Even worse, consoles, which have the larger market, don't have enough storage (except maybe for the XBox) and aren't open enough to encourage players to create their own games and share them."
Thats not entirely true. Sony does have the Linux kit, with the purpose of being mostly open and encouraging players to create their own games... but unfortunately not open enough to share them with your non-linux-ps2-ing friends.. Still, some respect for Sony is deserved here.
Maybe they're making it in the 80's to anger the player more and raise his in-game criminal status faster by forcing him to listen to 80's music and look at people dressed in 80's style on the streets.
I've seen both versions of Star Wars II. I had not been to a movie theater for half a year. On opening day I went to see AOTC projected digitally at Universal City. My opinion while watching it was that it looked super clean and very sharp, but no jump between night & day from film, perhaps 15-20% better than film. The next day I went and saw the film version at a respectable AMC9 theater in Burbank. WOW, I could not believe how inferior it was in comparison. I think everybody complaining about the "shitty" 1280x1024 is crazy. The resolution on the film version *looked* terrible, the film version reminded me of a PC game that was running at 512x384 vs 1024x768. It was very blurry.
I also thought interestingly enough that the special effects/CG characters looked more fake on the film than the digital. Most of the special effects were worthless on the film version, you couldn't even see anything. For example in the scene where the camera pans around the cloning factory, the background in the film was extremely blurry and had a terribly overly high motion-blur that distilled the effect, whereas it was super clean, detailed, and impressive on the digital version. Plus the terrible amount of DIRT on the film projection was unbelievable. Clicks, pops, hairs everywhere, a nice hole in the upper right corner that popped up every 20 minutes, it was really bad. Instead of 15-20% better, I came out of the film version with the opinion that the digital is 40-60% better quality. I suppose it's possible that the film projectionist had a bad focus and a bad print (always a possible problem with film), but I honestly felt bad for my friend who went with me to the film version who had not seen the digital version. It's really amazing how crappy the film version was after half a year of being conditioned to watching DVDs on nice televisions.
This is the opinion of a more or less regular guy when it comes to video, I didn't even know the actual resolution of DLP projection before reading the comments on this story.
// Begin beating dead horse I find zero incentive to purchase CDs for a few reasons (most obvious first):
1.) Why spend money on something you can get for free? "Because I want to support my favorite artist/band" Well you sure as hell aren't doing it by purchasing their CD. We all know by now that the artist makes around a dollar or less from each CD purchase.
2.) Wahh, I want the album art -- almost always available in high quality on various CD cover & insert scan sites, and nice quality printers are cheap these days too.
3.) CD audio is a dying technology. Not to get all the audiophiles on my case here (most of which would probably argue that CD quality sucks to start with), but a lot of people don't even care for CDs anymore. A lot of people just turn their CDs into MP3s as soon as they get them. A lot of people prefer to simply download the album in a format that they can put on their portable players easily, in their own mix preference, without leaving their seat instead of making a special trip to a store to buy a special round disc that takes up space, or order one and wait for it to arrive, then get frustrated trying to get the plastic off of it. To hell with CDs.
4.) You're telling me that I'm supposed to go pay money for this album on a CD that comes out finally today in the real world, when I downloaded it 2-3 months ago and am tired/bored of it by now!? Yeah right.
Wasn't this whole thing supposed to be to overthrow the greedy record industry!? The digital music revolution, remember? Not "Yes RIAA, we'll buy more tangible shiny discs if you just let us keep sharing our copies of them. Now leave us alone and continue abusing your artists." I don't think it's about being cheap, I think it's about convenience, and about NOT giving more money to fat guys that sit at atop skyscrapers in suits smoking cigars that don't know the first thing about music.
I still say you're better off downloading the album and if you really like it, give the artist/band $5 at fairtunes.com
I'm on a modem for a few weeks and downloading countless megs of mail viruses is extremely frusterating.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine that I would not expect slashdot editors to fall victim to. If you are on a modem now for a few weeks, then what are you on normally!? Aren't they called CABLE MODEMS or DSL MODEMS? Chances are that you still use some sort of modem to connect to the Internet, unless you have a special high speed line direct to your house. I hate when people associate "modem" with slow, just say "dial-up" damn it!
I had an interview at Loki for a tech support position late last summer. The place was not what I expected at all. It was an extremely quiet building, especially once inside, there was nobody around. I thought maybe I'd get a little tour or something (which I was looking forward to), but I don't think there was really more than one or two people working there at the time, and this was 2pm on a normal week day. You could hear a pin drop.
Couldn't see any working area either, wasn't the big open rooms geek-house type of atmosphere I expected to see and had seen at other development houses, it was more like a doctor's office, with individual rooms -type of atmosphere.
