His FTL idea isn't the "standard" warped-space thing either, though it looks like it at first glance.
It's even simpler than that. With positive gravity in front and negative gravity behind, you get zero gravity - and therefore zero weight - in the middle. And since zero weight is the completely the same thing as zero mass in every respect, you can accelerate to lightspeed and beyond without needing infinite energy:-)
Not just out to lunch, but wandering around lost looking for something to eat.
There's no question that some of the market will pay $400 to get the console & HDD & new wireless stuff (people have paid a lot more in the past), and some people will be happy to have the option of a cheaper Core system, despite the difference in capabilities. It's really about expectations - the people who are unhappy today are universally those that wanted all the features MS have been hyping at what they felt was the "standard" console price. Their own expectations have lead directly to their disappointment. Realistically, since both systems are well below cost, one shouldn't be complaining.
We'll see what happens when PS3 pricing is announced. If it's also $400 (or more), as seems likely to me given the sheer cost of all its hardware (and Sony's confidence), then people will likely see the XBox pricing in a better light - similar price & similar features, or a stripped-down version for people who don't need the fancy stuff. Where's the problem?
P.S. I note that Premium system preorders have already hit #1 on Amazon UK & FR (Core system is #197), so I don't think MS are that far off the mark...
How many consoles in the last decade were useful "out of the box", at least the basic package? How many included any save-game storage? Only one. Did every single PSX & PS2 purchaser realise they couldn't save & become annoyed? Did Sony solve the problem by including memory cards in the basic package?
Look at it this way: no matter which console you buy, you're getting a great deal - a lot of expensive hardware at well under cost. Yes, the add-ons are too expensive, but it's still an excellent deal compared to buying a PC to play games of that level, or even just an equivalent graphics card.
Try to take a more balanced view of things. Oh wait, slashdot, right...
PS3 will have a Blu-Ray drive and HDMI outputs, and it is certainly claimed to support future HiDef movies. Presumably only via an HDCP-protected signal.
Xbox 360 not only lacks an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive, it lacks any method of protected output. So even if you get an add-on drive, it's still not going to play HiDef movies it seems.
They've "allowed for the possibility" of a future model with HD-DVD or maybe even Blu-Ray, but it seems it'll also need to add an encryptable digital output...
People, I know this is/. and an MS article to boot, but aren't we overdoing the complaints here?
Yes, the accessories are expensive. All consoles have expensive accessories, especially at launch. Why? Because the console itself is way underpriced for what you get.
You get a complete gaming system with HDD, remote, wireless controller, headset, 512 MB of RAM etc with a top-flight graphics chip for the same price that gamers pay for a board with just the graphics chip, and you're calling it a scam?
It's a business, they try to make money, same as anywhere else, and the console market can offer better deals than PCs in many ways (the combination of Xbox1, a modchip and XBMC has made a lot of people quite grateful for MS' "generosity").
Could you plug a standard flash drive into PS2, or Xbox1? They both had USB ports.
The idea of forcing consumers to pay extra for "official" accessories has been around since Nintendo pioneered it more than a decade ago. You get the console at a loss; they have to make it up somehow. Don't like it? Buy a PC instead.
Of course most people will get the cheaper option. $400 is a lot of money.
You may be right, but anyone who bought a Playstation or Genesis at launch paid almost that much in today's terms. Others, like the Saturn, 3DO, NeoGeo and even the original Atari VCS, cost far more.
Then there's all those gamers who pay $400+ just for a high-speed graphics card, not to mention the rest of the PC. Considering that the 360 and PS3 both include a top-flight graphics chip at least as powerful as anything around, getting the entire system for $400 (plus a wireless controller etc) is quite a good deal from that perspective.
this did not deter game developers from utilizing the hard drive both for exclusive games and cross platform games on xbox.
A cross-platform game has a single codebase that supports both systems with a HDD and systems without. When a HDD is present, the game offers extra features - custom soundtracks, for example. Yes, the developer actually went the extra distance to offer more features to make his game more attractive, because the market was big enough.
Now, if 95% of customers buy the Core system with no HDD and only 5% have a HDD (as with the PS2), the developers may not bother. If it's 50/50, that's a much more significant market; all those HDD-owning customers may well choose his game with custom soundtracks over the competitor who didn't bother.
