To be somewhat fair, with cart systems such as the Super NES, a significant amount of the technology actually came from within the cartridge itself. Super NES carts arent just binary game data, like a Playstation disc. There were circuit boards, and chips, and a LOT could be done with a cartridge that cant be done with a cd-derivative. Some of the latest released Super NES games were pushing far beyond the Super NES's "capabilities", because they included extra powerful chips inside of the cart to compensate for the fact that they had drained the SNES's core resources. In fact, some of the Super Famicom games that never made it to America had double-tall carts, to hold all of the extra hardware they added onto the SNES's system.
Not that Im disagreeing with you. I also prefered the days of live-long systems. And I loved the cart-based systems, because of that EXTRA mile that developers could go, and often did. These days... there's just not enough finesse in game development. It's becoming more and more of a lazy-company's sport. I just thought this was worth mentioning, as it's a sign of how thoroughly different the industry is these days.
They say alcoholism is a disease, but its the only disease you can get yelled at for having. "Dammit Otto, you're an alcoholic!" "Dammit Otto, you have lupus!" One of those two doesn't sound right.
Old gem from Mitch Hedberg. Dammit Otto, you're addicted to the internet!
The worst thing Sony could have done is kill their holiday sales by not having enough units.
This is true, and if you study economics, is actually an observable market phenomenon. Sony pulled this exact same stunt with the PS2, and apologized profusely, and swore that it wouldnt happen. Two years ago, they were talking about tremendous numbers of PS3s for the launch. ANd yet, here we are. Nearly Christmas, and no one can give Sony 700 bucks for a PS3 even if they wanted to.
You're mostly likely right. Sony probably is going to get bit in that ass for this one. They didnt on the PS2, but the XBox and Gamecube libraries were both pretty consistently weak (Halo is NOT an entire library. Im sorry) compared to the PS2's. And so far the PS3's library hasnt justified its existence, and Sony has been losing exclusivity deals left and right.
Personally, I dont like any of the new consoles this generation. To me the 360 is just the new Sega system, and if there had been a normal new generation launch, it would already be behind in technology. The PS3 is a marketing disaster, and the price tag is completely unacceptable. And the Wii... I think it's a gimmicky system that's going to burn out in two years due to being underpower. People say graphics dont matter, and I agree that they're not the only thing that matters, but they DO matter. How many people here played the new Valkyrie Profile game launched on PS1? How many of you even heard of it? Aside from graphics, it was supposed to be awesome. Did anyone care? No.
Maybe this will lead to promising things in the future. All of the new consoles have SOME great ideas and features. Maybe next generation, we'll get some awesome new consoles, with reasonable price tags. In the meantime, Im going to buy a PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, and go to market.
To be fair, though, last I heard the GBA:SP is actually still out-selling the DS, as well. In fact, I think the SP is one of the most beautiful handheld systems ever made, the backwards compatibility is awesome, and I plan on buying one soon. The DS and PSP both I could care less about.
Grandparent poster isnt *entirely* wrong. Parent is right, of course, due to the evolving language. However, bemuse did used to mean something akin to (paraphrasing): "to amuse in a borderline annoying fashion". In fact, even in the parent's post, you can get that from definition 3 still. So... bemusement is *really* supposed to mean reluctant amusement. I hate it, but I have to admit... it amuses me. Maybe like clowns for some people.
Of course, the evolution of language ruins complicated words like these, so I have to say to parent that pulling out the latest dictionary defintions of a word doesnt necessarily make me feel any better about what that word is SUPPOSED to mean. For example, have we reached the point yet where the word "irony" is just defined as a synonymn for "coincidental"? I see it coming.
Hey, now, to be fair, all they would have to do is drop the price tag down to 200 dollars and the system would be a rousing success.
I mean, they'd lose more money than M$ lost on the first XBox, and would almost certainly never turn a profit, and it might even be serious enough to damage Sony the company as a whole... but 10 years down the road, people wouldnt be looking back saying "PS3? Man. that was a mistake."
Of course... that wont happen, so you're probably right. But in my dreams, I own a 200 dollar PS3.
Uhh... Im not sure I understand this argument exactly. People are arguing over Linux kernel upgrades vs. upgrading from XP to Vista? Isnt there... a large difference here?
First of all, Ill admit, yes, I plan on upgrading to Vista. Why? It's the newest thing out, meaning it's the newest thing everything else is going to be compatible with. Why else? Oh, yeah, I get 10 free personal licenses for it due to an arrangement my company has with M$. That's a good enough reason for me.
But, that's also my main point here. Upgrading your kernel on linux is a completely different process than upgrading from XP to Vista, and not only that, upgrading from XP to Vista COSTS. Especially for us personal computer users. For businesses it's usually a much better deal, but for the average user, to say "Well you upgrade your kernel every time a new one comes out, why not upgrade windows?" is a stupid question. Because the answer is simply: I dont have 100-150 (I dont know what Vista's exact price is right now) bucks to throw away on my system at the moment. Not all of us buy the latest 350 dollar graphics cards when they come out just because we can. A FORCED 100+ dollar upgrade is a tad annoying, and not necessarily a priority. I have an aunt and uncle who have an old computer that they have been using for about 3 years now to surf the internet maybe once a week or so, and I know they have NO intention of dropping a bucket of extra cash on their computer just so they can CONTINUE doing what they already do without any significant changes. Id say it's the same for a lot of home users.
