I have nothing but respect to NES, SNES and SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. What I was trying to point out is that those earlier console types look ridiculously simplistic in comparison with today's computing equipment. Trust me on this one - I've seen their insides. Anyway, as far as you turn away from these resilient "cockroaches" of the console world and look at more advanced models, you'll see a noticeable increase the failure rate statistics. It's just logical: more intricate and complex designs, hundreds of new fragile components and the whole ongoing strive towards their miniaturization will most definitely raise the chances of hardware failure. Besides, it doesn't even matter whether this argument is valid or not: you're simply looking at this from the wrong perspective. Even though it might look like it in my previous post, I do not argue that all consoles are highly unreliable. What I argue is that quality PC components are at very least as much reliable as their console counterparts and, judging from my personal experience, often even more so. PCs, however, have one distinctive characteristic that separates them from consoles. If an element of a console dies, you usually have to replace all of the parts. When something happens to a PC component, all you usually have to do is to replace this particular component without spending hundreds on the replacement of the rest of the system.
It's not really relevant here, but I also want to add that arguing a case against PCs is in many respects similar to arguing a case against democratically run governments. Sure, one can always point out the obvious advantages of an ideal totalitarian utopia (created by SONY(TM)), but many of us still prefer not to have our choices pre-made for us. There's a certain level of freedom and flexibility in PCs I find exhilarating, and I would never consider abandoning that for the predestinately limited world of gaming consoles.
First of all, comparing modern PCs to NES is like comparing a jackhammer to a wooden hammer. You're comparing two entirely different levels of hardware complexity. Secondly, not only your comparison is pretty much ridiculous and groundless in relationship to more modern consoles, the second half of the argument is incorrect as well. Did you know that 16% of X360 are likely to have serious hardware problems within six to ten months after a warranty purchase? Well, according to this article, they are:
If you do an hour of research and buy your PC components from established and trusted manufacturers like Logitech or ASUS, there's no way in hell your hardware failure rate will be near those 16%. I've dealt with hundreds of PC components over a decade and I only encountered 4 hardware problems that are relevant for this discussion. 2 of them came from cheap WD hard drives, 1 came from an extremely cheap generic name motherboard, the other 1 came from an initially defected ATI video card that was replaced by the manufacturer within a week. On the other hand, we have two PS2s, both of which stopped working after 2 and 4 years of use, and an Xbox 360 that works whenever it feels like it.
As of "PC components are just more prone to failure than consoles, for a multitude of reasons", what exactly is the multitude of reasons you're talking about? Consoles have fixed hardware components that are generally not upgradeable. Analogically, if you get a decent PC box and do not open it or tinker with it in any way, I fail to see why its failure tendency will be any different from a PS3 that stands next to it. Of course, if you factor in an unexperienced upgrader in a fur coat with two super magnets in its pockets, you will get all sorts of statistics to support your line of reasoning. But if you do, please factor in the people who think that cleaning their consoles in a dishwasher is a good idea as well.
Just to make you feel more comfortable, it's called embryonic, not fetal cell stem research. They call them embryos on the earliest stages of growth, generally from the moment of fertilization until the end of the 8th week of gestational age. They call them fetuses thereafter. The embryos used for harvesting human embryonic stem cells are typically four or five days old. They look like a hollow microscopic ball of cells and called the blastocyst.
"Don't go to a sci-fi novel for hard facts about history and theology, you'll just be misinformed." You know perfectly well I didn't use this quote because I considered it a reliable source of information. If you don't...well, you should... In contrast to the "I know the holy book of my choice is true because the holy book of my choice tells me it is" mentality that is inherent to most schools of religious thought, I do not take the fiction I read that seriously. If you want better quotes, here's a couple.
"While some extraordinary claims have been made about precisely when early gospels (and parts of them) were written, it is impossible to determine the dates of gospel origins with much certainty. An absolute date can be assigned to an ancient text only if a clear relationship can be established between the text and another writing or event from a specific, known time. Unfortunately, such writings and events are almost entirely lacking from the time period when the gospels were written."...
" Only two known events are helpful for determining how soon early gospels may have been written after the death of Jesus: the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) and the martyrdom of Peter (ca. 64 C.E.). Yet, these events are useful for dating only two gospels and a portion of a third. Matthew and Luke must have been written after Titus' siege of Jerusalem because they allude to it (Matt 22:7; Luke 19:43-44, 21:20-24), but it is not clear that Mark was aware of the event. John 21 must have been written after Peter's death, but the final chapter may have been added to the gospel long after the rest had been written. There are no certain references to any datable historical events in John 1-20. The same is true for the eight non-canonical early gospels."...
