine but the Mac is always fine.
They also file patents on the emotions anger, frustriation and disgust since their products and marketing tactics are a primary cause of such emotions users should pay them when feeling those soon to be patented emotions.
Check out Torque. They have a 2D and 3D game engine that can be exported to PC, Mac and Linux and they just came out with XNA development tools for the 2D engine with a 3D toolset availible early next year. They by far have the most adaptible engines availible and for what they do are realitively inexpensive.
Irritation is a big factor. I got talked into installing XP Pro on my latest machine, I'm still mostly using several copies of Win 2000 I have. Well every time I boot up it starts harrasssing me about security. The machine isn't on line so it of coarse constantly harrasses me about updating. I just bloody want to be left alone. I just built a machine for my parents and they aren't on line yet so now they are dealing with the constant harrassment. DOS was a good straightforward OS. The last stable OS from Microsoft I used was NT 3.51. I only had to hard boot it once from a crashed piece of software. That's more stable than my Mac. Now I have software crash constantly I deal with spyware and zombing with my on line machine. I tried Office after not using it for years. In less than an hour I had an Excel file get so messed up I called tech support and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. I went back to Open Office which solved the problem and I never went back. On the machine I built as a Christmas present I wound up having to enter a 50 or so number activation number then less than an hour later I installed the Microsoft Flight Simulator and wound up yet again entering a rediculously long activation number.
Microsoft products as a rule aren't stable, are expensive, Aren't secure inspite of draconian security, often aren't compatible with other Microsoft products, are often hard to configure(couldn't get the new machine I built on line, did I mention I hate XP?), and they always love to harass you constantly about how important and how much it's to your benefit to update which is a pain if the machine is off line. I can go on but you can get the picture. Compared to Microsoft I find Macs a joy to use. The downsides are they aren't nessaccarily stable with Windows ported software, although they tend to be rock solid with native software. Limited software availible, it's what keeps me using Windows. And limited options for upgrading, can't build your own. Granted their stock machines tend to be pretty sweet so it's not that painful. They used to be expensive but for prebuilts they have gotten quite reasonable. Did I mention they are actually fun to use?
Am I dumping Windows? Wish I could. They are threatening again to go totally internet based after Vista. That may be the final straw to get me to dump Windows. Gee we can't make it secure on the internet so lets go internet only! That's a trainwreck I'd prefer to avoid. The real reason to go internet and subscription based is profit. Already people have been questioning for years why upgrade when the current version does what I need? Hey I'm using a three year old version of Open Office and I'm happy. Other than graphics and security there aren't many reasons for most to upgrade. They'd like to lock everyone into a pay as you go model. Look at it this way. Say $80 of your computer purchase is OS, Vista is more but I don't know the numbers on it. Okay that's a one time $80 you make off a customer who if you are lucky will upgrade on average every two years. Let's change that to a flat $20 a month. Well within that same upgrade cycle they just paid you $480. You don't have to be an accountant to see why Bill Gates is so desperate to switch to pay as you go. Even at $10 a month they'd tripple their revenue on new systems. Add Office and other products into the mix and the average user could find themselves paying $50+ a month to uncle Bill instead of say a average of a couple of hundred a year. If they pull it off make sure you own Microsoft stock. Personally I hope people revolt and refuse to accept the pay for life model they want. Personally why I switched from Office is there's too much garbage I don't need so why do I need constant upgrades?. Everytime I slipped, I'm a lousy typist, and hit the wrong set of keys it would do something I didn't want. Open Office just plain works and no stupid paperclip or the godawful red type showing me every "mistake" I made including proper names. Drove me nuts. I think the latest version of Open Office has the red type but it's easy to turn off. Some people love Microsoft products but most of us see a lack of options. They have an army of programmers and they still can't write a stable secure OS? I have no sympathy.