They weren't the friendly, warm, open-source, eff, gnu, smiling people I expected either. They were quite cut-throat, business-oriented, corporate-core types, rather cold. Although Scott (main guy, one of the two I interviewed with) was actually nice and closer to what I expected. It felt like just another corporation, I've had MUCH warmer experiences at interviews with proprietary software companies. This interview happened just after they filed chapter 11 though, but in that week before anybody knew that they did, so perhaps they were all a bit stressed out.
In the end it turns out they hired some guy a few days before me and were still making sure they had the right person, or something along those lines. I didn't get it. But I guess I'd be out of a job if I did!
There was a Harrison Ford movie I ran across on television a few years back while eating dinner that seemed to have a damn good representation of computer drama in it. I believe it was "Patriot Games"?? I'm not sure as I am no movie expert and it was a while back. Either way i remember thinking it was very cool because it wasn't like other movies, but actually correctly represented computers. I recall a scene where harrison ford is trying to figure something out and he gets into the network using DOS. There he is looking at the files(yes actually typing dir and whatnot) and is getting a listing of a number of.doc files. He is scanning through them quickly to see if he can find anything. All this time he is nervous because he isn't supposed to be in there, and at the same time the guy he suspects of the crime is in the room across the hallway from him or something. Either way he is scanning through these doc files. Then i think the other guy(across hallway) noticed another user logged on and saw who it was, so he got scared and started deleting his files. Now it was like a race. Harrison noticed this and was just at the.doc file with the evidence(whatever it was). Now harrison is frantically trying to download the file, but it is already deleted!! The text of the already deleted file is still on his screen though and harrison is hitting the print screen key like a maniac. Haha, the funny part is that his printer was out of paper so he is shoving paper into the printer frantically. Finally he gets the printout goes over to the other room and slams the document on the guy's desk as he makes some sort of accusation.
I remember thinking that it was very cool because of it's accurate representation of computers/networks/etc. I didn't watch the rest of it for some reason so i don't know if it is consistant(or if there even is another computer scene).
No matter what your choice. If you are smart enough to be at this site, do not even think of going to a trade school like DeVry. Go to a regular university. If you are thinking about it just read this page: http://www.drh.net/joz/html/devry.html That should change your mind. This goes for anyone thinking about going there. Spread the info!!
Slashdot Mirror
I exploited this topic 7 years ago!
http://www.joz3d.net/html/planet-meteor.html
Yeah, i mean nobody ever gets killed over drugs or anything, could you imagine!?
Even worse, consoles, which have the larger market, don't have enough storage (except maybe for the XBox) and aren't open enough to encourage players to create their own games and share them."
Thats not entirely true. Sony does have the Linux kit, with the purpose of being mostly open and encouraging players to create their own games... but unfortunately not open enough to share them with your non-linux-ps2-ing friends.. Still, some respect for Sony is deserved here.
Says a Rep from Texas: 'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'"
This is true (Disney)
Maybe they're making it in the 80's to anger the player more and raise his in-game criminal status faster by forcing him to listen to 80's music and look at people dressed in 80's style on the streets.
I've seen both versions of Star Wars II. I had not been to a movie theater for half a year. On opening day I went to see AOTC projected digitally at Universal City. My opinion while watching it was that it looked super clean and very sharp, but no jump between night & day from film, perhaps 15-20% better than film. The next day I went and saw the film version at a respectable AMC9 theater in Burbank. WOW, I could not believe how inferior it was in comparison. I think everybody complaining about the "shitty" 1280x1024 is crazy. The resolution on the film version *looked* terrible, the film version reminded me of a PC game that was running at 512x384 vs 1024x768. It was very blurry.
I also thought interestingly enough that the special effects/CG characters looked more fake on the film than the digital. Most of the special effects were worthless on the film version, you couldn't even see anything. For example in the scene where the camera pans around the cloning factory, the background in the film was extremely blurry and had a terribly overly high motion-blur that distilled the effect, whereas it was super clean, detailed, and impressive on the digital version. Plus the terrible amount of DIRT on the film projection was unbelievable. Clicks, pops, hairs everywhere, a nice hole in the upper right corner that popped up every 20 minutes, it was really bad. Instead of 15-20% better, I came out of the film version with the opinion that the digital is 40-60% better quality. I suppose it's possible that the film projectionist had a bad focus and a bad print (always a possible problem with film), but I honestly felt bad for my friend who went with me to the film version who had not seen the digital version. It's really amazing how crappy the film version was after half a year of being conditioned to watching DVDs on nice televisions.
This is the opinion of a more or less regular guy when it comes to video, I didn't even know the actual resolution of DLP projection before reading the comments on this story.
// Begin beating dead horse
I find zero incentive to purchase CDs for a few reasons (most obvious first):
1.) Why spend money on something you can get for free? "Because I want to support my favorite artist/band" Well you sure as hell aren't doing it by purchasing their CD. We all know by now that the artist makes around a dollar or less from each CD purchase.