Personally, Ive always thought that Microsoft should sell cheap (at least half priced, if not third or quarter priced) upgrade packs for people who already have a the previous generation of the OS. Of course, that's a dream, and will never happen.
Realistically though, if you're talking about upgrading from XP to Vista, you have to compare it to something like.. upgrading from Redhat 8 to Redhat 9, or these days, from Fedora Core 5 to Fedora Core 6. Now personally, I DID use yum to upgrade a system from FC4 all the way up to FC6, and have had very little trouble out of it (there were compatibility issues, as with all upgrades, and a few uninstall/reinstalls were necessary), AND it was free. So, while I am strongly more pleased by the linux methodology, I maintain that it's unfair to compare the kernel upgrades to the XP -> Vista jump.
You are the only one here who thinks Star Wars III is worth remembering at all.
*applauds*
This was already a great news story, and this comment made it all the better (although somewhat of a tangent). Slashdot is being good to me today. *suspicious glares*
It seems to me that this would have a lot more to do with when people were coming of age with computers, so to speak, than with actual age. A lot of these people most likely grew up (computeratively speaking, not literally) in a time period when the big computer manufacturers were Apple, IBM (too expensive for most people in the day), Compaq, HP (dont get me started on old HPs), and possibly young Dell (im leaving out a lot of older models, I know. please forgive me/fill in the gaps). I remember when I was in middle school, most of the computers WERE Apple. By the time I got to High School, this was completely different, and a Mac was a rare thing to see. Also... not to be *too* stereotypical here, but I know a lot of older people (not elderly, just older), who still have old computers and outright refuse to upgrade, or accept the fact that there are newer, better models out there for less than a thousand bucks. I know of at least one friend whose parent have an old pre-OSX mac still, and adamantly maintain that it does everything they need it for, and dont need to upgrade.
My point is, I dont think it's fair to say that Apple's primary audience is actually older people. I would guess that a lot of these "Apple owners", which are not defined as "Apple buyers", arent actively seeking the next new upgrade, and *probably* dont represent the staple of income Apple should be trying to target with their next generation of devices.
Do you think they're concerned that there's a North Korean Macgyver, taking IPods, Segway Scooters, and Plasma TVs and using them to create Satellites capable of launching laser strikes from space? Or at least something that'll explode violently. Man. Imagine what Macgyver could have done back in the 80s if he had just carried 1 ipod with him at all times.
I would agree with this. This is hardly anything new or different. And really, it's becoming more and more of a foregone conclusion these days, because such a high number of PS3's went to resellers. Just because Sony sold every PS3 they shipped doesnt surprise me. Id be more interested as to how sales have been on the secondary market, and that's nearly impossible for an analyst to figure out (although they could make something up. that probably wouldnt break habit). Personally, I have some reservations about the Wii. As a relatively low-power system, which cant handle graphics much more powerful than the Gamecube itself, Im extremely curious to see where the gimmicky console will stand in two years against the larger powerhouse competitors. I mean, if in two years, the Wii is down to 100 bucks, and the PS3 is down to 300 (Im praying, since that's the maximum threshold at which I plan to purchase one), what will people be buying more of? Which will kids be wanting for Christmas? And, more importantly, what will 3rd-party developers be migrating towards? Unless some analysts can give us some really applicable predictions over the next 4 years (which to be fair, none of us would probably believe them anyway), there's no real point in them coming out and announcing the state of these new console sales as they stand right now.
Can we mark an article +2, Troll?
on
Fedora Linux
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Cue the inevitable "my distro is better/what's wrong with just using Vista" battle!
Well... and knowing immediately that this comment may cause some backlash, I use Fedora Core, and do choose to upgrade my system, and all of the systems that I maintain (several of which are production web servers), once every 6 months. I have relatively little trouble (if upgrades are very carefully administrated, and done properly, the only time that you actually lose is a reboot, and as long as this is coordinated to be done at 4 am-ish, with a brief notice, no one minds. especially once every 6 months), and personally, I enjoy the cutting-edgeness and constant improvements made on the OS. And, in spite of a lot of people's impressions on Fedora, I find that the system maintains remarkable stability these days (I wont argue on terms of Fedora Core 2. my god, those were bad times), and any glitches or bugs generally are fixed and even better, rolled out fairly rapidly.
Am I arguing that it's the right path for everyone? No. Am I arguing that I support every little change that Fedora makes? No. Especially when it comes to the desktop environments. Im just saying, since Fedora is one of the very top Linux distributions, I dont think it's fair to chalk up the google strategy as a default failure for an Operating System approach.
Not to come to Nintendo's aide too steadfastly (not a fanboy, only barely even a fan these days), but the Wii *did* just launch, so it seems fairly like to me that the 4-10 day shipping is more likely a result of them being overwhelmed by current activity than sheer cheapness. My guess is that it's probably easier for them to just mail out a new system and say "be happy!" than it is to try to coordinate for bringing in everyone's Wii and repairing it. I don't disagree with your point of being angry if it had happened to me, I'm also of a violent temper, but I think it's probably safe to say in this case, it seems like Nintendo is doing the best they can to play the good guy. Which is more than we can say for certain other comapanies in the industry at the moment...
