That raises a slightly more interesting point. Maybe instead of driving down the price of traditional desktop apps, the app store will drive up prices overall, because you submit that app you developed in your spare time and were giving away free on your 50 visitors a month website to the store and suddenly, through larger exposure, you're making a little pocket money from it. I wonder if more lone developers will be tempted down that path when previously they might have given their stuff away for free or run a tip jar.
The point is, playing tennis for 20 minutes is a good workout and should leave you feeling tired. If using your PC has the same effect, how are you going to keep that up for the remaining 7 hours at work, five days a week? In other words, exactly as GP said - fun for games and useful for occasional gestures but you wouldn't want it as your primary input device unless you rarely use the computer.
It was kind of tried with touch screens but ruled out because it was too uncomfortable. Removing the need for physical contact with the screen might alleviate the problem (you at least have some dynamic range of movement and holding your hands closer to your body probably reduces the effect) but I can't imagine it will completely rule it out. For short, fun applications like games this is fine, you can always take a break if it becomes a problem. I can't imagine wanting to work at such a system for 8 hours, but it might have uses in presentations (freeing you up from carrying around a wireless keyboard/remote) or in public terminals (where it's desirable not to have to touch the same input device as several hundred others have that day).
Yes - without at least knowing what percentage of all passwords was cracked this data is meaningless. If only 1% of passwords were cracked with rainbow tables/brute force attacks or whatever then that shows the even on Gawker, most paswords are pretty secure. If, on the other hand, 99% of passwords were cracked, all that tells us definitively is that Gawker passwords were weak, it doesn't say anything about passwords for sites that actually matter.
If only there was some government sponsored secure key system for passwords, enabling the average user to have a secure key with one strong password to access all their others and some education on how to properly use it (I know these things are trivial to find if you know what you're doing, but let's face it, users who know what they're doing aren't really the issue here), we might be able to overcome some of the problems. Having said that, the government hardly have a great reputation for looking after data, I'm not sure I'd trust them with the key to all my passwords, even if it was stored in some non-reversible format (since they'd also have to have some retrieval system for lost passwords that I'm sure could be abused when they leave the doors open).
Unless you use exactly the same formatting rules for each password, I don't see how that's particularly any more easy to remember than a random string. If you can come up with a formatting system that works with all of your address based passwords then I agree that's a pretty good method. I use a similar one for systems that require a password renewal every X days - I use a system based on town and village names near the place I grew up. That place is in the middle of nowhere and nobody's ever heard of it so it would take a pretty determined attacker to a) find out the place I came from, b) figure out that my passwords are based on locations nearby and c) crack the formatting system used to turn those place names into semi random character strings. Meanwhile, for me it makes it simple to juggle dozens of passwords in my head because I can just work through place names I remember from growing up and use them with my system until I find one that fits... and if I ever forget them I can look at Google maps for a prompt:)
no other company could so grandly flop a mega merchandise like star wars.
Maybe you missed the fact that perhaps nine out of every ten SW games for the past three decades have stunk to high heaven, regardless of who was involved. I've lost count of the number of SW games I've seen in that time, but I can probably count the good ones on the fingers of one hand. It's apparently a prime target for the "bang out a piece of tat and cash in quick" labels, probably because the guy behind the license has no objections on quality so long as there's a profit in it.
Indeed - alternatively, if "finished product" means any product which, in its end state, does something different to any other patentable product, I could just take an XBOX, build in a cooling system that's better than the stock fan and patent that as a new "finished product", despite the fact that I invented neither the cooling system nor the console, just the means of putting them together. I think we're stuck with a system very like what we already have, but it's clear the current system is badly hampering innovation now and needs some sever time limits in place.
The saddest part is that this pressure often goes directly against the will of the people, whose interests government should be protecting, certainly over and above those of foreign governments and companies. Largely people see downloading and sharing as a non-issue, a handful will refuse to pay for anything, but for most people they're happy to download an album and buy a bunch more, and maybe that means the record companies can't squeeze every last penny out of society, but they're hardly cash starved either. If a status quo exists in which people are pretty happy and companies still make money, why the hell do we need governments interfering at all?