MS have to be able to ditch the HDD; Xbox 1 taught them that. But they really want people to get one, so they're making the HDD system as attractive as possible. Any sensible gamer who wants a 360 will very likely pay the extra.
VLC will do what it has always done, but it's not going to be easy for it to play the new HiDef movies on Blu-Ray discs that this DRM is aimed at.
First, the content itself will be encrypted quite a lot more securely than DVDs were. Second, in order to even read the data off a protected disc with a non-signed app like VLC, you'll need cracked Blu-Ray drivers. Third, installing those non-signed drivers may require some cleverness on Windows Vista, and so on.
Ultimately, the chain of trust will extend from an RSA key embedded in the CPU itself, all the way to the monitor. It could (in theory) be made as uncrackable as public-key encryption itself. In practice, software bugs, social engineering, electron microscopes etc will all be exploited to find a weak link, and the chain will unravel from there.
You could simply not buy into it, of course, vote with your wallet & resist the lure of HiDef movies. But history has shown that a) most people are happy to give up their rights in exchange for new toys, and b) those rights (and more) will be restored by the hackers on the Front Line.
Zero mass per unit volume (vacuum) is always going to have more "lift" than a small mass per unit volume (hydrogen). But this isn't the material you're looking for - tensile strength is useless for what you want to do.
Yeah, and all those reusable aircraft we have flying around everywhere - death traps, all of them.
A one-shot jet is what we need. Build it cheaply, fly it across the Atlantic once and then dump it. Smaller, faster, cheaper is the answer. We might lose the occasional load of passengers, but it's gotta be cheaper overall.
One-shot cars, too - I mean, look at all the rust buckets you see on the road these days, it's just begging for trouble. How many of all those annual road deaths could have been avoided if every car was brand new for its one & only trip? Ford & GM agree - buy a new car each day, fully guaranteed for its designed lifetime, then melt it down into scrap & recycle responsibly.
"You know what, I bet Intel have figured out a way to take all the strengths of cool ideas X, Y and Z & combine them while fixing all their inherent weaknesses to make a superdupercomputer which they can because they're Intel, y'know? And why else would Apple have switched to them?"
</VerbatimQuote>
This guy is the first I've seen who could give that clown Fuad a run for his money. Seriously, The Inq really needs to re-evaluate their hiring policies.
Where can you get a (new) 2.5" hard disk for $40, of any capacity? Least I can find is more like $60, and doesn't include an enclosure.
You forgot the IR remote and fancier component cable too.
Hopefully, removing BigPond's unfair advantage might force them to lift their game, and avoid problems like this.
No longer will they be able to attract customers just by hiding their costs in their wholesale arm. They'll actually have to provide decent service and reliability for a change (BigPond has consistently rated bottom of the heap in customer service surveys - which they of course deny).
The split is not final yet, not all details have been hammered out, and things could still change in the future. But this reform has been in the works for a long time, and has backing at many levels of government (if not Telstra itself).
The language used is pretty firm about it. The Australian doesn't generally report rumours, they stick to the facts.
They're already screwing their wholesale customers by taking full advantage of their wholesale monopoly, right now. A split can only help that.
Currently their wholesale connection fee alone is higher than their retail ISP's monthly plan. They still make money overall, but any competing ISP is already running at a loss, even before bandwidth, maintenance, staff costs etc. Splitting off the retail side will prevent them from hiding their costs, and force the wholesale side to deal equally with competitor ISPs.
The wholesale side is still subject to ACCC pricing regulations, private or not.
This is the original, disputed article, and clearly is not factual. The majority of votes were against keeping this article, on the grounds that it was advertising, and fiction presented as fact.
This is the current article, completely rewritten by a third party, which now describes the game rather than a character in it and takes care to present itself as a description of a piece of fiction, with many references to related discussions. Most people seem willing to keep the updated article, despite some lingering accusations of advertising.
There are other article(s) that are still written from the fictional context of the game, and are likely to be deleted.
Gaming is almost all DirectX anyway, so it's pointless discussing that. The effect on the games industry is similar, but it's already given in to the Windows juggernaught.
