A mod chip is NOT needed. You can use a free software exploit to mod your Xbox without spending a dime. Furthermore, you can use a modded Xbox for things other than pirating Xbox games. I use my modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center, which turns it into a super DVD player capable of playing almost any digital media format: DVD, CD, divx, xvid, mp3, etc.
I personally don't care for most Xbox games. I only own around 4 games.
It wasn't stolen, it was copied. There is a difference. If you had a car, and somehow I could magically copy your car, then I didn't steal your car as you still have it. I mearly made a copy of it.
Actually you can use one of the free software exploits to mod your Xbox without spending a dime. It is a common misconception that playing pirated games requires a mod chip. However, you will still get banned from Xbox Live if you connect with a game burned to CDR, DVDR, etc, or if you have a modified C-drive, or if you have a modified BIOS.
Now what I don't understand is why the Xbox mod community hasn't found a way to lie to Xbox Live about the contents of its C drive, BIOS, and the media on which the game is recorded. If they ever do get that capability, then you can play on Live with pirated games.
The entire electronic world is black and white to Palm fanatics. You either need a Palm or you need a full sized 10 pound laptop. There is no middle ground for them. Personally, if all I wanted was something to keep track of my notes and contacts, then I would just use a pencil and paper... infinite battery life, highly shock resistant, etc. Far better than a Palm.
Hollywood luddism is prophetic? Terminator movies, the Matrix, almost every movie about aliens, computers, robots, etc... they all expound creepy distopian futures regarding these technological advances. It is not about being prophetic, it is about entertaining the unwashed masses, so they will part with their $5 per ticket.
It would never be as abrupt as Gattaca portrays it. Genetic engineering for the next few hundred years will consist more of correcting small genetic mistakes, dotting your i's and crossing your t's kind of stuff. Fixing things that we already fix by other means such as near-sightedness, acne, male pattern balding, crooked teeth, wisdom teeth, diabetes, etc.
Is the fact that we already have means of fixing these shortcomings bad? We still don't have the means to let everyone have equal access to these solutions. What do you think the entire health care debate is about? It definitely is NOT about doing about with our current fixes to these genetic problems.
I see no reason why Gattaca's distopian future would arise in the USA. We have plenty of legislation that would prevent such discrimination. It might happen on a small case by case scale, but it wouldn't be a serious problem.
People used to argue that blood transfusions and organ transplants trivialized life. I have a better idea. Anybody that opposes such technology should be forbidden to reap the rewards of it when they could be helped by it.
EXACTLY! Everyone seems to be against a compromise. I think that a reasonable compromise is when the unborn baby/fetus/embryo has brain activity, that is the threshold for life. Before that, abortions are ok, and after that they are illegal. Similarly for stem cell harvesting. By that stage, which is around 3 months after conception, it looks like a person, it has primitive thought, it has a beating heart. Seems like that should definitely be protected life....however, when its just a collection of a few under a thousand cells... its just slightly more of a living being than when it is a sperm and egg.
You left out the fact that he has release the source code for his games: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and Quake 2. For programmers, this is a really nice thing! For gamers, it is also a really nice thing because what was once a DOS only game, such as Doom, has ports to modern platforms like Windows XP, Linux, and even the Xbox! How many game developers give away their source code? Most game developers talk nice, but Carmack plays nice.
KDE works the same way. It is actually a collection of small applets, that can easily work together and be seemlessly combined using frameworks like Konqueror. Many people think that Konqueror is a web browser, but in fact it is the modern-day version of the commandline's pipe. Konqueror can include HTML rendering engines like khtml and gecko, but it can also embed file browsing applets, FTP applets, etc. It is quite simple and elegant.
Most board games come from Germany because there are 1 or 2 large monopolistic board game companies in the USA. These companies do not care about innovation... they only care about selling cheaply produced boardgames that have been around for decades.
Give me a break. You guys are blind Apple fanboys. The Hauppauge WinTV USB does TV and Radio timeshifting. It has been out for years now!
Hell, even Linux has had Radio timeshifting solutions for some time now. You can use any of the popular PCI TV Tuner cards, which almost always have radio tuning in addition to TV tuning. Then you can use this howto to setup radio timeshifting: http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/
Yes its harder to setup this kind of thing on Linux, but I am trying to drive home the point that even Linux has had such a thing! You can setup scheduled recording, listen to recordings on the fly, pause live recordings, etc...
The Windows solutions are far easier to install than the Linux solutions, and in addition to PCI products, Windows also has support for plug-n-play USB timeshifters. Both Windows and Linux solutions have been available for at least half a decade!