2.) Wahh, I want the album art -- almost always available in high quality on various CD cover & insert scan sites, and nice quality printers are cheap these days too.
3.) CD audio is a dying technology. Not to get all the audiophiles on my case here (most of which would probably argue that CD quality sucks to start with), but a lot of people don't even care for CDs anymore. A lot of people just turn their CDs into MP3s as soon as they get them. A lot of people prefer to simply download the album in a format that they can put on their portable players easily, in their own mix preference, without leaving their seat instead of making a special trip to a store to buy a special round disc that takes up space, or order one and wait for it to arrive, then get frustrated trying to get the plastic off of it. To hell with CDs.
4.) You're telling me that I'm supposed to go pay money for this album on a CD that comes out finally today in the real world, when I downloaded it 2-3 months ago and am tired/bored of it by now!? Yeah right.
Wasn't this whole thing supposed to be to overthrow the greedy record industry!? The digital music revolution, remember? Not "Yes RIAA, we'll buy more tangible shiny discs if you just let us keep sharing our copies of them. Now leave us alone and continue abusing your artists." I don't think it's about being cheap, I think it's about convenience, and about NOT giving more money to fat guys that sit at atop skyscrapers in suits smoking cigars that don't know the first thing about music.
I still say you're better off downloading the album and if you really like it, give the artist/band $5 at fairtunes.com
I'm on a modem for a few weeks and downloading countless megs of mail viruses is extremely frusterating.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine that I would not expect slashdot editors to fall victim to. If you are on a modem now for a few weeks, then what are you on normally!? Aren't they called CABLE MODEMS or DSL MODEMS? Chances are that you still use some sort of modem to connect to the Internet, unless you have a special high speed line direct to your house. I hate when people associate "modem" with slow, just say "dial-up" damn it!
Congratulations Taco & Kathleen! Hope you will be together forever.
I had an interview at Loki for a tech support position late last summer. The place was not what I expected at all. It was an extremely quiet building, especially once inside, there was nobody around. I thought maybe I'd get a little tour or something (which I was looking forward to), but I don't think there was really more than one or two people working there at the time, and this was 2pm on a normal week day. You could hear a pin drop.
Couldn't see any working area either, wasn't the big open rooms geek-house type of atmosphere I expected to see and had seen at other development houses, it was more like a doctor's office, with individual rooms -type of atmosphere.
They weren't the friendly, warm, open-source, eff, gnu, smiling people I expected either. They were quite cut-throat, business-oriented, corporate-core types, rather cold. Although Scott (main guy, one of the two I interviewed with) was actually nice and closer to what I expected. It felt like just another corporation, I've had MUCH warmer experiences at interviews with proprietary software companies. This interview happened just after they filed chapter 11 though, but in that week before anybody knew that they did, so perhaps they were all a bit stressed out.
In the end it turns out they hired some guy a few days before me and were still making sure they had the right person, or something along those lines. I didn't get it. But I guess I'd be out of a job if I did!
There was a Harrison Ford movie I ran across on television a few years back while eating dinner that seemed to have a damn good representation of computer drama in it. I believe it was "Patriot Games"?? I'm not sure as I am no movie expert and it was a while back. Either way i remember thinking it was very cool because it wasn't like other movies, but actually correctly represented computers. I recall a scene where harrison ford is trying to figure something out and he gets into the network using DOS. There he is looking at the files(yes actually typing dir and whatnot) and is getting a listing of a number of .doc files. He is scanning through them quickly to see if he can find anything. All this time he is nervous because he isn't supposed to be in there, and at the same time the guy he suspects of the crime is in the room across the hallway from him or something. Either way he is scanning through these doc files. Then i think the other guy(across hallway) noticed another user logged on and saw who it was, so he got scared and started deleting his files. Now it was like a race. Harrison noticed this and was just at the .doc file with the evidence(whatever it was). Now harrison is frantically trying to download the file, but it is already deleted!! The text of the already deleted file is still on his screen though and harrison is hitting the print screen key like a maniac. Haha, the funny part is that his printer was out of paper so he is shoving paper into the printer frantically. Finally he gets the printout goes over to the other room and slams the document on the guy's desk as he makes some sort of accusation.
I remember thinking that it was very cool because of it's accurate representation of computers/networks/etc. I didn't watch the rest of it for some reason so i don't know if it is consistant(or if there even is another computer scene).
No matter what your choice. If you are smart enough to be at this site, do not even think of going to a trade school like DeVry. Go to a regular university. If you are thinking about it just read this page: http://www.drh.net/joz/html/devry.html That should change your mind. This goes for anyone thinking about going there. Spread the info!!