Professional graphics applications will be hit harder. 3DS Max recommends DirectX - but then, it is not cross-platform. Maya, Lightwave etc all run on multiple other platforms (like Linux and Mac OS), and all use OpenGL only. Same with many 2D compositing apps.
These apps are not going to do a separate DirectX/WGF version just to get a little more eye-candy on Windows. And for the most part, the users of these apps will be more prepared to lose Vista's eye candy (many pro WinXP users already run themeless, to get a faster experience).
You can circle round & "smooth" the window corners back down again.
Works in the sample Java applet, but not (yet) in OriModo. The Java applet has better "sensitivity" too, easier to fold one window, and to leaf through many.
Now someone just needs a way to apply this to all my Firefox tabs...
...would be very helpful here. Excellent thermal conductivity would get the heat out of the centre. You'd still need some way to get it out of the package though.
Perhaps the whole package should be made from diamond too.
Intel, ATi, nVidia, Seagate, WD, Samsung etc etc - they all do their R&D with money they get (in large part) from Dell.
If Dell actually manufactured all their own components from scratch, you might have a point, but then people would just start buying from vendors who researched better equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
It's even simpler than that. With positive gravity in front and negative gravity behind, you get zero gravity - and therefore zero weight - in the middle. And since zero weight is the completely the same thing as zero mass in every respect, you can accelerate to lightspeed and beyond without needing infinite energy :-)
Not just out to lunch, but wandering around lost looking for something to eat.
Seems to me like the obvious names before Marketing got ahold of it.
We'll see what happens when PS3 pricing is announced. If it's also $400 (or more), as seems likely to me given the sheer cost of all its hardware (and Sony's confidence), then people will likely see the XBox pricing in a better light - similar price & similar features, or a stripped-down version for people who don't need the fancy stuff. Where's the problem?
P.S. I note that Premium system preorders have already hit #1 on Amazon UK & FR (Core system is #197), so I don't think MS are that far off the mark...
Look at it this way: no matter which console you buy, you're getting a great deal - a lot of expensive hardware at well under cost. Yes, the add-ons are too expensive, but it's still an excellent deal compared to buying a PC to play games of that level, or even just an equivalent graphics card.
Try to take a more balanced view of things. Oh wait, slashdot, right...
Xbox 360 not only lacks an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive, it lacks any method of protected output. So even if you get an add-on drive, it's still not going to play HiDef movies it seems.
They've "allowed for the possibility" of a future model with HD-DVD or maybe even Blu-Ray, but it seems it'll also need to add an encryptable digital output...
Yes, the accessories are expensive. All consoles have expensive accessories, especially at launch. Why? Because the console itself is way underpriced for what you get.
You get a complete gaming system with HDD, remote, wireless controller, headset, 512 MB of RAM etc with a top-flight graphics chip for the same price that gamers pay for a board with just the graphics chip, and you're calling it a scam?
It's a business, they try to make money, same as anywhere else, and the console market can offer better deals than PCs in many ways (the combination of Xbox1, a modchip and XBMC has made a lot of people quite grateful for MS' "generosity").
The idea of forcing consumers to pay extra for "official" accessories has been around since Nintendo pioneered it more than a decade ago. You get the console at a loss; they have to make it up somehow. Don't like it? Buy a PC instead.
You may be right, but anyone who bought a Playstation or Genesis at launch paid almost that much in today's terms. Others, like the Saturn, 3DO, NeoGeo and even the original Atari VCS, cost far more.
Then there's all those gamers who pay $400+ just for a high-speed graphics card, not to mention the rest of the PC. Considering that the 360 and PS3 both include a top-flight graphics chip at least as powerful as anything around, getting the entire system for $400 (plus a wireless controller etc) is quite a good deal from that perspective.
A cross-platform game has a single codebase that supports both systems with a HDD and systems without. When a HDD is present, the game offers extra features - custom soundtracks, for example. Yes, the developer actually went the extra distance to offer more features to make his game more attractive, because the market was big enough.
