You say I[sic] was wrong, but you're accusing slackware of not knowing what system they use. BSD-style is a real thing. You can't tell the difference, but they can. And AT&T could. And people that can't tell the difference probably shouldn't be pining for software that is over 30 years old. Figure out what it is first.
Or do you think, because they allow you to use a different one, that changes which one "slackware uses?" That would be daft, because Fedora still "lets" a person use SysV crap. So then all the systemd whining would be self-refuting. Usually only 3/4th of it is.
If I'm buying apples and they didn't have a certified scale, I can tell because there will be a sign that says, "sold by volume, all weights are approximate." This is one reason why roadside fruit stands often sell by the bag, basket, box, or flat, instead of by the pound.
When I buy or sell electricity or water, the meters have to be approved for that use by the state Public Utility Commission.
As an IT "expert" I have to inform you that it is you that are defending the rules being different in IT. The person you responded to is proposing that the rules be the same. It seems a straightforwards idea, and I can certify for you that no IT expertise is implicated by this idea.
I need to see a screenshot of his iPhone data usage tracking before I could take him seriously. Even if it is true that he never changed his usage pattern, he might have mistakenly installed an app that ate up his quota.
The images he shows prove that there are serious bugs in the T-Mobile data tracking. Different places in their software makes different claims about the usage, and their own support workers can't even make enough sense of it to read the usage off the screen accurately.
Since I'm not him, I really don't care what his usage was. But it harms everybody in the market, including people who use a different service, when a service is being dishonest. It distorts the market. And they clearly have bugs, and honestly utilities seem to have a practice of having this exact type of "bug" even where in most industries the tracking numbers still add up, even when there is a bug. It isn't like the software double-counted something. Different parts of their software are reporting different numbers, that is very suspicious. It would be exceptionally poor engineering to actually be taking different measurements of the same thing, and using one in the phone, and the other on the website. It is the same billing account, the same billed service, so they should be tracking it in one place, storing and transmitting that data, and then displaying it in multiple places. When there is conflicting data that doesn't line up with any of the numbers, it seems really more likely that they wrote it to appear buggy, than that there is a natural bug. If it was off by a digit, or doubled, or a day behind, or something, that would make sense. But the numbers in the screenshots just don't seem to be any obvious mistake. And only some of their software seems to have this wrong idea of the numbers. Why would those parts even be trying to calculate a number, and not just displaying the same number from the database?
Obviously he should burn in hell for his color choices. There is no redemption possible. However, that doesn't mean that he was wrong about T-Mobile's lies. Most of the lies were indeed lies. The only misunderstanding I see is #10; he misunderstood what they mean by "quality."
My eyes are somehow still great, but I agree entirely!
My advice, unless you're a professional web designer, don't even set colors for text and text backgrounds. The users defaults are nearly guaranteed to be readable. Same applies to fonts.
I use Google Voice, and the voicemail feature is still useful, but they've already cut off 3rd party app usage which really gutted the use cases it was good for. I still use it, but I can't recommend it, because it might get shut off at any time. There is just no implied future to the service; it exists as long as it exists, because it doesn't make any money for them. Sad but true.
I would instead recommend that users who can afford it use a commercial IP telephony service with similar features.
You can indeed access the voice mail from any device, but you can't use the phone features except through google apps.
If you don't agree that linux boxes are generic PCs, I'm not sure how you'll even participate in the conversation. I guess you'll just be talking past everybody else.
Normally these are understood terms.
It is a generic PC, because you can replace the hardware and run the same software. Because the software is portable to any PC-platform. That is the difference between "generic PC" and "proprietary black box." With a black box, you can't run that software on different hardware. You have to buy Branded Console, or you don't get to use that ecosystem. With Steam, the ecosystem is portable. That means you can use it on generic machines. That makes it potentially disruptive. For years it existed as an option but without being very disruptive, for 2 reasons; generic PCs didn't have good enough graphics hardware (I'm talking the average system that consumers actually bought) to run games that competed with consoles, and there weren't many games written for the platform. But it thrived as a niche offering. Now, the average generic PC has good enough graphics to make any game genre playable. And it is a popular platform to develop games for. So now it is becoming a lot more disruptive. In the past gamers would use Steam and a console. Now, I hear people say, again and again, "I stopped buying console games because Steam."
