umopapisdnwi

What Microsoft SHOULD be doing.

2006-11-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

My post today is about winning. I mean winning in a broader sense, I mean it in the FTW sense. If Microsoft is listening, and I can only hope they smile down apon us from up high every day, they should pay close attention, I have the mad strats for their Xbox division. Price Cut.

Wait, wait I know, EVERYONE is saying price cuts, its OBVIOUS they'll pricecut, probably just after the holiday season, unless they do it before to milk it. Look at the numbers though, its projected they're finally turning a profit, where they used to be taking a 200ish loss? Well, here's where the mad strats come in. What if they took the same loss they did when they launched the console, starting now? Even the most conservative estimates had them taking a 125ish hit, and now they're saying 75 profit?

What if the Xbox 360 cost $200 less? That'd put the premium system at $200, and the core system at what, $100?

Anyone who says Nintendo wasn't trying to compete, that they were going for mass market, well I laugh in your face. Nothing is more mass market then a $100 Xbox360 core system. They would FLY off the shelf this Christmas like you would believe, and market saturation would be at untold levels. Did you see the $100 Xbox 360 core system sale on Amazon bring Amazon.com to its knees for 13 minutes? Wii sales only made them shudder for 2 or 3 minutes. Not to mention that would make a $300 HD-DVD player a reality, bringing an end to the format war.

Screw Nintendo and their 4:3 480p, I want my $100 Xbox 360 core systems.

People truely underestimate what it means that Microsoft released their "next-generation" console LAST YEAR. If Microsoft plays ruthlessly, they could crush Nintendo this generation, and laugh all the way to the bank as Sony continues its spiral into failure. Not to mention push their Live platform to nearly every home in America.

This last point is really important if you're still listening Microsoft. PLEASE massively price cut your 360's. Forget about the Console wars and it's retarded fanboys. The LIVE platform is what will let you laugh at Google. If you had a machine for downloading movies and music, that could transfer to your Zune, in every household, you would win over the ipod, you would win over bluray, you would win the upcoming IPTV war I KNOW you're preparing for.

You KNOW you want to play ruthlessly!

MASSIVE PRICE CUTS FOR THE WIN!!!

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Market Strategery

2006-11-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

If they were people, the conversation would go something like this:

Sony: Our console is a SUPERCOMPUTER. Our "next-generation" console lets you go online and play electronic media. It will replace your PC.

MS: Thats.... awesome... we only made ours a game console with a unified online presence and streaming media capabilities.... 4 years ago.

Nintendo: We decided that by forcing developers to use 8-bit graphics, they'll be forced to focus on gameplay.

MS: Our console did 720p... 4 years ago. Is that why Halo 2 had such terrible gameplay.

Sony: By releasing a betamax player with video game functionality, we'll be able to compete in the format war while driving the last profit increasing branch of our company into the ground!

MS: Thats... a great strategy you've got there... We made our HD disc a seperate component. We didn't realize that everyone wanted to buy a game console and a video player at the same time. It was lucky for us that we could make it run with our computers, since without a PS3, we still need those.

Sony: I wish there was some sort of science that covered manufacturing, then we might have known we could only ship half of the 12 systems we planned to ship at launch. Hah, works out though; 12 systems at $15,000 will make us some serious coin, and not effect our plan to saturate the market with bluray.

Wii: We're shipping 6 trillion to dollar stores around the country.

Sony:....

MS: We shipped our "next generation" console LAST YEAR.

Nintendo: We've got Zelda and Smashbrothers.
MS: Halo 3 anyone?
Sony: RIIIIIIIDGE RAAAAAAAACERRRR!!!!!!

Criminals denounce laws governing their crimes. Linux Terrorists are pushing their jihad against American Law once again.

2006-11-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

In a SHOCKING AND SURPRISING move, the Linux terrorist cell known as the Samba team has released a video tape announcing "that it "disapproves strongly" of Novell's recently announced patent agreement with Microsoft".

For those of you who haven't been following the news in the religious world, Microsoft, whom Linux terrorist refer to as "the devil", has recently been trying to be friends with an operating system who holds 0.4% market share. As you can imagine, no one in their right minds would be using Linux if it were incompatible with Microsoft's operating system. Without the ability to view Word documents, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations, let alone the file structure of a Windows PC, there would be very little incentive to even try Linux. Microsoft had been relatively lax in enforcing the patents it has on the way it coded its file system, but now that Linux is pushing 0.4% market share, Microsoft is realizes that it deserves a chunk of the money Linux is pulling in from corporations. It recently made an offer to Novell, in exchange for some money, it agrees to allow Novell to use any unspecified MS patent violating code, and not to go after it's users legally. A fair deal to avoid costly legal fees on both sides.

The religious Linux crowd is afire with rants against "the devil".

Case in point, the Samba terrorist team basically writes software to allow you to view and interact with the Microsoft file structure, even allowing you to emulate it so that you're Windows computers think that your Linux computer has a Windows File Structure.

I think its obvious that to perform this task, Samba MUST be using code that violates Microsoft's legal protections of its own file system code.

Samba has written that "It also is the understanding of the Samba programmers that "the GPL makes it clear that all distributors of GPL'd software must stand together in the fight against software patents.""

I as a logical human being, was unaware that a Software licence used to dictate the legal use and provision of software was actually a binding contract that forces users of the licence to "stand together in the fight against software patents". A blind terroristic theological stance is forced on every user of the GPL? I would LOVE to see where in the GPL it states that anyone releasing software under this licence is bound to fight alongside Samba in the jihad against "the devil" Microsoft. I repeat, LOVE TO SEE! Please readers, point it out to me. Any Linux zealot that posts in defense of SAMBA without pointing this clause out to me deserves NO CREDIBILITY in his views.

