I've been programming professionally for over 10 years, and was a computer lab aide before that. I've had to deal with both CS students (of which I have a degree) and MIS (the business school's version of CS) since 1990 (so, 17 years). My experience states the exact opposite of yours.
Very few of the business focused students, and those I've encountered in professional programming, can program worth their salt. The MIS students first course of action was to try to get a CS student to write their programs. The professional programmers with a MIS background would always take 2 to 3 times as long to write code, and it would be an act of kindness to even call it spaghetti code. Their code also tends to have a higher than average bug count, be filled with code that does do what they think it does, contain lots of kludges to get the results they want, and would basically need to be rewritten due to it being a the programming equivalent of a rat's nest.
However, I think I know the reason for your point of view. Although I've meet very few MIS people that can really program, I've also meet very few CS people that understand, and are willing to except without lengthy disagreement, the needs of business people. And quite a few that will quite hostile to business needs as well. And it's probably dealing with the arguments of "Why do you even need that?", "Why do we need to do it that way?" or even worse "Why do you pointy haired bosses always ask for the dumbest, most worthless things?" that has tainted your perception. That is why you think they "can't apply the shit." Not because they can't, but because they don't understand why you want what you want. While the MIS guys do understand what you want, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that the code they provide it with is buggy worthless crap code.
It would be easy enough to design DRM so that the DRM no longer applies after a certain date.
So, all I need to do is set the clock on the player to a future date, and then I can do whatever I want to the "protected" media.
What's that you say? Fix it so the player needs to have an Internet connection to get the time from a "trusted" server? Well, there goes the ability to set/correct the date on a device you own, and, more than likely, the ability to use the media if the player can't talk to the Internet. Even then, you just need to set up a DNS server the directs it to a time server of your own to get around that DRM. And if it's a proprietary service that doesn't use open standards to set the time? Don't worry, someone will reverse engineer that protocol too.
That's why it is a failure of DRM in general. Anything you can do to protect something, someone else can undo. And it's often easy to destroy than build.
No, I'm not getting North America and the rest of the world confused. You got it confused, by assuming I meant North America in my first post (I didn't mention any region).
You need to learn how to read numbers. 1.2 is 64% of 1.86, that's pretty far off. So, your 1.2 million hasn't unbuckled it's seatbelt yet. You also need to learn how to read reports and articles. That 1.2 million number you quoted was a U.S. sale's estimate by analyst, and the article was saying that Nintendo beat it. It didn't list any actual sales numbers.
Now, I'm going to ask you to do a little math. I know, it's hard, but bare with me.
Taking the number of Wiis reportly sold world wide (4 million) and compare that to reportly world wide sales of PS3 (1.41 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold? 35%
Taking the lower number of Wiis sold in North America (1.86 million) and compare that to PS3 sales in North America (0.86 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold in North America? 46%
Now, some questions about your statements:
How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales? What about 46%?
How does shipping 1/4 as many consoles constitute "getting the console out the fastest"?
Now, a general question:
How does shipping a quarter of the consoles, compared to a competitor that launched after you, and having reports of your console hitting the supply/demand equilibrium point before that competitor good news for a company? How about for a company that wants it's console as the dominate platform?
The article you quote states "has likely sold over 1.2 million", which to me says "we don't have all the numbers, but do have this figure." It is also the lowest number I've ever seen when talking about Wii sells. Considering that Nintendo stated that they would ship 4 million (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?s tory=11510) by the end of 2006, and there have been no reports of Nintendo falling well short of that number, the numbers I'm quoting a within the ballpark. While you're 1.2 million seems to be parking the car.
I think Sony should get points for getting the console out the fastest of any of the current-gen/formely new-gen launches
WTF? Sony has shipped 1 million, Nintendo has sold about 4 million and launched after the PS3! Sony didn't get the "console out the fastest". They have shipped less consoles and have already hit the supply roughly equaling demand point, then either the Wii or 360. That isn't good news for Sony.
Anything else anyone says is just fanboys complaining they can't get their hands on their favorite new toy.