They actually don't sell it. Everybody else actually does.
There are two very different things being done with your personal information, by different parties. Do you really see no benefit in understanding the details? How will you protect what little privacy is still possible online if you refuse to even learn how this stuff works?
Why are you trying to make a medical condition that many people on Slashdot have into a pejorative? Doesn't it seem especially lame to you? Do you think it makes you sound informed, or like an asshole? Do you think I'll even read what else you have to say?
Using known historical wars, it is a no-brainer, aggression is useful even if the wars aren't. The wars don't threaten us the way an Ice Age does. Just ask the next megafaunus you see.
The nuclear threat is unique, and so maybe it is different. But the answer can't be simple or obvious, for the same reason that it can't be discounted by past wars. So his argument wasn't well considered, because there is a lot you have to assume in order to get there. It is not at all obvious that the next Ice Age won't confront us with the same struggles as the last. Maybe we'll skate through this one, maybe our industry will collapse and it will be the same. We don't know. Maybe there will be a nuclear war, maybe their won't. It seems to me you have to be pretty sure on both of those to know that losing the aggression won't screw us and extinct us on the next ice age. And I'm only considering one rare situation where aggression is a winner.
# something goes wrong. For this reason, Slackware has always # used the traditional BSD style init script layout.
In the 70s there was BSD style init. In the 80s came AT&T style init, later to be known only as SysV-style. (crickets) (more crickets) In the `10s came systemd, and those remotely managing large numbers of systems rejoiced in the virtual streets, briefly until bands of ruffians got their neckbeards bunched and started throwing rotten fruit.
You're saying I'm ignorant because I think slackware uses BSD-style init. But Slackware agrees with me. And according to their own compatibility package, they've always done things that way. They probably always will, too. My first distro was slackware 3.0, they're pretty awesome. I got it on a disk glued to a computer magazine. Then I spent 3 days downloading an ISO so I could upgrade to 3.5. It was pretty awesome after being stuck on SunOS for a long time.
The part where you fell on your face was when you missed the word "style" when I said, "Slackware Linux doesn't even use SysV-style init, they use BSD-style." So then you conflated the actual init process. But when people are talking about [BSD|SysV]-style, they're talking about the scripts. So you mixed up the two similarly named things that are confusing here, and decided on that basis that I'm "ignorant." I'll give you another hint, I looked it up and verified my memory before I said it.
Since "the sky is falling" is metaphorical, and there is indeed sometime catastrophes that are described as such, a scientist would be a rank idiot if he said there is a no chance that the sky will fall, or that it is impossible.
It isn't a matter of the words "possible" or "chance" having to some "give" a scientist a "right" to tell you the truth, that bad things might happen. Actually, using those words consistently is a basic requirement to be a scientist.
Don't ask where you said it, scroll up and read if you don't remember what you said. Perhaps you don't remember because it was just a typographical error that appeared as another insult to Sagan while mixed in with the rank hyperbole.
I am not fixated on coolaide. You said to google something, and I did, and found out you were recycling easily refuted right wing propaganda. They seem to hate him. I guess the combination of being a scientist and smoking weed was too much for them. It seems pretty irrational, since they make up lies about his record. They don't even know that he is a published expert in more than the one thing they cite in the news. LOL So he's turned into an example of an expert "outside his field" making a mistake. Except that, once you look into it, even if you want to believe them that warning about a chance of something bad is a prediction that the thing will happen, and that if it doesn't due to prevailing conditions at the time then it was "wrong," it would only be an example of a scientist warning about something in their field and being wrong. And they think that somehow refutes his character, or something, or means he was mistaken to have been mistaken. But that isn't the scientific process. Even if you could prove he was wrong, (he was right, it is a real risk of fires that large. You don't know, because you're unaware of the papers by Sagan on the subject! If you'd go read those, you'd know he is an expert in that field, and that it is a real risk) it would just mean that science isn't certain. But actually, the whole scientific process is based on mistakes, on disproving things. Being wrong means a scientist was part of discovering something.
