Surely radios are only any use if you actually use them? Besides, if a storm is strong enough to take the power out, it's a bit of a dead giveaway that something is up already.
How many other devices do you have around with radios? I know I've got tonnes, and I'm not even in a severe weather area. The iPod is designed to be small, so why bother adding unnecessary features?
I've still not got my head around this one: Like many, many people, my ISP gives me a download bandwidth 10 times that of my upload bandwidth. How the hell am I expected to get a ratio substantially above 1 in a hurry?
So, given that the whole point of this is that a bug caused a 'normal' program to inadvertently get flagged as a PPV one, you'd have rather the box messed up and charged you money to watch it, rather than just messed up and made the recording less viewable (though not completely useless) than normal?
That's your call, I guess. Personally, I accept that Tivo would never get a box past the networks that completely bypassed the Macrovision etc. on PPV broadcasts, and this seems to be the best compromise available.
Not that any of it even directly affects me, as Tivo don't sell boxes in the UK. So I'm just speaking hypothetically.
CentralNic have at least issued a statement that they don't run mail servers on that ip, so as long as admins are aware, they can happily work around this with a block on 213.146.149.160 as well.
Sure, it involves a few extra seconds work, but it isn't the end of the world.
Sorry, but if you call my mobile and don't know who I am, then get a giant phone bill for your pleasure, then I'll just laugh at the stupid cold-caller.
However, if marketers can cost ME money, then that's a big problem.
God, I'd forgotten all about those. It's so easy to import from the US or Canada that I've pretty much given up looking at UK release dates for the most part.
What horrible games lineup? I'd absolutely agree that the lineup was pretty thin at the US and Japanese launches, but here we've got 24 games, including Virtua Tennis, Toca 2, Mercury and Snooker as well as the older but still great things like Wipeout Pure, Ridge Racers and Lumines.
Now, admittedly a large number of my PSP wants are racing games, but overall there's as many games that I would consider buying as a DS.
My wife would completely disagree with me, as the PSP games aren't the sort she likes to play. But if we all liked the same things it'd be a dull world.
Firstly, in case anyone hasn't read that fine article, this is UK sales, not Euro-wide, worldwide or whatever.
But my main point is that they're so impressed with their stuffing of the software charts. Frankly, there's such a massive games drought here in the UK at the moment that I'm almost surprised it wasn't even more 'impressive'; they've got nothing to compete with.
Just as an example, the UK's biggest selling DS title (which people are always desperate to compare the PSP to) is Mario 64. Yes, a launch game. We don't have Nintendogs yet, nor Advance Wars. The last big PC game was Battlefield 2 months ago, and there's been nothing on PS2 worthwhile since God Of War. This was the 'Full Price' chart, so the budget release of the new update to Ghost Recon 2 on the XBox doesn't count, either.
What on God's Green Earth are you on about? "Superior" is the correct British English spelling as well.
But then, if you think "Menu", "Clockwise swirl all the way", "click" requires fifteen fingers and a good feeling of luck (let alone the alternative of "leave it alone for a minute"), then tiny little things like accuracy shouldn't bother you too much.
Personally, I find manually updating the contents of an mp3 player to be a nightmare compared to just selecting which playlists I want today. If I really wanted to do that, though, Winamp plugins do it all just fine, thanks.
Well, if you want to be really dull about it, the Polish smuggled the original 3-disc Enigma out of the factory piece by piece before the war even started. Top move, and the most vital break of the lot.
The 4-disc Naval update was first seized by the British, along with a codebook. They subsequently got another after the scheme had been modified.
The US finally managed to blag the third naval variety, which is the event that U-571 is very, very, very loosely based off.
Hey, I've not even got the right hardware, but I've got 3 (count 'em!) SACD titles. Purely because they have a 'normal' CD layer as well, admittedly.
But then you're right. I rather like my sound quality, but I chose to spend the money on really nice CD player that also gives me good sound on the other 900-odd discs in my collection...
Both SACD and DVD-A insist on blocking the standard SPDIF digital outputs, as they aren't encrypted. You've got to either use the analogue six-channel output, or if you've got a reasonably high-end player and amp, you can pass it in digital form down a firewire cable.