Sounds like a fanboy trying to rationalize why his favorite console is collecting dust on store shelves less then two months after launch.
Just need a hacked TiVo to get it up and running. If you don't have a hacked TiVo, see http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-sa1.htm for upgrading your series 1 TiVo.
Your conclusion that water isn't wet is correct. However, you are wrong about it making other things wet. What actually happens is that water absorbs other objects dryness, thus giving the appearance of making them wet.
CRTs produce a better picture than Plasma, CRTs just take up much more space. Even if Plasma was cheaper than CRT, I'd still have bought my Mits Diamond RPCRT.
Gravity isn't a theory, it is a force. And it's what causes gravity that is a theory. So, while gravitional force is working okay, the theory of what causes it is just a theory. And a theory is, by definition, unproven and could be wrong.
Back in late 2001 to early 2002 I was doing a lot of travelling. The company I worked for would send me out on short notice, so I could only book my flights on short notice and one-way (since I would never know if they'd send me somewhere else before returning home.) I started noticing I was always getting selected for the "random" checks. The first couple of times, I didn't think about it, with it being so soon after 9/11. However, after about my third flight, it starting getting really annoying. So, I started to keep track of the number of "random" security check points and the number of times I was stop.
There are actually quite of few places for these "random" security check points. Besides at the gate or at the baggage check-in counter, there is also a check when returning a rental car! So, keep in mind that I am including the car rental return in these checks.
Also, keep in mind that I am a white male with an "all American" name. So, I was not being "randomly" selected due to racial profiling.
I was "randomly" selected at 28 out of 32 security check points. 28 out of 32! If that's random, then I sure wish I had been playing the lotto!
The real reason was one-way flights on short notice. Which proves that there is some logic (although that logic may be flawed) behind the selections. Which, in turn, made their insistance that it was "random" exceptionally annoying. I was actually more annoyed at the term "random" than I was with being searched.
Dunno, but IMHO, i think if you like RPG games you should use the PS2...
Personally, I've found that console RPG are lacking in depth. Compare them even to Ultima and Bard's Tale (back in the olden times of C=64s and Apple IIs), and they still fall just a little short. Now, compare them to Baldur's Gate I or II on the PC, and consoles ain't go nothing.
You sir, have evidently never been on X-Box Live. You'll never find a more wretched hive of foul-mouthed prepubescents.
Recently, a friend of mine said he was thinking of buying an X-Box 360. He wanted it because of the camera attachment being used in games, so he can see the other players. He thought it was cool.
My response: "I've played on Live with all the 13 year olds cussing in my ear. I don't think I want to see them."
Maybe AT&T has decided to start throttling the bandwidth based on destination and who's paid them their protecti... er... double tax.. er... rightful usage fees.
When you constently upgrade your video card, trying to keep your main game machine in the race for the highest FPS, you'll have plenty of old GeForce cards lying around. So, it basically will cost you nothing to put an old card in a new server. At least, that's how some of my servers got GeForce cards.
Spotted on November 27 2004, VD 17 was swiftly identified as rock that potentially crossed Earth's orbit, with a 1 in 3,000 risk of collision on May 4 2102.
Further observations and calculations have prompted the risk on that day to be upgraded to "a bit less than 1 in 1,000," said NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) expert David Morrison in an emailed circular.
Its odds of striking the Earth were "upgraded".
1) Is that really an "upgrade" for us?
2) Zonk still could have been more clear in his editing.
or (even better) we come across something our current theories can't explain. (Which then results in a greater understanding of the universe, and an update to our theories.)
In theory. Or it gets tossed out as "bad data", equipment/measurement anomaly/error, or just out right ignored, because it doesn't fit into the pet theories of a bunch of professors trying to protect/justify their research grant.
Scientific process is a wonderful thing, as long as human politics don't get in the way.