I don't think they're acting out of some kind of ignorance of how their service is being used - quite the opposite, I think this is people with an agenda (to bring down copyright) providing a service that is aimed at advancing that agenda. I might not agree with their approach but I'm not averse to the thinking behind it. Having said all of that, I think it's pretty clear that they've not committed any crime and that the law is being twisted by those with their own agenda to try and make them criminals. What they offered was realistically little different to what Google or Bing or Yahoo already do, albeit with a target user base with a more specific interest. I have zero issue with private individuals acting within the law to undermine what many people see as an unjust set of rules, I'm a little more wary of big corporations acting in collusion with government to twist laws to take said individuals down (it wouldn't even be so bad if they outright enacted laws to make their actions illegal, at least then we could hold them to account and ask why Google and MS have had a free pass, but this whole thing stinks of corruption at the highest level).
Agreed - ideally what we'd have is better education of judges deliberating on specific topics and some system of protecting said judges from outside influence which might... sway their decision. Nevertheless, having a judge interpret law is the only workable system we've found so far for laws of any kind of complexity (and for laws that are not complex judges generally have little room for movement, they're meant to apply the law as it is written where it's clear and only "create" law where there is confusion). It's never reported on sites like this but I have read plenty of cases where shrewd judges have overturned unjust laws through a constructive reading/application of vague wording. Plenty of judges are clued up and actually do believe in an equitable system, it's the few who are either not knowledgable on the subject they're deciding or are open to corruption who spoil the system - if we could address those two situations the system we have would be as close to perfect as we're likely to get (the system for making the laws in the first place is another matter, of course...)
Because most car owners don't care that their alarms are annoying everyone nearby if it means they don't have to get off their arse and go investigate. Better to inconvenience the other 50 people in earshot. I heard that regulations in Denmark mean that car and house alarms can only sound for a maximum amount of time (30 seconds I think) before cutting out, and possibly only a certain number of times within a time limit. I've often been awake in bed at 3am listening to a neighbour's house alarm sounding continuously for a couple of hours because they're on holiday and can't shut it off and wondered what house prices are like in Denmark.
I went Christmas shopping yesterday and I walked across the car park because the pacements were icy - I can tell you that once you have even a handful of cars moving around you the ability to distinguish that a car is suddenly about to pull out of a space falls to practically zero. I had to be extremely vigilant and twice had cars pull out right in front of me (and it's not like I wasn't visible, it was daylight and I was carrying a pretty big box). I still think there are a handful of situations where having a noisy vehicle is in any way useful and in almost every other situation it's just an annoyance. If we can find better solutions to that handful of situations (have moving cars have to use their headlights, like in large parts of Europe, for instance, to give you an indication that someone is in the parked vehicle ahead and may be about to pull out) then we can eliminate a massive source of noise pollution in our major cities over the next decade or so.
Exactly - the answer is not to put in place incredibly fallible systems that lead people into a false sense of security. That won't do as much to reduce accidents as raising awareness of the need to take care when crossing, there are other ways to address the visual impariment question that don't rely on making things noisy for everyone else. This just sounds like yet more knee-jerk legislation that fails to provide time or thought for investigating better solutions (and once every car has these things it will be too costly to change to a better system).
What happens if it's a bicycle or a coasting car producing little sound coming up behind you? Sound is a useful indicator taken along with all other available cues, but relying on sound to such a high degree is a bad idea from the get go, you either need to turn and look or use a mirror - every other road going vehicle has to be fitted with them. Forcing everyone else to accept noisy modifications to their vehicles just so you can continue to fool yourself that you are safe relying on sound is not the answer.
Possibly, but it wouldn't solve any of the examples GGP used of poor driving. If I'm walking on the pavement and hear a car, I don't expect that that car has mounted the kerb and is about to hit me, so noise or not I wouldn't take evasive action. Similarly I would assume in the crosswalk situation that the pedestrian was aware of the cars and it was only the fact that the car wasn't aware of the pedestrian that led to an accident - again noise or no noise would make little difference there. And the final example of course has nothing to do with noise or even with the car moving at all (although you could equally argue in that case that maybe bicycles should make some noise so drivers know not to open doors into them). The point is that noise is actually only useful in a minority of road safety instances, and perhaps there are better ways to provide for those instances that are not being investigated.