Nope, I didn't say that, or anything like that. Try a less tribal, more intellectual response. You might be able to comprehend what I said. It was not opinion, it was not about who can or will fail, and I didn't say that Google will fail to protect privacy.
What I did say is that Google is the only one of the advertising companies who doesn't sell information about you to the people running the ads. They're the only one. So that is how they stand out. You wave your hands and give some raw assertion that they are the only ones to "fail at protecting your privacy," but you give no analysis at all to support it. It is known in the market that everybody else sells your data to make money. That is just a known fact about the market.
If you think Google is compromising your privacy more than other companies, instead of less, wouldn't you want to have actual reasons? And to be correct about it? When you can't even do analysis of your own position and just regurgitate hate, how can you ever hope to increase your mostly non-existence "privacy?" You won't even know if you have any, or if you tried.
Right, because when you buy crap you get magical insights. Also known as bias.
Perhaps you are tense-challenged. Sorry. Were you born that way? And yeah, if you think nothing has changed for Steam between 2005 and now, wow. There are real reasons why in 2005 it was not yet serious competition, and why now it is. People now who only buy games on Steam were not considering that possible in 2005. They'd have basically been giving up gaming. Now it is a real option. Are you sure you know what Steam is?
I notice the "we" in the last part. So you have some magical knowledge from having a consumer purchase under your belt. The little proprietary mind gnome is in there throwing pixy dust at your thoughts on the subject. I guess it just blasted the whole concept of commodity hardware out of the words as they were coming into your brain. How else could you read what I wrote, which was obviously too long for you, and think that having a proprietary service locked to a black box is the same thing as a service that runs on any generic box? Especially in the context of consoles, which you claim to know more than me about through the process of purchasing one.
From my comments it is pretty obvious that I do understand the difference between what "you" have, and what anybody can have using Steam, with any PC, even a generic low margin PC disguised as a black box. You seem to have ignored all of my arguments, and only figured out I'm not "one of [us]" so I must not know anything. It is either the magical console fairy telling you that, or your neckbeard has become sentient. Or, you just didn't even comprehend my words.
Did he ever say that volcanic eruptions and petroleum fires are the same thing?
If he didn't think the oil fires would not cause an "Oil Fires Winter" just like nukes would, why then would he then sound the alarm about the global catastrophe from the oil fires?
It was a possible outcome. That it didn't happen has more to do with the luck of the weather patterns at the time; it in no way refutes the warning, which was of a possible outcome. It wasn't a prediction. The alarmist stuff is added in by your koolaid vendor.
Did anybody say the academic paper was "on volcanic eruptions?"
Have you already forgotten what you wrote just 2 hours ago? Carl Sagan... is actually an expert on the subject, with academic papers on nuclear winter effects that analyze known past events like volcanic eruptions.
Indeed. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I'm not convinced you understood it, though. Are you truly incapable of understand the difference between a paper about nuclear winter effects that analyses things like volcanoes in addition to nuclear explosions, and a paper on volcanic eruptions? Really?
What was in that koolaide, mercury and lead paste?
If there are no driving jobs, or cleaning jobs, and the robots harvest all the food, they can always become hospice workers for the starving unemployed masses.
Or just have less work to do, but CNN is probably talking about US jobs, not European ones.
I mostly agree, but they could spin off (eg change the name) the movie division without brand harm, because while people often know what studio made a movie, they more often don't, and almost nobody would go to a movie (or not) on that basis.
I've heard people insist they won't see any "mainstream hollywood" movie, but I've never heard anybody say they won't watch a movie from (or unless it is from) Brand X.
They would leave the TV business if they weren't also selling high priced audio/video gear to people who like single-brand or few-brand entertainment setups. But they are. So they won't, even if it is losing money.