It strictly allows only non commercial development and no distribution including free over the net. There's is another commercial version that'll be released early next year but you still face the Microsoft bottle neck. You can't release commercial games unless they approve of them and take a health chunk of the profits. It'll allow you to develope for the Xbox 360 at a much lower risk but there are no guarentees you'll be able to release the game on Xbox 360. Microsoft still retains the final approval and demands their pound 'O fleash.
Journalist in general are already being replaced by pretty people. Look at Sixty Minutes. Five years ago the average age of a reporter there was nearly sixty and male. Now it's under fifty and female. In the old days reporters researched and wrote their own stories. Now they read copy. Old fashion journalist will largely be extinct by the end of the decade. There are a few younger ones taking up the mantle like Anderson Cooper but even he's aging. Journalist are being traded for "Personalities". It's a very sad day for the Republic.
There's a low tech solution to pipes freezing when you're away. It's an inline valve you place just above the main pipe. It has a standard compressor air fitting. All you do is turn off the water and open up the taps in the house and apply pressure from an aircompressor. It'll blow out the pipes and it just takes a couple of minutes. It's the only way to be 100% sure. The fitting is cheap and if you don't have an air compressor you can rent one cheap for a couple of hours.
The technology is so expensive that they almost have no choice but to give away the consoles. By give away I'm referring to dropping the prices below $200. They need to sell games and a lot of them to pay off the machines. If you're already loosing a few hundred on a machine you have no choice but to depend on game sales. Prices have to drop like a rock next year or they'll never sell enough games to break even let alone show a profit. They are taking advantage of early adopters now but there will be price drops once the manufacturing volume chatches up. If you have a million machines out there and you are loosing a couple of hundred on a system and after buying the expensive box people can only aford three games you are loosing a fortune. Better to sell 5+ games to ten million customers. Xbox can better aford to loose the money on sales than Sony can with P3. They have far more units on the streets. Sony needs to drop to at least $250 ASAP to promote game sales. Sony dropped the ball on this release and may never catch up again. Microsoft is now positioned to release their next generation consoles a full year before Sony and they already have a commanding lead in sales. Sony may be forced to accept the Apple position of a perminate second place. They may be more innovative in the future but it's doubtful they'll ever catch up. The company is not positioned well to take risks where as Microsoft is cash rich and can take risks. Wii is kind of the small nimble hare in this race. They'll eventually have to drop their prices but for now they are the cheap fun alternative to the bloated big boy systems. They can't compete with Microsoft but they can blow Sony out of the water. Both Microsoft and Sony are likely to come out with competing controllers for their next generation systems but the Wii will have several years jump on either and will have a huge backlog of games based on the controller. The strategic win has to go to Nintendo even if they can't win overall sales.
Serves them right for hiring ex US government accountants. These are the same abaccus toting chimps that used to "balance" the military's budget. Come on it's just two bloody decimal places what's the big deal?
I can buy a decent laptop at Fries Electronics for $450. I'm guessing wholesale has to be around $300. Yes it's three times the price but it's also 10X the machine and it runs Windows which for all it's downsides is the world standard.
The far bigger problem is what's the point of giving some one starving a $100 laptop then telling them they can't sell it when that much money would feed some poor families for 4 months? Seems criminal in some ways. 90% have zero hope of making a living with computers so it seems well intentioned but a real let them eat cake program. Trust me they'd rather have the cake, or some rice, than a computer.