I went to college (I know that doesn't make me an expert on anything, but it's slighty better than "I dropped out of middle school"), and took several earth science classes, and while it wasn't really my field, I fairly distinctly remember several discussion which taught me that in reality, volcanic ash is responsible for over 90% of the actual polution levels in the atmosphere. Meaning that, even if we did STOP GLOBAL WARMING! by destroying all technology, and using a reflected sunbeam from a giant mirror orbiting the planet to melt all of our robots down, we wouldn't really have much impact on the whole situation.
I don't deny that it's possible that my information isn't 100% valid... like I said, it's what I remember being taught. And while I found several resources to support my viewpoint, none of them were reputable enough for me to feel like they were substantial evidence. There's so much back-and-forth on this particular topic that it's hard to be sure who's full of BS. But one thing I do remember, a few years back, scientists somewhere did a simulation of what would happen if all human live ceased to exist, and they estimated that in somewhere around 50 to 100 years, the earth would completely recover from all of the damages we had done to it, and would continue on as if we had never been. If you look back on earth's history, it has been through some serious shit. Like the moon being knocked OUT of the earth's crust (resulting in our 23.5 degree tilt). I think we could strategically drop nukes everywhere, kill everyone, and in a century or two, which is a drop in the bucket of earth's lifespan, it would be trucking along just fine. A bit tangential, I know, but my point is, I personally don't believe that we the people are really having nearly as much of an impact on the mighty earth as we'd like to think.
Also, Gore taking the Lincoln Navigator to the premiere was beyond hilarious.
that we can all attack Steve Ballmer at will, without fear of retaliation!
Not that that ever stopped anyone here at Slashdot anyway.
Actually, in all seriousness, it seemed to me that this ruling was saying that if I post something libelous (sp? maybe not a word?) here on Slashdot, Slashdot can't be sued for it. But if Slashdot is ordered to turn over my registration information, or perhaps figure out the IP from which I'm posting... if they could get a reasonable finger on me, they could still sue me. I don't think this law is *quite* so bad. I mean... there are a lot of potential corollaries, but all-in-all, I don't think/. should be held accountable for my comments. There are just way too many comments and commenters on/. for that expectation to even be reasonable. If I say something bad on an open forum, I should be responsible for my actions, not the people who originally coded up and (in some cases) maintain the website.
I like this post. It's nice to see a reasonable reaction from the Zelda fans. I usually cant gauge any sort of truth from reactions to a Zelda title, since it's either bitter rebuttle, or pure fanboyisms of "OMG TEH LEET!".
Based on this comment, Ill probably try out the new Zelda. It's pretty good? That's fine by me. I can believe that. But I went into Ocarina of Time having been THOROUGHLY prophesied that it was the greatest Zelda ever, and to this day, Ill still take Link to the Past over it any day, and now I hate OOT just because of the fanboy following.
Dont get me wrong, Im not attacking nintendoers here. I have the exact same problem with the Devil May Cry series on PS. Loved DMC1, havent been able to get a reasonable reaction to any DMC afterwards until years after they've dropped and the hype has died down. And Im not one of those people who have the cash laying around to just pop out 50 dollars on a new game on the *chance* that it's good and that I havent been lied to.
Agreed. Some of these extremely sudden and verbose posts coming to the immediate defense of the mega-corporations wax suspicious. Did someone say plant? I didnt. Who's talking? I already did!
Bushnell left Atari in 1978. Methinks he didn't have anything to do with the Jaguar, 5200, or E.T.
Thank you!!
Jesus H. Christ, Slashdotters are driving me nuts on this one. "His company had failure ehe he stupid me smart him not know so much pblblblbl".
In Atari's early days, when Bushnell actually WAS there, they were a staple of the technology industry as a whole. Heck, Steve Wozniak got his start there (and his education, as much as he ever had one. the man seems to have just been born brilliant), and anyone who knows much about Apple knows the name Wozniak.
Also, Id like to point out from the article:
Mr. Bushnell is the founder of more than twenty companies and a member of both the video game and consumer electronics association hall of fame.
In short, I dont care if he HAD still been in Atari when the Jaguar and other failures happened, the man is more accomplished that Id say easily 95% of the people here at slashdot, and did more for the technology industry than most of us will probably ever be able to claim. When he speaks out, even if he's not entirely correct (which I have no problem conceding to), he deserves more fscking respect than this.
FF: All right. Where is the exploit? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both eat, and find out who is right... and who is dead.
IE7: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the exploit into his own cake or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the exploit into his own cake, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me.
FF: You've made your decision then?
IE7: Not remotely. Because this ActiveX exploit comes from AJAX, as everyone knows, and AJAX is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you.
FF: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
IE7: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?
FF: AJAX.
IE7: Yes, AJAX. And you must have suspected I would have known the exploit's origin, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me.
FF: You're just lagging now.
IE7: Connecting...
IE7: Connecting...
IE7: Connecting...
IE7: Waiting...