If Samba wasn't bad enough with their jihad, they're HYPOCRITES TO BOOT.
The Samba terrorist group, in a public letter to Novell wrote that "one of the fundamental differences between the proprietary software world and the free software world is that the proprietary software world divides users by forcing them to agree to coercive licensing agreements which restrict their rights to share with each other, whereas the free software world encourages users to unite and share the benefits of the software."

Lets examine this statement under the unbiased view of BOLD FACED TYPE.

"one of the fundamental differences between the proprietary software world and the free software world is that the proprietary software world divides users by forcing them to agree to coercive licensing agreements"

"the GPL makes it clear that all distributors of GPL'd software must stand together in the fight against software patents"

This just proves that a Linux terrorist like Samba will say whatever it needs to in order to strike fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of business owners who just want to view their business presentation and don't want to agree to an ideology in order to do so.

Linux Terrorists just do not realize that they can't ignore United States Federal Laws because they don't like it. If they think it should be different, they could buy enough Senators to change it to their liking, if they had a better product that could dominate the market that is.

Enjoy you're 0.4%, terrorists.

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Its called Operations Research, Operations Manangement or Industrial Engineering, and yes, it IS a science.

2006-11-20T08:21:00.000-08:00

Its that time of the (insert period of time here) again, where we pick a single sentance spoken by some executive, believe wholeheartedly in the context in which it was presented in the article 3 degrees of sepearation from the sentance spoken, and rant about it.

The article linked in this article is talking about an article in which a few particles of speech were spoken by one Co-Chief Operating Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA). I really love this statement he makes because it goes a long way to explaining the problems Sony is having.

Aparently to become a "Co-Chief Operating Officer" (Thats the Co-COO for those of you not paying attention.) at Sony Computer Entertainment America, who's primary function is "strategic, tactical, and short-term OM, which means he or she is responsible for the design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm's products/services", you don't have to have any idea what OM is.

I shit you not, this is what he said,

Speaking to the San Jose Mercury News this week co-chief operating
officerofSCEA, Jack Tretton, confirmed that there was "tens of thousands'' fewer
PS3sin-store than originally expected for the launch. Tretton blamed the
shortfallon logistical problems and Blu-Ray manufacturing issues, stating, "This
is not aperfect science manufacturing this device."

For those of you that aren't me (which I feel is a large percentage of you), and don't have a degree in Industrial Engineering (a slightly smaller percentage), to truly feel the brunt of this statement, you need to know that there IS a perfect science to manufacture that device, its a branch of industrial engineering known as operations management. It involves a lot of statistics, systems design, and about 60 credits to really understand. It helps if you LOVE statistics, dream about case studies, and absolutely adore telling people what they're doing wrong.

The sad thing, is that if you read my original article on Sony, you'll see mention of the fact that Sony once helped lead the Japanese Quality Revolution, where the very principles of operations management were changed for the better.

WTF happened Sony?

You must have decided to forget the science that made you a leading brand in the first place, and replace your senior management with morons. You've stopped caring about your products, grown out of touch with your customers and only care about the buisness of making money. Its sad to watch you fall.

I can truthfully tell you that you should avoid 4-car pileups.

2006-11-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to tell you all that, despite the offers of vicadin, robaxin, and a new car, you should wholeheartedly not persue involvement in a 4-car pileup. Your car, like mine, was probably not engineered to support a large JEEP parking on top of it. Not to mention the confusing chain of insurance and lawsuits, and injuries is not worth the meds, money, car, or weeklong delay in updating your blog.

EQ2 is back in black.

2006-11-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

That is, if you consider "black" to mean "OMFG EXACTLY AS AWESOME AS WE HOPED IT WOULD HAVE BEEN"

This post on FoH forums confirms our recent beliefs that EQ2 would rise like the phenix we all know it is.

