Except for the fact that for a 200 some block game it takes ~15-20 minutes to move it to the SD card or back to the Wii. Its beyond mildly inconvenient whenever I have normal internet speeds that are faster. And the same SD card will read and write incredibly fast on my computer so it isn't an issue with the SD card speed...
Since you are answering the question I asked the parent poster, I'm going to assume that you share his opinion on loading games from the SD card -- in which case, I have to ask, why do you think that being able to load games directly from the SD card would be any sort of solution? The reader is going to be slow regardless of why you're reading data from the card. Adding support for running applications directly from SD cards is not a viable solution at all.
Out of curiosity.. what is your exact problem with the way the system currently works? You can copy downloaded games to SD cards already. You can't play them from the card, which is mildly inconvenient, but there's nothing stopping you from backing up all the games you like. The cards are even readable by a standard PC, which is even better than what you suggested. The games are only playable on the Wii they were originally downloaded on, which is fine, really, as long as you're not a pirate. The obvious question that comes up is, "What if my Wii breaks?" -- luckily, Nintendo can (and will) move all of your stuff over to a new Wii if you have to get a replacement, as long as you go through their official repair process. I don't see what's not simple about the legit way.
I have an impressionable child in my house that still thinks music and movies come on disks, and not from Bittorrent, and I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible.
There is another option -- legit downloads. I vastly prefer being able to buy something over the internet than having to go to a store to get it; it saves me the time and gas that would be involved in going to the store, and it saves the world the natural resources that would be used to a produce a disc that I'm only going to put in my computer once so that I can rip it. I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time your kid is old enough to have his own significant amount of disposable income, he thinks of physical discs like we do records and VHS tapes.
Unfortunately, the Wii's SD reader can only read cards up to 2 GB, so you won't be able to get that much more space.
Also, as another poster pointed out, the Wii's SD reader is really slow. Trying to read a typical modern console game off of an SD card would be impractical.
irony1 [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] noun, plural -nies. 1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, How nice! when I said I had to work all weekend. 2. Literature. a. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. b. (esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion. 3. Socratic irony. 4. dramatic irony. 5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. 6. the incongruity of this. 7. an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing. 8. an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.
The fact that Ikaruga's gameplay is only rivaled by Radiant Silvergun's is not ironic at all. In fact, it's basically the opposite of ironic. It is entirely expected that two shooters produced by the same development team would be of about the same quality. It would be ironic if Ikaruga was an excellent game but Treasure had a reputation for producing horrible shooters.
Who says that EVERYONE has to appear the same to EVERYONE else?
While that solution might work for a game like America's Army (or any other team-based action game), it won't fly in an MMORPG, unfortunately.
One of the things that differentiates MMORPG players from other online gaming fans is the pride they take in their characters. They lovingly customize their characters' features at character creation time and then choose clothing and equipment that makes them stand out. Somebody who has an orc warrior with black plate armor and two flaming swords wants all the other players to see him as an orc warrior with black plate armor and two flaming swords. If you change things around so that the other team always appears as the bad guys (or vice-versa), then players no longer have control over their appearances, and a very important part of the immersion is gone.
So, no, everybody doesn't have to appear the same to everyone else, but I'd expect any MMORPG with long-term character development that tried that to fail miserably.
I have my browser set just the way I want it, centered exactly where I want it on my widescreen desktop. Whenever some crappy website goes ahead and wrecks this up, I end up not viewing it. It infuriates me to no end.
I'm going to assume you're using Firefox.
Open the Preferences, click on the "Content" tab, click on the "Advanced..." button to the right of "Enable JavaScript." Uncheck "Move or resize existing windows". I prefer to go ahead and uncheck everything else there, too.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if there's no risk of marks on your driving record or an arrest warrant for non-payment, why didn't you just... not pay it? Especially if it's from a non-government entity. Toss it in the shredder and forget about it.
Instead of using a float to store Hz or MHz, why not use a hertz and a megahertz class?
Because native types are faster than classes, and the stuff I work on is very performance-intensive. All those functions for setting, getting, and converting between types add up.
