Posts by Bob Barker 13 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Sep 2007
When talking about Microsoft.......
"a long time for the elimination of toxic chemicals from its products."
LIKE THE VENOMOUS POISON IT IS!
Also, like all other boffins before me, this is just looking at the product as is, its not taking into account the "eco-credentials" of the product while in use, hence its useless.
Awesome book. Had to read it for an event I was attending and sure am glad I did.
The dystopian picture painted by Atwood, while bizzare, is completely possible with the way the world is going. Although no one would be selling mult-orgasm-orgy-starting pills and hope for them to be bought by every single human being in the world like it did in the book, there are several other ways that a specific chemical or chemical product can be delivered throughout the entire world. Ozone creating molecules that, after a certain time blacken the atmosphere (a la Animatrix) or molecules that soak up the excess heat produced by greenhouse gases that ends up raising the water level around the world, these are all possible ways for the book to come to life for us.
So yeah, before buying your next miracle pill, ask yourself if its too good to be true.
PS: Hilton because imagining Oryx to be here made the book go by much quicker and made it hilarious to a certain extent too!
Wow. Internal memory? Its pushing into PSP territory and if they do end up giving it a bigger screen, you've got (nearly) all the features of PSP with the game library of a DS.
And back-wards compatibility hasnt really been a strong suit of Nintendo. Wii can play GC games as well as its own, but GC could only play games specifically made for it. Me thinks this is one of the reasons it failed as bad as it did. But the DS is a whole different league all together with the sheer amount and variety of games on it, GBA titles can easily become obsolete. Additionally, the DS doesnt support gameboy and gameboy color catridges anyways (I think) and that wasnt a huge issue at all.
So in normal conditions having acess to its predecessors library of games seems crucial but if anyone can NOT do that and still be sucessful, it might just be the DS. Hopefully we'll get integrated WiFi with the new model. I can assure that if that weer the case, itd sell like hotcakes.
"Attorneys for Supervalu, which owns the Albertsons chain, are arguing that the company should recover the full amount because it was a victim, has committed no wrongdoing, and has cooperated fully with investigators."
That seems to suggest that they had to fight to get their money back. Was the US government intending to keep the money from the bank accounts???? Isnt any money recovered from a fraud cause sent right back to the original owners?
I've been an avid ebay-er since 2004-ish. I havent bought any expensive electronics or gadgets etc. Most expensive thing I've bought is a refurbished iPod so that I could break its insides and see how it worked etc. A side project for a class of mine. Apart from that, all other transactions have gone on hitchless.
Hence, it comes to me as a surprise that so many people have been frauded on that site. I've been tempted to buy electronics though, especially memory sticks/flash drives but then I thought "If i happen to get a wrong amount of memory, I have no way of proving my case that I havent switched it out with a smaller memory size and am now complaining to make a profit.". This point alone has kept me from bidding on stuff like that.
Maybe Im being cautious but the last thing I want to do in an age such as ours is send money to someone who I know off the internet.
....in more ways than one, eh?
Puns apart, although voluntary, this is leading the way to something quite distasteful. Kids getting used to being tracked leads to citizens getting used to being tracked. Not a very "independent thought" moral being taught to our young ones. Heck, the most creative ideas in school for me came out through the process of evading the headmaster and his croonies. But me thinks this most likely wont become mainstream since parents and adults still have SOME sense in them against such stupidity such as this...
...right?
I'll be honest.
Im a part of the 4chan anons and stumbled upon it on accident several years ago. However, I've been addicted to that site ever since. But Im extremely surprised that it has such a large online footprint and amused at how many websites can mention it in passing and (almost) everyone involved knows about it. I guess gone are the olden days where it was just an obscure site where smart people acted like retards and retards acted like smart people.
"like pissing in an ocean of piss indeed"
Oh, and dear 'anonymous coward' above me, rules 1 & 2 only apply to the place which shall not be mentioned within 4chan, but just mentioning 4chan is by no means breaking said rule.
Oh and yeah, isnt euthanasia illegal in the western countries too?
Umm, didnt the US Military already have the M-32 Multiple shot Grenade Launcher that was capable of launching 6 different types of ammunition, one of which was a mini balloon sorta deal at the end of which was a device which bathed the surrounding environment with a UV glow which made the images picked up by the operator's night vision goggles much brighter? There was another ammunition type which launched a mini spybot which could replay images for atleast a day I think. \
I remember seeing this on 'Weapons of the Future' show at Discovery, but I cant remember the name that was assigned to the special weapon/ammunition pack for the life of me.