I never had a chance to mess around with the raid game, so I cant really comment on that, but if there was ever a time to start fresh, now is that time. Not really sure how to start, but i'll just throw a few things out there. Combat changes are in that other thread, so I wont mention those here.The 1-70 game is friggin awesome. The graphics and atmosphere in this expansion are rivaled only by WoW (and honestly, some area's in this expansion impress me more then anything in WoW). I have never had so many "omg thats cool" moments in 1 game. They seemed to have tweaked the blooming aspect, which looks alot more natural, although at times a bit TOO vibrant. The game in general seems to run alot better, with almost 0 hiccups that plauged the original game. The music is absolutly amazing. I simply cannot stress that enough, and it add's alot to the atmosphere. Definantly one of the most suprising aspects of the expansion. There is alot of re-tuned EQ1 songs in there, even down to the musical que's when you walk up to the spires.Content wise they definantly added more EQ1 flavor. The wiz spires in GFay are there, and they look just like their EQ1 counterpart. The outside area of crushbone feels just like the old crushbone, ak'anon is very much like the original, even down to the zoo. Butcherblock has the chessboard, dwarf outposts, aqua goblins, kobolds etc. LFay, while looking completely different, still shares alot of the same creatures that EQ1 had. The little fae drakes, brownie camps, and unicorns. Steamfront still has the windmills, and the mino caves. Loping planes, which is kind of like an extended front section to mistmoore, is really really cool. From anywhere in the zone you can see the outline of mistmoore castle looming on the hill. At the base of the castle, there's the little graveyard area from EQ1. This zone also has a cool mini city in the center, all very gothic and well done. And yes, there are a few Castlevania refrences, but i'll leave those up to people to find. =PBasically this expansion is everything that the original should have been. It has old EQ1 stuff in there, that looks like old EQ1 stuff, but you can tell the world has moved on, new people moved in, stuff was destroyed etc etc, but its not such a huge revamp that you cant tell it was based off of the original.Cloaks look really well done, and not nearly as cheesy as I thought they would. Most of them are fairly plain though, but its still a nice touch.With the addition of the new starting city, you no longer have to start on the isle, which is a huge plus in throwing you right into the world (unless you want to be evil.) If you were the type of person to complain about the whole game feeling to broken apart, youll be glad to hear that all 5 overland zones are connected, which make the whole thing seem HUGE. Theres no coastline running along the edge of the zones giving you that trapped feeling. You dont click on things to zone between them either, so its more seemless. This expansion feels more like a rerelease of the original game. The new starting area is great, and sort of follows WoW's way of starting out, where you start in a little side city off of Kelethen, doing a few quests in the immediate area, then as you get to about level 5-6 you branch out and get to the meat of Gfay, and up to kelethen. Or you can just run there at level 1. There are no more restrictions of again, feeling like your stuck in an area.Lastly, the Fae. What can be said about the Fae. Well, they have an exteremly overpowered ability compared to other races, but it makes them a ton o fun. Basically, they have permanent levitate, and can jump 4x as far as any other race. If you were the type of person who loved to go places using levitate that you werent supposed too, you'll love this expansion. I spent many days just flying around trying to get to weird places. Along with that you'll spend alot of time falling through the world, since the original game wasnt designed with levitate in mind. This also makes it real easy to get places that other characters cant. Soleseks eye for instance, you can just jump down the center tube and float all the way to the bottom of the dungeon, no clearing needed! Need to get down a cliff but heroic mobs in your way? Just jump off the edge and land below! We were told that tinkerers would be able to tinker a gnomish parachute for all races, so I hope thats in.Edit: And beliefs! Completely forgot. Didnt have a chance to mess around with them too much, but basically the belief system is kind of like the tribute system in EQ1. You can do quests to unlock different abilities, and turn in items for favor points, which you then spend on certain abilities. Some of them are good, others not so much, but it definantly add's flavor to the game. The abilities range from +dmg/+healing to 1 time use insta-DT's (on non raid mobs). Like the new AA's, their not amazing, game changing abilities, but they just help augment your character. Along with the god's granting you power though, all of them are in the game as raid targets. Funny thing of it is, is that you really shouldnt attack the god you follow. I never did it myself, but reports ranged from being TP'd out of the zone, to losing all points and abilities of that god and having to work your way back up. That gives a sort of tradeoff to raid guilds. Either follow the same god, and raid all the others, or follow different gods, but maybe having different teams, or following no gods and killing them all for phat lewt.All in all, this expansion is amazing. I really hope they do the free 30 day trial thing and give you access to EoF, because its way more catching then the "trial of the isle."

Bow down to the glory of EQ2 bitches.

p.s. the part about almost as good looking as WoW had me ROTFLMAOOL.

Fall of a Dynasty Update

2006-11-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

So apparently I'm a trend setter.

Maddox blatantly ripped off my fall of Sony article for talking points in his latetest schpiel.
I will admit that he hosts more humurous artwork then I do.

Anyway, Sony's at it again. Besides huge software glitches in their PS3, they've also released a Sony Brand HDMI cable for the PS3, exactly the thing they didn't enclude in the box for those of you who are following along. The price for their 10ft cable is looking to be 40$. Just keep tacking on the money Sony, its not like 40$ means anything to the people willing to buy the PS3.

I pose a question to the statisticians out there in the field. What percentage of people buying the "sold-out" PS3's bought them to ebay? (yes, all 32 of the consoles that Sony gave to the country of Japan have been purchased, shocking news, i know)

RedHat will be only player left in Linux market in one years time. Says RedHat.

2006-11-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

In other news, RedHat is exceedingly jealous that Novell and Microsoft are working together.

"In response to a recent agreement between Microsoft and Novell, Red Hat's corporate secretary Mark Webbink has predicted that Red Hat "will be the dominant player in the Linux market" a year from now, and that "by that time there won't be any other Linux players." In light of Microsoft's partnership with Novell and Oracle's ambitions of Linux support dominance, Webbink's statement doesn't seem all that realistic. "

What's a "corporate secretary" anyway, and why doesn't he understand anything about Linux? Shouldn't a public relations chair, or company spokesman be making these claims?

Gas is cheap. So's blood, in context.

2006-11-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine often remarks that its rediculous people are complaining about the cost of gas. They pump up this black crap from a pit they have to drill into the earth to access, send it through lots of chemical refinement processes, and haul it half way around the world, and people bitch about its cost, even when its not even close to the cost of a gallon of milk, which is pissed out by a cow, from usually less then the next state away.

If you thought of this as rediculous, I bet you didn't know that HP black ink is more expensive to buy then blood. All I'm waiting for now is confirmation that Mach3 Fusion blades are more expensive per ounce then gold. I already know that after the Da Beers cartel is brought down, they're more expensive per ounce then diamond.

To steal a quote.

2006-11-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

"We also know that you can play Battlefield 2142 at 1600x1200 all effects on and have a 100 FPS all the time. Nvidia really did a great job this time, it will be a worthy upgrade.
A single Nvidia G80, Geforce 8800 GTX card can beat a pair of ATI's fastest X1950 XTX cards! I think DAAMIT might have a problem until it releases its much-delayed R600 card, next year"

Just a little happy news for those of you with nvidia stock

Cingular 8525 Release

2006-11-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you in the know, this is THE pda phone to own. It's truely actually verifieably been announced to release on the 16th of November

Vista Release

2006-11-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday November 30th should see the release of Vista to corporate customers, and standard retail customers purchasing from stores or OEMs should be able to get their copy of the new Microsoft operating system from Tuesday January 30th 2007.
It's planned that Office 2007 will be released in parallel on the same days respectively, ensuring a bumper Christmas for Microsoft's bottom line.

