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Comment Re:One cause (Score 1) 419

I am an electrical engineer, and work in Europe. What I see here, is that the quality of engineers coming out of college or universities is declining at an alarming rate. The knowledge-level about basic subjects is embarrassing to say the least. If this trend is comparable in the US, I can fully understand why US companies prefer to look elsewhere for good engineers. The decline in quality here seems due to the lack of students really interested in electrical engineering and "complicated" studies becoming less popular. Colleges and universities here need to lower the level of "difficulty" to make the curriculum more attractive and gain more students. The result is catastrophic.

Well blame could fall to usage of the engineer simulator software that the universities use. I for one never understood the Dead Space series.

Businesses

Submission + - AT&T Buys More Alltel Operations For $780 Million

adeelarshad82 writes: AT&T has bought the U.S. retail wireless operations of Atlantic Tele-Network Inc. (ATNI) for $780 Million. Alltel operates under the Alltel brand in several markets. The acquisition includes wireless properties, licenses, network assets, retail stores, and about 585,000 subscribers. It also includes spectrum in the 700 MHz, 850 MHz, and 1900 MHz bands, and that's likely the big draw as the carrier continues to build out its 4G LTE network. If the deal is approved by the FCC and Justice Department, AT&T expects it to close in the second half of 2013.

Comment Re:Not always the right thingRe:Doing the right th (Score 1) 302

How is giving it away to every Joe and Sally going to accomplish anything? I had to get a TI-82 for my classes in high school back in the day, but I was told by my father if I got one; then I need to give up getting any video game for my birthday. I got my TI-82 and gave up a SNES game (cost about the same). So you're telling me I should have expected a teacher and demand them to give me a $70-80 calculator so I can get a video game as a birthday present? World works more twisted than what most people are proposing. Last time I checked, TI calculators make it faster to do the graphing but aren't necessary. And the majority of kids would opt for a video game over the calculator. If the kid was good at math a TI calculator wouldn't make a huge difference. My suggested solution is to sell them at a low reduced price for those who qualify and take the profits into school budget. So what is your solution? Give it away randomly to the poor and only have an extreme minority will benefit (because a TI calculator isn't going to make them pro at mathematics).

Comment Not always the right thingRe:Doing the right thing (Score 1) 302

The smart thing is to have the school sell them at a discounted rate (but they need to be qualified like if they are in the reduced/free lunch program) and have the profits go to the school fund. I agree that giving it away to kids by stating they only qualify because they are needy isn't enough. There is no easy criteria to put it into the needy versus the greedy. There are plenty of people out there who have no real sense of money. It could be a family that could be living paycheck to paycheck but have $150,000 a year income; or it could be a poor family on welfare somehow has an ipad, iphone and nintendo ds. We don't need to baby people, we need them to be smarter with their money. If a calculator screws up their future by not having them give them away calculator, then so be it. Babying the kids just shows that it is ok to be spending their money without investing in the future. While my solution isn't perfect, it's better than raising another generation to be unwise with their money.

Comment Re:Absolutely! Down with 'used' products! (Score 1) 276

Yeah, but those are pretty much universal costs that any place that buys and sells used things will incur. Just as a used car needs space to store, a salesman to sell it, and a possibility where it doesn't get sold. What is apples to orange is that most used cars need additional clean-up/inspection/etc. thus incurring more cost. Video games they just open the case to verify it's not scratched up too much and then shove it onto the shelf. While I don't know who would actually buy a used game where the used price is about 90-95% of the new price; I do know that people do sell games back ASAP if: 1) it was not the game they thought it would be; so they don't like playing it or 2) they don't see any replay value to keep the game after finishing the game once. They need to do it ASAP as video games price can be a bit more volatile; as the game could easily drop down to $40-45 half a month later.

Comment Re:Absolutely! Down with 'used' products! (Score 1) 276

Apples to oranges. Different products needs different styles of evaluation. I do not know what used sales where you can get about a 33% profit for each sale. You buy the game for $60 (not including taxes), the next week you try to sell it back to them; they are willing to give you 40-50% of the $60 - with no taxes back :( Then they turn around and put it back onto the shelves at $55. Someone else buys it, they charge them the $55 and tax ( I swear they could be probably shady with the tax and put it into their profit pockets since the turnaround is so quick they don't have to put in any paperwork of ever buying the game used from you ). So an estimated 33% plus 8% tax (which if they are being shady) - that's a 40% profit. That's probably where the hate fro Gamestop is coming from. Less shady tactics and less profit per used sale would garner better PR and less flak.

Comment Re:Characters... (Score 0) 69

Interestingly enough, when I pointed out to my son that Gears 3 was out his comment was "I really can't get into a game where all the characters look like they munch steroids for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

IMHO, part of a good game experience is immersing yourself in the fantasy and identifying with the characters. If the characters are too far removed, it makes it harder.

Yet you can get behind a game with a chubby short man that jumps like Jordan and takes shrooms to gain powers. Or an emo group of people who go adventuring to save the world for umpteenth time (not final) that wield weapons bigger than their bodies and beating final enemies that can shit you out for breakfast in one shot (with the power of love).

Comment Re:Finally, something that doesn't record in 720p. (Score 0) 259

Don't loop 3DS under the same category of a better portable console. Nintendo in it's arrogance left the 3DS with barely enough titles to support the purchase of a 3DS. Gimmicks like a 3D without glasses wear thin if you have nearly nothing decent to play it on. Nintendo figured if they just pin the word Nintendo it'll be a best seller. 3DS still looks like a DS to me, hardware spec might be improved, but that's not saying much if you don't have a sufficient library of games to fully utilize it. Just like the Sony Phone Xperia. They had how many actual games for that thing before it was only Android apps? If Sony has any sense left, get the developers on the ball for releases for their Vita on the release date for the Vita. Also STOP downgrading the hardware specs.

Comment Zombie outbreak would be a trainwreck in slomotion (Score 0) 300

Zombies have no morality about spreading the disease. They just instinctively do so. What makes a zombie outbreak work so well is because humanity will treat it like a train wreck in slow motion. They see the zombies coming, and they can prevent it from spreading it, but too many people humanize the infected and are unwilling to de-humanize themselves to prevent the outbreak from happening. So the majority will argue with their inner-selves with morality about killing what they consider humans until it's too late for themselves to escape.

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