IE7: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my buffer overflow, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the exploit in your own cake, trusting on your security to save you, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you. But, you've also bested my Zero-Day Exploit, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that browser is mortal, so you would have put the exploit as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me.
FF: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
IE7: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE EXPLOIT IS!
FF: Then make your choice.
IE7: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?
IE7: [IE7 gestures up and away from the table. FF looks. IE7 swaps the cakes]
FF: Javascript console: Missing Parameter
IE7: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.First, let's eat. Me from my cake, and you from yours.
FF, IE7: [they eat]
FF: You guessed wrong.
IE7: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched cakes when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against Microsoft when profit is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
IE7: [IE7 stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]
Opera: And to think, all that time it was your cake that was poisoned.
FF: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to ActiveX.
Sorry for the subject title. Anyway, I was reading through this list... and I was utterly shocked at the number of/.ers who seem to have not heard of Seanbaby... first of all, as has been mentioned, yes, this article is very, very old. And 5 to 10 years ago, before web "communities" were as vogue as they are now, Seanbaby was a staple of the videogame community, his satire a delight to those of us seeking some form of entertainment from the still maturing intranet. Yes, he's vulgar. Extremely vulgar. In fact, this article isnt even the TIP of his vulgarity. But I cant believe people on/. are BELLYACHING about vulgarity from something approaching 10 years ago on the internet. Also, this is the DIRECTOR'S CUT, you should have noticed. EGM in no way published this article as is. So the "this guy works for EGM?" comment was completely unmerited. Seanbaby is oldschool comedy for hardcore gamers, and when he made it big, and started appearing on things like TechTV and Spike, he had a large fan-base who was glad to see his rise (even if he did abandon his website). He was a disciple/friend of Old Man Murray, and if you dont know who that is either... All I have to say is, when did the content of the internet become run/criticized by people who have had nothing to do with it for the past 10 years? I guess it was inevitable, but Im sad to see it has happened SO damn quickly.
This exploit exists in IE6. It just means MS didn't fix it in IE7. It's not like it's a new exploit that was quickly discovered within the few hours after IE7 was released.
To me, at least, that's kind of the point. I mean, this is an old old IE6 bug, that M$ has known about for a certainly reasonable amount of time. Yet, they still haven't fixed it. And not to say it's a big deal that they haven't fixed it in IE6 yet. It's not like it's a Critical Priority bug (no pirates can steal Windows or MP3s because of it). But they point is, they did their whole "We heard you" campaign, and claimed IE7 was going to be this great new secure landscape... and they didn't even clean up the old IE6 bugs they KNEW about? I mean, seriously, at this point are we supposed to believe that they're even trying?
Well, but bare in mind, Sony has already said a vast majority of the systems they're launching are the high-end models. They're making an underabundance of the low-end models, as if they expect no one's going to want one. More like, Id think they dont want anyway to buy one, because they're hoping to strongarm them into buying the high-ends, which actually are available. It seems to me that they're just going to strongarm us all into looking real hard at the Wii.
Sorry, I butchered my last post with a misplaced <. Should have known better, I'm a webprogrammer. Doh. Let me try again, if you'll all be so forgiving:
They are marketing to PC gamers who want to play console games.
Whether or not this is true, I cannot contend to. However, it seems to me to be an awfully narrow niche audience to go for at the cost of alienating anyone else who might have been interested. I mean, I am a long time Sony fan, myself. I went through the Playstation, PS1(slim), Playstation 2, and PS2(slim), all very happily. But then the PSP came out... oh my, a pretty handheld. Gah, it's awfully expensive for a handheld. Wait, it has wireless? and plays movies? Hmm. Wait a minute, I forgot. I dont care that my handheld can play movies. Especially since they're on a proprietary format that Sony controls all rights to.
I know Im not alone in this sentiment, either. A recent article I spotted somewhere (can't remember where, may have been slashdot itself, sorry for the lack of a link), said that UMD movie sales were not as high as Sony had expected. Now, I suppose it's fairly safe to say Blu-Ray will be different, just because it is going to be at least near-highest available quality (if it ever surpasses HD-DVD), and there will probably actually be other Blu-ray disc players, there's a real chance that it'll work out. But it doesn't change the mindset going into the whole thing. I mean, when Sony first said, "We don't want the PS3 to be a console. We want it to be a SUPER COMPUTER" (paraphrasing, obviously), I was thrilled. I thought this sounded like it was going to be a fun and exciting new console, with all kinds of mysteries. And now, it seems that the more I hear about it, the less marvelous mysteries there are, and the more we're just paying near-computer level prices (hey, catch a good sale, you can get a new fully featured AMD laptop for <600 bucks). I mean, honestly, I was more impressed by the channel mechanism on the Wii than anything I've heard about PS3's implementation so far.