Its Coming

Cingular 8525

2006-11-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

The Cingular 8525 is two things, if anything. Where it's at in cellphone technology, and the perfect example to show you how stupid cellphone carriers are. You can look up the phone on google and find out why its "where it's at in cellphone technology", but I'll clue you in on how stupid cellphone carriers are. In a world where 1/4 of people who switch carriers do it because of new phone models.

Cellphone carriers have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

I don't mean to say they have no concept of what they should be doing, because that's an obvious observation that anyone could make. I'm saying that they don't even fully grasp their own supply chains. Lets look at example a. You'll notice that Cingular believed it would have the 8525 out for a Sept 24th rebate? If you look at my buisness leaks post, you'll notice they also gave a presentation to their buisness sale's people that marked it's release as Oct 29th.

It's November 1st people. And they're still playing with themselves.

This means that within 2month's of the release of a product, Cingular still does not know when they're release date is going to be. That says A LOT about supply chain management.

OMFG Kerry where were you FOUR YEARS AGO

2006-10-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

What the eff is wrong with John Kerry?

SERIOUSLY.

Read this.

If Kerry had showed 1/10th of that passion and contempt for the administration in the last election, instead of being civil to them, they would have had a MUCH harder time stealing the election. They would have had to steal more states. Not to mention he should have bitched them out on stealing it.

This current administration is unbelievably intellegent. Take what happened in WW2 where the Germans kept doing whatever they wanted, while talking about diplomacy. It took countries so long to finally act. Noone acted until they were forced to act. This administration is following Germany's lead. They do whatever they want, all the while they smile on camera and say whatever people want to hear, then continue doing whatever they want. If it was hard to get a handful of countries onboard to do something about Germany, how hard is it to get enough Senators to impeach the administration, or 200,000,000 people on board to do something about the senate and the administration? Nearly impossible, until people are forced to act.

People love their cozy little worlds, and nothing will change until the president is declaring martial law, and rounding up dissenting citizens into detention centers, and even then, as long as it doesn't effect a majority of the population, how pissed will people really be? Pissed enough? Probably not.

The President is pissing on the constitution again.

2006-10-30T10:47:00.000-08:00

Seriously, the severity of this is painfully ridiculous.
The president just got them to change the rules that govern martial law. He wasn't content with having to ask a state's senate or governer if he could bring a federal military force into their state. WHY? For the love of god why would anyone at all think that it would be a good idea to make it easier for the president to declare martial law inside of the US? The idea of keeping federal military out of states is that the California State Militia isn't going open fire on Silicon Valley just because the President says so. Is a bunch of trained military units from Alabama who is told the fags are trying to corrupt our democracy going to have the same reservations when they're helidropped into the Bay area?

Oh, don't forget : "A little-known $385 million contract for Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build detention facilities for "an emergency influx of immigrants"

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/1732834.php has the tinfoil though completely believeable side of it.
http://www.kxma.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=60086 has the republican viewpoint (they don't like it either, obviously).
has more on the contracts.

This is almost as vomit inducing as the news that my state just went to all electronic voting in time for the mid-term elections.

While I'm on it, let me mention how well things are going in Iraq.

Humurous

2006-10-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

Why should we pay for electricity again?
Your logic is very convincing.
Clothes are overrated. Fuck em.

Does anyone hate buisness leaks?

2006-10-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't think so.

Treo 680: $424.99 straight, $349.99 one year, $249.99 one year with unlimited data (and $100 rebate), $274.99 two year, $174.99 two year with unlimited data (and $100 rebate; their ad, however, shows a $200 list price, but it's good to know we can count on around two Benjamins. Expect it November 5th (tentative).

Cingular 8525: $559.99 straight, $484.99 one year (not including $50 rebate if included with unlimited data), $409.99 two year (also not including that same rebate); expect it October 29th.

How does google make money again?

2006-10-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to mention the ads again, but its just so rediculous. Doesn't google use some advanced theoretical alien algorithm to determine which ad's appear on your page? They're supposed to be custom tailored to the needs of your visitors, so that they're likely to want to learn more.

Well thanks visitors, aparently you're all a bunch of sick myspace predators with a think for black children.

The stock market is full of r-tards.

2006-10-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

So I recently recomended nVidia to a friend as a stock to look at purchasing. They're in an amazing spot right now. They have the only DX10 card available coming Nov 8ish, their only competitor won't have a DX10 card till at least January because its all mucked up with a merger, and its not just about the DX10, its about the fact that its the new generation of cards that kicks the crap out of the old generation. It's like having an game console to drop on the market before the xmas season that your only competitor won't have till after. It's better then that, as these mythical consoles are the first generation to let you run something as critical as say, your Car, to its maximum potential. Also, because they were waiting for Vista to drop the DX10 cards, they've been shilling the same G70 core for way longer then they would have otherwise. A moronic "analyst" recently rated them as an underperformer, which dropped their stock a few percent. Of course they're underperforming, they have been reselling new versions of the same card with 10-15% performance boosts for 1.5 years now. Aparently Analysts don't get paid to read the news about a companies future products.