It is where I live too. That doesn't stop absolutely everyone using their horn to indicate that they're angry, or that they're waiting outside to pick someone up, or that they're leaving someone's house and think it's an appropriate way to say goodbye, or they've seen someone they know by the roadside or in another vehicle and think it's an appropriate way to say hello... If they use it already in all of those situations then I think "Hey, my car is about to plough into you at speed" seems like a genuine use.
If cars could be made to make a sound that's off the audible scale for humans, the blind could pick this up with a special hearing device - cheaper and easier than radar/sonar, although they'd have to be pretty reliable as you wouldn't have an easy way of checking it was working without having a listening device of your own. This sounds like a reasonably cheap and effective way to please everyone, the blind and those who want some peace and quiet.
I recently visited Italy and there, even where you are crossing in a specially designated area where pedestrians do have the right of way, the cars won't stop to let you cross unless you walk out in front of them. Coming from a country with a reasonably sensible approach to pedestrian crossings (if you're waiting it's your right of way and traffic almost always stops to let you cross here) the first few days were pretty terrifying, but literally everyone does it - when you see 80 year old grandmothers step out into traffic doing 40MPH you feel pretty silly for not wanting to do it, but the self preservation instinct is pretty hard to overrule. The first couple of days our only way of crossing a busy street was to find a local who was about to cross, wait for them to step out and quickly follow in their wake - we got a little braver after that but it still felt insane (and even crossing at pedestrian crossings that had traffic lights was touch and go - we met a tour guide who said, in the north of Italy, traffic lights are generally obeyed, in Rome they're more of a suggestion, and in the south they're purely decorative).
I wondered whether the cars could emit a sound that's not in the generally audible spectrum, but could be picked up by a hearing device. That way everyone (including the blind) can enjoy the benefit of a quieter city life, but crossing the road wouldn't be a risk, just pop in the hearing aid. Even better, using directional sound technology you could have a different sound depending on whether the car is approaching or moving away from your position, and maybe even a range of sounds to indicate speed - actually an enhacement to the existing noise that gives it some semantic meaning to the blind that helps them to determine, "okay, I hear a car but it's pretty far off and going slow or heading in the opposite direction, it's safe to cross now".
It feels less crap when it's the same store. I wouldn't have any problem with going into an electrical retailer, getting information on a product, then buying it online from their website - the way I see it they should be offering me the same price anyway when I've made the effort to trudge down there and stand in front of one of their staff while they try and upsell me on everything. One store refused to give any kind of discount for two big ticket items purchased together (even though I used to work technical support for them and know for a fact that they can always authorise up to 10% discount without even speaking to a manager - it just comes out of their commission so they don't like doing it), not only did I find the same items on their own website cheaper, I also noticed they price match on the website and found it still cheaper elsewhere and got them to match the price so I ended up saving something like 25% on the store price. Not only that, the website took away my old appliances for free (the store charged a fee for the service), so I saved another £15 there, and to add insult to injury, the items were delivered and the old items taken away by the very same store who refused to budge on price. I didn't feel at all crap about that!
On the other hand I think if you go into a store and get them to spend time and effort explaining a product, only to then go buy it cheaper online, that's a bit low. I was in HMV a few weekends ago and a couple held up the line (when it was really busy already) for 20 minutes getting about forty used games and a couple of consoles scanned and priced up for trade-in, and after all that they didn't go through with the deal, just took a note of the prices (actually they made the guy turn his screen around so they could photograph the prices and take them away) and went off elsewhere to compare them. That's a pretty mean thing to do, not only wasting the time of the people serving in the store but of all the people in the queue behind them, too.