Despite the fact that it's not part of the coding standard where I work, I have a few coworkers who take this to the extreme. They surround every single function they write with: do{... } while(0); And then, inside the "do" block, they just put "break" in any place where they would have otherwise put "return." It drives me insane; they insist that having a single exit point from your function makes it easier to debug, but I just don't get it. I've never even seen them use gdb, anyway, so I think that abusing "printf" is their idea of "debugging"...
One thing in our coding standard that I do like is that all variables that store units must have a unit specification at the end of their name -- in other words, all frequencies might have "Hz" or "MHz", distances might have "m" or "mm", times have "sec" or "msec", and so on. This is really helpful in my field -- it's not uncommon for me to open up a file that I've never looked at before and need to make modifications to it, and if the units everything things are stored in weren't immediately obvious, I'd have to go track down somebody and ask them. The annoying thing here is when people decide not to follow this standard because they think it should be obvious...
Did you even read my post? I didn't say anything about 8, and my entire point was that opinions on the games wildly differ. I'm not even saying that 9 is a good game, just that people who hate 7 tend to like 9. Do you hate them both? Good job! You're a unique and beautiful snowflake. Move along.
It's the best and cheapest Blu-Ray player you can get on the market
That's what Sony wants you to think. If you had searched around at all -- seriously, just go to froogle.com and put in "blu-ray player" -- you'd know that you can easily get a decent Blu-Ray player for under $400. Under $300, if you're willing to spend some time looking for bargains. And you don't have to spend money on a remote! "Best" is subjective, but the PS3 is far and away not the cheapest.
It's a real shame that's the one they decided to carry on with
Dude, they're carrying on with the others, too. They're still making Dragon Quest (aka 'Warrior') games; the Wii got a DQ spinoff a while back, DQ9 is coming out for the DS sometime in the future, and remakes of DQ4-6 are coming out for the DS very soon. They're still making games in the Mana series, but they suck nowadays and aren't worth playing. Secret of Evermore was never a series and was developed in the US, anyway, so it's kind of like a red-haired stepchild that Square prefers to pretend didn't happen. Chrono Trigger got a sequel, and a port of CT is coming for the DS this winter.
On a related note, I think you're the first person I've ever heard call the FF series formulaic and imply that Dragon Quest isn't. Don't get me wrong, I love DQ games, but one thing they're best at is following a formula to the letter.
So where is the appeal of this series? The action is dull, the RPG elements are poorly conceived and don't make much sense. The place is plodding. Why are these games so raved about? I just don't get it...
It basically boils down to one thing: some people have different opinions from you. Many people think that their action is exciting, the RPG elements are fascinating, and the pace is perfect. As a general rule, one of the series' largest draws is the stories; if you don't care about a game telling you a story, it's probably safe to say that you won't enjoy the series (but there are, of course, exceptions).
I also see that you specifically mentioned FF7, which I'll bet you know is the best game to mention for starting a good flame war. There are lots of people who say it's the best game ever, and there are also a lot of people who say it's the worst game ever. The series is internally incosistent with itself, and all of the games are significantly different from each other. If you didn't like 7 but are honestly interested in why the series is popular, I'd recommend you take a look at 6, 9, or 12 instead. I'd also highly recommend Tactics, although some people will say that doesn't count as part of the series because it doesn't have a number after it.
For what it's worth, one of the developers at TrollTech once told me that the "cute" pronunciation was an invention of their marketing department because it sounded better than "Q T", and some of their own internal developers still referred to it as that.;-)
The comments in Zenburn shouldn't be that deep blue, they should be greenish. Your vim may not be operating in 256-color mode; try doing what this post recommends and see if it comes out better for you.
I just discovered Zenburn today and had the same problem as you, and I've fallen in love with it after I actually got it looking right. I've since gone through and also modified my Konsole, Eclipse, and Kdevelop color schemes to all be the same. Also try the high contrast mode, which makes the background a much darker shade of gray.
Ever heard of voicemail? If I'm somewhere where I can't answer the phone and I get a call, I simply let it go to voicemail. If it's that damn important, leave a short message. If the voicemail notifier goes off, I excuse myself and check it. Otherwise, I figure I can call them back later.
Doing that still involves me chatting on my phone in public, and checking your voicemail take significantly longer than reading a message -- you'll have to tell your phone to connect, wait a few seconds for it to do so, wait a few seconds to get through the menu, and then wait a few more seconds to read the message. And, if I have to leave any important information like a phone number or address, you'll probably have to go back and listen to it again so that you can write it down.