I know it's a troll point of view at/. but for every McCartney there's a thousand artists who are struggling and barely make it with the present system. It isn't greed on their part trying to cheat you out of some implied right of free downloads. If you're taking their work who's cheating here? There's always some one making money at it and trust me the day the copyrights run out there will be someone releasing $5 compliations of old classics and making money at it. Who has more right the artists or the ones making a quick buck? It's easy to throw names around like Bono and McCartney but they are a tiny percentage of the working artists involved. If you want them to continue to produce music you should be on the other side. If you don't listen to music what should you care? I want to pay for what I use but if all the downloading results in less and poorer quality material availible not only will the artists be hurt but I will. You figure garage bands will fill in the blamks? We've already seen a similar thing happen in film with changing markets. There's 10X as many low budget horror films availible than ever before but the market got flooded with made on video crap so I stopped watching them entirely. It simply wasn't worth my time. Making music go all amatuer won't improve the quality it'll just open it up to the truly talentless. Yes there will be gems but it'll be the needle in the haystack. Oh the web will sort it out for you and tell you what's good? Glad you trust everyone else to pick your music for you. There's been a wide range of quality music availible but if the system collapses that will change. The volume may look bigger but the quality will go down. Not everyone can or wants to tour so if live performances are the only source of revenue then the landscape will change. What are film makers supposed to do? Live performances of the next Star Wars movie? Not that there is a next one. The point is not everyone has the option of live performance so if the revenue dries up so will the content. Also saying fools like me will pay so why should you is a pretty sleazy attitude.
I know it'll get modded down but I get sick of the whole fight. Rationalize it but this is about is justifying free downloading and shafting the artists.
Is the light bulb conservative? If so we all know conservatives resist change so it's likely the light bulb will ever be changed. Simply adding more conservative light bulbs will not effect change. Adding an equal or greater number of liberal light bulbs is the only way to effect change.
There's been pictures indicating recent water flowing for years. Guess the evidence got overwhelming. There's been also strong evidence of seasonal darkening as if the ground was damp during summer months. I found a camera shot years ago that showed the ground next to the rover that seemed to show a patch of water maybe the size of your palm. The ground around that was dark. NASA definately suffers from dogma. The current dogma had been for a dry Mars. Just glad they are surrendering finally and accepting the evidence. Given the resistence to change I think it'll take samples brought back from Mars to prove life. There was evidence as far back as Viking but still no missions looking for direct signs of life. I'd love to see that resolved during my lifetime but I have my doubts. It may have to wait for the manned mission and even then there'll be debate for years if something is found if NASA brought it there themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
The best thing for everyone at this point would be for the investors in the entertainment industry to invest in oil futures and leave entertainment to Youtube. People get their free entertainment and the investors can still make money since oil stocks are likely to climb for the forseeable future. Okay the entertainment will mostly be Weird Al wantabes and uncle Simon getting hit in the nuts by a baseball but hey it'll be free and everyone will be happy.
In truth it's Time acknowledging we are a narcacistic society.
You'll pry my copy of Win 2000 out of my cold dead hands.
Stop Eating!
I like mine better Win 2000. I've never had a Win 2000 machine zombied but my XP machines are all the time. I finally got tired of fighting with security and just keep them off line. I log on with my win 2000 and my Mac. I have to run spyware software every time I log off on the Win 2000 machine but the Mac is always fine.
They also file patents on the emotions anger, frustriation and disgust since their products and marketing tactics are a primary cause of such emotions users should pay them when feeling those soon to be patented emotions.
As an american it's comforting to know ignorance isn't limited to this country it's a universal concept.
Check out Torque. They have a 2D and 3D game engine that can be exported to PC, Mac and Linux and they just came out with XNA development tools for the 2D engine with a 3D toolset availible early next year. They by far have the most adaptible engines availible and for what they do are realitively inexpensive.
Microsoft products as a rule aren't stable, are expensive, Aren't secure inspite of draconian security, often aren't compatible with other Microsoft products, are often hard to configure(couldn't get the new machine I built on line, did I mention I hate XP?), and they always love to harass you constantly about how important and how much it's to your benefit to update which is a pain if the machine is off line. I can go on but you can get the picture. Compared to Microsoft I find Macs a joy to use. The downsides are they aren't nessaccarily stable with Windows ported software, although they tend to be rock solid with native software. Limited software availible, it's what keeps me using Windows. And limited options for upgrading, can't build your own. Granted their stock machines tend to be pretty sweet so it's not that painful. They used to be expensive but for prebuilts they have gotten quite reasonable. Did I mention they are actually fun to use?