The first lot of players didn't offer firewire admittedly, but the current decent ones do.
But then, I can't afford to upgrade my amp to one with the firewire input and the necessary codecs anyway, so it's rather moot to me.
Aah, I see. That just slipped past us here. I don't even remember seeing a UK release yet.
Of course, the irony with that one is that the PS3 should be powerful enough to do your lighting dynamically (if we believe the hype). Which would presumably save you some space.
But then, it's all down to performance vs. space anyway, I suppose - if you had extra CPU you could also use more intensive compression. I'd guess RSX will have at least the hardware support for compressed textures that NVidia's current GPU cores have, which might help as well.
Still, I don't _quite_ know why I'm telling you your job, sorry. I'm just aware that my current most-played PS2 game is Gradius V, which ships on a CD...
(No, I really shouldn't be comparing a side-on shmup with a gigantic dungeon sprawler. That's one _huge_ game you've got there.)
No, I'd say that it's definitely an irony that Sony's attempts to add greater security to the format will result in me being less, not more inclined to purchase legal discs.
In comparison, I can even buy region-unlocked DVD players from the official Sony Stores here in the UK (though mine is a Toshiba, I bought that pre-modded on the highstreet as well). The majority of my films are purchased from the US (as they get most films first, and I hate PAL speedup), but with a region-unlocked player I'm free to buy UK releases for things I can't be bothered to import, or are only available here.
If I were restricted to a single region, I'd buy fewer discs, as I'd just do without most of the stuff that I buy PAL.
That's a lovely idea. However, irrespective of how many Gigabytes of texture data you can fit on the disc, you've still got to get it all into your 256Mb graphics memory.
Since PC games are currently coping with similar capabilities/restrictions, and yet I'm not aware of anything other than Myst 4 requring a second dual-layer DVD to hold all that, I'm not entirely sure it's all necessary just yet.
God Of War, yes? Only that seems to be about the only dual-layered, Western produced PS2 game I can find. I know it had a shedload of art assets (and is apparently mighty fine; I haven't had a chance to try it yet, sorry) but you're really the exception rather than the rule. In fact, GT4 (for all the stupid number of cars it supports) is about the only other PS2 game made anywhere that I've seen need both layers for something other than tedious FMV sequences.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the XBox 360 (with its DVD drive) more than the PS3 just because I know I won't see too much FMV on the platform.
And yet the XBox 360 just has a DVD drive in it. Microsoft at least claim to have spoken extensively with devs before making the decision, too.
If I remember rightly, the vast, vast majority of them wanted a nice fast 16x (or whatever it is, unfortunately I've forgotten) DVD drive, rather than the slower but higher capacity HD-DVD one.
Which looks like a particularly good idea now the HD-DVD group have postponed their launch while talks continue in an attempt to combine the two HD formats.
Thanks. Does it continue to be as blatently silly, though? We rather liked the character stuff, but my wife has refused to watch any further until I reassure her that there aren't really any fantasy monsters roaming the island, as she's not in the mood for another SF series right now.
We need to innovate or people will just watch Lost?
Now, I've only seen the first episode before giving up, but does Lost turn into something other than a formulaic twist-turny too-clever-by-half 24-alike with far, far too many scenes stolen wholesale from Jurassic Park sequels?
Because scoring a big hit by cobbling together bits and pieces of other successful things seems to be _exactly_ what Lost is doing.
How does he keep getting work? Because his films keep making money. They may be uniformly dire, but he is good enough at turning them out for a pittance and pre-selling overseas rights (because it seems that rights buyers get far too easily carried away when they see licenses attached, just as the game publishers themselves do) that his films all turn at least a modest profit at the end of the day.
When you make your company money, it's very easy to continue to working in the same job, even if there are a few anonymous internet geeks (I count myself in that, obviously) who bitch about it.
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Surely radios are only any use if you actually use them? Besides, if a storm is strong enough to take the power out, it's a bit of a dead giveaway that something is up already.
How many other devices do you have around with radios? I know I've got tonnes, and I'm not even in a severe weather area. The iPod is designed to be small, so why bother adding unnecessary features?