1) pissed because it just cost me $0.15
1) It's not my fault you're using a crappy carrier that charges you exorbitant amounts for text messages.
and 2) pick up the phone and call the person back.
2) Thus, stopping in the middle of the aisle in the store so you can chat on your cell phone. Good job annoying everybody around you.
I will decide if your call is important enough at that time to take.
No, the point is that you don't know whether my call is important or not before you've answered it. I could be calling to tell you know the latest sports scores, or I could be calling to tell you that your mother was shot and is in the hospital, and you won't know until you've taken the time to check your voicemail, which takes just as long as it would have to answer the phone in the first place.
And that one second is one second more than I want to not be looking at the road.
Where did I say anything about the road?
Ten seconds that you're not paying attention to what you're doing. With all the groups you mentioned, you should be able to call one person and let them know and then they can tell everyone else. Sure, it takes a little longer, but if you've got a bluetooth headset with voice dialing, at least you'll be looking at the road and not your damn phone.
Again, where did I say anything about the road? If you talk or text while you're driving, you're an idiot.
Why even text 5 or 10 people if they're all waiting in the same place? That makes even less sense then a short, 1 min phone call to tell one person "Be there in 5 mins". If that one person can't let everyone else know, then maybe they're just retarded.
Why are you assuming they're all in the same place? The whole point of my example of messaging multiple people at once so is that you could tell them all to gather somewhere, regardless of where they are. If you call somebody and tell them to tell all of the others, you're not doing anything more efficiently, you're just passing the work to somebody else.
Yes, and we all know that everybody uses every piece of technology exactly the way it was always intended to be used. In short, no, it doesn't make more sense.
It seems to me mostly like you're just being hostile towards something you don't understand because you don't want to understand.
I agree. I just don't have time for text messages. It can take an hour of back and forth to have a two minute conversation. I can barely put up with IM, but it is required in our office so that people can interrupt your train of thought if you accidentally get on a productive streak. I have no "text plan" on my phone, so incoming texts that I didn't ask to receive cost me 15 cents. Outgoing don't cost me anything because I don't do them. I don't have time. Life is too short for text messaging. Call up, get your conversation done and move on.
As you honestly don't seem to understand the use of text messages, I'll explain why I find them useful: for communicating small amounts of information that don't require conversation, and out of respect for the other person's time.
Let's face it, most people don't want to be interrupted whenever they're doing something. You might be out shopping for groceries, visiting a friend's house, or eating a restaurant, and you probably have your phone with you in case there's an emergency and/or you need to call somebody, but you don't want somebody to call you and suddenly want to have a conversation. Heck, at least in those situations you can talk if you want to; you can't exactly answer your phone and have a conversation at all if, say, you're watching a presentation at work, or if you're already on the phone with somebody else.
When you get a text message, rather than answering your phone immediately, you can view it at your leisure, and it only takes a second of your time to read it. I can tell my girlfriend, "working late tonight, I'll be home in an hour," or my D&D buddies, "On my way, be there 30 minutes," or a couple of my coworkers, "Meet for lunch at Rudy's BBQ", and it only takes ten seconds of my time and effectively none of theirs. I can even send the same message to half a dozen people at once, and that's much faster than calling half a dozen people and repeating the same conversation every time. If, for some reason, they need to answer the message, they can also do so without disturbing any people around them who don't want to listen to somebody chatting on their cell phone.
Does that make more sense? Yes, text messages are a horribly inefficient way of having a conversation, but they're not for conversing, they're for disseminating information.
As for MKVs, I've not seen any problems with it on my Gentoo PCs but then again I don't use subtitling much & it's still a minority video format compared to MPGs and AVIs. The problem isn't with MKVs, it's with softsubs that use the SSA/ASS formats... or pretty much any advanced sub format, for that matter. VLC's support for them is absolutely horrible, and the other available Linux media players aren't any better. All you have to do under Windows is install the proper DirectShow filters and subtitles will display properly in any Windows video program (except VLC).
You may not use it much, but pretty much any HD-quality video that has softsubs will be in one of those formats that makes VLC barf. This is a big deal among, say, people who watch anime fansubs; I know one guy who loves Linux and uses it as his primary operating system, but still has to reboot into Windows to watch his anime.