In conclusion: overrated, overpriced Mac hardware. For the same price you can get a Hauppuage product that can also timeshift television.
The USB based TV Tuner/Radio capture devices that I mentioned TV record shows in MPEG format to your harddrive, and they record radio content in the form of various compressed audio formats. So again, what does this overrated and overpriced piece of Mac hardware do?
There have been USB based TV Tuner/Radio capture devices for years now. So a highly stylized Mac product comes out that is overpriced and overhyped. How is this Slashdot news?
I enjoyed both games. I bought the original the very day it was released in stores, came home and played Deux Ex 1 for 2 weeks straight, until I had seen every ending, etc. I love Deus Ex and still have it installed!
I also bought Deus Ex 2 the day it was released (for the Xbox). There were things that I didn't like, mainly the small levels, long load times, shortness of the game, easiness of the game, and buggy physics... but it was still a very fun game. I really enjoyed it. Do I like it as much as the original Deus Ex? No. Was it worth the money? Yes.
Just because Deus Ex 2 is released doesn't mean Deus Ex 1 is replaced. You can have both, play both, and enjoy both. There is no mutual exclusion.
All of the NES emulator assisted speeds runs that I have seen are utter crap, as they use extremely inaccurate NES emulators and exploit bugs in the emulation to get their fast speeds. One of the worst offenders that I saw was a Zelda speed run. Not only were there numerous graphical glitches, but there were actually gameplay glitches that let the guy not get hurt by his own bomb explosions and at the same time let him plant a bomb on one end of the screen, and as it was exploding he could run across the screen and whatever was near him took the explosion damage... so one bomb could take out a room of baddies AND open a secret.
After watching about 10 minutes of that, I fired up my real NES with a real copy of Zelda... comfirmed that those things were not possible... AND THEN I LOST ALL RESPECT FOR NES EMULATOR ASSISTED SPEED RUNS!
I mean, come on guys, at least use an accurate NES emulator like FCE Ultra.
Most of the DPS1 games, such as Super Mario Kart. The developers are working on pixel perfect emulation of the DSP1 chip... so in the future I am sure it will improve. Note that I have a flash cart that allows me to run most SNES roms on a real SNES, even DSP1 games. I also own over 20 original SNES carts and have done side-by-side comparison.
You can use a software based mod using the UDE Installer, which is free and works on all Xboxs... it is also easier to do than a physical mod chip. It has the same effectiveness as a mod chip. Also, the new harddrive is not needed.
Actually the Xbox has a native port of the SNES emulator SNES9x. The port is called xSNES9x. However, I prefer the real thing to emulation in its current state (both ZSNES and SNES9x are far from perfect). Other consoles are emulated much better, such as the NES, which is nearly perfectly emulated by FCE Ultra.
Id Software has used OpenGL since the original Quake, when they released a free OpenGL based Quake patch. Note that Id Software did the most public experimentation with the original Quake. They released Windows versions of Quake for free (Quake was originally DOS), they released versions with improved network code, especially network prediction... this was the most famous Quake upgrade called "Quakeworld". I am sure I am leaving out some of the other Quake experiments.
True. The two N64 games (Goldeneye and Perfect Dark both from the same developer) do in fact predate Halo, and they prove my point. Because of the N64's limited popularity, most gamers never got a chance to play either of them. Secondly, since its multiplayer lacked network support, many people who did get a chance to play one of these games did not get a chance to experience real multiplayer action.
The N64 games prove my point because they were extremely overhyped overrated games that were enjoyed almost exclusively by the console gamer crowd. Meanwhile PC gamers were not very impressed with a multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support... not to mention a truely 3D world. The N64 games were 2.5D in both physics and world level geometry.
I remember when Goldeneye was released in late 1997, and my console-only friends were overhyped about the game. I had been playing Quakeworld for almost a year. Quakeworld had a true 3D world, internet support, and mod support... I had been playing 64 player deathmatches, CTF, TF, and Rocket Arena. So when I saw a primitive 2.5D multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support, mouse support, etc... I was extremely uninterested in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
A mod chip is NOT needed. You can use a free software exploit to mod your Xbox without spending a dime. Furthermore, you can use a modded Xbox for things other than pirating Xbox games. I use my modded Xbox with Xbox Media Center, which turns it into a super DVD player capable of playing almost any digital media format: DVD, CD, divx, xvid, mp3, etc.
I personally don't care for most Xbox games. I only own around 4 games.