I've still not got my head around this one: Like many, many people, my ISP gives me a download bandwidth 10 times that of my upload bandwidth. How the hell am I expected to get a ratio substantially above 1 in a hurry?
So, given that the whole point of this is that a bug caused a 'normal' program to inadvertently get flagged as a PPV one, you'd have rather the box messed up and charged you money to watch it, rather than just messed up and made the recording less viewable (though not completely useless) than normal?
That's your call, I guess. Personally, I accept that Tivo would never get a box past the networks that completely bypassed the Macrovision etc. on PPV broadcasts, and this seems to be the best compromise available.
Not that any of it even directly affects me, as Tivo don't sell boxes in the UK. So I'm just speaking hypothetically.
CentralNic have at least issued a statement that they don't run mail servers on that ip, so as long as admins are aware, they can happily work around this with a block on 213.146.149.160 as well.
Sure, it involves a few extra seconds work, but it isn't the end of the world.
Sorry, but if you call my mobile and don't know who I am, then get a giant phone bill for your pleasure, then I'll just laugh at the stupid cold-caller.
However, if marketers can cost ME money, then that's a big problem.
God, I'd forgotten all about those. It's so easy to import from the US or Canada that I've pretty much given up looking at UK release dates for the most part.
What horrible games lineup? I'd absolutely agree that the lineup was pretty thin at the US and Japanese launches, but here we've got 24 games, including Virtua Tennis, Toca 2, Mercury and Snooker as well as the older but still great things like Wipeout Pure, Ridge Racers and Lumines.
Now, admittedly a large number of my PSP wants are racing games, but overall there's as many games that I would consider buying as a DS.
My wife would completely disagree with me, as the PSP games aren't the sort she likes to play. But if we all liked the same things it'd be a dull world.
Firstly, in case anyone hasn't read that fine article, this is UK sales, not Euro-wide, worldwide or whatever.
But my main point is that they're so impressed with their stuffing of the software charts. Frankly, there's such a massive games drought here in the UK at the moment that I'm almost surprised it wasn't even more 'impressive'; they've got nothing to compete with.
Just as an example, the UK's biggest selling DS title (which people are always desperate to compare the PSP to) is Mario 64. Yes, a launch game. We don't have Nintendogs yet, nor Advance Wars. The last big PC game was Battlefield 2 months ago, and there's been nothing on PS2 worthwhile since God Of War. This was the 'Full Price' chart, so the budget release of the new update to Ghost Recon 2 on the XBox doesn't count, either.
Stuff that, how long until we see hott girls riding dinosaurs in space with it? This is of vital importance; we can't allow China to get there first!
My 2Mb/sec connection is maxed out, too. Something funny going on with those people.
What on God's Green Earth are you on about? "Superior" is the correct British English spelling as well.
But then, if you think "Menu", "Clockwise swirl all the way", "click" requires fifteen fingers and a good feeling of luck (let alone the alternative of "leave it alone for a minute"), then tiny little things like accuracy shouldn't bother you too much.
Personally, I find manually updating the contents of an mp3 player to be a nightmare compared to just selecting which playlists I want today. If I really wanted to do that, though, Winamp plugins do it all just fine, thanks.
Well, if you want to be really dull about it, the Polish smuggled the original 3-disc Enigma out of the factory piece by piece before the war even started. Top move, and the most vital break of the lot.
The 4-disc Naval update was first seized by the British, along with a codebook. They subsequently got another after the scheme had been modified.
The US finally managed to blag the third naval variety, which is the event that U-571 is very, very, very loosely based off.
The Electric Universe proponents rank slightly below the JFK Conspiracy Theorists in level of wackyness. Nothing to worry about here, move along.
Hey, I've not even got the right hardware, but I've got 3 (count 'em!) SACD titles. Purely because they have a 'normal' CD layer as well, admittedly.
But then you're right. I rather like my sound quality, but I chose to spend the money on really nice CD player that also gives me good sound on the other 900-odd discs in my collection...
Both SACD and DVD-A insist on blocking the standard SPDIF digital outputs, as they aren't encrypted. You've got to either use the analogue six-channel output, or if you've got a reasonably high-end player and amp, you can pass it in digital form down a firewire cable.