For a while, Opera was giving away their browser for Wii users. Now you have to pay if you want to access the Internet using your Wii, and Opera is your only choice. There's been some talk about Firefox on the Wii but, as far as I can tell, that's all it is: talk.
You realize that Nintendo and Opera have always been perfectly up front and clear about their intentions with this regard, right? They had announced that Opera for the Wii would be free for only a limited time before it was even released.
I realize that you're probably being facetious, but take a look at Sprint's SERO plan.
In a nutshell, if you sign up for a two-year contract through the right avenues, for $30/month you can get 500 minutes, free nights and weekends that start at 7 pm, unlimited in-network calling, unlimited roaming, unlimited text messaging and 3G data, and a few other perks that I don't really use. You can probably also get a pretty hefty chunk off of whatever phone you're planning to buy; I got $350 off of a Mogul.
For what it's worth, you may not be able to replace your home internet. Tethering is officially not allowed, although I've been connecting my Mogul to my laptop via Bluetooth for mobile 'net access for several months now and nobody seems to have noticed.
Anyway, if you honestly think that the difference between 6% and 8% is completely critical to my point, then I don't think you understood it. So... look at it this way. Watching recent trends, there's no reason to believe that the drop isn't going to continue. Very soon it's going to be 10%. To put things in perspective, let's say that you owned a grocery store, and that every tenth person who comes in doesn't have cash, just a credit card. You tell them, sorry, you can't shop here, we don't want to buy credit card readers. Does turning away one out of every ten of your potential customers sound like a good business practice to you?
I'd like to refute this myself, yes, you can move faster diagonally, but so can the monsters. Not everyone at your table is super smart and it's always a pain in the ass explaining to the 1 or 2 who can't seem to fathom 5 10 20 25 diagonal movement. It's just simpler to say 1,2,3,4 and be done with it. Not to mention we DO play on a hex and it's taken me several game sessions to properly write down a square map onto a hex grid. It's simpler, yes, but it's also completely unrealistic. I understand some unrealism is necessary in a fantasy game, but this is such a huge flaw vs. how complicated it is that neither I nor anybody else in my group thinks it's worth it. You're saying that a character can run zig-zag back and forth across a football field and reach the opposite end at exactly the same time as somebody who runs straight. It's not hard, it's just 1-2-1-2. It's not any more complex than adding up everything that goes into your attack bonus or calculating your penalty due to range increments for ranged weapons.
You realize that the link you provided says that non-Windows OS's take up 8.87% of the market, right? Not 6%? Windows' market share has dropped over 2% in the last year, which is honestly pretty significant.
so it'll take a very significant difference in levels before a high-level character who focuses on a skill will be able to easily beat a low-level character who focuses on it. Oops -- of course, I meant to say a high-level character who doesn't focus on a skill won't beat a low-level character who focuses on it.
Slashdot Mirror
Except for the fact that for a 200 some block game it takes ~15-20 minutes to move it to the SD card or back to the Wii. Its beyond mildly inconvenient whenever I have normal internet speeds that are faster. And the same SD card will read and write incredibly fast on my computer so it isn't an issue with the SD card speed...
Since you are answering the question I asked the parent poster, I'm going to assume that you share his opinion on loading games from the SD card -- in which case, I have to ask, why do you think that being able to load games directly from the SD card would be any sort of solution? The reader is going to be slow regardless of why you're reading data from the card. Adding support for running applications directly from SD cards is not a viable solution at all.
Out of curiosity.. what is your exact problem with the way the system currently works? You can copy downloaded games to SD cards already. You can't play them from the card, which is mildly inconvenient, but there's nothing stopping you from backing up all the games you like. The cards are even readable by a standard PC, which is even better than what you suggested. The games are only playable on the Wii they were originally downloaded on, which is fine, really, as long as you're not a pirate. The obvious question that comes up is, "What if my Wii breaks?" -- luckily, Nintendo can (and will) move all of your stuff over to a new Wii if you have to get a replacement, as long as you go through their official repair process. I don't see what's not simple about the legit way.
I have an impressionable child in my house that still thinks music and movies come on disks, and not from Bittorrent, and I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible.