I think I have an analogous situation that might amuse some/. reader or another. About 6 months ago, the apartment complex I was living at, which is a little high on rent but comes with free utilities, sent out a letter saying, "We know our heating and AC system is archaic and poor. We're working to upgrade it to a new central heating and air system." So I was thrilled by this. For 5 months, they were in mid-construction on this crap, and it seemed as if there were entire weeks that they weren't doing anything, just had left a mess all around and sometimes IN my apartment. Finally, it was all done. The new unit was in, and was much better than the old. And then, 3 months later, I went down and was talking to the complex owners, and they casually let slip "Yeah, next month everyone starts paying their own electric bill." and I said, "What??" and they said "It's the price you pay for the new heating and air system." Now, personally, I moved into this complex for the free utilities, I didnt want the new heating and air system THAT badly. It's not the nicest complex in the world, and as I said, it's a little overpriced. So now, Im just living in a shabby, overpriced apartment, which a "nice" heating and air system, which Im paying a fortune for because these apartments have crap for insulation. Needless to say, I'm seeking alternative living conditions now.
My point, though, is when you're selling something specific, say, a console, and you start flying off and saying, "oh, we'll have this, and have this, and have this, and have this", it's great and makes everyone happy. Until they find out you're still CHARGING them for all of those things. When Im looking at the next generation, I want to buy a CONSOLE. If there's a Blu-ray (or even better, HD-DVD, since it's not proprietary) player thrown in there extra, then hell yeah. If Im paying 100 extra dollars for that feature... nah, dont need it. Is it cheaper than buying a separa
Slashdot Mirror
To be somewhat fair, with cart systems such as the Super NES, a significant amount of the technology actually came from within the cartridge itself. Super NES carts arent just binary game data, like a Playstation disc. There were circuit boards, and chips, and a LOT could be done with a cartridge that cant be done with a cd-derivative. Some of the latest released Super NES games were pushing far beyond the Super NES's "capabilities", because they included extra powerful chips inside of the cart to compensate for the fact that they had drained the SNES's core resources. In fact, some of the Super Famicom games that never made it to America had double-tall carts, to hold all of the extra hardware they added onto the SNES's system.
Not that Im disagreeing with you. I also prefered the days of live-long systems. And I loved the cart-based systems, because of that EXTRA mile that developers could go, and often did. These days... there's just not enough finesse in game development. It's becoming more and more of a lazy-company's sport. I just thought this was worth mentioning, as it's a sign of how thoroughly different the industry is these days.
They say alcoholism is a disease, but its the only disease you can get yelled at for having. "Dammit Otto, you're an alcoholic!" "Dammit Otto, you have lupus!" One of those two doesn't sound right.
Old gem from Mitch Hedberg. Dammit Otto, you're addicted to the internet!
To be fair, though, last I heard the GBA:SP is actually still out-selling the DS, as well. In fact, I think the SP is one of the most beautiful handheld systems ever made, the backwards compatibility is awesome, and I plan on buying one soon. The DS and PSP both I could care less about.
Grandparent poster isnt *entirely* wrong. Parent is right, of course, due to the evolving language. However, bemuse did used to mean something akin to (paraphrasing): "to amuse in a borderline annoying fashion". In fact, even in the parent's post, you can get that from definition 3 still. So... bemusement is *really* supposed to mean reluctant amusement. I hate it, but I have to admit... it amuses me. Maybe like clowns for some people.
p /0380715430.
Of course, the evolution of language ruins complicated words like these, so I have to say to parent that pulling out the latest dictionary defintions of a word doesnt necessarily make me feel any better about what that word is SUPPOSED to mean. For example, have we reached the point yet where the word "irony" is just defined as a synonymn for "coincidental"? I see it coming.
For anyone further interested in the madness that is the english language, you should check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-Bill-Bryson/d
Hey, now, to be fair, all they would have to do is drop the price tag down to 200 dollars and the system would be a rousing success.
I mean, they'd lose more money than M$ lost on the first XBox, and would almost certainly never turn a profit, and it might even be serious enough to damage Sony the company as a whole... but 10 years down the road, people wouldnt be looking back saying "PS3? Man. that was a mistake."
Of course... that wont happen, so you're probably right. But in my dreams, I own a 200 dollar PS3.
Uhh... Im not sure I understand this argument exactly. People are arguing over Linux kernel upgrades vs. upgrading from XP to Vista? Isnt there... a large difference here?
First of all, Ill admit, yes, I plan on upgrading to Vista. Why? It's the newest thing out, meaning it's the newest thing everything else is going to be compatible with. Why else? Oh, yeah, I get 10 free personal licenses for it due to an arrangement my company has with M$. That's a good enough reason for me.
But, that's also my main point here. Upgrading your kernel on linux is a completely different process than upgrading from XP to Vista, and not only that, upgrading from XP to Vista COSTS. Especially for us personal computer users. For businesses it's usually a much better deal, but for the average user, to say "Well you upgrade your kernel every time a new one comes out, why not upgrade windows?" is a stupid question. Because the answer is simply: I dont have 100-150 (I dont know what Vista's exact price is right now) bucks to throw away on my system at the moment. Not all of us buy the latest 350 dollar graphics cards when they come out just because we can. A FORCED 100+ dollar upgrade is a tad annoying, and not necessarily a priority. I have an aunt and uncle who have an old computer that they have been using for about 3 years now to surf the internet maybe once a week or so, and I know they have NO intention of dropping a bucket of extra cash on their computer just so they can CONTINUE doing what they already do without any significant changes. Id say it's the same for a lot of home users.
Personally, Ive always thought that Microsoft should sell cheap (at least half priced, if not third or quarter priced) upgrade packs for people who already have a the previous generation of the OS. Of course, that's a dream, and will never happen.
