What Microsoft SHOULD be doing.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

"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

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

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

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

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.