Given a free application with a lousy interface and a free application with a great interface, all features and functionality equal, having my cake and eating it too goes miles in my book.
PS2 had a price drop 8 months from launch. PS3: 7 months.
Of course, doesn't mean early adopters ought to be cheering in the streets... unless you consider that a price drop may mean more sales of the console. A bigger install base means there's a wider audience for your game to develop for PS3. And that's good for everyone with a PS3 including early adopters.
They're allowed, just like the MPAA ratings. The article doesn't say though if Take Two is going to also resubmit a censored edition to get an M rating at the same time... but if they're calling it art they probably shouldn't to that to keep any face at all.
Try adjusting the randomness slider in iTunes and then resync. In default settings it occasionally favors another random song from the same album / artist over a random song selected from your entire collection.
The only way to be 100 percent certain that you will not be in a car accident is to not drive, but surely that doesn't mean you shouldn't drive. And it wouldn't be evil to suggest wearing a seat belt while driving, which significantly increases your chances of survival, but fails to guarantee it. What's the difference?
The vast majority of slashdotters have driven a car before?
While I don't disagree, I'm not sure I'd follow on losing market share, though. The Wii is unique enough that people would ask for it by what it does and not because they want gameConsole++. Nobody is going into a store looking for a Wii and walking out with a 360 instead. I don't think a similar price point would make that happen, either. I'd even go so far as to say that each of the three consoles are so separate in strengths that nobody would go into a store looking for any of them and then shrugging and buying one of the other as an alternative.
Unless by "losing market share to the competition" you mean, like, going outside and playing on the lawn or something.;)
So people are going into stores asking for SKU 204714487 instead of the 360 Elite?
It's worth noting that different stores may assign different SKUs to different items, which isn't unambiguous. UPC would be a better unambiguous code. Make/Model is actually the most consumer friendly (360 Core, PS3 80GB, iPhone 8G).
Why isn't it used? Because some gaming industry insiders wanted to elevate themselves in a shroud of exclusivity and elitism and you can't do that by using acronyms and terms that are already used in language and common knowledge.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to CYA on these TPS reports ASAP or we're FUBAR and BVD or BYOB, PDQ.
Insterestingly enough, a while back on that same blog, there was an article about how Geek Squad snooping around some customer's computer revealed he had child porn.
While computer repair regulations don't exist like, say, auto repair regulations do, at the time I wondered if it would become compulsory for a computer repair shop to search and disclose child porn and similar because won't someone please think of the children.
If you have a safety deposit box at a bank, you're entrusting them not to open it while you're away and look at all the sparklies. If you take your clothes to a cleaner, you entrust them not to wear it out on the town ala. Seinfeld. If you get your car fixed, you entrust them not to wade through those papers in your glove compartment and snicker at that condom from 1974. I think it's a reasonable expectation that you'll have files not related to your problem remain unexamined.
Were it my repair shop, the first thing I'd think of is "wow, we're so not busy right now my employee has the time to search for goodies on client computers?"
Are you kidding me? You expect these people, who are the low-paid, bottom-of-the-IT-food-chain to have ethics? Why are they any different from a parking lot attendant or car wash guy? Because they're techies? Don't kid yourself.
All persons should aspire to live their lives ethically. Rather than have those who do be the exception, it ought to be that those that don't are the exception.
It's just that the boys at the FCC are go getters! Who cares if they aren't software security people, it's the FCC! They see a problem and are totally pro-active to take it on. Morality cops on TV and radio? That definitely falls within assigning and licensing portions of the EM spectrum for private industry. They're just going above and beyond.
Thing is, if the new CPU truly is the next greatest thing since shaved ice, they wouldn't need to be deceptive. They'd use fair and unbiased benchmarks and their CPU will float to the top.
The deceptive benchmark is indicative of one thing: the new CPU blows. Otherwise it wouldn't be needed.
What I would be concerned about is whether this was put forth by the marketing teams to cover up a costly R&D backtrack or it was put forth by the lead engineering groups to save their butts from the fire from the executives since they wouldn't know a good CPU if it burned them in the butt*.
* Not a direct attack on executives since, by definition, they're there to RUN a business and not actually develop FOR the business, so, knowing a good CPU is simply out of scope and their only references are what their employees tell them.
If popular culture is anything to go by they certainly do `biggest is best` but I think I'll be sticking to art (music, films, literature) from outside the States if you don't mind.
Because nothing says "discriminating taste" quite like discrimination on country of origin instead of content.
Look into non-corporate independant work in each of those three categories and you'll see that talent and lack thereof are most certainly not chained to any one nationality.
A) Lots of people use 3 year old PCs. I had a favor called in just the other day to repair an old Pentium-II system.
B) I think GP was referring to the applications one uses 3 years from now. Today someone might be using word processing and email, while 10 years ago they might just be using word processing. I think it's possible that a next Killer App can come out within 3 years... all it takes is a great idea. And if cross-platform tools are good enough, that Killer App would be truly OS agnostic.