Realistically though, if you're talking about upgrading from XP to Vista, you have to compare it to something like.. upgrading from Redhat 8 to Redhat 9, or these days, from Fedora Core 5 to Fedora Core 6. Now personally, I DID use yum to upgrade a system from FC4 all the way up to FC6, and have had very little trouble out of it (there were compatibility issues, as with all upgrades, and a few uninstall/reinstalls were necessary), AND it was free. So, while I am strongly more pleased by the linux methodology, I maintain that it's unfair to compare the kernel upgrades to the XP -> Vista jump.
This was already a great news story, and this comment made it all the better (although somewhat of a tangent). Slashdot is being good to me today. *suspicious glares*
It seems to me that this would have a lot more to do with when people were coming of age with computers, so to speak, than with actual age. A lot of these people most likely grew up (computeratively speaking, not literally) in a time period when the big computer manufacturers were Apple, IBM (too expensive for most people in the day), Compaq, HP (dont get me started on old HPs), and possibly young Dell (im leaving out a lot of older models, I know. please forgive me/fill in the gaps). I remember when I was in middle school, most of the computers WERE Apple. By the time I got to High School, this was completely different, and a Mac was a rare thing to see. Also... not to be *too* stereotypical here, but I know a lot of older people (not elderly, just older), who still have old computers and outright refuse to upgrade, or accept the fact that there are newer, better models out there for less than a thousand bucks. I know of at least one friend whose parent have an old pre-OSX mac still, and adamantly maintain that it does everything they need it for, and dont need to upgrade.
My point is, I dont think it's fair to say that Apple's primary audience is actually older people. I would guess that a lot of these "Apple owners", which are not defined as "Apple buyers", arent actively seeking the next new upgrade, and *probably* dont represent the staple of income Apple should be trying to target with their next generation of devices.
Do you think they're concerned that there's a North Korean Macgyver, taking IPods, Segway Scooters, and Plasma TVs and using them to create Satellites capable of launching laser strikes from space? Or at least something that'll explode violently. Man. Imagine what Macgyver could have done back in the 80s if he had just carried 1 ipod with him at all times.
I would agree with this. This is hardly anything new or different. And really, it's becoming more and more of a foregone conclusion these days, because such a high number of PS3's went to resellers. Just because Sony sold every PS3 they shipped doesnt surprise me. Id be more interested as to how sales have been on the secondary market, and that's nearly impossible for an analyst to figure out (although they could make something up. that probably wouldnt break habit). Personally, I have some reservations about the Wii. As a relatively low-power system, which cant handle graphics much more powerful than the Gamecube itself, Im extremely curious to see where the gimmicky console will stand in two years against the larger powerhouse competitors. I mean, if in two years, the Wii is down to 100 bucks, and the PS3 is down to 300 (Im praying, since that's the maximum threshold at which I plan to purchase one), what will people be buying more of? Which will kids be wanting for Christmas? And, more importantly, what will 3rd-party developers be migrating towards? Unless some analysts can give us some really applicable predictions over the next 4 years (which to be fair, none of us would probably believe them anyway), there's no real point in them coming out and announcing the state of these new console sales as they stand right now.
Cue the inevitable "my distro is better/what's wrong with just using Vista" battle!
Well... and knowing immediately that this comment may cause some backlash, I use Fedora Core, and do choose to upgrade my system, and all of the systems that I maintain (several of which are production web servers), once every 6 months. I have relatively little trouble (if upgrades are very carefully administrated, and done properly, the only time that you actually lose is a reboot, and as long as this is coordinated to be done at 4 am-ish, with a brief notice, no one minds. especially once every 6 months), and personally, I enjoy the cutting-edgeness and constant improvements made on the OS. And, in spite of a lot of people's impressions on Fedora, I find that the system maintains remarkable stability these days (I wont argue on terms of Fedora Core 2. my god, those were bad times), and any glitches or bugs generally are fixed and even better, rolled out fairly rapidly.
Am I arguing that it's the right path for everyone? No. Am I arguing that I support every little change that Fedora makes? No. Especially when it comes to the desktop environments. Im just saying, since Fedora is one of the very top Linux distributions, I dont think it's fair to chalk up the google strategy as a default failure for an Operating System approach.
Not to come to Nintendo's aide too steadfastly (not a fanboy, only barely even a fan these days), but the Wii *did* just launch, so it seems fairly like to me that the 4-10 day shipping is more likely a result of them being overwhelmed by current activity than sheer cheapness. My guess is that it's probably easier for them to just mail out a new system and say "be happy!" than it is to try to coordinate for bringing in everyone's Wii and repairing it. I don't disagree with your point of being angry if it had happened to me, I'm also of a violent temper, but I think it's probably safe to say in this case, it seems like Nintendo is doing the best they can to play the good guy. Which is more than we can say for certain other comapanies in the industry at the moment...
I went to college (I know that doesn't make me an expert on anything, but it's slighty better than "I dropped out of middle school"), and took several earth science classes, and while it wasn't really my field, I fairly distinctly remember several discussion which taught me that in reality, volcanic ash is responsible for over 90% of the actual polution levels in the atmosphere. Meaning that, even if we did STOP GLOBAL WARMING! by destroying all technology, and using a reflected sunbeam from a giant mirror orbiting the planet to melt all of our robots down, we wouldn't really have much impact on the whole situation.