Now, if 95% of customers buy the Core system with no HDD and only 5% have a HDD (as with the PS2), the developers may not bother. If it's 50/50, that's a much more significant market; all those HDD-owning customers may well choose his game with custom soundtracks over the competitor who didn't bother.
MS have to be able to ditch the HDD; Xbox 1 taught them that. But they really want people to get one, so they're making the HDD system as attractive as possible. Any sensible gamer who wants a 360 will very likely pay the extra.
First, the content itself will be encrypted quite a lot more securely than DVDs were. Second, in order to even read the data off a protected disc with a non-signed app like VLC, you'll need cracked Blu-Ray drivers. Third, installing those non-signed drivers may require some cleverness on Windows Vista, and so on.
Ultimately, the chain of trust will extend from an RSA key embedded in the CPU itself, all the way to the monitor. It could (in theory) be made as uncrackable as public-key encryption itself. In practice, software bugs, social engineering, electron microscopes etc will all be exploited to find a weak link, and the chain will unravel from there.
You could simply not buy into it, of course, vote with your wallet & resist the lure of HiDef movies. But history has shown that a) most people are happy to give up their rights in exchange for new toys, and b) those rights (and more) will be restored by the hackers on the Front Line.
Oh for heaven's sake.
Zero mass per unit volume (vacuum) is always going to have more "lift" than a small mass per unit volume (hydrogen). But this isn't the material you're looking for - tensile strength is useless for what you want to do.
A one-shot jet is what we need. Build it cheaply, fly it across the Atlantic once and then dump it. Smaller, faster, cheaper is the answer. We might lose the occasional load of passengers, but it's gotta be cheaper overall.
One-shot cars, too - I mean, look at all the rust buckets you see on the road these days, it's just begging for trouble. How many of all those annual road deaths could have been avoided if every car was brand new for its one & only trip? Ford & GM agree - buy a new car each day, fully guaranteed for its designed lifetime, then melt it down into scrap & recycle responsibly.
</VerbatimQuote>
This guy is the first I've seen who could give that clown Fuad a run for his money. Seriously, The Inq really needs to re-evaluate their hiring policies.
Where can you get a (new) 2.5" hard disk for $40, of any capacity? Least I can find is more like $60, and doesn't include an enclosure. You forgot the IR remote and fancier component cable too.
No longer will they be able to attract customers just by hiding their costs in their wholesale arm. They'll actually have to provide decent service and reliability for a change (BigPond has consistently rated bottom of the heap in customer service surveys - which they of course deny).
The language used is pretty firm about it. The Australian doesn't generally report rumours, they stick to the facts.
Currently their wholesale connection fee alone is higher than their retail ISP's monthly plan. They still make money overall, but any competing ISP is already running at a loss, even before bandwidth, maintenance, staff costs etc. Splitting off the retail side will prevent them from hiding their costs, and force the wholesale side to deal equally with competitor ISPs.
The wholesale side is still subject to ACCC pricing regulations, private or not.
This is the current article, completely rewritten by a third party, which now describes the game rather than a character in it and takes care to present itself as a description of a piece of fiction, with many references to related discussions. Most people seem willing to keep the updated article, despite some lingering accusations of advertising.
There are other article(s) that are still written from the fictional context of the game, and are likely to be deleted.
Professional graphics applications will be hit harder. 3DS Max recommends DirectX - but then, it is not cross-platform. Maya, Lightwave etc all run on multiple other platforms (like Linux and Mac OS), and all use OpenGL only. Same with many 2D compositing apps.
These apps are not going to do a separate DirectX/WGF version just to get a little more eye-candy on Windows. And for the most part, the users of these apps will be more prepared to lose Vista's eye candy (many pro WinXP users already run themeless, to get a faster experience).
So what sort of sparks could you see between belt buckles, spectacle frames etc? Might make for a good B-grade scifi movie scene.
</grumble mutter="mf gng rnk...">
Works in the sample Java applet, but not (yet) in OriModo. The Java applet has better "sensitivity" too, easier to fold one window, and to leaf through many.
Now someone just needs a way to apply this to all my Firefox tabs...
Perhaps the whole package should be made from diamond too.
If Dell actually manufactured all their own components from scratch, you might have a point, but then people would just start buying from vendors who researched better equipment.