Well anyway, so I thought they were a strong buy (though I have none of that official crap, so this does not constitute financial advice to you) and they've went up a bit since then, but today they drop 4% in value. But they're not the only ones, Intel and AMD are also down about the same amount. Let me teach you something stockmarket, Intel, AMD-ATI, and nVidia make all of the CPU/GPU processors that 98% of people with these new fangled "computer" things are using. They're a more reliable industry then airplanes, oil, and it's probably a safer bet that they'll be around longer then houses, as I know a few who'd have a hard time deciding between. These companies are not going anywhere, they're going to be around to take people's money for at least the next decade. One of them has to turn a profit and be worth owning. You can't say that all three of these companies are worth less then they were worth yesterday, you have to believe that one of them will take more market share from the others and win the game.

Kramer always says to buy when things are going down, and I don't see any reason to disagree.

I thought Santa alone was a funny choice.

2006-10-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

If this isn't the best halloween costume ever, then let me know what is.

Hybrid Drives, smybrid drives.

2006-10-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

So Microsoft has been pushing harddrives that use flash memory as 128megs of cache.

I Cringley of PBS fame has been working with some friends on a revolution in harddrive technologies.

Let the gigabytes flow.

Syndication Testing

2006-10-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is a test of email publishing to facilitate syndication of
http://iamupsidedown.blogspot.com/

Adsensical

2006-10-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone who found advertisements for BLACK CHILDREN and FAMOUS BLOG interesting enough to click through. You will now find ads relevant to the stories if you view a single story, but google refuses to generate ads relevant to the content of my blog, which is written on blogger, a company they own, wtf?

Anyway, thank you for your continued support in clicking on my advertisers, out of morbid curiosity alone.

It sucks to lose your job to foreigners. Especially if you're an effing robot.

2006-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me and you have refused to do anything that involves manual labor that could be done by a robot instead, you might own a roomba or scooba. Well it just so happens that now there are cheaper indentured servants of metalic decent coming out of Korea.

When you dream, dream big, and never give up on your dreams.

2006-10-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

So with the sickening aquisition of ATI by AMD underway, sights are set on nVidia and Intel. CPU/GPU combo boards and other mutations are the way of the future, so nVidia really has two choices now, then can be bought by Intel, or they can start making cpu's. I hope to god they start making cpu's. The inquirer thinks this is whats going to happen, and you can read about it
here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35280
here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35281
and here: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35381
I'd buy an nVidia cpu, wouldn't you?

While I'm talking about nVidia, let me mention that their STRONG in the market atm, with their G80 dropping Nov 11th, and ATI's next generation not dropping till January at the earliest. Not only is the G80 far better then ATI's offerings, in a serious way, but its the only DX10 card. What card will Vista users be buying for Xmas? I'll let you figure out that difficult equation. God only knows why analysts recently said they were underperforming to drop the stock price. Those analysts, like most analysts are akin to futurologists, otherwise known as morons.

When your boss is parked next to you as your leaving from lunch, and he turns and says "wanna race?", the correct answer is "hell yes".

2006-10-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of things while I have your attention. Flat panels are getting better all the time. Germany has decided to net-Nazi it up and license the internets. Also, some of you may be aware then every generation of late, nVidia brings out a CG rendered hottie that their card can render in real-time to showcase its abilities. They decided that they would render a real girl this time, and chose the feature model of Playboy's Feb 2006 issue. The G80 is coming, thank god.

Things are getting better all the time.

2006-10-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

Alienware is moving into the HTPC market. Woot. Now if only newegg would sell oem cases this nice.

Mailinate that Noob

2006-10-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

You hate spam, I hate spam. You hate having to register for sites with fake information, I have having to register period. Bugmenot is convinced registration is useless, but a better solution has come about. Mailinator allows you to send any email you want to anything@mailinator.com you simply visit the website shortly after and type whatever anything was for you into the box on the side, and you can see what mail you got. For example if I'm registering for the NYTIMES I can register with ihateregisteringforthenytimes@mailnator.com and then visit the site and check email sent to that account, you don't have to sign up or setup ihateregisteringforthenytimes@mailinator.com before or after you have mail sent there. Its priceless. Smarter sites are blocking the domain now, but it still works most everywhere.

The Fall of Rome : Update

2006-10-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

It's always good to be right. They've aparently lost 94% of their profit this year, and 40% of the value of the company over the past 5.

The Fall of Rome : Fck SONY

2006-10-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

People often refer to the fall of Rome as a way of displaying that great world powers can fail too. Rome never really fell though, as much as faded away. For lots of reasons that scholars debate, including copious amounts of politics, Rome slowly lost its grip on its empire until it simply lost its relevance.

I bring this to you today to tell you of the fall of another great empire, Sony. For quite some time now, the Sony brand on your electronics has meant something. In the past it signified QUALITY. Sony was one of the members of the Japanese Quality Revolution, and similar to BMW or newegg, when you bought from them, you didn't have to worry about the quality of your products.

My how the mighty have fallen.

I generally hold the opinion that "most" CEO's and upper executives do not deserve to make nearly as much as they do. Sony's executive's have clearly shown that they are overpaid. They are singlehandedly driving a dynasty into the ground.

Lets look at recent events.