All early gospels, then, were written sometime between the death of Jesus and the second half of the second century. Three gospels must have been written after 70 C.E.; how long after is anybody's guess. Two gospels must have been written before the end of the first half of the second century C.E.; how long before is anybody's guess. With such chronologically distant boundaries, it is little wonder that scholars have come up with such divergent dates of origins for early gospels. The dates are based on nothing more concrete than each scholar's impression of precisely when small stories, sayings, or phrases might or might not have been meaningful to a particular writer or community. There is considerable room for differences of opinion with such subjective analysis."
As for the other part of your statement, for a religious person you sure don't seem to know that much about the history of your own religion. Don't worry, you're not alone.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/timeline_04.html "In ancient times many other Gospels existed--perhaps as many as 30. Some of them might have been as popular as today's canonical quartet. But the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have survived to become keystones of the New Testament. Their prominence is due in part to St. Irenaeus, a second-century bishop of Lyon in Roman Gaul and an aggressive enemy of texts and beliefs considered to be heretical. In an attempt to unify the church he declared Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John the only Gospels that Christians should read. For Irenaeus the number four was extremely important: there were four directions, four winds, and he reasoned that there should be four separate gospels as well."
I'm not even going to touch The Old Testament. For all we know, it may as well have been written by Aristotle, Pluto, or one of their evil twins.
This Kim Stanley Robinson quote, though taken from a work of science fiction, is (at least in my not-so-humble opinion) very much valid and quite relevant in regard to your views on the historical figure of Jesus. Hope you'll find it an interesting read. --------------
John said, 'You must know that the gospels were written decades after the event, by people who never met Christ. And that there are other gospels which reveal a different Christ, gospels that were excluded from the Bible by a political process in the third century. So he's a kind of literary figure really, a political construct. We don't know anything about the man himself.'
Phyllis shook her head. 'That's not true.'
'But it is,' John objected... 'Look, there's a history to all this stuff. Monotheism is a belief system that you see appearing in early herding societies. The greater their dependence on sheep herding, the more likely their belief in a shepherd god. It's an exact correlation, you can chart it and see. And the god is always male, because those societies were patriarchal. There's a kind of archeology, an anthropology--a sociology of religion, that makes all of this perfectly clear--how it came about, what needs it fulfilled.'
Let's be reasonable here. Firstly, the articles do deal with the basic axioms of argumentation, and, secondly, people who counter-argue criticism of blind faith with "Jesus gives me money if I lose teeth?" will likely have no use for better references anyway.
Also, in regard to "the difference between Santa Claus and religion is that the latter requires a much larger amount of personal work to sort it out than the former": Santa Claus may as well be a considerably more simplistic figure in comparison to [insert your favorite messiah's name here], but, nevertheless, people who believe in god's existence actually refer to the very same arguments that are used to defend Santa Claus' existence to little children. I'm sorry I can't fully engage in this discussion from work. If you truly wish to understand my position on this subject, this [hastily googled] article seems to describe it pretty well:
That assumes I want to spend my time explaining something to somebody who, most likely, has no interest in listening to me in the first place.
He: "If you tell them that it's ok to believe in god you are LYING TO THEM!!!" You: "So should we start locking up all those evil people who believe in God?"
Where exactly did the original poster propose that? Straw Man. You're arguing against a position you created specifically to be easy to argue against.
He: "You introduce them to magical thinking, to blind faith. Than you take away that illusion, and replace it with a more horrible one that serves the same purpose." You: "Jesus gives me money if I lose teeth? That's a new one. Don' think Santa rose from the dead and can forgive my sin either."
Again, you're completely skewing the poster's original statement... You know what, the more I re-read your post, the more I realize I really don't have time for this. The downright unintelligibility and illogicality of your arguments was the only reason for my previous post. You clearly don't have any desire to follow the links, and I have no real desire to reason with unreasonable. Take care.
What right do those scientists with all their so-called empirical evidence have to refute my dogmatic assertions? The Bible says the Earth is 6000 years old and what is NASA and their 'telescopes' but Satan's another attempt encompass and tempt the true believers like myself.