Why put words in his mouth even after quoting him? Is the koolaid that strong?
Did anybody say the academic paper was "on volcanic eruptions?" Did he ever say that volcanic eruptions and petroleum fires are the same thing? Do you have any data that shows that the source of burnt particulates determines the effect in the atmosphere at elevation he was talking about? Do you understand any of the words I'm saying? Can you hear me now? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.
I thought their reputation had improved significantly since the 80s. Back then I was warned by TV repairpeople not to buy Sony because they cheaped out passive components and their capacitors died way sooner than generic brands. They were, in modern terms, the Toshiba of TVs, but with better styling. Now their TVs look the same as a Toshiba, but their laptops have popular styling. And nobody expects a laptop to last as long as an old TV, and I doubt they even have electrolytic caps to blow out.
Totally anecdotal and subjective, but I'd say they're way closer now to being seen as the Japanese Apple, at least in North America.
It is obvious that there is potential for game-movie tie-ins, but it is not so obvious how to do it and make money. You have to either risk a lot of money on the game before you know if the movie is a hit, or else do it afterwards and miss most of the tie-in potential. And the studios aren't very good at predicting the box office, because they try to make the movies just good enough for each of a bunch of different demographics. It isn't like they (ever) make the best movie they can for a particular demographic anymore. Every movie has to have broader appeal, which means that they're not aiming at anybody loving it; they want the most people possible to just barely give it 5 stars, because that is more ticket sales than if a smaller number of people solidly give it 5 stars. Nobody wants to make the best movie ever, that movie would be lucky to gross in the top 10. The result is that they make a lot of money, but also have a lot of stinker movies, and can't predict the big hits well enough to double their investment with a quality pre-made game with timely tie-ins. By the time you know if the movie is a hit, you're too late to even time a game release to the DVD.
A Playstation is a proprietary black box, regardless of what is under the hood. It doesn't interoperate. The characterization has nothing to do with however crappy the Sony crap is, but rather with what you can do with it, and what it is marketed as being able to do. A Playstation is a totally proprietary black box with a whole proprietary ecosystem built around it.
The whatever-its-called Steam box is just a generic PC with no special ecosystem whose entire purpose is just to run the same software available already for generic PCs.
I was really talking up Ballard Power back in 2002.
A friend's relative made a significant investment about the same time. I'm just glad that purchase was made before I even met him, and not on my recommendation.
We both thought it was a post-bubble fire-sale steal-of-a-deal at $25. It is at currently at $2.43, which is still up somewhat compared to most of the last 10 years. Negative earnings, but they're somehow still in business.
You climaxed early with "Student Loan Bubble." You could keep the gag going longer without that. It is just too laughable to keep reading after that. I did laugh, but it just felt too early.
Counter anecdote: During the Enron Scandal (October 2001) NPR brought on an analyst who talked about it, but warned that the housing bubble was the real risk that people should be talking about, not Enron.
I believed him, I just wish I hadn't. There were many years of profiteering to be had before the bust. I was shocked that it kept rising after 2004.
And they were right, it was different. By 2001 they had cashed out. In `98 there was a clear understanding that the bubble would still grow further, because people were investing in batshit crazy stuff and the rate of investment was still accelerating.
Nobody knew exactly when the crash would come, but there were signs that the top had been reached. The only people "surprised" by the crash where people who were predicting a downward slope. It was already visibly at least near the top for months ahead. VC money tightened significantly before the crash, and the markets became volatile before finally sliding. You can see in the chart that while there was a big difference between the very top number and what followed, it hadn't been sustained; it dropped first to mid-bubble levels, was clearly in decline, and then dropped further gradually.
Of course, I don't remember the "experts" saying there wouldn't be a crash. I remember the experts saying it was a bubble, and would eventually pop. Even mainstream media like NPR was running that through the whole thing.
Slashdot Mirror
You say I[sic] was wrong, but you're accusing slackware of not knowing what system they use. BSD-style is a real thing. You can't tell the difference, but they can. And AT&T could. And people that can't tell the difference probably shouldn't be pining for software that is over 30 years old. Figure out what it is first.