I've been playing FPSs since Doom and the sorts and must say, Halo doesnt add anything special in the genre. Only reason its so famous is cuz it came packed with the first Xboxs that were released. Games like Unreal Tournament, Quake, Bioshock etc keep adding more to genre or have such intense multiplayer that you can actually say that they've added something to the industry. But Halo? Not so
First and foremost:
"Halo 3 is widely expected to be the most successful video game in history"
Wow! Even though I agree that it is ONE OF the few games that are highly anticipated, I wouldnt call it THE MOST SUCCESSFUL VIDEO GAME IN HISTORY. Heck, even Halo 2 was more anticipated than Halo 3 and it was seen as the same game as Halo 1 with a few additional maps and new single player.
But yeah, JT isnt proposing that we ban all violent video games (he might personally believe so, but this isnt in his current agenda). All he is saying is that the retail outlets follow the guidlines as per the ESRB ratings for games and not sell M games to children etc. Thats not a lot to ask since hes just trying to give a law, that already exists, some teeth. Will he go all cuckoo headed and claim video games as the end of society as we now know it and the greatest evil of all? Quite possibly. But until then, the good that he does or is trying to do shouldnt be overshadowed by his beliefs and views since they arent what hes trying to pass off into law.
Is it just me or does the Swedish Court and Judiciary system sound like an awesome one! Im a Canadian/US citizen and these sorts of court cases would never fly over here, mainly because the courts arent out for the interest of the people but for corporations.
But my hats off to MediaDefender-Defender for all the work they've done. Fighting the system, IN the system is a great way to show how illegal their own methods are and to either bring them to justice or to make them shut up. I dont think they'll be shutting up anytime soon so getting some form of justice seems the way to go.
Great article, brought a lot of thoughts together from around the industry.
And like most people have said here already, Microsoft is where it is at right now because it just works. People can open up a PC bos, fire it up and know exactly that Internet Explorere = Internet, My Documents = personal documents, etc etc. Its manufactured and packaged for any little goof to pick it up and use it. More people use computers now than ever before and I think we have Microsoft to thank for it.
However, do I beleive that we should'nt charge MS for being a monopoly and hence, not break it upp because theres no other competitors out there? HECK NO! Competition and open market never hurt anyone. The profit margins on MS softwares are huge which means that even they themselves know that they can afford to milk the idustry and consumers for all their worth. This sort of attitude just leads to greedy business and lazy programming. We can all look at the automotive industry in North America for comparison. The big 3 were in a joint monopoly, much like MS and Apple are now, and it was extremely tough for any outside company to compete effectively. This was known by all companies involved and hence their products were sub-par quality. Where outside manufacturers(Honda, Toyota etc) were producing cars that were designed by closely studying and analyzing the customer's interest (Fuel efficiancy, cheap etc) the Big 3 kept re-using their old products time and time again. The industry shook up when the prices of gas sky-rocketed and caused the big 3 to become unfavorable with the consumers due to their absurd fuel efficiency in their products. Smaller companies came in and the industry had to innovate. Faster, more fuel efficient products were made by all out of sheer necessity. Those who didnt, are now suffering (Chrysler anyone?).
This same analogy can be brought to the world of computers. Unlike automotives, however, the computer world doesnt have a complimentary industry that it is dependant on. Hence, the government has to do the part of just that. But even then, theres the question of a viable competitor. Unless someone studies the market and sees what customers like and prefer and what are their likes/dislikes, no one but MS is going to come out on top. The Linux crowd needs to understand that not everyone is ready to devote time and energy to learn their product so as to effectively use it to the same level that Windows can. The simplicity and GUI just isnt there. At the same time, Apple must also understand that consumers like choice, and that theyve been surviving so long just because no one has really tried making viriis and malware for OSX until recently due to its only recent wide-spread exposure to the market.
A perfect competitor would emerge once Linux's level of user control is added to the GUI of OSX along with hardware customization.
But its already here, its name is Microsoft.
PS: Reading about the same format for file types across OSs seems to be a wonderful idea that I had never thought of before. Hats off to whoever came up with that.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