It wasn't stolen, it was copied. There is a difference. If you had a car, and somehow I could magically copy your car, then I didn't steal your car as you still have it. I mearly made a copy of it.
Actually you can use one of the free software exploits to mod your Xbox without spending a dime. It is a common misconception that playing pirated games requires a mod chip. However, you will still get banned from Xbox Live if you connect with a game burned to CDR, DVDR, etc, or if you have a modified C-drive, or if you have a modified BIOS.
Now what I don't understand is why the Xbox mod community hasn't found a way to lie to Xbox Live about the contents of its C drive, BIOS, and the media on which the game is recorded. If they ever do get that capability, then you can play on Live with pirated games.
The entire electronic world is black and white to Palm fanatics. You either need a Palm or you need a full sized 10 pound laptop. There is no middle ground for them. Personally, if all I wanted was something to keep track of my notes and contacts, then I would just use a pencil and paper... infinite battery life, highly shock resistant, etc. Far better than a Palm.
Hollywood luddism is prophetic? Terminator movies, the Matrix, almost every movie about aliens, computers, robots, etc... they all expound creepy distopian futures regarding these technological advances. It is not about being prophetic, it is about entertaining the unwashed masses, so they will part with their $5 per ticket.
It would never be as abrupt as Gattaca portrays it. Genetic engineering for the next few hundred years will consist more of correcting small genetic mistakes, dotting your i's and crossing your t's kind of stuff. Fixing things that we already fix by other means such as near-sightedness, acne, male pattern balding, crooked teeth, wisdom teeth, diabetes, etc.
Is the fact that we already have means of fixing these shortcomings bad? We still don't have the means to let everyone have equal access to these solutions. What do you think the entire health care debate is about? It definitely is NOT about doing about with our current fixes to these genetic problems.
I see no reason why Gattaca's distopian future would arise in the USA. We have plenty of legislation that would prevent such discrimination. It might happen on a small case by case scale, but it wouldn't be a serious problem.
People used to argue that blood transfusions and organ transplants trivialized life. I have a better idea. Anybody that opposes such technology should be forbidden to reap the rewards of it when they could be helped by it.
EXACTLY! Everyone seems to be against a compromise. I think that a reasonable compromise is when the unborn baby/fetus/embryo has brain activity, that is the threshold for life. Before that, abortions are ok, and after that they are illegal. Similarly for stem cell harvesting. By that stage, which is around 3 months after conception, it looks like a person, it has primitive thought, it has a beating heart. Seems like that should definitely be protected life. ...however, when its just a collection of a few under a thousand cells... its just slightly more of a living being than when it is a sperm and egg.
You left out the fact that he has release the source code for his games: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and Quake 2. For programmers, this is a really nice thing! For gamers, it is also a really nice thing because what was once a DOS only game, such as Doom, has ports to modern platforms like Windows XP, Linux, and even the Xbox! How many game developers give away their source code? Most game developers talk nice, but Carmack plays nice.
KDE works the same way. It is actually a collection of small applets, that can easily work together and be seemlessly combined using frameworks like Konqueror. Many people think that Konqueror is a web browser, but in fact it is the modern-day version of the commandline's pipe. Konqueror can include HTML rendering engines like khtml and gecko, but it can also embed file browsing applets, FTP applets, etc. It is quite simple and elegant.
Most board games come from Germany because there are 1 or 2 large monopolistic board game companies in the USA. These companies do not care about innovation... they only care about selling cheaply produced boardgames that have been around for decades.
Give me a break. You guys are blind Apple fanboys. The Hauppauge WinTV USB does TV and Radio timeshifting. It has been out for years now!
Hell, even Linux has had Radio timeshifting solutions for some time now. You can use any of the popular PCI TV Tuner cards, which almost always have radio tuning in addition to TV tuning. Then you can use this howto to setup radio timeshifting:
http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/
Yes its harder to setup this kind of thing on Linux, but I am trying to drive home the point that even Linux has had such a thing! You can setup scheduled recording, listen to recordings on the fly, pause live recordings, etc...
The Windows solutions are far easier to install than the Linux solutions, and in addition to PCI products, Windows also has support for plug-n-play USB timeshifters. Both Windows and Linux solutions have been available for at least half a decade!
In conclusion: overrated, overpriced Mac hardware. For the same price you can get a Hauppuage product that can also timeshift television.
A lot has changed since 5.x.