Playstation 3
Sony has sold a staggering amount of Playstation 2 units. It is a worldwide recognized brand. It has earned them untold amounts of money, brand recognition, and reputation. Aparently they decided that the best plan for developing the Playstation 3 was to "wing it".
When they pushed the rediculous boomerang controller, then claimed it was a beta design, then reverted to their time tested design, then added the Wii motion sensing, then removed the rumble because it interfered with the sensors (and lawsuits couldn't have hurt), I had to laugh. Where was their marketing department? Where was their developement team? How much money did they spend before caving into pressure from critics and whims of upper managers? Who wants to tell me that an executive did not walk into the engineering dept and say "Hey, the fanboi's are crying about our bananna shaped controller, could we make it work like the Wii's instead?".
When they had announced that there were no plans for a unified online service, I had to cry with laughter. Does Sony truly not understand the internet? Or online gaming? Had anyone in their company played via Xbox Live, and then looked at their own solution to online gaming and given it even more then a moments thought? Apparently in all the time before design for the Playstation 3 began, noone with any input on online funcitonality for the PS3 had ever used Xbox live. If they had, there wouldn't even be a question, they would have copied it from the beggining. They would have tried to implement a Sony Live for PS2. It was like Dell announcing that they didn't see any reason to implement internet connection hardware in their upcoming models.
When they had announced that the system would cost no less then 3 trillion $US if pre-ordered with trade in games, the world soiled its' pants. Recently in comparing its pricing to the competition in a rather deceitful way, Sony has landed into legal troubles. The reality is that with games being the price they are, buying a PS3, a 2nd controller, and 2 games is going put you around 800$+tax. Don't forget to buy an HDMI cable, Sony is too cheap to throw one in.
Some say 800$ for a gaming system is CHEAP. These people are PC gamers. These people don't realize that in this day an age, you need a computer, so you have one already. The difference between the computer you are going to own and a gaming system is 200$ on doubling your ram, getting the 100$ more expensive CPU and buying a new video card. The PS3 isbased off of the G70, whose last revision card peaks at around 10.4/15.6 gigapixelgigatexel/second, from a first revision score of about 4.5/6.5. Nov. 8th, the first revision of the G80 is going to drop, with rumors placing its peak fill rate at 48-69 gigapixels, for roughly 400$. Why would I buy a G70 based console et all for 800$, when I can game-ify the computer I'm buying with a G80 base for 700$. Not to mention that I'm not stuck with a soon to be laughable 1080p resolution.
Some say, a PS3 is only a bit more then a 360 with the HDDVD addon, but lets be even more honest. The HDDDVD addon is for people to watch movies, and is a cheaper alternative for movie watchers that own a 360. The Blu-Ray drive for the PS3 is an agendda in an of itself.

Egotistical Formats
With formats such as mini-disk and memory stick becoming the industry standards that they are, Sony is still fighting the good fight on the format front. A Blu-Ray player with video game functionality is a bit too harsh a critisim of the PS3, but Sony is obviously banking on the PS3 as a way to push Blu-Ray. Trying to escape a repeat of the betamax fiasco, Sony has managed to damage its videogame branch by pushing its own format. They lost 6 months in the market to Microsoft. This in a console cycle that is looking to push to 2-2.5 years between systems. When developers are just starting to tap the potential of the PS3's G70 and Cell chips, MS will be already dropping the Xbox 720. Because of MS's Visual Studio XNA and .net, the potential of its newest console will be just as easy to unlock as the 360's. How can the executives justify this move? Not only did they hurt the PS3, they hurt their format. Because they're hoarding the blue lasers for the PS3's, they blu-ray stand alone's are slow to market, cost twice as much, and are losing from my point of view.

Loss of Quality
The only thing that needs to be said here is : Batteries. Thats not the extent of the humor though, so we'll say EXPLODING batteries. Where was the famous Sony Quality on that one? When did Sony drop from a prestiegious brand to just another label to put on OEM parts?

Loss of Morality
Enter Lik-Sang, importer of consoles, funky japanses accesories, grey market addons, and other toy's of the far-east. Lik-Sang is the Newegg of importers, trusted, well priced, fast, and curtious. Enter Sony, following the sin of Greed, who has declared open pricing in Japan and that Europe must wait forever to get a PS3. Lik-sang has been buying PSP's and then selling them to other countries, reguardless of release dates and the like. This is otherwise known as commerce. The practice has been around for a while, I believe starting around the dawn of mankind. Sony doesn't want them to do this, so what is poor Sony to do? Well if they complain that the PSP's are illegal to sell because customers could confuse the foreign voltage requirements and blame Sony. And btw, isn't it totally illegal to buy a european car and sell it in the USA because someone might confuse the diesal requirement and blame the european car company? Hoozah, score one for Sony.

Dating back a bit farther, who could forget Sony's method of "protecting" its musical content? What were they to do with all those evil users who want to rip cd's that they've bought so they can play them on their ipod? They decided to rootkit the computer of anyone who placed the disc in their drive. Amazing strategy, I know. The best part about the rootkit, is that it is such a good rootkit, that once you know how to rename your files, you can run hacks on games like World of Warcraft or Sony's previously unhacked Everquest 2, that are usually detected by the games' guardian software. Way to go Sony.

Lets face it, for the past year, anywhere Sony could go wrong, they did. Their quality is down, they have no idea what their customers want, they care more about their bottom line then ethics, and they took a flagship product that was impossible to make wrong, and have been trying their best to give their most mentally challanged employees the job of designing and marketing it. Or is it their best and brightest that thought they didn't need a unified online presence, or that HD tv's were a luxury, and that the US isn't mandating all cable to be switched over shortly?

You want a better buisness strategy Sony? How about instead of eating 300$+ releasing an overpriced PS3 and hurting your entire electronic division by pushing your format, you release the PS3 with a DVD drive for 300$ so that everyone and their mother buys one, or better yet, release the PS3 with DVD for 550, and eat 300+ from the cost of the cheapest blu-ray player you can make. How many 150$ stand alone blu-ray players do you think you could sell? Its not like you don't get the royalties from blu-ray media to re-coop the loss. Its not the guarenteed recoop from video games, but then if you own the media, you could have pressured the movie studios into giving you a bigger slice of the pie. Plus most people own more movies then video games anyway.

Really, what is Sony doing? Does anyone know? Please tell me.

Gratz on the e-penis enlargment.

2006-10-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

I've been a little busy irl this past weekend to keep up with the current insanities of the internets, but blogging will recommence tomarrow.