If regular input devices cause you so much distress, perhaps you should look for some less painful alternatives. I don't know much about arthritis, but I do know that your controller options shouldn't be limited by regular keyboards and gamepads. There are trackballs, head trackers, eye sensors, one button joysticks, large button keyboards, speech controlled mice, etc, etc. Instead of thinking how to spend your 'last hours' with regular controllers, I would advise you to do some research and get an input device that will help you overcome this horrible disease and keep enjoying the things you like in the future.
I guess the idea of developing several custom sound profiles and consequently providing users with the option to choose a theme they actually like has never crossed their minds. Personally, I fail to see any wisdom in Microsoft's pursuit of mediocrity.
I'm not an expert in the field myself, so I'll quote from another source:
"The radiation belts are based on Earth's magnetic field, which is tilted at about 11 degrees from its rotational axis. They are further distorted by the solar wind, giving them a teardrop shape. Due to this, the elevator will encounter varying intensities of radiation; especially concerning is the inner belt.
One proposal for two way elevator systems to deal with the outer belt is to have extra shielding "in-place" along the cable that is carried up by a climbing elevator, and carried back down by a descending elevator to meet the next elevator carrying passengers up. While this adds constant weight to the elevator (as if a "permanent payload"), it adds the weight to the elevator where the cable is thickest and most able to tolerate extra payload. The "weak point" of the elevator is where it meets the Earth, and shielding is not needed there.
Another type of shielding is so-called "active" shielding. One such type involves electromagnetic fields to deflect low-energy radiation. Another type of active shielding is the Multilayer High Temperature Superconductor Protection System, which involves using high-temperature superconducting materials to produce strong magnetic fields for deflection." - http://experts.about.com/e/v/va/Van_Allen_radiatio n_belt.htm
I'd say that shielding is certainly another obstacle to overcome, but it's probably even easier to solve than the project's current structural and financial problems.
Here's a quote from an IEEE Spectrum article (Aug, 2005):
"It now costs about US $20 000 per kilogram to put objects into orbit. Contrast that rate with the results of a study I recently performed for NASA, which concluded that a single space elevator could reduce the cost of orbiting payloads to a remarkably low $200 a kilogram and that multiple elevators could ultimately push costs down below $10 a kilogram. With space elevators we could eventually make putting people and cargo into space as cheap, kilogram for kilogram, as airlifting them across the Pacific."
The article answers many space elevator-related questions. Those who want to know more about the project can read it here:
There are some technical problems (mainly related to construction of the cable) to be solved first, but the space elevator idea is definitely worth serious consideration, as it could provide humanity with extremely cheap and easy access to space.
Quoting myself on this subject:
The rumblepad is the least advanced simulation component in today's gaming. Visual and auditory elements of games tend to improve at rapid speeds, bringing more realistic graphics, physics, gameplay, and sounds into new products, - which ultimately increases the level of immersion for the players. The rumblepad feature is rather weak, comparing to those two. 'The sense of touch' it supposedly provides is nothing more than repetitive vibrations that don't exactly simulate to on-screen experiences (at least when you're not controlling a drag addict or a patient with Parkinson's disease). There are only 3 or 4 different vibration levels (PS2) that don't and can't produce variant experiences since they only affect the vibrations' strength. You'll feel the same buzzing 'sense of touch' from a getting shot in one game you'll feel from a nuclear explosion in another one. From my point of view it is quite laughable and does not qualify for being an essential part of the game experience. For 'an integral part of game play' rumblepads don't seem to provide that much of a game play to begin with.
I would certainly leave the vibrational component on all next-gen consoles' gamepads. With all its limitations it's still a nice auxiliary feature. However, I don't see its removal from PS3 as something to cry about. PS3 controllers will still have pressure sensitive buttons (far more essential for gaming), and their new gyroscopic sensors should provide gamers with considerably more advanced and immersive types of gameplay. Besides, my guess would be that the feature will be restored through third-party controllers, although it's not a certainty at this point.
By the way, the survey was commissioned by a company with certain interests. I'm not accusing it in being biased but I definitely wouldn't regard it as a completely reliable and authoritative source of information.