Am I dumping Windows? Wish I could. They are threatening again to go totally internet based after Vista. That may be the final straw to get me to dump Windows. Gee we can't make it secure on the internet so lets go internet only! That's a trainwreck I'd prefer to avoid. The real reason to go internet and subscription based is profit. Already people have been questioning for years why upgrade when the current version does what I need? Hey I'm using a three year old version of Open Office and I'm happy. Other than graphics and security there aren't many reasons for most to upgrade. They'd like to lock everyone into a pay as you go model. Look at it this way. Say $80 of your computer purchase is OS, Vista is more but I don't know the numbers on it. Okay that's a one time $80 you make off a customer who if you are lucky will upgrade on average every two years. Let's change that to a flat $20 a month. Well within that same upgrade cycle they just paid you $480. You don't have to be an accountant to see why Bill Gates is so desperate to switch to pay as you go. Even at $10 a month they'd tripple their revenue on new systems. Add Office and other products into the mix and the average user could find themselves paying $50+ a month to uncle Bill instead of say a average of a couple of hundred a year. If they pull it off make sure you own Microsoft stock. Personally I hope people revolt and refuse to accept the pay for life model they want. Personally why I switched from Office is there's too much garbage I don't need so why do I need constant upgrades?. Everytime I slipped, I'm a lousy typist, and hit the wrong set of keys it would do something I didn't want. Open Office just plain works and no stupid paperclip or the godawful red type showing me every "mistake" I made including proper names. Drove me nuts. I think the latest version of Open Office has the red type but it's easy to turn off. Some people love Microsoft products but most of us see a lack of options. They have an army of programmers and they still can't write a stable secure OS? I have no sympathy.
Because why raise cattle if no one wants to pay for milk?
It strictly allows only non commercial development and no distribution including free over the net. There's is another commercial version that'll be released early next year but you still face the Microsoft bottle neck. You can't release commercial games unless they approve of them and take a health chunk of the profits. It'll allow you to develope for the Xbox 360 at a much lower risk but there are no guarentees you'll be able to release the game on Xbox 360. Microsoft still retains the final approval and demands their pound 'O fleash.
Journalist in general are already being replaced by pretty people. Look at Sixty Minutes. Five years ago the average age of a reporter there was nearly sixty and male. Now it's under fifty and female. In the old days reporters researched and wrote their own stories. Now they read copy. Old fashion journalist will largely be extinct by the end of the decade. There are a few younger ones taking up the mantle like Anderson Cooper but even he's aging. Journalist are being traded for "Personalities". It's a very sad day for the Republic.
LA, erratic drivers will go largely unnoticed there.
There's a low tech solution to pipes freezing when you're away. It's an inline valve you place just above the main pipe. It has a standard compressor air fitting. All you do is turn off the water and open up the taps in the house and apply pressure from an aircompressor. It'll blow out the pipes and it just takes a couple of minutes. It's the only way to be 100% sure. The fitting is cheap and if you don't have an air compressor you can rent one cheap for a couple of hours.
The technology is so expensive that they almost have no choice but to give away the consoles. By give away I'm referring to dropping the prices below $200. They need to sell games and a lot of them to pay off the machines. If you're already loosing a few hundred on a machine you have no choice but to depend on game sales. Prices have to drop like a rock next year or they'll never sell enough games to break even let alone show a profit. They are taking advantage of early adopters now but there will be price drops once the manufacturing volume chatches up. If you have a million machines out there and you are loosing a couple of hundred on a system and after buying the expensive box people can only aford three games you are loosing a fortune. Better to sell 5+ games to ten million customers. Xbox can better aford to loose the money on sales than Sony can with P3. They have far more units on the streets. Sony needs to drop to at least $250 ASAP to promote game sales. Sony dropped the ball on this release and may never catch up again. Microsoft is now positioned to release their next generation consoles a full year before Sony and they already have a commanding lead in sales. Sony may be forced to accept the Apple position of a perminate second place. They may be more innovative in the future but it's doubtful they'll ever catch up. The company is not positioned well to take risks where as Microsoft is cash rich and can take risks. Wii is kind of the small nimble hare in this race. They'll eventually have to drop their prices but for now they are the cheap fun alternative to the bloated big boy systems. They can't compete with Microsoft but they can blow Sony out of the water. Both Microsoft and Sony are likely to come out with competing controllers for their next generation systems but the Wii will have several years jump on either and will have a huge backlog of games based on the controller. The strategic win has to go to Nintendo even if they can't win overall sales.