I have to say I've had no issues with getting replacement items - in fact, I've only ever had one item fail to turn up and Amazon sent me a replacement (a pad for the XBOX). However, three or four times after that at an interval of maybe a month to six weeks they emailed me asking me to fill out some form verifying that the goods had not arrived. That I found incredibly annoying. If the goods had arrived, I would have contacted them to have the duplicate returned, I don't need some automated system chasing me up. Moreover I felt I had to fill out the form or they'd assume I'd stolen the duplicate and do some kind of follow up, it felt like I was being treated like a crime suspect rather than a valued customer. The only other issue was with their courier continually ignoring instructions not to leave packages on the doorstep or with them leaving packages with neighbours without letting us know which ones - but yes, more a courier issue than an Amazon issue (albeit they hired the courier).
I can only assume such stores continue to survive because people like the assurance of a physical place they can go complain if/when something breaks on their expensive new gadget. One day some bean counter will realise they can save a fortune by routing all customer service issues through a phone line or internet service and it will be the death of big electronics stores. After all, if I need to buy a cable in an emergency and pay five times the internet price for the privilege, I can already do that in most supermarkets.
Too many games that are based on movies are made not because the developers have some interesting story to tell or game mechanics to share, but to cash in on clueless mums and dads buying presents over the holiday seasons.
Why would people who don't care about the game be interested in a movie adaptation of that game?
My GF has never read LotR but she loved the movies - I even gave her my copy of the books to read after she'd seen the movie but she just couldn't get interested in them at all. You don't need to have enjoyed a story in one medium to be able to enjoy it in another.
And if you want to attract people who don't care about the game, why would you even try to make such an adaptation? Just make an original story that's designed to be good for that medium.
It seems like that's the problem - Hollywood struggles for good ideas and original stories. Mainstream gaming often suffers the same issue, but there does at least seem to be some variety in gaming, and because the story is told over a longer arc than a movie, there's more opportunity to try something different in the course of the game. That makes them a potentially lucrative source of ideas for movie-makers if they can just figure out how to adapt them in such a way that non-gamers don't dismiss them as being "just about games" and gamers dismiss them as being an insult to the world described in their favourite game.
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That raises a slightly more interesting point. Maybe instead of driving down the price of traditional desktop apps, the app store will drive up prices overall, because you submit that app you developed in your spare time and were giving away free on your 50 visitors a month website to the store and suddenly, through larger exposure, you're making a little pocket money from it. I wonder if more lone developers will be tempted down that path when previously they might have given their stuff away for free or run a tip jar.
The point is, playing tennis for 20 minutes is a good workout and should leave you feeling tired. If using your PC has the same effect, how are you going to keep that up for the remaining 7 hours at work, five days a week? In other words, exactly as GP said - fun for games and useful for occasional gestures but you wouldn't want it as your primary input device unless you rarely use the computer.
It was kind of tried with touch screens but ruled out because it was too uncomfortable. Removing the need for physical contact with the screen might alleviate the problem (you at least have some dynamic range of movement and holding your hands closer to your body probably reduces the effect) but I can't imagine it will completely rule it out. For short, fun applications like games this is fine, you can always take a break if it becomes a problem. I can't imagine wanting to work at such a system for 8 hours, but it might have uses in presentations (freeing you up from carrying around a wireless keyboard/remote) or in public terminals (where it's desirable not to have to touch the same input device as several hundred others have that day).
Yes - without at least knowing what percentage of all passwords was cracked this data is meaningless. If only 1% of passwords were cracked with rainbow tables/brute force attacks or whatever then that shows the even on Gawker, most paswords are pretty secure. If, on the other hand, 99% of passwords were cracked, all that tells us definitively is that Gawker passwords were weak, it doesn't say anything about passwords for sites that actually matter.
If only there was some government sponsored secure key system for passwords, enabling the average user to have a secure key with one strong password to access all their others and some education on how to properly use it (I know these things are trivial to find if you know what you're doing, but let's face it, users who know what they're doing aren't really the issue here), we might be able to overcome some of the problems. Having said that, the government hardly have a great reputation for looking after data, I'm not sure I'd trust them with the key to all my passwords, even if it was stored in some non-reversible format (since they'd also have to have some retrieval system for lost passwords that I'm sure could be abused when they leave the doors open).