Slashdot Mirror
I have nothing but respect to NES, SNES and SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. What I was trying to point out is that those earlier console types look ridiculously simplistic in comparison with today's computing equipment. Trust me on this one - I've seen their insides. Anyway, as far as you turn away from these resilient "cockroaches" of the console world and look at more advanced models, you'll see a noticeable increase the failure rate statistics. It's just logical: more intricate and complex designs, hundreds of new fragile components and the whole ongoing strive towards their miniaturization will most definitely raise the chances of hardware failure. Besides, it doesn't even matter whether this argument is valid or not: you're simply looking at this from the wrong perspective. Even though it might look like it in my previous post, I do not argue that all consoles are highly unreliable. What I argue is that quality PC components are at very least as much reliable as their console counterparts and, judging from my personal experience, often even more so. PCs, however, have one distinctive characteristic that separates them from consoles. If an element of a console dies, you usually have to replace all of the parts. When something happens to a PC component, all you usually have to do is to replace this particular component without spending hundreds on the replacement of the rest of the system.
It's not really relevant here, but I also want to add that arguing a case against PCs is in many respects similar to arguing a case against democratically run governments. Sure, one can always point out the obvious advantages of an ideal totalitarian utopia (created by SONY(TM)), but many of us still prefer not to have our choices pre-made for us. There's a certain level of freedom and flexibility in PCs I find exhilarating, and I would never consider abandoning that for the predestinately limited world of gaming consoles.
First of all, comparing modern PCs to NES is like comparing a jackhammer to a wooden hammer. You're comparing two entirely different levels of hardware complexity. Secondly, not only your comparison is pretty much ridiculous and groundless in relationship to more modern consoles, the second half of the argument is incorrect as well. Did you know that 16% of X360 are likely to have serious hardware problems within six to ten months after a warranty purchase? Well, according to this article, they are:
Red Ring of Failure. Is your Xbox 360 still working? You must be one of the lucky ones.
http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/feature/red-ring-of-failure/1192354
If you do an hour of research and buy your PC components from established and trusted manufacturers like Logitech or ASUS, there's no way in hell your hardware failure rate will be near those 16%. I've dealt with hundreds of PC components over a decade and I only encountered 4 hardware problems that are relevant for this discussion. 2 of them came from cheap WD hard drives, 1 came from an extremely cheap generic name motherboard, the other 1 came from an initially defected ATI video card that was replaced by the manufacturer within a week. On the other hand, we have two PS2s, both of which stopped working after 2 and 4 years of use, and an Xbox 360 that works whenever it feels like it.
As of "PC components are just more prone to failure than consoles, for a multitude of reasons", what exactly is the multitude of reasons you're talking about? Consoles have fixed hardware components that are generally not upgradeable. Analogically, if you get a decent PC box and do not open it or tinker with it in any way, I fail to see why its failure tendency will be any different from a PS3 that stands next to it. Of course, if you factor in an unexperienced upgrader in a fur coat with two super magnets in its pockets, you will get all sorts of statistics to support your line of reasoning. But if you do, please factor in the people who think that cleaning their consoles in a dishwasher is a good idea as well.
Just to make you feel more comfortable, it's called embryonic, not fetal cell stem research. They call them embryos on the earliest stages of growth, generally from the moment of fertilization until the end of the 8th week of gestational age. They call them fetuses thereafter. The embryos used for harvesting human embryonic stem cells are typically four or five days old. They look like a hollow microscopic ball of cells and called the blastocyst.
"Don't go to a sci-fi novel for hard facts about history and theology, you'll just be misinformed."
...
...
You know perfectly well I didn't use this quote because I considered it a reliable source of information. If you don't...well, you should... In contrast to the "I know the holy book of my choice is true because the holy book of my choice tells me it is" mentality that is inherent to most schools of religious thought, I do not take the fiction I read that seriously. If you want better quotes, here's a couple.
"While some extraordinary claims have been made about precisely when early gospels (and parts of them) were written, it is impossible to determine the dates of gospel origins with much certainty. An absolute date can be assigned to an ancient text only if a clear relationship can be established between the text and another writing or event from a specific, known time. Unfortunately, such writings and events are almost entirely lacking from the time period when the gospels were written."
" Only two known events are helpful for determining how soon early gospels may have been written after the death of Jesus: the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) and the martyrdom of Peter (ca. 64 C.E.). Yet, these events are useful for dating only two gospels and a portion of a third. Matthew and Luke must have been written after Titus' siege of Jerusalem because they allude to it (Matt 22:7; Luke 19:43-44, 21:20-24), but it is not clear that Mark was aware of the event. John 21 must have been written after Peter's death, but the final chapter may have been added to the gospel long after the rest had been written. There are no certain references to any datable historical events in John 1-20. The same is true for the eight non-canonical early gospels."