There is another option -- legit downloads. I vastly prefer being able to buy something over the internet than having to go to a store to get it; it saves me the time and gas that would be involved in going to the store, and it saves the world the natural resources that would be used to a produce a disc that I'm only going to put in my computer once so that I can rip it. I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time your kid is old enough to have his own significant amount of disposable income, he thinks of physical discs like we do records and VHS tapes.
Unfortunately, the Wii's SD reader can only read cards up to 2 GB, so you won't be able to get that much more space.
Also, as another poster pointed out, the Wii's SD reader is really slow. Trying to read a typical modern console game off of an SD card would be impractical.
No, he didn't.
irony1 [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-]
noun, plural -nies. 1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, How nice! when I said I had to work all weekend.
2. Literature. a. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
b. (esp. in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., esp. as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3. Socratic irony.
4. dramatic irony.
5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
6. the incongruity of this.
7. an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing.
8. an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.
The fact that Ikaruga's gameplay is only rivaled by Radiant Silvergun's is not ironic at all. In fact, it's basically the opposite of ironic. It is entirely expected that two shooters produced by the same development team would be of about the same quality. It would be ironic if Ikaruga was an excellent game but Treasure had a reputation for producing horrible shooters.
Who says that EVERYONE has to appear the same to EVERYONE else?
While that solution might work for a game like America's Army (or any other team-based action game), it won't fly in an MMORPG, unfortunately.
One of the things that differentiates MMORPG players from other online gaming fans is the pride they take in their characters. They lovingly customize their characters' features at character creation time and then choose clothing and equipment that makes them stand out. Somebody who has an orc warrior with black plate armor and two flaming swords wants all the other players to see him as an orc warrior with black plate armor and two flaming swords. If you change things around so that the other team always appears as the bad guys (or vice-versa), then players no longer have control over their appearances, and a very important part of the immersion is gone.
So, no, everybody doesn't have to appear the same to everyone else, but I'd expect any MMORPG with long-term character development that tried that to fail miserably.
I have my browser set just the way I want it, centered exactly where I want it on my widescreen desktop. Whenever some crappy website goes ahead and wrecks this up, I end up not viewing it. It infuriates me to no end.
I'm going to assume you're using Firefox.
Open the Preferences, click on the "Content" tab, click on the "Advanced..." button to the right of "Enable JavaScript." Uncheck "Move or resize existing windows". I prefer to go ahead and uncheck everything else there, too.
Problem solved forever!
Maybe I'm missing something, but if there's no risk of marks on your driving record or an arrest warrant for non-payment, why didn't you just... not pay it? Especially if it's from a non-government entity. Toss it in the shredder and forget about it.
"this is blatant harassment and possibly borderline terrorism."
--You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
---You quoted 8 words. Perhaps it would be more constructive to identify which word you are referring to.
If you can't tell which word is being used improperly in the above sentence, then having it explained to you won't help.
Perhaps when the original poster correctly quotes ``A Prince's Bride" then perhaps they'll be taken seriously.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that the original poster won't be able to quote it correctly until he watches "The Princess Bride."
Instead of using a float to store Hz or MHz, why not use a hertz and a megahertz class?
Because native types are faster than classes, and the stuff I work on is very performance-intensive. All those functions for setting, getting, and converting between types add up.
multiple return statements were off-limits
Despite the fact that it's not part of the coding standard where I work, I have a few coworkers who take this to the extreme. They surround every single function they write with: ... } while(0);
do{
And then, inside the "do" block, they just put "break" in any place where they would have otherwise put "return." It drives me insane; they insist that having a single exit point from your function makes it easier to debug, but I just don't get it. I've never even seen them use gdb, anyway, so I think that abusing "printf" is their idea of "debugging"...
One thing in our coding standard that I do like is that all variables that store units must have a unit specification at the end of their name -- in other words, all frequencies might have "Hz" or "MHz", distances might have "m" or "mm", times have "sec" or "msec", and so on. This is really helpful in my field -- it's not uncommon for me to open up a file that I've never looked at before and need to make modifications to it, and if the units everything things are stored in weren't immediately obvious, I'd have to go track down somebody and ask them. The annoying thing here is when people decide not to follow this standard because they think it should be obvious...