Unless you use exactly the same formatting rules for each password, I don't see how that's particularly any more easy to remember than a random string. If you can come up with a formatting system that works with all of your address based passwords then I agree that's a pretty good method. I use a similar one for systems that require a password renewal every X days - I use a system based on town and village names near the place I grew up. That place is in the middle of nowhere and nobody's ever heard of it so it would take a pretty determined attacker to a) find out the place I came from, b) figure out that my passwords are based on locations nearby and c) crack the formatting system used to turn those place names into semi random character strings. Meanwhile, for me it makes it simple to juggle dozens of passwords in my head because I can just work through place names I remember from growing up and use them with my system until I find one that fits... and if I ever forget them I can look at Google maps for a prompt :)
no other company could so grandly flop a mega merchandise like star wars.
Maybe you missed the fact that perhaps nine out of every ten SW games for the past three decades have stunk to high heaven, regardless of who was involved. I've lost count of the number of SW games I've seen in that time, but I can probably count the good ones on the fingers of one hand. It's apparently a prime target for the "bang out a piece of tat and cash in quick" labels, probably because the guy behind the license has no objections on quality so long as there's a profit in it.
Indeed - alternatively, if "finished product" means any product which, in its end state, does something different to any other patentable product, I could just take an XBOX, build in a cooling system that's better than the stock fan and patent that as a new "finished product", despite the fact that I invented neither the cooling system nor the console, just the means of putting them together. I think we're stuck with a system very like what we already have, but it's clear the current system is badly hampering innovation now and needs some sever time limits in place.
The saddest part is that this pressure often goes directly against the will of the people, whose interests government should be protecting, certainly over and above those of foreign governments and companies. Largely people see downloading and sharing as a non-issue, a handful will refuse to pay for anything, but for most people they're happy to download an album and buy a bunch more, and maybe that means the record companies can't squeeze every last penny out of society, but they're hardly cash starved either. If a status quo exists in which people are pretty happy and companies still make money, why the hell do we need governments interfering at all?
I don't think they're acting out of some kind of ignorance of how their service is being used - quite the opposite, I think this is people with an agenda (to bring down copyright) providing a service that is aimed at advancing that agenda. I might not agree with their approach but I'm not averse to the thinking behind it. Having said all of that, I think it's pretty clear that they've not committed any crime and that the law is being twisted by those with their own agenda to try and make them criminals. What they offered was realistically little different to what Google or Bing or Yahoo already do, albeit with a target user base with a more specific interest. I have zero issue with private individuals acting within the law to undermine what many people see as an unjust set of rules, I'm a little more wary of big corporations acting in collusion with government to twist laws to take said individuals down (it wouldn't even be so bad if they outright enacted laws to make their actions illegal, at least then we could hold them to account and ask why Google and MS have had a free pass, but this whole thing stinks of corruption at the highest level).
Agreed - ideally what we'd have is better education of judges deliberating on specific topics and some system of protecting said judges from outside influence which might... sway their decision. Nevertheless, having a judge interpret law is the only workable system we've found so far for laws of any kind of complexity (and for laws that are not complex judges generally have little room for movement, they're meant to apply the law as it is written where it's clear and only "create" law where there is confusion). It's never reported on sites like this but I have read plenty of cases where shrewd judges have overturned unjust laws through a constructive reading/application of vague wording. Plenty of judges are clued up and actually do believe in an equitable system, it's the few who are either not knowledgable on the subject they're deciding or are open to corruption who spoil the system - if we could address those two situations the system we have would be as close to perfect as we're likely to get (the system for making the laws in the first place is another matter, of course...)
Because most car owners don't care that their alarms are annoying everyone nearby if it means they don't have to get off their arse and go investigate. Better to inconvenience the other 50 people in earshot. I heard that regulations in Denmark mean that car and house alarms can only sound for a maximum amount of time (30 seconds I think) before cutting out, and possibly only a certain number of times within a time limit. I've often been awake in bed at 3am listening to a neighbour's house alarm sounding continuously for a couple of hours because they're on holiday and can't shut it off and wondered what house prices are like in Denmark.