All early gospels, then, were written sometime between the death of Jesus and the second half of the second century. Three gospels must have been written after 70 C.E.; how long after is anybody's guess. Two gospels must have been written before the end of the first half of the second century C.E.; how long before is anybody's guess. With such chronologically distant boundaries, it is little wonder that scholars have come up with such divergent dates of origins for early gospels. The dates are based on nothing more concrete than each scholar's impression of precisely when small stories, sayings, or phrases might or might not have been meaningful to a particular writer or community. There is considerable room for differences of opinion with such subjective analysis."
As for the other part of your statement, for a religious person you sure don't seem to know that much about the history of your own religion. Don't worry, you're not alone.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/timeline_04.html
"In ancient times many other Gospels existed--perhaps as many as 30. Some of them might have been as popular as today's canonical quartet. But the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have survived to become keystones of the New Testament.
Their prominence is due in part to St. Irenaeus, a second-century bishop of Lyon in Roman Gaul and an aggressive enemy of texts and beliefs considered to be heretical. In an attempt to unify the church he declared Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John the only Gospels that Christians should read. For Irenaeus the number four was extremely important: there were four directions, four winds, and he reasoned that there should be four separate gospels as well."
I'm not even going to touch The Old Testament. For all we know, it may as well have been written by Aristotle, Pluto, or one of their evil twins.
This Kim Stanley Robinson quote, though taken from a work of science fiction, is (at least in my not-so-humble opinion) very much valid and quite relevant in regard to your views on the historical figure of Jesus. Hope you'll find it an interesting read.
--------------
John said, 'You must know that the gospels were written decades after the event, by people who never met Christ. And that there are other gospels which reveal a different Christ, gospels that were excluded from the Bible by a political process in the third century. So he's a kind of literary figure really, a political construct. We don't know anything about the man himself.'
Phyllis shook her head. 'That's not true.'
'But it is,' John objected... 'Look, there's a history to all this stuff. Monotheism is a belief system that you see appearing in early herding societies. The greater their dependence on sheep herding, the more likely their belief in a shepherd god. It's an exact correlation, you can chart it and see. And the god is always male, because those societies were patriarchal. There's a kind of archeology, an anthropology--a sociology of religion, that makes all of this perfectly clear--how it came about, what needs it fulfilled.'
Let's be reasonable here. Firstly, the articles do deal with the basic axioms of argumentation, and, secondly, people who counter-argue criticism of blind faith with "Jesus gives me money if I lose teeth?" will likely have no use for better references anyway.
Also, in regard to "the difference between Santa Claus and religion is that the latter requires a much larger amount of personal work to sort it out than the former": Santa Claus may as well be a considerably more simplistic figure in comparison to [insert your favorite messiah's name here], but, nevertheless, people who believe in god's existence actually refer to the very same arguments that are used to defend Santa Claus' existence to little children. I'm sorry I can't fully engage in this discussion from work. If you truly wish to understand my position on this subject, this [hastily googled] article seems to describe it pretty well:
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/12/popular-delusions-v.html
That assumes I want to spend my time explaining something to somebody who, most likely, has no interest in listening to me in the first place.
He: "If you tell them that it's ok to believe in god you are LYING TO THEM!!!"
You: "So should we start locking up all those evil people who believe in God?"
Where exactly did the original poster propose that? Straw Man. You're arguing against a position you created specifically to be easy to argue against.
He: "You introduce them to magical thinking, to blind faith. Than you take away that illusion, and replace it with a more horrible one that serves the same purpose."
You: "Jesus gives me money if I lose teeth? That's a new one. Don' think Santa rose from the dead and can forgive my sin either."
Again, you're completely skewing the poster's original statement... You know what, the more I re-read your post, the more I realize I really don't have time for this. The downright unintelligibility and illogicality of your arguments was the only reason for my previous post. You clearly don't have any desire to follow the links, and I have no real desire to reason with unreasonable. Take care.
What right do those scientists with all their so-called empirical evidence have to refute my dogmatic assertions? The Bible says the Earth is 6000 years old and what is NASA and their 'telescopes' but Satan's another attempt encompass and tempt the true believers like myself.
Look son, crazy people...