I don't deny that it's possible that my information isn't 100% valid... like I said, it's what I remember being taught. And while I found several resources to support my viewpoint, none of them were reputable enough for me to feel like they were substantial evidence. There's so much back-and-forth on this particular topic that it's hard to be sure who's full of BS. But one thing I do remember, a few years back, scientists somewhere did a simulation of what would happen if all human live ceased to exist, and they estimated that in somewhere around 50 to 100 years, the earth would completely recover from all of the damages we had done to it, and would continue on as if we had never been. If you look back on earth's history, it has been through some serious shit. Like the moon being knocked OUT of the earth's crust (resulting in our 23.5 degree tilt). I think we could strategically drop nukes everywhere, kill everyone, and in a century or two, which is a drop in the bucket of earth's lifespan, it would be trucking along just fine. A bit tangential, I know, but my point is, I personally don't believe that we the people are really having nearly as much of an impact on the mighty earth as we'd like to think.
Also, Gore taking the Lincoln Navigator to the premiere was beyond hilarious.
that we can all attack Steve Ballmer at will, without fear of retaliation!
/. should be held accountable for my comments. There are just way too many comments and commenters on /. for that expectation to even be reasonable. If I say something bad on an open forum, I should be responsible for my actions, not the people who originally coded up and (in some cases) maintain the website.
Not that that ever stopped anyone here at Slashdot anyway.
Actually, in all seriousness, it seemed to me that this ruling was saying that if I post something libelous (sp? maybe not a word?) here on Slashdot, Slashdot can't be sued for it. But if Slashdot is ordered to turn over my registration information, or perhaps figure out the IP from which I'm posting... if they could get a reasonable finger on me, they could still sue me. I don't think this law is *quite* so bad. I mean... there are a lot of potential corollaries, but all-in-all, I don't think
I like this post. It's nice to see a reasonable reaction from the Zelda fans. I usually cant gauge any sort of truth from reactions to a Zelda title, since it's either bitter rebuttle, or pure fanboyisms of "OMG TEH LEET!".
Based on this comment, Ill probably try out the new Zelda. It's pretty good? That's fine by me. I can believe that. But I went into Ocarina of Time having been THOROUGHLY prophesied that it was the greatest Zelda ever, and to this day, Ill still take Link to the Past over it any day, and now I hate OOT just because of the fanboy following.
Dont get me wrong, Im not attacking nintendoers here. I have the exact same problem with the Devil May Cry series on PS. Loved DMC1, havent been able to get a reasonable reaction to any DMC afterwards until years after they've dropped and the hype has died down. And Im not one of those people who have the cash laying around to just pop out 50 dollars on a new game on the *chance* that it's good and that I havent been lied to.
Agreed. Some of these extremely sudden and verbose posts coming to the immediate defense of the mega-corporations wax suspicious. Did someone say plant? I didnt. Who's talking? I already did!
Thank you!!
Jesus H. Christ, Slashdotters are driving me nuts on this one. "His company had failure ehe he stupid me smart him not know so much pblblblbl".
In Atari's early days, when Bushnell actually WAS there, they were a staple of the technology industry as a whole. Heck, Steve Wozniak got his start there (and his education, as much as he ever had one. the man seems to have just been born brilliant), and anyone who knows much about Apple knows the name Wozniak.
Also, Id like to point out from the article:
In short, I dont care if he HAD still been in Atari when the Jaguar and other failures happened, the man is more accomplished that Id say easily 95% of the people here at slashdot, and did more for the technology industry than most of us will probably ever be able to claim. When he speaks out, even if he's not entirely correct (which I have no problem conceding to), he deserves more fscking respect than this.
FF: All right. Where is the exploit? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both eat, and find out who is right... and who is dead. IE7: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the exploit into his own cake or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the exploit into his own cake, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me. FF: You've made your decision then? IE7: Not remotely. Because this ActiveX exploit comes from AJAX, as everyone knows, and AJAX is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you. FF: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. IE7: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I? FF: AJAX. IE7: Yes, AJAX. And you must have suspected I would have known the exploit's origin, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me. FF: You're just lagging now. IE7: Connecting... IE7: Connecting... IE7: Connecting... IE7: Waiting... IE7: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my buffer overflow, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the exploit in your own cake, trusting on your security to save you, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of you. But, you've also bested my Zero-Day Exploit, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that browser is mortal, so you would have put the exploit as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the cake in front of me. FF: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work. IE7: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE EXPLOIT IS! FF: Then make your choice. IE7: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be? IE7: [IE7 gestures up and away from the table. FF looks. IE7 swaps the cakes] FF: Javascript console: Missing Parameter IE7: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.First, let's eat. Me from my cake, and you from yours. FF, IE7: [they eat] FF: You guessed wrong. IE7: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched cakes when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against Microsoft when profit is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha... IE7: [IE7 stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right] Opera: And to think, all that time it was your cake that was poisoned. FF: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to ActiveX.