Hmmm... the two (freezing and the drying up of preapproved credit) had correlation, but, to be fair, from my vantage point I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and causation. Perhaps it was just a Florida resident coincidence after all?
Another happy side-effect of freezing your credit: No snail-mail spam about preapproved credit offers. It's saved me much over the last year in time devoted to shredding.
I'm not sure if it's HIS music. He may perform on recording, but how about everyone else? Did he hire them or did his record company? Who mastered it? Who were the audio engineers in charge of it? Are they his employees or his record companies? Is he giving away pressed copies of the same thing in stores or are they his B-sides and rough-draft tracks?
It didn't have to be this way. He could have dropped his record company, published and released it on his own with all rights and privilages thereof. Including giving it away for free. If he's abusing the access he has to record company resources to produce pet projects and give them away, The Suits have good reason to be mad and what Prince is doing isn't legit.
In other news, I can't BELIEVE I'm actually on that side of a Music Industry vs. Anyone discussion.
So, presumably, how it would work is: 1. Internet seller sells Item by Manufacturer below MDBP (Manufacturer Demanded Base Price). 2. Manufacturer "bans" this. Since they do not have legal power, they'd ask distributors to stop distributing to that silly sod. 3. Distributors that disobey risk never getting shipments of Item anymore, so they comply. 4. Internet seller doesn't get Item anymore and can't sell them at Low Low Prices (tm).
Hmm... assuming that's how it'd work... 5. Progressive Manufacturer Alpha makes a competing product for Item: Item Alpha. They don't have an MDBP. 6. Distributors carry Item Alpha. 7. Internet seller gets a few lots of Item Alpha. 8. Item Alpha now gets sold at Low Low Prices. 9. Item loses market share to Item Alpha.
If you accept the above as not being very farfetched, then you accept that manufacturers act in their own disinterest by colluding for minimum prices. And that by lifting the ban it doesn't automatically follow that everyone's going to do it.
Even if I'm completely wrong about this, that's still always going to be the grey market from overseas, so, don't get your cheetos in a huddle,/.'ers.
Like a customer that comes back to PetsMart with dead fish after dead fish, I have trouble believing after 8 dead fish that ALL of the problem is PetsMart selling defective fish.
Slashdot Mirror
Given a free application with a lousy interface and a free application with a great interface, all features and functionality equal, having my cake and eating it too goes miles in my book.
My appologies, I meant the PS1
At least according to the same source as the PS2 pricing history.
I think it's helping that Amazon is offering it at $500 with a rebate for 5 Blu-Ray movies (of the buyer's choice) with it.
PS2 had a price drop 8 months from launch. PS3: 7 months.
Of course, doesn't mean early adopters ought to be cheering in the streets... unless you consider that a price drop may mean more sales of the console. A bigger install base means there's a wider audience for your game to develop for PS3. And that's good for everyone with a PS3 including early adopters.
I'm sure the DMCA gives plenty of ammunition for preventing a legitimate company from publishing unlicensed games.
Then again, manufacturers of cheat devices (game shark, action replay, etc) are unlicensed so... how are they getting away with it?
They're allowed, just like the MPAA ratings. The article doesn't say though if Take Two is going to also resubmit a censored edition to get an M rating at the same time... but if they're calling it art they probably shouldn't to that to keep any face at all.
Try adjusting the randomness slider in iTunes and then resync. In default settings it occasionally favors another random song from the same album / artist over a random song selected from your entire collection.
The only way to be 100 percent certain that you will not be in a car accident is to not drive, but surely that doesn't mean you shouldn't drive. And it wouldn't be evil to suggest wearing a seat belt while driving, which significantly increases your chances of survival, but fails to guarantee it. What's the difference?
The vast majority of slashdotters have driven a car before?
Only ironic if you believe all modern chemistry is evil and has never brought any good to humanity.
While I don't disagree, I'm not sure I'd follow on losing market share, though. The Wii is unique enough that people would ask for it by what it does and not because they want gameConsole++. Nobody is going into a store looking for a Wii and walking out with a 360 instead. I don't think a similar price point would make that happen, either. I'd even go so far as to say that each of the three consoles are so separate in strengths that nobody would go into a store looking for any of them and then shrugging and buying one of the other as an alternative.
;)
Unless by "losing market share to the competition" you mean, like, going outside and playing on the lawn or something.
So people are going into stores asking for SKU 204714487 instead of the 360 Elite?
It's worth noting that different stores may assign different SKUs to different items, which isn't unambiguous. UPC would be a better unambiguous code. Make/Model is actually the most consumer friendly (360 Core, PS3 80GB, iPhone 8G).
Why isn't it used? Because some gaming industry insiders wanted to elevate themselves in a shroud of exclusivity and elitism and you can't do that by using acronyms and terms that are already used in language and common knowledge.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to CYA on these TPS reports ASAP or we're FUBAR and BVD or BYOB, PDQ.
Those 20GB models have been off the market for at least a few months now.
Insterestingly enough, a while back on that same blog, there was an article about how Geek Squad snooping around some customer's computer revealed he had child porn.