If regular input devices cause you so much distress, perhaps you should look for some less painful alternatives. I don't know much about arthritis, but I do know that your controller options shouldn't be limited by regular keyboards and gamepads. There are trackballs, head trackers, eye sensors, one button joysticks, large button keyboards, speech controlled mice, etc, etc. Instead of thinking how to spend your 'last hours' with regular controllers, I would advise you to do some research and get an input device that will help you overcome this horrible disease and keep enjoying the things you like in the future.
. php?id=2 f orms/Itemid,26/ff_name,ReviewList/ff_param_section ,5/ff_param_cat,allcat/ff_param_limit,20/ff_param_ order,SubmissionDateNew
There are some links you may find useful. I wish you good luck and happy gaming.
http://www.naturalpoint.com/
http://www.game-accessibility.com/forum/viewforum
http://www.3m.com/cws/renmouse.html
http://www.aroga.com/com_access/comaccess.asp
http://ablegamers.com/component/option,com_facile
I guess the idea of developing several custom sound profiles and consequently providing users with the option to choose a theme they actually like has never crossed their minds. Personally, I fail to see any wisdom in Microsoft's pursuit of mediocrity.
I'm not an expert in the field myself, so I'll quote from another source:
o n_belt.htm
"The radiation belts are based on Earth's magnetic field, which is tilted at about 11 degrees from its rotational axis. They are further distorted by the solar wind, giving them a teardrop shape. Due to this, the elevator will encounter varying intensities of radiation; especially concerning is the inner belt.
One proposal for two way elevator systems to deal with the outer belt is to have extra shielding "in-place" along the cable that is carried up by a climbing elevator, and carried back down by a descending elevator to meet the next elevator carrying passengers up. While this adds constant weight to the elevator (as if a "permanent payload"), it adds the weight to the elevator where the cable is thickest and most able to tolerate extra payload. The "weak point" of the elevator is where it meets the Earth, and shielding is not needed there.
Another type of shielding is so-called "active" shielding. One such type involves electromagnetic fields to deflect low-energy radiation. Another type of active shielding is the Multilayer High Temperature Superconductor Protection System, which involves using high-temperature superconducting materials to produce strong magnetic fields for deflection." - http://experts.about.com/e/v/va/Van_Allen_radiati
I'd say that shielding is certainly another obstacle to overcome, but it's probably even easier to solve than the project's current structural and financial problems.
Here's a quote from an IEEE Spectrum article (Aug, 2005):
"It now costs about US $20 000 per kilogram to put objects into orbit. Contrast that rate with the results of a study I recently performed for NASA, which concluded that a single space elevator could reduce the cost of orbiting payloads to a remarkably low $200 a kilogram and that multiple elevators could ultimately push costs down below $10 a kilogram. With space elevators we could eventually make putting people and cargo into space as cheap, kilogram for kilogram, as airlifting them across the Pacific."
The article answers many space elevator-related questions. Those who want to know more about the project can read it here:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1690
There are some technical problems (mainly related to construction of the cable) to be solved first, but the space elevator idea is definitely worth serious consideration, as it could provide humanity with extremely cheap and easy access to space.
Quoting myself on this subject:
The rumblepad is the least advanced simulation component in today's gaming. Visual and auditory elements of games tend to improve at rapid speeds, bringing more realistic graphics, physics, gameplay, and sounds into new products, - which ultimately increases the level of immersion for the players. The rumblepad feature is rather weak, comparing to those two. 'The sense of touch' it supposedly provides is nothing more than repetitive vibrations that don't exactly simulate to on-screen experiences (at least when you're not controlling a drag addict or a patient with Parkinson's disease). There are only 3 or 4 different vibration levels (PS2) that don't and can't produce variant experiences since they only affect the vibrations' strength. You'll feel the same buzzing 'sense of touch' from a getting shot in one game you'll feel from a nuclear explosion in another one. From my point of view it is quite laughable and does not qualify for being an essential part of the game experience. For 'an integral part of game play' rumblepads don't seem to provide that much of a game play to begin with. I would certainly leave the vibrational component on all next-gen consoles' gamepads. With all its limitations it's still a nice auxiliary feature. However, I don't see its removal from PS3 as something to cry about. PS3 controllers will still have pressure sensitive buttons (far more essential for gaming), and their new gyroscopic sensors should provide gamers with considerably more advanced and immersive types of gameplay. Besides, my guess would be that the feature will be restored through third-party controllers, although it's not a certainty at this point.
By the way, the survey was commissioned by a company with certain interests. I'm not accusing it in being biased but I definitely wouldn't regard it as a completely reliable and authoritative source of information.