Or do you think, because they allow you to use a different one, that changes which one "slackware uses?" That would be daft, because Fedora still "lets" a person use SysV crap. So then all the systemd whining would be self-refuting. Usually only 3/4th of it is.
If I'm buying apples and they didn't have a certified scale, I can tell because there will be a sign that says, "sold by volume, all weights are approximate." This is one reason why roadside fruit stands often sell by the bag, basket, box, or flat, instead of by the pound.
When I buy or sell electricity or water, the meters have to be approved for that use by the state Public Utility Commission.
As an IT "expert" I have to inform you that it is you that are defending the rules being different in IT. The person you responded to is proposing that the rules be the same. It seems a straightforwards idea, and I can certify for you that no IT expertise is implicated by this idea.
I need to see a screenshot of his iPhone data usage tracking before I could take him seriously. Even if it is true that he never changed his usage pattern, he might have mistakenly installed an app that ate up his quota.
The images he shows prove that there are serious bugs in the T-Mobile data tracking. Different places in their software makes different claims about the usage, and their own support workers can't even make enough sense of it to read the usage off the screen accurately.
Since I'm not him, I really don't care what his usage was. But it harms everybody in the market, including people who use a different service, when a service is being dishonest. It distorts the market. And they clearly have bugs, and honestly utilities seem to have a practice of having this exact type of "bug" even where in most industries the tracking numbers still add up, even when there is a bug. It isn't like the software double-counted something. Different parts of their software are reporting different numbers, that is very suspicious. It would be exceptionally poor engineering to actually be taking different measurements of the same thing, and using one in the phone, and the other on the website. It is the same billing account, the same billed service, so they should be tracking it in one place, storing and transmitting that data, and then displaying it in multiple places. When there is conflicting data that doesn't line up with any of the numbers, it seems really more likely that they wrote it to appear buggy, than that there is a natural bug. If it was off by a digit, or doubled, or a day behind, or something, that would make sense. But the numbers in the screenshots just don't seem to be any obvious mistake. And only some of their software seems to have this wrong idea of the numbers. Why would those parts even be trying to calculate a number, and not just displaying the same number from the database?
Obviously he should burn in hell for his color choices. There is no redemption possible. However, that doesn't mean that he was wrong about T-Mobile's lies. Most of the lies were indeed lies. The only misunderstanding I see is #10; he misunderstood what they mean by "quality."
My eyes are somehow still great, but I agree entirely!
My advice, unless you're a professional web designer, don't even set colors for text and text backgrounds. The users defaults are nearly guaranteed to be readable. Same applies to fonts.
I use Google Voice, and the voicemail feature is still useful, but they've already cut off 3rd party app usage which really gutted the use cases it was good for. I still use it, but I can't recommend it, because it might get shut off at any time. There is just no implied future to the service; it exists as long as it exists, because it doesn't make any money for them. Sad but true.
I would instead recommend that users who can afford it use a commercial IP telephony service with similar features.
You can indeed access the voice mail from any device, but you can't use the phone features except through google apps.
If you don't agree that linux boxes are generic PCs, I'm not sure how you'll even participate in the conversation. I guess you'll just be talking past everybody else.
Normally these are understood terms.
It is a generic PC, because you can replace the hardware and run the same software. Because the software is portable to any PC-platform. That is the difference between "generic PC" and "proprietary black box." With a black box, you can't run that software on different hardware. You have to buy Branded Console, or you don't get to use that ecosystem. With Steam, the ecosystem is portable. That means you can use it on generic machines. That makes it potentially disruptive. For years it existed as an option but without being very disruptive, for 2 reasons; generic PCs didn't have good enough graphics hardware (I'm talking the average system that consumers actually bought) to run games that competed with consoles, and there weren't many games written for the platform. But it thrived as a niche offering. Now, the average generic PC has good enough graphics to make any game genre playable. And it is a popular platform to develop games for. So now it is becoming a lot more disruptive. In the past gamers would use Steam and a console. Now, I hear people say, again and again, "I stopped buying console games because Steam."