While computer repair regulations don't exist like, say, auto repair regulations do, at the time I wondered if it would become compulsory for a computer repair shop to search and disclose child porn and similar because won't someone please think of the children.
If you have a safety deposit box at a bank, you're entrusting them not to open it while you're away and look at all the sparklies. If you take your clothes to a cleaner, you entrust them not to wear it out on the town ala. Seinfeld. If you get your car fixed, you entrust them not to wade through those papers in your glove compartment and snicker at that condom from 1974. I think it's a reasonable expectation that you'll have files not related to your problem remain unexamined.
Were it my repair shop, the first thing I'd think of is "wow, we're so not busy right now my employee has the time to search for goodies on client computers?"
All persons should aspire to live their lives ethically. Rather than have those who do be the exception, it ought to be that those that don't are the exception.
It's just that the boys at the FCC are go getters! Who cares if they aren't software security people, it's the FCC! They see a problem and are totally pro-active to take it on. Morality cops on TV and radio? That definitely falls within assigning and licensing portions of the EM spectrum for private industry. They're just going above and beyond.
All hail the FCC!
(can I puke now?)
Thing is, if the new CPU truly is the next greatest thing since shaved ice, they wouldn't need to be deceptive. They'd use fair and unbiased benchmarks and their CPU will float to the top.
The deceptive benchmark is indicative of one thing: the new CPU blows. Otherwise it wouldn't be needed.
What I would be concerned about is whether this was put forth by the marketing teams to cover up a costly R&D backtrack or it was put forth by the lead engineering groups to save their butts from the fire from the executives since they wouldn't know a good CPU if it burned them in the butt*.
* Not a direct attack on executives since, by definition, they're there to RUN a business and not actually develop FOR the business, so, knowing a good CPU is simply out of scope and their only references are what their employees tell them.
Or, more directly, the fluff of Dickens and Tolstoy has literary and artistic merit while the fluff of sitcoms truly is expendible.
If popular culture is anything to go by they certainly do `biggest is best` but I think I'll be sticking to art (music, films, literature) from outside the States if you don't mind.
Because nothing says "discriminating taste" quite like discrimination on country of origin instead of content.
Look into non-corporate independant work in each of those three categories and you'll see that talent and lack thereof are most certainly not chained to any one nationality.
A) Lots of people use 3 year old PCs. I had a favor called in just the other day to repair an old Pentium-II system.
B) I think GP was referring to the applications one uses 3 years from now. Today someone might be using word processing and email, while 10 years ago they might just be using word processing. I think it's possible that a next Killer App can come out within 3 years... all it takes is a great idea. And if cross-platform tools are good enough, that Killer App would be truly OS agnostic.
Hmmm... the two (freezing and the drying up of preapproved credit) had correlation, but, to be fair, from my vantage point I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and causation. Perhaps it was just a Florida resident coincidence after all?
Another happy side-effect of freezing your credit: No snail-mail spam about preapproved credit offers. It's saved me much over the last year in time devoted to shredding.
"'Laundering. To clean...' no, uh, here it is. 'To channel money through a source or by an intermediary.'"
"It doesn't really help us, Michael."
I'm not sure if it's HIS music. He may perform on recording, but how about everyone else? Did he hire them or did his record company? Who mastered it? Who were the audio engineers in charge of it? Are they his employees or his record companies? Is he giving away pressed copies of the same thing in stores or are they his B-sides and rough-draft tracks?
It didn't have to be this way. He could have dropped his record company, published and released it on his own with all rights and privilages thereof. Including giving it away for free. If he's abusing the access he has to record company resources to produce pet projects and give them away, The Suits have good reason to be mad and what Prince is doing isn't legit.
In other news, I can't BELIEVE I'm actually on that side of a Music Industry vs. Anyone discussion.
So, presumably, how it would work is:
/.'ers.
1. Internet seller sells Item by Manufacturer below MDBP (Manufacturer Demanded Base Price).
2. Manufacturer "bans" this. Since they do not have legal power, they'd ask distributors to stop distributing to that silly sod.
3. Distributors that disobey risk never getting shipments of Item anymore, so they comply.
4. Internet seller doesn't get Item anymore and can't sell them at Low Low Prices (tm).
Hmm... assuming that's how it'd work...
5. Progressive Manufacturer Alpha makes a competing product for Item: Item Alpha. They don't have an MDBP.
6. Distributors carry Item Alpha.
7. Internet seller gets a few lots of Item Alpha.
8. Item Alpha now gets sold at Low Low Prices.
9. Item loses market share to Item Alpha.
If you accept the above as not being very farfetched, then you accept that manufacturers act in their own disinterest by colluding for minimum prices. And that by lifting the ban it doesn't automatically follow that everyone's going to do it.
Even if I'm completely wrong about this, that's still always going to be the grey market from overseas, so, don't get your cheetos in a huddle,
Like a customer that comes back to PetsMart with dead fish after dead fish, I have trouble believing after 8 dead fish that ALL of the problem is PetsMart selling defective fish.
Curses! Foiled again!
-Aquaman