The USB based TV Tuner/Radio capture devices that I mentioned TV record shows in MPEG format to your harddrive, and they record radio content in the form of various compressed audio formats. So again, what does this overrated and overpriced piece of Mac hardware do?
There have been USB based TV Tuner/Radio capture devices for years now. So a highly stylized Mac product comes out that is overpriced and overhyped. How is this Slashdot news?
Fedora's default install is very simple, clean, and usable.
Why upgrade the graphics? I prefer the original NES graphics... they give a nice retro feel, and the gameplay is still simple and fun.
It doesn't offend me.
It doesn't make me laugh.
It just wasted some of my time.
How did JibJab ever become so popular? It isn't entertaining. It is actually very derivative. I stopped the video about 45 seconds in.
I enjoyed both games. I bought the original the very day it was released in stores, came home and played Deux Ex 1 for 2 weeks straight, until I had seen every ending, etc. I love Deus Ex and still have it installed!
I also bought Deus Ex 2 the day it was released (for the Xbox). There were things that I didn't like, mainly the small levels, long load times, shortness of the game, easiness of the game, and buggy physics... but it was still a very fun game. I really enjoyed it. Do I like it as much as the original Deus Ex? No. Was it worth the money? Yes.
Just because Deus Ex 2 is released doesn't mean Deus Ex 1 is replaced. You can have both, play both, and enjoy both. There is no mutual exclusion.
All of the NES emulator assisted speeds runs that I have seen are utter crap, as they use extremely inaccurate NES emulators and exploit bugs in the emulation to get their fast speeds. One of the worst offenders that I saw was a Zelda speed run. Not only were there numerous graphical glitches, but there were actually gameplay glitches that let the guy not get hurt by his own bomb explosions and at the same time let him plant a bomb on one end of the screen, and as it was exploding he could run across the screen and whatever was near him took the explosion damage... so one bomb could take out a room of baddies AND open a secret.
After watching about 10 minutes of that, I fired up my real NES with a real copy of Zelda... comfirmed that those things were not possible... AND THEN I LOST ALL RESPECT FOR NES EMULATOR ASSISTED SPEED RUNS!
I mean, come on guys, at least use an accurate NES emulator like FCE Ultra.
Most of the DPS1 games, such as Super Mario Kart. The developers are working on pixel perfect emulation of the DSP1 chip... so in the future I am sure it will improve. Note that I have a flash cart that allows me to run most SNES roms on a real SNES, even DSP1 games. I also own over 20 original SNES carts and have done side-by-side comparison.
You can use a software based mod using the UDE Installer, which is free and works on all Xboxs... it is also easier to do than a physical mod chip. It has the same effectiveness as a mod chip. Also, the new harddrive is not needed.
Refurb Xbox: $100
Mac OSX: $12
Keyboard: $2
Mouse: $2
Refurb 19inch CRT: $50
TOTAL = $166
So depending on how you cook the books, the Xbox solution can look far less expensive than a Mac.
Actually the Xbox has a native port of the SNES emulator SNES9x. The port is called xSNES9x. However, I prefer the real thing to emulation in its current state (both ZSNES and SNES9x are far from perfect). Other consoles are emulated much better, such as the NES, which is nearly perfectly emulated by FCE Ultra.
Id Software has used OpenGL since the original Quake, when they released a free OpenGL based Quake patch. Note that Id Software did the most public experimentation with the original Quake. They released Windows versions of Quake for free (Quake was originally DOS), they released versions with improved network code, especially network prediction... this was the most famous Quake upgrade called "Quakeworld". I am sure I am leaving out some of the other Quake experiments.
Ever wonder why you can't jump or fall in Goldeneye?
True. The two N64 games (Goldeneye and Perfect Dark both from the same developer) do in fact predate Halo, and they prove my point. Because of the N64's limited popularity, most gamers never got a chance to play either of them. Secondly, since its multiplayer lacked network support, many people who did get a chance to play one of these games did not get a chance to experience real multiplayer action.
The N64 games prove my point because they were extremely overhyped overrated games that were enjoyed almost exclusively by the console gamer crowd. Meanwhile PC gamers were not very impressed with a multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support... not to mention a truely 3D world. The N64 games were 2.5D in both physics and world level geometry.
I remember when Goldeneye was released in late 1997, and my console-only friends were overhyped about the game. I had been playing Quakeworld for almost a year. Quakeworld had a true 3D world, internet support, and mod support... I had been playing 64 player deathmatches, CTF, TF, and Rocket Arena. So when I saw a primitive 2.5D multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support, mouse support, etc... I was extremely uninterested in the game.