I went Christmas shopping yesterday and I walked across the car park because the pacements were icy - I can tell you that once you have even a handful of cars moving around you the ability to distinguish that a car is suddenly about to pull out of a space falls to practically zero. I had to be extremely vigilant and twice had cars pull out right in front of me (and it's not like I wasn't visible, it was daylight and I was carrying a pretty big box). I still think there are a handful of situations where having a noisy vehicle is in any way useful and in almost every other situation it's just an annoyance. If we can find better solutions to that handful of situations (have moving cars have to use their headlights, like in large parts of Europe, for instance, to give you an indication that someone is in the parked vehicle ahead and may be about to pull out) then we can eliminate a massive source of noise pollution in our major cities over the next decade or so.
Exactly - the answer is not to put in place incredibly fallible systems that lead people into a false sense of security. That won't do as much to reduce accidents as raising awareness of the need to take care when crossing, there are other ways to address the visual impariment question that don't rely on making things noisy for everyone else. This just sounds like yet more knee-jerk legislation that fails to provide time or thought for investigating better solutions (and once every car has these things it will be too costly to change to a better system).
What happens if it's a bicycle or a coasting car producing little sound coming up behind you? Sound is a useful indicator taken along with all other available cues, but relying on sound to such a high degree is a bad idea from the get go, you either need to turn and look or use a mirror - every other road going vehicle has to be fitted with them. Forcing everyone else to accept noisy modifications to their vehicles just so you can continue to fool yourself that you are safe relying on sound is not the answer.
Possibly, but it wouldn't solve any of the examples GGP used of poor driving. If I'm walking on the pavement and hear a car, I don't expect that that car has mounted the kerb and is about to hit me, so noise or not I wouldn't take evasive action. Similarly I would assume in the crosswalk situation that the pedestrian was aware of the cars and it was only the fact that the car wasn't aware of the pedestrian that led to an accident - again noise or no noise would make little difference there. And the final example of course has nothing to do with noise or even with the car moving at all (although you could equally argue in that case that maybe bicycles should make some noise so drivers know not to open doors into them). The point is that noise is actually only useful in a minority of road safety instances, and perhaps there are better ways to provide for those instances that are not being investigated.
It is where I live too. That doesn't stop absolutely everyone using their horn to indicate that they're angry, or that they're waiting outside to pick someone up, or that they're leaving someone's house and think it's an appropriate way to say goodbye, or they've seen someone they know by the roadside or in another vehicle and think it's an appropriate way to say hello... If they use it already in all of those situations then I think "Hey, my car is about to plough into you at speed" seems like a genuine use.
If cars could be made to make a sound that's off the audible scale for humans, the blind could pick this up with a special hearing device - cheaper and easier than radar/sonar, although they'd have to be pretty reliable as you wouldn't have an easy way of checking it was working without having a listening device of your own. This sounds like a reasonably cheap and effective way to please everyone, the blind and those who want some peace and quiet.
I recently visited Italy and there, even where you are crossing in a specially designated area where pedestrians do have the right of way, the cars won't stop to let you cross unless you walk out in front of them. Coming from a country with a reasonably sensible approach to pedestrian crossings (if you're waiting it's your right of way and traffic almost always stops to let you cross here) the first few days were pretty terrifying, but literally everyone does it - when you see 80 year old grandmothers step out into traffic doing 40MPH you feel pretty silly for not wanting to do it, but the self preservation instinct is pretty hard to overrule. The first couple of days our only way of crossing a busy street was to find a local who was about to cross, wait for them to step out and quickly follow in their wake - we got a little braver after that but it still felt insane (and even crossing at pedestrian crossings that had traffic lights was touch and go - we met a tour guide who said, in the north of Italy, traffic lights are generally obeyed, in Rome they're more of a suggestion, and in the south they're purely decorative).