Did you even read my post? I didn't say anything about 8, and my entire point was that opinions on the games wildly differ. I'm not even saying that 9 is a good game, just that people who hate 7 tend to like 9. Do you hate them both? Good job! You're a unique and beautiful snowflake. Move along.
It's the best and cheapest Blu-Ray player you can get on the market
That's what Sony wants you to think. If you had searched around at all -- seriously, just go to froogle.com and put in "blu-ray player" -- you'd know that you can easily get a decent Blu-Ray player for under $400. Under $300, if you're willing to spend some time looking for bargains. And you don't have to spend money on a remote! "Best" is subjective, but the PS3 is far and away not the cheapest.
It's a real shame that's the one they decided to carry on with
Dude, they're carrying on with the others, too. They're still making Dragon Quest (aka 'Warrior') games; the Wii got a DQ spinoff a while back, DQ9 is coming out for the DS sometime in the future, and remakes of DQ4-6 are coming out for the DS very soon. They're still making games in the Mana series, but they suck nowadays and aren't worth playing. Secret of Evermore was never a series and was developed in the US, anyway, so it's kind of like a red-haired stepchild that Square prefers to pretend didn't happen. Chrono Trigger got a sequel, and a port of CT is coming for the DS this winter.
On a related note, I think you're the first person I've ever heard call the FF series formulaic and imply that Dragon Quest isn't. Don't get me wrong, I love DQ games, but one thing they're best at is following a formula to the letter.
So where is the appeal of this series? The action is dull, the RPG elements are poorly conceived and don't make much sense. The place is plodding. Why are these games so raved about? I just don't get it...
It basically boils down to one thing: some people have different opinions from you. Many people think that their action is exciting, the RPG elements are fascinating, and the pace is perfect. As a general rule, one of the series' largest draws is the stories; if you don't care about a game telling you a story, it's probably safe to say that you won't enjoy the series (but there are, of course, exceptions).
I also see that you specifically mentioned FF7, which I'll bet you know is the best game to mention for starting a good flame war. There are lots of people who say it's the best game ever, and there are also a lot of people who say it's the worst game ever. The series is internally incosistent with itself, and all of the games are significantly different from each other. If you didn't like 7 but are honestly interested in why the series is popular, I'd recommend you take a look at 6, 9, or 12 instead. I'd also highly recommend Tactics, although some people will say that doesn't count as part of the series because it doesn't have a number after it.
IT's not an acronym, it's pronounced "cute."
For what it's worth, one of the developers at TrollTech once told me that the "cute" pronunciation was an invention of their marketing department because it sounded better than "Q T", and some of their own internal developers still referred to it as that. ;-)
The comments in Zenburn shouldn't be that deep blue, they should be greenish. Your vim may not be operating in 256-color mode; try doing what this post recommends and see if it comes out better for you.
I just discovered Zenburn today and had the same problem as you, and I've fallen in love with it after I actually got it looking right. I've since gone through and also modified my Konsole, Eclipse, and Kdevelop color schemes to all be the same. Also try the high contrast mode, which makes the background a much darker shade of gray.
Ever heard of voicemail? If I'm somewhere where I can't answer the phone and I get a call, I simply let it go to voicemail. If it's that damn important, leave a short message. If the voicemail notifier goes off, I excuse myself and check it. Otherwise, I figure I can call them back later.
Doing that still involves me chatting on my phone in public, and checking your voicemail take significantly longer than reading a message -- you'll have to tell your phone to connect, wait a few seconds for it to do so, wait a few seconds to get through the menu, and then wait a few more seconds to read the message. And, if I have to leave any important information like a phone number or address, you'll probably have to go back and listen to it again so that you can write it down.
1) pissed because it just cost me $0.15
1) It's not my fault you're using a crappy carrier that charges you exorbitant amounts for text messages.
and 2) pick up the phone and call the person back.
2) Thus, stopping in the middle of the aisle in the store so you can chat on your cell phone. Good job annoying everybody around you.
I will decide if your call is important enough at that time to take.
No, the point is that you don't know whether my call is important or not before you've answered it. I could be calling to tell you know the latest sports scores, or I could be calling to tell you that your mother was shot and is in the hospital, and you won't know until you've taken the time to check your voicemail, which takes just as long as it would have to answer the phone in the first place.
And that one second is one second more than I want to not be looking at the road.
Where did I say anything about the road?
