The only reason I know people don't upgrade is for mission critical apps not being ready yet.
The only reason? For the people here, the most simple, obvious reason is that it doesn't offer anything they want that isn't provided by something they already have. Their stuff ain't broke, they ain't fixing it.
What kind of people frequent Slashdot? 'System' people, who want to know what the machine is doing; they don't want automatic large-scale caching and unexplained disc-thrashing. They don't want the details of what is happening hidden. They're utilitarian, so they care about the Aero effects. They're already security-conscious, well informed in that regard and don't generally need anything more than to pay attention, so the security features aren't a big motivator. And then there's the phenomenon where they think that the best OS is... well, free. In two ways, no less.
I don't mind Vista myself as long as it's not on a laptop, but it's a pretty hard sell to the Slashdot crowd as I see them. I honestly can't think of any incentive for them to buy it, with the exception of a sale putting it at a lower price or something like that.
All in all, human memory is extremely unreliable. People can also remember things that never happened, or which happened completely differently than how they recall. Just trying to remember something can change one's memories; you grasp at the vague ideas memory gives you and reconstruct it, and the reconstruction is based on your own biases and imagination as much as it is recorded information. It changes in the same way a story changes over time as it's told. On top of that, one's certainty of having a correct memory doesn't correlate with its accuracy.
I'd go so far as to say that the frailty of our memory is one of our species' most serious faults where our 'hardware' is concerned. It makes the past to appear better than the present, it makes people forget terrible things, allowing them to happen over and over again. We are very much beings of the immediate. I know that it's an advantage in some ways, but on the whole I think we'd be better off if we forgot a lot less.
You might want to try to falsify this post yourselves though, since I'm recalling this information from memory...
I may remember incorrectly, but didn't it come out that some US news stations had been showing prefabricated news given to them by the government, a few years ago?
Trust is foolish anyway. People lie all the time, unintentionally get things wrong, get deluded. The press are only human.
Well, yes. But you should've said "Known alternative." The reason it doesn't work like that in practise is only because it's impossible to get that information. If you disprove literally every alternative and know there must be one correct, then it does prove that the remaining one is the right one.
Raytraced lighting will look more natural to an untrained viewer.
Looks like like every other raytracing demonstration I've seen: a bunch of reflective surfaces and mirrors that are impossibly clean and flat, with fairly poor textures. Most things in games aren't and don't need to be shiny, yet if you take the reflective surfaces out of this demo it would look awful. I'm not impressed.
Going by what gets reported on Slashdot, Americans are generally happy to bend over and take it up ass for eternity, as long as they get entertainment in exchange.
What?! Stop examining the situation sensibly, you must be OUTRAGED. Disengage your logical hooks, heretic! Think of the children! Do not think of the difference between reality and fiction! GRRR! That makes you angry! Use lots of exclamation marks!
Backwards compatability doesn't excuse it. It would be easy to make the ports like this (I did a small sketch), while still being mostly backwards compatible. It doesn't even have to be that dramatic of a bump, just obvious to the touch and on BOTH the port and the connector so you can match them easily by tactile response alone. It need not change the internal shape of the port.
He is a grotesque entity with only vaguely known properties. We know it was once man, but is now machine. Some say he has a mind written in Perl, others that he has multiple Whitespace minds overseen by a hypervisor. They say he can post an article without reading a single word - instead travelling back in time to a place called the Firehose, forging new summaries from the past. Some even say that he has an extra nostril that only channels the smell of fanboys, the source of his madness. You may call him The Commander. Speak only when spoken to!
Unless you specifically tell steam otherwise, it will keep all your games up to date, so you never have to check the game maker's site for patches.
You forgot a disadvantage there. Last time I checked, you can't choose not to update a game and still be able to play it. This can ruin some games, like Stalker, which require a specific version of the game to run certain mods. If I had bought that game on Steam I wouldn't be able to play the game the way I want.
Then there was Counter-Strike, where they added obnoxious in-game adverts. I uninstalled it and never played again. I bought the game, they put in adverts after the fact with a patch. Thanks Valve! How many people would've bought the game if it had adverts to begin with? How many people would've downloaded that patch if they had a choice? Not me.
Bioshock and Mass Effect both have working cracks. I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole if they didn't, on the principle that I should have control over that which I've rightfully bought. If a company can just revoke my ability to play a game for no reason, that's not acceptable. Yet this is how things are with those games without the availability of cracks.
Pirates have greater freedom and convenience of using the software than paying customers. What pragmatic incentive is there to buy a game now, other than the long-sighted goal of keeping PC gaming alive?
I guess I should tell them that rather than posting here. I also guess I'll be needing photographic evidence of having bought the games... Good job I got the boxed versions.
Slashdot Mirror
It should be edited to say, "Kdawson is Finally Back, For Real." Gaze upon him ye fact-based, and despair.
I don't think it can hear him from here. We need to send him a bit closer! :)
That's a bit optimistic; you got turned into a duck and you're on fire. I don't really think you fared too well, all things considered...
The only reason I know people don't upgrade is for mission critical apps not being ready yet.
The only reason? For the people here, the most simple, obvious reason is that it doesn't offer anything they want that isn't provided by something they already have. Their stuff ain't broke, they ain't fixing it.
