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Comment Sounds like a bad idea (Score 1) 478

As an avid amateur photographer... this sounds horrible. It sounds very much like what you are trying to do is make people pay to use your cameras mounted on the bus, and not allow them to use the plethora of camera equipment we normally carry on our persons in this day and age. Anything to make another dollar? How about not raping your consumers and instead focusing on making your service better than other ones. Stop making the world a worse place. Take that bit of advice to the owners. There is literally no good reason why you should want to do this. I can even think of several ways to frustrate camera users... but why would I want to make the world a crappier place by helping you to do this?

Comment Security through Obscurity (Score 2) 236

I had a course several years ago with a high lead counsel of a very well known company in the e-payments business. I ended up writing a final paper for them called "Security through Obscurity" basically explaining why their credit cards were incredibly insecure and detailing the existing cheap tech that was already accessible to average consumers. The card companies concept of security generally revolves around the idea that if they keep their security methods in a black box, no one will be able to crack it. Which works great until the first person looks in the box... then its all over. The card companies also employ thousands and subcontract to even more. They didn't like the paper. 6 months after the class was over, his company had a problem with their card system effectively taken verbatim from my paper. I sent them the news article and said he should revise my grade. I was disappointed I never heard back.

Comment This article is the opposite from a few years ago (Score 2) 425

A handful of years ago Lego was going bankrupt and they were searching in vain for how to stop it. Then they figured out that open ended didn't sell so well. They created their Bionicle sets. Then they started the licensed sets with Harry potter and Star wars. It is the only reason lego even still exists. And now people decry that lego 'sold out'? Make up your minds...

Comment Piracy drives technology (Score 5, Informative) 320

In this case, I would be willing to be that the reason is that the pirate groups have now made x264 the defacto standard for standard definition TV. AVI is falling by the wayside, and therefore Mozilla is just keeping up with the tech savvy of the interwebs. http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-pirates-go-nuts-after-tv-release-groups-dump-xvid-120303/

Comment Already Been done Before.. many times (Score 1) 248

I recall reading about "ceiling" jumps before. Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger did this back in 1960. A helium balloon took him to over 100,000 feet at which point he stepped off, falling at well above 700mph due to the lack of atmosphere. Modern ceiling jumpers use a kevlar bodysuit, if I recall, to distribute the heat caused by friction when you hit the air curtain and a modified scuba system that provides air. Jumping anywhere above the air curtain means you break the sound barrier because there is no terminal velocity restraint from air. How is this any different other than its a mile or two higher than previous jumps? This seems like bad reporting saying that this is somehow different than previous jumps.
Businesses

Failed Games That Damaged Or Killed Their Companies 397

An anonymous reader writes "Develop has an excellent piece up profiling a bunch of average to awful titles that flopped so hard they harmed or sunk their studio or publisher. The list includes Haze, Enter The Matrix, Hellgate: London, Daikatana, Tabula Rasa, and — of course — Duke Nukem Forever. 'Daikatana was finally released in June 2000, over two and a half years late. Gamers weren't convinced the wait was worth it. A buggy game with sidekicks (touted as an innovation) who more often caused you hindrance than helped ... achieved an average rating of 53. By this time, Eidos is believed to have invested over $25 million in the studio. And they called it a day. Eidos closed the Dallas Ion Storm office in 2001.'"

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