They actually don't sell it. Everybody else actually does.
There are two very different things being done with your personal information, by different parties. Do you really see no benefit in understanding the details? How will you protect what little privacy is still possible online if you refuse to even learn how this stuff works?
I don't have a Steam account. LOL
Why are you trying to make a medical condition that many people on Slashdot have into a pejorative? Doesn't it seem especially lame to you? Do you think it makes you sound informed, or like an asshole? Do you think I'll even read what else you have to say?
Exactly, depends on the war!
Using known historical wars, it is a no-brainer, aggression is useful even if the wars aren't. The wars don't threaten us the way an Ice Age does. Just ask the next megafaunus you see.
The nuclear threat is unique, and so maybe it is different. But the answer can't be simple or obvious, for the same reason that it can't be discounted by past wars. So his argument wasn't well considered, because there is a lot you have to assume in order to get there. It is not at all obvious that the next Ice Age won't confront us with the same struggles as the last. Maybe we'll skate through this one, maybe our industry will collapse and it will be the same. We don't know. Maybe there will be a nuclear war, maybe their won't. It seems to me you have to be pretty sure on both of those to know that losing the aggression won't screw us and extinct us on the next ice age. And I'm only considering one rare situation where aggression is a winner.
Quoting from the file you linked:
# something goes wrong. For this reason, Slackware has always
# used the traditional BSD style init script layout.
In the 70s there was BSD style init.
In the 80s came AT&T style init, later to be known only as SysV-style.
(crickets)
(more crickets)
In the `10s came systemd, and those remotely managing large numbers of systems rejoiced in the virtual streets, briefly until bands of ruffians got their neckbeards bunched and started throwing rotten fruit.
You're saying I'm ignorant because I think slackware uses BSD-style init. But Slackware agrees with me. And according to their own compatibility package, they've always done things that way. They probably always will, too. My first distro was slackware 3.0, they're pretty awesome. I got it on a disk glued to a computer magazine. Then I spent 3 days downloading an ISO so I could upgrade to 3.5. It was pretty awesome after being stuck on SunOS for a long time.
The part where you fell on your face was when you missed the word "style" when I said, "Slackware Linux doesn't even use SysV-style init, they use BSD-style." So then you conflated the actual init process. But when people are talking about [BSD|SysV]-style, they're talking about the scripts. So you mixed up the two similarly named things that are confusing here, and decided on that basis that I'm "ignorant." I'll give you another hint, I looked it up and verified my memory before I said it.
Since "the sky is falling" is metaphorical, and there is indeed sometime catastrophes that are described as such, a scientist would be a rank idiot if he said there is a no chance that the sky will fall, or that it is impossible.
It isn't a matter of the words "possible" or "chance" having to some "give" a scientist a "right" to tell you the truth, that bad things might happen. Actually, using those words consistently is a basic requirement to be a scientist.
Don't ask where you said it, scroll up and read if you don't remember what you said. Perhaps you don't remember because it was just a typographical error that appeared as another insult to Sagan while mixed in with the rank hyperbole.
I am not fixated on coolaide. You said to google something, and I did, and found out you were recycling easily refuted right wing propaganda. They seem to hate him. I guess the combination of being a scientist and smoking weed was too much for them. It seems pretty irrational, since they make up lies about his record. They don't even know that he is a published expert in more than the one thing they cite in the news. LOL So he's turned into an example of an expert "outside his field" making a mistake. Except that, once you look into it, even if you want to believe them that warning about a chance of something bad is a prediction that the thing will happen, and that if it doesn't due to prevailing conditions at the time then it was "wrong," it would only be an example of a scientist warning about something in their field and being wrong. And they think that somehow refutes his character, or something, or means he was mistaken to have been mistaken. But that isn't the scientific process. Even if you could prove he was wrong, (he was right, it is a real risk of fires that large. You don't know, because you're unaware of the papers by Sagan on the subject! If you'd go read those, you'd know he is an expert in that field, and that it is a real risk) it would just mean that science isn't certain. But actually, the whole scientific process is based on mistakes, on disproving things. Being wrong means a scientist was part of discovering something.