Regardless of HOW it gets a 'sharper picture', if it appears to be a sharper picture to my eyes
But, the picture isn't sharper, it actually degraded with extra noise. I suggest you turn the "Sharpness" all the way down on your TV, and leave it there for a month. At first, the image will look "soft" and not as "crisp", however it will be free of the noise that is distorting the image. After your eyes adjust to watching TV without this added distortion, you'll realize that the "Sharpness" adjustment should have never been added to TVs in the first place.
Also, the "brightness" adjustment actually controls the peak black level (how black black is), and that "contrast" controls peak white level (how white white is). Both of these adjustments proper settings are no where near where they should be, when you pull a TV out of the box. They are preset for what "looks good" under the fluorescent lighting in stores, not your living room.
I bought a copy of Video Essentials, and have been adjusting my sets with it, and the results are amazing. Neighbors, that had better sets then the one I use to have in my living room, would ask how I got my cheap, low end set to look better than their higher end sets.
Trust me, get a hold of a DVD like V.E. and adjust that Wal-mart set of yours. You'll discover two things. First, that Wal-mart set is cheap for a reason (It won't hold black level, and color/tint won't set even close to correct.) And second, after adjustment, it will look better than name brand TVs out of the box.
I'm probably going to get it for responding to "egg troll", but anyway...
Yeah, they own the pipes, but they are already charging people for the data being sent across it. If you make a long distance phone call, lets say, to your grandmother, would it be fair for the phone company to charge both you and grandma for the call? What about if they charge you for placing the call, and then charged grandma extra if she wants the sound of her voice at normal volume, instead of restricted to 10% volume?
Content providers pay a huge amount in connectivity already (I've worked for some, and have seen the bills) and my internet access at home isn't what I'd call cheap either (~$50/month). The backbone providers get their money from the connection providers that the content providers and users, like you and I, buy bandwidth from. So, they are already being paid for the traffic going across their pipes by the parties involved in the transfer.
I don't know about you, but I personally would prefer not to be double billed.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been programming professionally for over 10 years, and was a computer lab aide before that. I've had to deal with both CS students (of which I have a degree) and MIS (the business school's version of CS) since 1990 (so, 17 years). My experience states the exact opposite of yours.
Very few of the business focused students, and those I've encountered in professional programming, can program worth their salt. The MIS students first course of action was to try to get a CS student to write their programs. The professional programmers with a MIS background would always take 2 to 3 times as long to write code, and it would be an act of kindness to even call it spaghetti code. Their code also tends to have a higher than average bug count, be filled with code that does do what they think it does, contain lots of kludges to get the results they want, and would basically need to be rewritten due to it being a the programming equivalent of a rat's nest.
However, I think I know the reason for your point of view. Although I've meet very few MIS people that can really program, I've also meet very few CS people that understand, and are willing to except without lengthy disagreement, the needs of business people. And quite a few that will quite hostile to business needs as well. And it's probably dealing with the arguments of "Why do you even need that?", "Why do we need to do it that way?" or even worse "Why do you pointy haired bosses always ask for the dumbest, most worthless things?" that has tainted your perception. That is why you think they "can't apply the shit." Not because they can't, but because they don't understand why you want what you want. While the MIS guys do understand what you want, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that the code they provide it with is buggy worthless crap code.
What about a pointy stick?
Isn't that what DVD John did?
It would be easy enough to design DRM so that the DRM no longer applies after a certain date.
So, all I need to do is set the clock on the player to a future date, and then I can do whatever I want to the "protected" media.
What's that you say? Fix it so the player needs to have an Internet connection to get the time from a "trusted" server? Well, there goes the ability to set/correct the date on a device you own, and, more than likely, the ability to use the media if the player can't talk to the Internet. Even then, you just need to set up a DNS server the directs it to a time server of your own to get around that DRM. And if it's a proprietary service that doesn't use open standards to set the time? Don't worry, someone will reverse engineer that protocol too.
That's why it is a failure of DRM in general. Anything you can do to protect something, someone else can undo. And it's often easy to destroy than build.
The US switching to metric? If I had mod points, I'd mod you funny for that line.