I'd just like to take a moment to give gratz to Evan Reiser, owner of (http://primdr.spaces.live.com/). He's been trying to get a page of his to show up as the number one page for google searches of his name. As of last night, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=evan+reiser, he's number 2. It only took him one week. Interestingly enough, a search for my blog (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=iamupsidedown+blog) not only does not brandish a link for me, but gives his site as result 1 and 4.

I blame this for his pagerank bump.

Hopefully he'll throw some links my way to bump my page rank.

Have you seen the very hand of God today?

2006-10-22T20:16:00.001-07:00

I did. I saw it in an ad. What did his hand look like you ask? It looks like the stuff of children's dreams.

How often can you buy children's dreams for $29.99? Not often.

More of an in your grill overkill guerilla then a tactical striker? Try this one.

Market Share based developement.

2006-10-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Its always nice to be proven right.

People that develop in CSS/AJAX/web2.0 tend to complain about IE not being standards compliant. I keep asking myself though, what makes something standard? I would imagine that to be a standard, it would be the most practiced practice. Aparently my belief in using dictionaries to define english words is misplaced.

IE6 is the "standard" as far as I'm concerned, but don't let just me tell you that. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=3

The problem is that people that have to worry about code being standards compliant are usually very technical people. They are or are surrounded by linux nerds, OSS advocates, mac fanboi's and the like. This leads to a huge distortion in their minds as to whom they are developing for.

Let me enlighten you.

The most disturbing statistic on that page is that google only has 75ish % market share.

OMG its about effing time.

2006-10-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Our dreams of dropping 6 soldiers into a rival country with the mission of complete domination are one step closer today.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/19/invisibility-cloak.html

A few years ago the military was looking for research institutions to bid on the cost/timeframe of a few key technologies they wanted, like invisiblity cloaks, paperthin bulletproof fabric, exskeletons, and other fun toys. The requirement was that the research provide a working prototype in 10 years. My school lost out on the bids, but other schools won some of the contracts, so look for more of this good stuff in the coming decade.

Give the dude a break. He kills vampires.

2006-10-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

If you find my consolidation of the internet's consolidation sites to be not consolidated and condensed enough, try http://primdr.spaces.live.com/

Its like a condensed consolidation of my consolidation of the iternet's consolidation sites.

If any readers manage to condense http://primdr.spaces.live.com/ into a news site that could otherwise be considered a blackhole of knowledge, let us know.

You know you want to blow $200 on your keyboard.

2006-10-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Following my philosophy that your Monitor is the single best thing to blow your money on when building a computer, by reason that its the only part you look at 99% of the time, I also highly suggest you invest in a fancy pants keyboard. Especially if you type with two fingers supported by the hunt and peck algorithm.

I've always thought about getting a DiNovo, but after seeing the new ones, I'd have felt like I'd bought the old model BMW. The DiNovo blade is indeed the keyboard to lust after.

Who doesn't want a keyboard made out of a single piece of metal?

Are your panties wet yet, ladies? You better have brought a whole Fruit of the Loom pack of panties for this.

2006-10-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

Dungeon Master of Ceremonies has been released by MC Chris.
Buy it or steal it.

BTW I hear he's awesome in concert.

A throat needs slitting but we don't know who's throat to slit.

2006-10-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

You can read the whole article for a chuckle, I always wonder if other people laugh at the same words that I do.

A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips.

Mercieca said there was one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember, the newspaper reported.
"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the newspaper reported Mercieca as saying from his home on the island of Gozo, south of Italy. "I was taking pills tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."

God blesses the Roman Chatholic Priests, for sure.

On a more serious note, when the eff did fondling little boys become "inapropriate". Since when did the media start saying it was "inapropriate" for a CONGRESSMAN that we are paying $165,000/yer to try to get the highschool aged male interns to have SEX with him. Where is the sensationlist media I know and love! If Clinton had tried to get highschool boys to have SEX with him, they wouldn't be saying it was "inappropriate". I was always under the impression you got raped in prison for 12-16 months before your court appointed throat slitting.

Don't let the liberal media sensationalize your stories. They always support the damn Democrats.

IE7 is out.

2006-10-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.microsoft.com/ie

Space Defense to Alpha Team, we have go, I repeat, we have go.

2006-10-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

So in their infinate wisdom the government has announce that putting defence mechanisms into space is different from weaponizing space. And they reserve the right to nuke anyone that puts anything into space they don't like.

Putting anti-people rockets in your front yard as a defence mechanism is not the same as weaponizing your front yard. Rememeber that logic when your shopping at home depot this weekend.

Not that I have a problem with any of this, I just hate r-tard logic.

How long will my socket A last?

2006-10-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

Curious about how long until you need a new socket?

The Inquirer has the deets on AM2+, AM3, and the rollout of DDR3 for the desktop market.

The easiest way to lose friends is to talk about politics.

2006-10-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

Do you feel like your Congressmen represent you? So it would be fair to say you feel you have little to no representation? Is it fair to say that they take your money, and spend it on things you don't feel like they should be spending it on? Lets call that a tax.

Taxation without representation perhaps?

People bitch about the government all the time, about the twoparty system, about how we should be keeping dark-skinned people poor, or killing people to make room for trees, but I never hear anyone talking about one of the real problems.

Representation.

When the constitution was signed, we had one congressman for every 30,000 people in the US. Today we have 433 congressmen, and 300,000,000 citizens. Your government is trying to tell you that one man (or women, even though they don't really have anything important to say) is capable of representing 692,840 people. Those are some mighty special people. Maybe thats why they take bribe money and fondle children. They're trying to be the average of 700,000 people.