Ten seconds that you're not paying attention to what you're doing. With all the groups you mentioned, you should be able to call one person and let them know and then they can tell everyone else. Sure, it takes a little longer, but if you've got a bluetooth headset with voice dialing, at least you'll be looking at the road and not your damn phone.
Again, where did I say anything about the road? If you talk or text while you're driving, you're an idiot.
Why even text 5 or 10 people if they're all waiting in the same place? That makes even less sense then a short, 1 min phone call to tell one person "Be there in 5 mins". If that one person can't let everyone else know, then maybe they're just retarded.
Why are you assuming they're all in the same place? The whole point of my example of messaging multiple people at once so is that you could tell them all to gather somewhere, regardless of where they are. If you call somebody and tell them to tell all of the others, you're not doing anything more efficiently, you're just passing the work to somebody else.
Yes, and we all know that everybody uses every piece of technology exactly the way it was always intended to be used. In short, no, it doesn't make more sense.
It seems to me mostly like you're just being hostile towards something you don't understand because you don't want to understand.
I agree. I just don't have time for text messages. It can take an hour of back and forth to have a two minute conversation. I can barely put up with IM, but it is required in our office so that people can interrupt your train of thought if you accidentally get on a productive streak.
I have no "text plan" on my phone, so incoming texts that I didn't ask to receive cost me 15 cents. Outgoing don't cost me anything because I don't do them. I don't have time. Life is too short for text messaging. Call up, get your conversation done and move on.
As you honestly don't seem to understand the use of text messages, I'll explain why I find them useful: for communicating small amounts of information that don't require conversation, and out of respect for the other person's time.
Let's face it, most people don't want to be interrupted whenever they're doing something. You might be out shopping for groceries, visiting a friend's house, or eating a restaurant, and you probably have your phone with you in case there's an emergency and/or you need to call somebody, but you don't want somebody to call you and suddenly want to have a conversation. Heck, at least in those situations you can talk if you want to; you can't exactly answer your phone and have a conversation at all if, say, you're watching a presentation at work, or if you're already on the phone with somebody else.
When you get a text message, rather than answering your phone immediately, you can view it at your leisure, and it only takes a second of your time to read it. I can tell my girlfriend, "working late tonight, I'll be home in an hour," or my D&D buddies, "On my way, be there 30 minutes," or a couple of my coworkers, "Meet for lunch at Rudy's BBQ", and it only takes ten seconds of my time and effectively none of theirs. I can even send the same message to half a dozen people at once, and that's much faster than calling half a dozen people and repeating the same conversation every time. If, for some reason, they need to answer the message, they can also do so without disturbing any people around them who don't want to listen to somebody chatting on their cell phone.
Does that make more sense? Yes, text messages are a horribly inefficient way of having a conversation, but they're not for conversing, they're for disseminating information.
You may not use it much, but pretty much any HD-quality video that has softsubs will be in one of those formats that makes VLC barf. This is a big deal among, say, people who watch anime fansubs; I know one guy who loves Linux and uses it as his primary operating system, but still has to reboot into Windows to watch his anime.
For a while, Opera was giving away their browser for Wii users. Now you have to pay if you want to access the Internet using your Wii, and Opera is your only choice. There's been some talk about Firefox on the Wii but, as far as I can tell, that's all it is: talk.
You realize that Nintendo and Opera have always been perfectly up front and clear about their intentions with this regard, right? They had announced that Opera for the Wii would be free for only a limited time before it was even released.
I realize that you're probably being facetious, but take a look at Sprint's SERO plan.
In a nutshell, if you sign up for a two-year contract through the right avenues, for $30/month you can get 500 minutes, free nights and weekends that start at 7 pm, unlimited in-network calling, unlimited roaming, unlimited text messaging and 3G data, and a few other perks that I don't really use. You can probably also get a pretty hefty chunk off of whatever phone you're planning to buy; I got $350 off of a Mogul.
For what it's worth, you may not be able to replace your home internet. Tethering is officially not allowed, although I've been connecting my Mogul to my laptop via Bluetooth for mobile 'net access for several months now and nobody seems to have noticed.
You realize that the link you provided says that non-Windows OS's take up 8.87% of the market, right? Not 6%? Windows' market share has dropped over 2% in the last year, which is honestly pretty significant.