I wondered whether the cars could emit a sound that's not in the generally audible spectrum, but could be picked up by a hearing device. That way everyone (including the blind) can enjoy the benefit of a quieter city life, but crossing the road wouldn't be a risk, just pop in the hearing aid. Even better, using directional sound technology you could have a different sound depending on whether the car is approaching or moving away from your position, and maybe even a range of sounds to indicate speed - actually an enhacement to the existing noise that gives it some semantic meaning to the blind that helps them to determine, "okay, I hear a car but it's pretty far off and going slow or heading in the opposite direction, it's safe to cross now".
It feels less crap when it's the same store. I wouldn't have any problem with going into an electrical retailer, getting information on a product, then buying it online from their website - the way I see it they should be offering me the same price anyway when I've made the effort to trudge down there and stand in front of one of their staff while they try and upsell me on everything. One store refused to give any kind of discount for two big ticket items purchased together (even though I used to work technical support for them and know for a fact that they can always authorise up to 10% discount without even speaking to a manager - it just comes out of their commission so they don't like doing it), not only did I find the same items on their own website cheaper, I also noticed they price match on the website and found it still cheaper elsewhere and got them to match the price so I ended up saving something like 25% on the store price. Not only that, the website took away my old appliances for free (the store charged a fee for the service), so I saved another £15 there, and to add insult to injury, the items were delivered and the old items taken away by the very same store who refused to budge on price. I didn't feel at all crap about that!
On the other hand I think if you go into a store and get them to spend time and effort explaining a product, only to then go buy it cheaper online, that's a bit low. I was in HMV a few weekends ago and a couple held up the line (when it was really busy already) for 20 minutes getting about forty used games and a couple of consoles scanned and priced up for trade-in, and after all that they didn't go through with the deal, just took a note of the prices (actually they made the guy turn his screen around so they could photograph the prices and take them away) and went off elsewhere to compare them. That's a pretty mean thing to do, not only wasting the time of the people serving in the store but of all the people in the queue behind them, too.
I have to say I've had no issues with getting replacement items - in fact, I've only ever had one item fail to turn up and Amazon sent me a replacement (a pad for the XBOX). However, three or four times after that at an interval of maybe a month to six weeks they emailed me asking me to fill out some form verifying that the goods had not arrived. That I found incredibly annoying. If the goods had arrived, I would have contacted them to have the duplicate returned, I don't need some automated system chasing me up. Moreover I felt I had to fill out the form or they'd assume I'd stolen the duplicate and do some kind of follow up, it felt like I was being treated like a crime suspect rather than a valued customer. The only other issue was with their courier continually ignoring instructions not to leave packages on the doorstep or with them leaving packages with neighbours without letting us know which ones - but yes, more a courier issue than an Amazon issue (albeit they hired the courier).
I can only assume such stores continue to survive because people like the assurance of a physical place they can go complain if/when something breaks on their expensive new gadget. One day some bean counter will realise they can save a fortune by routing all customer service issues through a phone line or internet service and it will be the death of big electronics stores. After all, if I need to buy a cable in an emergency and pay five times the internet price for the privilege, I can already do that in most supermarkets.
Too many games that are based on movies are made not because the developers have some interesting story to tell or game mechanics to share, but to cash in on clueless mums and dads buying presents over the holiday seasons.
Why would people who don't care about the game be interested in a movie adaptation of that game?
My GF has never read LotR but she loved the movies - I even gave her my copy of the books to read after she'd seen the movie but she just couldn't get interested in them at all. You don't need to have enjoyed a story in one medium to be able to enjoy it in another.
And if you want to attract people who don't care about the game, why would you even try to make such an adaptation? Just make an original story that's designed to be good for that medium.
It seems like that's the problem - Hollywood struggles for good ideas and original stories. Mainstream gaming often suffers the same issue, but there does at least seem to be some variety in gaming, and because the story is told over a longer arc than a movie, there's more opportunity to try something different in the course of the game. That makes them a potentially lucrative source of ideas for movie-makers if they can just figure out how to adapt them in such a way that non-gamers don't dismiss them as being "just about games" and gamers dismiss them as being an insult to the world described in their favourite game.