If we had the 10,000 congressmen we SHOULD have, we would instantly be doing better off. Just think about how much harder it is for a corporation to buy 5,001 votes instead of 217. How much easier it is for you to convince 30,000 people to give your third-party ass a chance at leading. People might say they'd never get anything accomplished trying to get 10,000 people to agree on anything. To that I'd say, we're actually trying to get 300,000,000 people to agree on something, where have you been. To that I'd say, GOOD, congress, amid their aproval of torture and the reunification of MaBell, has time to approve congressional congratulations to sports teams and the like, they obviously have too much time on their hands.

Let your congressman know how amazed you are that he can represent 700,000 people, call him (Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121) if you have Apple-sized balls.

Rotten Apples

2006-10-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it."

Read that a few times.
Read the source if you want to read it again.

apparently a percentage of iPOD's that shipped after Sept 12th contain a virus that load on Windows machines when it is connected. You know what I see?

HUGE BALLS.

So Apple, who has no marketing about how virus-proof they are, who would stand nothing to gain from making their own virus, has "somehow" let a virus get onto their production iPOD's? And they claim they're upset with Windows?

It would be a shame if "somehow"an apple virus was slipped onto the Zune production models. Then Microsoft could be upset with Apple over not having a more hardy operating system.

The E ewwwwwwwwwww

2006-10-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Is the EU insane?
Honestly, bAtShIt crazy?
First they're up in MS's grill over Vista, the next truly great computer advancement, now this?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35189

The US government makes its own incomprehensible laws, true, but those usually involve something serious, like electrocution isn't torture, or strip all civil liberties to battle the "terrorists" and "child molesters". The US government doesn't seem to hate the computer/internet/software industry nearly as much as the EU.

At least when the US government, with the exception of Iowa who is still "fighting the good fight" went after MS, they were honest in the fact that they just wanted money from the wealthiest man on earth. They took their cut, gave the citizens rediculously useless vouchers, and went on with their freemarket ideas. The EU hosed MS for $600,000,000+ for capitalism market practices, and then again for not opening up their interconnect software. Basically saying that MS should give everyone everything they spent money developing for free, because consumers want those features, and everyone else it too stupid to make better ones without stealing from MS.

People can bash MS all they want, but the truth is that this is a free market. If someone else made an OS that was truly better for average desktop users, then it would sell more copies, become more popular, and "win".

As far as the next truly great computer advancement goes, don't forget to kneel down and thank Microsoft for muscling the cable companies into allowing us to use Cablecards with our Vista PC's. Because I sure as hell didn't see Apple or any distro make it happen.

Next someone will complain that MS doesn't share the drivers for how to work the cablecard cards, and the man that cracks them will be heralded as a hero in the OSS world. The EU will then proceed to sue them for vague anti-competitive practices, citing how everyone says they're asshats over the cable card thing.

Someone call McAffe a waaambulance.

2006-10-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

McAffe is at it again.

I seriously wish someone from Microsoft would email me and explain to me why they would give in to these loser companies. Or the EU for that matter.

Microsoft made a product. These companies found some flaws in the product and made money selling fixes. Now they're complaining that Microsoft won't a) let them know how their making their new product b) let them break the security features of their new product, all so that they can sell more fixes.

You know what, if you can't figure out how to fix it on your own, tough nuggets. Your company deserves to lose all of its buisness. I don't see Trend Micro or Sophos having a problem. Their buisnesses deserve to wipe McAffe and Symantec from the market place.

Scott Field wrote on his Microsoft blog, "We have also been asked to provide a supported way for 'known good' vendors to continue hooking the kernel but prevent others from doing so. Unfortunately, there is no reliable mechanism for us to distinguish between 'known good' software and malicious software. Moreover, we cannot prevent a malicious software author from 'bundling' purportedly good software in an attempt to thwart the system. Even if we could include such a mechanism, it's unclear if we could use this mechanism to selectively allow kernel hooking in a manner that provides an acceptable trade off between performance and reliability and security."

Is there anything even remotely unreasonable about this? Anything at all?

Vista is MS's toy, if anyone doesn't like it, then they dont' have to use it, and they don't have to support it.

If this all wasn't rediculous enough, just ask yourself, do YOU trust every employee of McAffe and Symantec? Every single one of them that will have access to the Vista kernal api anyway?

I don't trust any of them. I have no faith in a buisness who's buisness model is whining about what they wished they had. That means another 10 years of spyware bullshit to the fault of the first rat to jump ship with the api knowledge.

That goes for the EU as well. Microsoft is not a monopoly anymore. OSX and Ubuntu-ish linuxes are viable competitors. If Microsoft is what people want to buy, its because either a) they prefer it or b) they DO NOT CARE. In either case, people still have the CHOICE of another operating system. If the EU doesn't like Vista, then MS should just not sell it there. If that isn't enough, it should pull support for Office 2007 from the EU. Just wait it out for 6 months. Let the buisness owners in the EU have a few unfriendly talks with the lawmakers. They'll see the light, I PROMISE YOU.

He, Cringely

2006-10-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

I think Cringely is a pretty smart guy when he's not ranting about Bill Gates and co.

Take
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051117.html
for example.

His ideas make sense.

Sun thinks so too.
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/

WTF is XNA?

2006-10-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

A must read blog for anyone that owns a 360, a desire to make videogames, and a huge internet penis.

http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/

XBOX360 HD-DVD Drive for the unwashed masses

2006-10-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Micosoft recently let it be known that you will be able to use your usb HDDVD drive that you buy for you 360 with your desktop.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/10/17/xbox_hddvd/

They aren't providing a driver as of yet, I'd imagine it will be supported by Vista though.
I'll cover the theoretical HDCP workaround later.