The first lot of players didn't offer firewire admittedly, but the current decent ones do.
But then, I can't afford to upgrade my amp to one with the firewire input and the necessary codecs anyway, so it's rather moot to me.
Aah, I see. That just slipped past us here. I don't even remember seeing a UK release yet.
Of course, the irony with that one is that the PS3 should be powerful enough to do your lighting dynamically (if we believe the hype). Which would presumably save you some space.
But then, it's all down to performance vs. space anyway, I suppose - if you had extra CPU you could also use more intensive compression. I'd guess RSX will have at least the hardware support for compressed textures that NVidia's current GPU cores have, which might help as well.
Still, I don't _quite_ know why I'm telling you your job, sorry. I'm just aware that my current most-played PS2 game is Gradius V, which ships on a CD...
(No, I really shouldn't be comparing a side-on shmup with a gigantic dungeon sprawler. That's one _huge_ game you've got there.)
No, I'd say that it's definitely an irony that Sony's attempts to add greater security to the format will result in me being less, not more inclined to purchase legal discs.
In comparison, I can even buy region-unlocked DVD players from the official Sony Stores here in the UK (though mine is a Toshiba, I bought that pre-modded on the highstreet as well). The majority of my films are purchased from the US (as they get most films first, and I hate PAL speedup), but with a region-unlocked player I'm free to buy UK releases for things I can't be bothered to import, or are only available here.
If I were restricted to a single region, I'd buy fewer discs, as I'd just do without most of the stuff that I buy PAL.
That's a lovely idea. However, irrespective of how many Gigabytes of texture data you can fit on the disc, you've still got to get it all into your 256Mb graphics memory.
Since PC games are currently coping with similar capabilities/restrictions, and yet I'm not aware of anything other than Myst 4 requring a second dual-layer DVD to hold all that, I'm not entirely sure it's all necessary just yet.
God Of War, yes? Only that seems to be about the only dual-layered, Western produced PS2 game I can find. I know it had a shedload of art assets (and is apparently mighty fine; I haven't had a chance to try it yet, sorry) but you're really the exception rather than the rule. In fact, GT4 (for all the stupid number of cars it supports) is about the only other PS2 game made anywhere that I've seen need both layers for something other than tedious FMV sequences.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the XBox 360 (with its DVD drive) more than the PS3 just because I know I won't see too much FMV on the platform.
And yet the XBox 360 just has a DVD drive in it. Microsoft at least claim to have spoken extensively with devs before making the decision, too.
If I remember rightly, the vast, vast majority of them wanted a nice fast 16x (or whatever it is, unfortunately I've forgotten) DVD drive, rather than the slower but higher capacity HD-DVD one.
Which looks like a particularly good idea now the HD-DVD group have postponed their launch while talks continue in an attempt to combine the two HD formats.
Thanks. Does it continue to be as blatently silly, though? We rather liked the character stuff, but my wife has refused to watch any further until I reassure her that there aren't really any fantasy monsters roaming the island, as she's not in the mood for another SF series right now.
Just think of it as one of those eternal mysteries, like who buys XBox games based on Disney properties.
We need to innovate or people will just watch Lost?
Now, I've only seen the first episode before giving up, but does Lost turn into something other than a formulaic twist-turny too-clever-by-half 24-alike with far, far too many scenes stolen wholesale from Jurassic Park sequels?
Because scoring a big hit by cobbling together bits and pieces of other successful things seems to be _exactly_ what Lost is doing.
I know it's more than a few. In fact, I've never heard a single filmgoer have a good word for the guy.
But until his production company start to actually lose money rather than make it, they will carry on turning out low-budget shite with a license.
How does he keep getting work? Because his films keep making money. They may be uniformly dire, but he is good enough at turning them out for a pittance and pre-selling overseas rights (because it seems that rights buyers get far too easily carried away when they see licenses attached, just as the game publishers themselves do) that his films all turn at least a modest profit at the end of the day.
When you make your company money, it's very easy to continue to working in the same job, even if there are a few anonymous internet geeks (I count myself in that, obviously) who bitch about it.