Nope, I didn't say that, or anything like that. Try a less tribal, more intellectual response. You might be able to comprehend what I said. It was not opinion, it was not about who can or will fail, and I didn't say that Google will fail to protect privacy.
What I did say is that Google is the only one of the advertising companies who doesn't sell information about you to the people running the ads. They're the only one. So that is how they stand out. You wave your hands and give some raw assertion that they are the only ones to "fail at protecting your privacy," but you give no analysis at all to support it. It is known in the market that everybody else sells your data to make money. That is just a known fact about the market.
If you think Google is compromising your privacy more than other companies, instead of less, wouldn't you want to have actual reasons? And to be correct about it? When you can't even do analysis of your own position and just regurgitate hate, how can you ever hope to increase your mostly non-existence "privacy?" You won't even know if you have any, or if you tried.
Right, because when you buy crap you get magical insights. Also known as bias.
Perhaps you are tense-challenged. Sorry. Were you born that way? And yeah, if you think nothing has changed for Steam between 2005 and now, wow. There are real reasons why in 2005 it was not yet serious competition, and why now it is. People now who only buy games on Steam were not considering that possible in 2005. They'd have basically been giving up gaming. Now it is a real option. Are you sure you know what Steam is?
I notice the "we" in the last part. So you have some magical knowledge from having a consumer purchase under your belt. The little proprietary mind gnome is in there throwing pixy dust at your thoughts on the subject. I guess it just blasted the whole concept of commodity hardware out of the words as they were coming into your brain. How else could you read what I wrote, which was obviously too long for you, and think that having a proprietary service locked to a black box is the same thing as a service that runs on any generic box? Especially in the context of consoles, which you claim to know more than me about through the process of purchasing one.
From my comments it is pretty obvious that I do understand the difference between what "you" have, and what anybody can have using Steam, with any PC, even a generic low margin PC disguised as a black box. You seem to have ignored all of my arguments, and only figured out I'm not "one of [us]" so I must not know anything. It is either the magical console fairy telling you that, or your neckbeard has become sentient. Or, you just didn't even comprehend my words.
Did he ever say that volcanic eruptions and petroleum fires are the same thing?
If he didn't think the oil fires would not cause an "Oil Fires Winter" just like nukes would, why then would he then sound the alarm about the global catastrophe from the oil fires?
It was a possible outcome. That it didn't happen has more to do with the luck of the weather patterns at the time; it in no way refutes the warning, which was of a possible outcome. It wasn't a prediction. The alarmist stuff is added in by your koolaid vendor.
Did anybody say the academic paper was "on volcanic eruptions?"
Have you already forgotten what you wrote just 2 hours ago? Carl Sagan... is actually an expert on the subject, with academic papers on nuclear winter effects that analyze known past events like volcanic eruptions.
Indeed. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I'm not convinced you understood it, though. Are you truly incapable of understand the difference between a paper about nuclear winter effects that analyses things like volcanoes in addition to nuclear explosions, and a paper on volcanic eruptions? Really?
What was in that koolaide, mercury and lead paste?
If there are no driving jobs, or cleaning jobs, and the robots harvest all the food, they can always become hospice workers for the starving unemployed masses.
Or just have less work to do, but CNN is probably talking about US jobs, not European ones.
So, the model is proven. Score that one for the robots.
As long as they remember to program them to demand wages and spend the money, everything will be alright...
Otherwise, the economy will be hosed and they'll have to think of something new.
I mostly agree, but they could spin off (eg change the name) the movie division without brand harm, because while people often know what studio made a movie, they more often don't, and almost nobody would go to a movie (or not) on that basis.
I've heard people insist they won't see any "mainstream hollywood" movie, but I've never heard anybody say they won't watch a movie from (or unless it is from) Brand X.