What kind of people frequent Slashdot? 'System' people, who want to know what the machine is doing; they don't want automatic large-scale caching and unexplained disc-thrashing. They don't want the details of what is happening hidden. They're utilitarian, so they care about the Aero effects. They're already security-conscious, well informed in that regard and don't generally need anything more than to pay attention, so the security features aren't a big motivator. And then there's the phenomenon where they think that the best OS is... well, free. In two ways, no less.
I don't mind Vista myself as long as it's not on a laptop, but it's a pretty hard sell to the Slashdot crowd as I see them. I honestly can't think of any incentive for them to buy it, with the exception of a sale putting it at a lower price or something like that.
All in all, human memory is extremely unreliable. People can also remember things that never happened, or which happened completely differently than how they recall. Just trying to remember something can change one's memories; you grasp at the vague ideas memory gives you and reconstruct it, and the reconstruction is based on your own biases and imagination as much as it is recorded information. It changes in the same way a story changes over time as it's told. On top of that, one's certainty of having a correct memory doesn't correlate with its accuracy.
I'd go so far as to say that the frailty of our memory is one of our species' most serious faults where our 'hardware' is concerned. It makes the past to appear better than the present, it makes people forget terrible things, allowing them to happen over and over again. We are very much beings of the immediate. I know that it's an advantage in some ways, but on the whole I think we'd be better off if we forgot a lot less.
You might want to try to falsify this post yourselves though, since I'm recalling this information from memory...
You're a tautology.
I think it's more like an excluded middle, except he just thought "What the hell," and excluded the the sides too while he was at it. :)
I may remember incorrectly, but didn't it come out that some US news stations had been showing prefabricated news given to them by the government, a few years ago?
Trust is foolish anyway. People lie all the time, unintentionally get things wrong, get deluded. The press are only human.
Well, yes. But you should've said "Known alternative." The reason it doesn't work like that in practise is only because it's impossible to get that information. If you disprove literally every alternative and know there must be one correct, then it does prove that the remaining one is the right one.
And that damn baby head...
Raytraced lighting will look more natural to an untrained viewer.
Looks like like every other raytracing demonstration I've seen: a bunch of reflective surfaces and mirrors that are impossibly clean and flat, with fairly poor textures. Most things in games aren't and don't need to be shiny, yet if you take the reflective surfaces out of this demo it would look awful. I'm not impressed.
Ah, that makes sense. I don't code very much, so that didn't immediately come to mind. Thanks!
What on Earth do those mean? When I click on them, I still don't see any relationship between the articles that've been tagged with them.
Going by what gets reported on Slashdot, Americans are generally happy to bend over and take it up ass for eternity, as long as they get entertainment in exchange.
mediasentry
They're called Safe-Net now too, aren't they?
Wii (the most popular games console ever?)
Not even remotely. Nintento has sold:
62 million NES
50 million SNES
30 million N64
19 million GC
29 million Wii
Sony has sold:
102 million PS1
91 million PS2
14 million PS3
I think we shouldn't blame the IOC for this one. They were probably just sifting through google tagging anything from the Olympics.
We shouldn't blame them because they didn't do their jobs properly? They made a mistake, they were careless, they take the blame.
Something to the effect of, "It's very difficult to understand something when your salary depends on you not understanding it."
In summary: Don't idle me, bro!
What?! Stop examining the situation sensibly, you must be OUTRAGED. Disengage your logical hooks, heretic! Think of the children! Do not think of the difference between reality and fiction! GRRR! That makes you angry! Use lots of exclamation marks!
Anyone else feel the same way?
Yes. His name is Winston Smith.
Backwards compatability doesn't excuse it. It would be easy to make the ports like this (I did a small sketch), while still being mostly backwards compatible. It doesn't even have to be that dramatic of a bump, just obvious to the touch and on BOTH the port and the connector so you can match them easily by tactile response alone. It need not change the internal shape of the port.
He is a grotesque entity with only vaguely known properties. We know it was once man, but is now machine. Some say he has a mind written in Perl, others that he has multiple Whitespace minds overseen by a hypervisor. They say he can post an article without reading a single word - instead travelling back in time to a place called the Firehose, forging new summaries from the past. Some even say that he has an extra nostril that only channels the smell of fanboys, the source of his madness. You may call him The Commander. Speak only when spoken to!
Unless you specifically tell steam otherwise, it will keep all your games up to date, so you never have to check the game maker's site for patches.
You forgot a disadvantage there. Last time I checked, you can't choose not to update a game and still be able to play it. This can ruin some games, like Stalker, which require a specific version of the game to run certain mods. If I had bought that game on Steam I wouldn't be able to play the game the way I want.
Then there was Counter-Strike, where they added obnoxious in-game adverts. I uninstalled it and never played again. I bought the game, they put in adverts after the fact with a patch. Thanks Valve! How many people would've bought the game if it had adverts to begin with? How many people would've downloaded that patch if they had a choice? Not me.
Bioshock and Mass Effect both have working cracks. I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole if they didn't, on the principle that I should have control over that which I've rightfully bought. If a company can just revoke my ability to play a game for no reason, that's not acceptable. Yet this is how things are with those games without the availability of cracks.
Pirates have greater freedom and convenience of using the software than paying customers. What pragmatic incentive is there to buy a game now, other than the long-sighted goal of keeping PC gaming alive?
I guess I should tell them that rather than posting here. I also guess I'll be needing photographic evidence of having bought the games... Good job I got the boxed versions.
Yup. You guys have got to fill all those holes in your tentacle infrastructure!