Sorry for the subject title. Anyway, I was reading through this list... and I was utterly shocked at the number of /.ers who seem to have not heard of Seanbaby... first of all, as has been mentioned, yes, this article is very, very old. And 5 to 10 years ago, before web "communities" were as vogue as they are now, Seanbaby was a staple of the videogame community, his satire a delight to those of us seeking some form of entertainment from the still maturing intranet. Yes, he's vulgar. Extremely vulgar. In fact, this article isnt even the TIP of his vulgarity. But I cant believe people on /. are BELLYACHING about vulgarity from something approaching 10 years ago on the internet. Also, this is the DIRECTOR'S CUT, you should have noticed. EGM in no way published this article as is. So the "this guy works for EGM?" comment was completely unmerited. Seanbaby is oldschool comedy for hardcore gamers, and when he made it big, and started appearing on things like TechTV and Spike, he had a large fan-base who was glad to see his rise (even if he did abandon his website). He was a disciple/friend of Old Man Murray, and if you dont know who that is either... All I have to say is, when did the content of the internet become run/criticized by people who have had nothing to do with it for the past 10 years? I guess it was inevitable, but Im sad to see it has happened SO damn quickly.
Let the CLI-browser flame-wars begin!
To me, at least, that's kind of the point. I mean, this is an old old IE6 bug, that M$ has known about for a certainly reasonable amount of time. Yet, they still haven't fixed it. And not to say it's a big deal that they haven't fixed it in IE6 yet. It's not like it's a Critical Priority bug (no pirates can steal Windows or MP3s because of it). But they point is, they did their whole "We heard you" campaign, and claimed IE7 was going to be this great new secure landscape... and they didn't even clean up the old IE6 bugs they KNEW about? I mean, seriously, at this point are we supposed to believe that they're even trying?
Well, but bare in mind, Sony has already said a vast majority of the systems they're launching are the high-end models. They're making an underabundance of the low-end models, as if they expect no one's going to want one. More like, Id think they dont want anyway to buy one, because they're hoping to strongarm them into buying the high-ends, which actually are available. It seems to me that they're just going to strongarm us all into looking real hard at the Wii.
Whether or not this is true, I cannot contend to. However, it seems to me to be an awfully narrow niche audience to go for at the cost of alienating anyone else who might have been interested. I mean, I am a long time Sony fan, myself. I went through the Playstation, PS1(slim), Playstation 2, and PS2(slim), all very happily. But then the PSP came out... oh my, a pretty handheld. Gah, it's awfully expensive for a handheld. Wait, it has wireless? and plays movies? Hmm. Wait a minute, I forgot. I dont care that my handheld can play movies. Especially since they're on a proprietary format that Sony controls all rights to.
/. reader or another. About 6 months ago, the apartment complex I was living at, which is a little high on rent but comes with free utilities, sent out a letter saying, "We know our heating and AC system is archaic and poor. We're working to upgrade it to a new central heating and air system." So I was thrilled by this. For 5 months, they were in mid-construction on this crap, and it seemed as if there were entire weeks that they weren't doing anything, just had left a mess all around and sometimes IN my apartment. Finally, it was all done. The new unit was in, and was much better than the old. And then, 3 months later, I went down and was talking to the complex owners, and they casually let slip "Yeah, next month everyone starts paying their own electric bill." and I said, "What??" and they said "It's the price you pay for the new heating and air system." Now, personally, I moved into this complex for the free utilities, I didnt want the new heating and air system THAT badly. It's not the nicest complex in the world, and as I said, it's a little overpriced. So now, Im just living in a shabby, overpriced apartment, which a "nice" heating and air system, which Im paying a fortune for because these apartments have crap for insulation. Needless to say, I'm seeking alternative living conditions now.
I know Im not alone in this sentiment, either. A recent article I spotted somewhere (can't remember where, may have been slashdot itself, sorry for the lack of a link), said that UMD movie sales were not as high as Sony had expected. Now, I suppose it's fairly safe to say Blu-Ray will be different, just because it is going to be at least near-highest available quality (if it ever surpasses HD-DVD), and there will probably actually be other Blu-ray disc players, there's a real chance that it'll work out. But it doesn't change the mindset going into the whole thing. I mean, when Sony first said, "We don't want the PS3 to be a console. We want it to be a SUPER COMPUTER" (paraphrasing, obviously), I was thrilled. I thought this sounded like it was going to be a fun and exciting new console, with all kinds of mysteries. And now, it seems that the more I hear about it, the less marvelous mysteries there are, and the more we're just paying near-computer level prices (hey, catch a good sale, you can get a new fully featured AMD laptop for <600 bucks). I mean, honestly, I was more impressed by the channel mechanism on the Wii than anything I've heard about PS3's implementation so far.
I think I have an analogous situation that might amuse some
My point, though, is when you're selling something specific, say, a console, and you start flying off and saying, "oh, we'll have this, and have this, and have this, and have this", it's great and makes everyone happy. Until they find out you're still CHARGING them for all of those things. When Im looking at the next generation, I want to buy a CONSOLE. If there's a Blu-ray (or even better, HD-DVD, since it's not proprietary) player thrown in there extra, then hell yeah. If Im paying 100 extra dollars for that feature... nah, dont need it. Is it cheaper than buying a separa