Serves them right for hiring ex US government accountants. These are the same abaccus toting chimps that used to "balance" the military's budget. Come on it's just two bloody decimal places what's the big deal?
The far bigger problem is what's the point of giving some one starving a $100 laptop then telling them they can't sell it when that much money would feed some poor families for 4 months? Seems criminal in some ways. 90% have zero hope of making a living with computers so it seems well intentioned but a real let them eat cake program. Trust me they'd rather have the cake, or some rice, than a computer.
I know it's a troll point of view at /. but for every McCartney there's a thousand artists who are struggling and barely make it with the present system. It isn't greed on their part trying to cheat you out of some implied right of free downloads. If you're taking their work who's cheating here? There's always some one making money at it and trust me the day the copyrights run out there will be someone releasing $5 compliations of old classics and making money at it. Who has more right the artists or the ones making a quick buck? It's easy to throw names around like Bono and McCartney but they are a tiny percentage of the working artists involved. If you want them to continue to produce music you should be on the other side. If you don't listen to music what should you care? I want to pay for what I use but if all the downloading results in less and poorer quality material availible not only will the artists be hurt but I will. You figure garage bands will fill in the blamks? We've already seen a similar thing happen in film with changing markets. There's 10X as many low budget horror films availible than ever before but the market got flooded with made on video crap so I stopped watching them entirely. It simply wasn't worth my time. Making music go all amatuer won't improve the quality it'll just open it up to the truly talentless. Yes there will be gems but it'll be the needle in the haystack. Oh the web will sort it out for you and tell you what's good? Glad you trust everyone else to pick your music for you. There's been a wide range of quality music availible but if the system collapses that will change. The volume may look bigger but the quality will go down. Not everyone can or wants to tour so if live performances are the only source of revenue then the landscape will change. What are film makers supposed to do? Live performances of the next Star Wars movie? Not that there is a next one. The point is not everyone has the option of live performance so if the revenue dries up so will the content. Also saying fools like me will pay so why should you is a pretty sleazy attitude.
I know it'll get modded down but I get sick of the whole fight. Rationalize it but this is about is justifying free downloading and shafting the artists.
Come on guys the sun is shining it's a beautiful day out..... on second thought I just watched the news. Never mind.
If you're worried about sterility you're on /. mate, no worries.
Is the light bulb conservative? If so we all know conservatives resist change so it's likely the light bulb will ever be changed. Simply adding more conservative light bulbs will not effect change. Adding an equal or greater number of liberal light bulbs is the only way to effect change.
There's been pictures indicating recent water flowing for years. Guess the evidence got overwhelming. There's been also strong evidence of seasonal darkening as if the ground was damp during summer months. I found a camera shot years ago that showed the ground next to the rover that seemed to show a patch of water maybe the size of your palm. The ground around that was dark. NASA definately suffers from dogma. The current dogma had been for a dry Mars. Just glad they are surrendering finally and accepting the evidence. Given the resistence to change I think it'll take samples brought back from Mars to prove life. There was evidence as far back as Viking but still no missions looking for direct signs of life. I'd love to see that resolved during my lifetime but I have my doubts. It may have to wait for the manned mission and even then there'll be debate for years if something is found if NASA brought it there themselves.
Wait a minute I use Open Office, Never mind.
Microsoft cracked the top 40 list. Looks like all that hardwork is paying off!
What about all the S&M clubs out there!