No, I'm not getting North America and the rest of the world confused. You got it confused, by assuming I meant North America in my first post (I didn't mention any region).
You need to learn how to read numbers. 1.2 is 64% of 1.86, that's pretty far off. So, your 1.2 million hasn't unbuckled it's seatbelt yet. You also need to learn how to read reports and articles. That 1.2 million number you quoted was a U.S. sale's estimate by analyst, and the article was saying that Nintendo beat it. It didn't list any actual sales numbers.
Now, I'm going to ask you to do a little math. I know, it's hard, but bare with me.
Taking the number of Wiis reportly sold world wide (4 million) and compare that to reportly world wide sales of PS3 (1.41 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold? 35%
Taking the lower number of Wiis sold in North America (1.86 million) and compare that to PS3 sales in North America (0.86 million), what is the ratio of PS3 to Wiis sold in North America? 46%
Now, some questions about your statements:
How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales? What about 46%?
How does shipping 1/4 as many consoles constitute "getting the console out the fastest"?
Now, a general question:
How does shipping a quarter of the consoles, compared to a competitor that launched after you, and having reports of your console hitting the supply/demand equilibrium point before that competitor good news for a company? How about for a company that wants it's console as the dominate platform?
http://nexgenwars.com/
s tory=11510) by the end of 2006, and there have been no reports of Nintendo falling well short of that number, the numbers I'm quoting a within the ballpark. While you're 1.2 million seems to be parking the car.
and
http://www.vgcharts.org/
The article you quote states "has likely sold over 1.2 million", which to me says "we don't have all the numbers, but do have this figure." It is also the lowest number I've ever seen when talking about Wii sells. Considering that Nintendo stated that they would ship 4 million (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?
I think Sony should get points for getting the console out the fastest of any of the current-gen/formely new-gen launches
WTF? Sony has shipped 1 million, Nintendo has sold about 4 million and launched after the PS3! Sony didn't get the "console out the fastest". They have shipped less consoles and have already hit the supply roughly equaling demand point, then either the Wii or 360. That isn't good news for Sony.
Anything else anyone says is just fanboys complaining they can't get their hands on their favorite new toy.
Sounds like a fanboy trying to rationalize why his favorite console is collecting dust on store shelves less then two months after launch.
http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/tystudio/tyserve r.shtml
Just need a hacked TiVo to get it up and running. If you don't have a hacked TiVo, see http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-sa1.htm for upgrading your series 1 TiVo.
And I've been pulling shows off my Series 1 TiVo for years now too. What's your point?
Your conclusion that water isn't wet is correct. However, you are wrong about it making other things wet. What actually happens is that water absorbs other objects dryness, thus giving the appearance of making them wet.
CRTs produce a better picture than Plasma, CRTs just take up much more space. Even if Plasma was cheaper than CRT, I'd still have bought my Mits Diamond RPCRT.
remind them that gravity is just a theory too
Gravity isn't a theory, it is a force. And it's what causes gravity that is a theory. So, while gravitional force is working okay, the theory of what causes it is just a theory. And a theory is, by definition, unproven and could be wrong.
Back in late 2001 to early 2002 I was doing a lot of travelling. The company I worked for would send me out on short notice, so I could only book my flights on short notice and one-way (since I would never know if they'd send me somewhere else before returning home.) I started noticing I was always getting selected for the "random" checks. The first couple of times, I didn't think about it, with it being so soon after 9/11. However, after about my third flight, it starting getting really annoying. So, I started to keep track of the number of "random" security check points and the number of times I was stop.
There are actually quite of few places for these "random" security check points. Besides at the gate or at the baggage check-in counter, there is also a check when returning a rental car! So, keep in mind that I am including the car rental return in these checks.
Also, keep in mind that I am a white male with an "all American" name. So, I was not being "randomly" selected due to racial profiling.
I was "randomly" selected at 28 out of 32 security check points. 28 out of 32! If that's random, then I sure wish I had been playing the lotto!