They would leave the TV business if they weren't also selling high priced audio/video gear to people who like single-brand or few-brand entertainment setups. But they are. So they won't, even if it is losing money.
Why put words in his mouth even after quoting him? Is the koolaid that strong?
Did anybody say the academic paper was "on volcanic eruptions?" Did he ever say that volcanic eruptions and petroleum fires are the same thing? Do you have any data that shows that the source of burnt particulates determines the effect in the atmosphere at elevation he was talking about? Do you understand any of the words I'm saying? Can you hear me now? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.
I thought their reputation had improved significantly since the 80s. Back then I was warned by TV repairpeople not to buy Sony because they cheaped out passive components and their capacitors died way sooner than generic brands. They were, in modern terms, the Toshiba of TVs, but with better styling. Now their TVs look the same as a Toshiba, but their laptops have popular styling. And nobody expects a laptop to last as long as an old TV, and I doubt they even have electrolytic caps to blow out.
Totally anecdotal and subjective, but I'd say they're way closer now to being seen as the Japanese Apple, at least in North America.
It is obvious that there is potential for game-movie tie-ins, but it is not so obvious how to do it and make money. You have to either risk a lot of money on the game before you know if the movie is a hit, or else do it afterwards and miss most of the tie-in potential. And the studios aren't very good at predicting the box office, because they try to make the movies just good enough for each of a bunch of different demographics. It isn't like they (ever) make the best movie they can for a particular demographic anymore. Every movie has to have broader appeal, which means that they're not aiming at anybody loving it; they want the most people possible to just barely give it 5 stars, because that is more ticket sales than if a smaller number of people solidly give it 5 stars. Nobody wants to make the best movie ever, that movie would be lucky to gross in the top 10. The result is that they make a lot of money, but also have a lot of stinker movies, and can't predict the big hits well enough to double their investment with a quality pre-made game with timely tie-ins. By the time you know if the movie is a hit, you're too late to even time a game release to the DVD.
A Playstation is a proprietary black box, regardless of what is under the hood. It doesn't interoperate. The characterization has nothing to do with however crappy the Sony crap is, but rather with what you can do with it, and what it is marketed as being able to do. A Playstation is a totally proprietary black box with a whole proprietary ecosystem built around it.
The whatever-its-called Steam box is just a generic PC with no special ecosystem whose entire purpose is just to run the same software available already for generic PCs.
I was really talking up Ballard Power back in 2002.
A friend's relative made a significant investment about the same time. I'm just glad that purchase was made before I even met him, and not on my recommendation.
We both thought it was a post-bubble fire-sale steal-of-a-deal at $25. It is at currently at $2.43, which is still up somewhat compared to most of the last 10 years. Negative earnings, but they're somehow still in business.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echar...
You climaxed early with "Student Loan Bubble." You could keep the gag going longer without that. It is just too laughable to keep reading after that. I did laugh, but it just felt too early.
Counter anecdote: During the Enron Scandal (October 2001) NPR brought on an analyst who talked about it, but warned that the housing bubble was the real risk that people should be talking about, not Enron.
I believed him, I just wish I hadn't. There were many years of profiteering to be had before the bust. I was shocked that it kept rising after 2004.
And they were right, it was different. By 2001 they had cashed out. In `98 there was a clear understanding that the bubble would still grow further, because people were investing in batshit crazy stuff and the rate of investment was still accelerating.
Nobody knew exactly when the crash would come, but there were signs that the top had been reached. The only people "surprised" by the crash where people who were predicting a downward slope. It was already visibly at least near the top for months ahead. VC money tightened significantly before the crash, and the markets became volatile before finally sliding. You can see in the chart that while there was a big difference between the very top number and what followed, it hadn't been sustained; it dropped first to mid-bubble levels, was clearly in decline, and then dropped further gradually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Of course, I don't remember the "experts" saying there wouldn't be a crash. I remember the experts saying it was a bubble, and would eventually pop. Even mainstream media like NPR was running that through the whole thing.