The real reason was one-way flights on short notice. Which proves that there is some logic (although that logic may be flawed) behind the selections. Which, in turn, made their insistance that it was "random" exceptionally annoying. I was actually more annoyed at the term "random" than I was with being searched.
Dunno, but IMHO, i think if you like RPG games you should use the PS2...
Personally, I've found that console RPG are lacking in depth. Compare them even to Ultima and Bard's Tale (back in the olden times of C=64s and Apple IIs), and they still fall just a little short. Now, compare them to Baldur's Gate I or II on the PC, and consoles ain't go nothing.
You sir, have evidently never been on X-Box Live. You'll never find a more wretched hive of foul-mouthed prepubescents.
Recently, a friend of mine said he was thinking of buying an X-Box 360. He wanted it because of the camera attachment being used in games, so he can see the other players. He thought it was cool.
My response: "I've played on Live with all the 13 year olds cussing in my ear. I don't think I want to see them."
Maybe AT&T has decided to start throttling the bandwidth based on destination and who's paid them their protecti... er... double tax.. er... rightful usage fees.
When you constently upgrade your video card, trying to keep your main game machine in the race for the highest FPS, you'll have plenty of old GeForce cards lying around. So, it basically will cost you nothing to put an old card in a new server. At least, that's how some of my servers got GeForce cards.
Spotted on November 27 2004, VD 17 was swiftly identified as rock that potentially crossed Earth's orbit, with a 1 in 3,000 risk of collision on May 4 2102.
Further observations and calculations have prompted the risk on that day to be upgraded to "a bit less than 1 in 1,000," said NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) expert David Morrison in an emailed circular.
Its odds of striking the Earth were "upgraded".
1) Is that really an "upgrade" for us?
2) Zonk still could have been more clear in his editing.
Does this mean that there are more people waiting in WoW server queues, than actually playing SWG?
In theory. Or it gets tossed out as "bad data", equipment/measurement anomaly/error, or just out right ignored, because it doesn't fit into the pet theories of a bunch of professors trying to protect/justify their research grant.
Scientific process is a wonderful thing, as long as human politics don't get in the way.
But, the picture isn't sharper, it actually degraded with extra noise. I suggest you turn the "Sharpness" all the way down on your TV, and leave it there for a month. At first, the image will look "soft" and not as "crisp", however it will be free of the noise that is distorting the image. After your eyes adjust to watching TV without this added distortion, you'll realize that the "Sharpness" adjustment should have never been added to TVs in the first place.
Also, the "brightness" adjustment actually controls the peak black level (how black black is), and that "contrast" controls peak white level (how white white is). Both of these adjustments proper settings are no where near where they should be, when you pull a TV out of the box. They are preset for what "looks good" under the fluorescent lighting in stores, not your living room.
I bought a copy of Video Essentials, and have been adjusting my sets with it, and the results are amazing. Neighbors, that had better sets then the one I use to have in my living room, would ask how I got my cheap, low end set to look better than their higher end sets.
Trust me, get a hold of a DVD like V.E. and adjust that Wal-mart set of yours. You'll discover two things. First, that Wal-mart set is cheap for a reason (It won't hold black level, and color/tint won't set even close to correct.) And second, after adjustment, it will look better than name brand TVs out of the box.
Yes, it is just you.
I'm probably going to get it for responding to "egg troll", but anyway...
Yeah, they own the pipes, but they are already charging people for the data being sent across it. If you make a long distance phone call, lets say, to your grandmother, would it be fair for the phone company to charge both you and grandma for the call? What about if they charge you for placing the call, and then charged grandma extra if she wants the sound of her voice at normal volume, instead of restricted to 10% volume?
Content providers pay a huge amount in connectivity already (I've worked for some, and have seen the bills) and my internet access at home isn't what I'd call cheap either (~$50/month). The backbone providers get their money from the connection providers that the content providers and users, like you and I, buy bandwidth from. So, they are already being paid for the traffic going across their pipes by the parties involved in the transfer.
I don't know about you, but I personally would prefer not to be double billed.
We have a winner!