"They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained."
Which is nonsense, and only speaks to the author's lack of writing ability. The way I read it is "I can't concretely explain my opinions, so rather than improve my writing skills, I'll blame the reader for not understanding my oh-so-deep and complex ramblings."
At the core of a good writer is the ability to take those "swirling ideas", and write them down in a manner that most people can easily understand. A product review isn't, and shouldn't be, abstract art - it should clearly and concisely explain the pros and cons of the product in question.
Nonsense. It gives responsible parents additional tools to help them. It's not a *replacement* for parenting, it's a *resource* to help parents monitor what their kids are playing.
I'm sure plenty of people will respond with "I don't want a swiss army knife, I want a game machine."
What they don't understand is that CD audio/DVD functionality/Online capability is "More". Joe Sixpack likes "More". Mr. 6P goes to Best Buy to buy a console. He doesn't know much about any of them, except he wants to play videogames. He looks at the Gamecube. Plays games. He looks at the Xbox. It plays games too. And you can store your music on it. And you can play DVDs (with optional remote, natch). And you can play online (with Xbox Live subscription).
In other words "More". "More" is good. "More" is worth an extra $50 to a lot of people.
Until Nintendo wakes up and realizes that their NES/SNES model is no longer working, and that people do indeed want "More", they're going to play second fiddle to those corporations that realize a device that only plays games isn't going to cut it any longer with the unwashed masses.
Nonsense. My father is a perfect example of someone who has both. He *loves* his job as an optometrist. He gets in early, and works late. It's not because he's a workaholic or becamse he has a ton of debt. He genuinely loves his job.
He also loves his family - despite his long hours, he had time to coach my basketball, soccer, and baseball teams (and did the same with my younger brother and sister).
So don't tell me that it's not possible to live the "American Dream" and work a job you love simultaneously.
What's your definition of "a significant minority"? Should any Joe Sixpack with an opinion be allowed to portray it as fact?
That's one of my biggest gripes with our post-modern society and it's "all opinions are equally valid" nonsense. Yes, everyone is welcome to their opinion. But they are *not* all worthwhile. If you had cancer and needed treatment, what opinion are you going to listen to? That of an experienced oncologist, or your little sister (assuming she's not an experienced oncologist)?
If I had mod points, you'd get them. It drives me up the wall with all the idiots who just scream "BAD PARENTING" every time a kid gets out of line. Regulating game/movie/music sales to minors is NOT censorship, and it's NOT a substitute for parenting. It's simply giving RESPONSIBLE parents additional tools to help them raise their children, because unless you plan on keeping your kids locked in their room until they're 18, they are going to have access to things that you as a parent are going to disapprove of. It has nothing to do with being a good parent - it's ridiculous to assume parents can monitor their kids 24/7, and GOOD parents need every bit of help they can get.
Random anecdote... this past weekend there were 5 kids at my house under the age of 15. They didn't touch the Dreamcast or the PS2. They asked me to hook up my ancient Atari 5200 to play Donkey Kong and Pitfall.
Yep. If these are legitimate quotes, they've obviously been cherry-picked, and quite possibly led/coerced. I've worked with many kids that age (hundreds of 3rd-6th graders over a six year period), and they simply don't talk like that on average, nor do they have the breadth of knowledge that those kids exhibit. If they're going to make a pop-culture reference, it'll have something to do with Eminem or Paris Hilton, not Mike Tyson or some skateboarding movie from 20 years ago.
No, Aleph One is just the engine, and is incompatible with the original Marathon data files. But, some kind souls have rebuilt the original from scratch - it's called M1A1, and is available at http://orbitalarm.bungie.org/downloads/alephone.ht ml
I doubt those were just homebrews that used Star Wars as a backdrop, as opposed to official Lucasarts games.
Re:The SID (audio) emulation is apparently bad
on
Commodore 64 DTV Hacked
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Hate to reply to my own post, but... this is straight from the designer Jeri's keyboard...
"This problem might relate to the TMode and the LFSR init. Can someone with a bad noise wavform strobe tmode with the 3.3v supply. This will reset the unit and set all registers to 0."
The sound reproduction on some batches are bad. The ones not affected apparently sound just fine. Ones that are labeled "C64" on the stick are ok. *Some* of the ones labeled Commodore 64 are the affected ones. You can tell for sure by launching Winter Games and playing the Hot Dog event. If the drum sounds are indistinct (just a long wave of white noise), yours is affected.
I ordered two from QVC, and unfortunately both were afflicted with the problem. The manufacture date (located on the underside of the stick) were 041108 and 041109.
Slashdot Mirror
"They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained."
Which is nonsense, and only speaks to the author's lack of writing ability. The way I read it is "I can't concretely explain my opinions, so rather than improve my writing skills, I'll blame the reader for not understanding my oh-so-deep and complex ramblings."
At the core of a good writer is the ability to take those "swirling ideas", and write them down in a manner that most people can easily understand. A product review isn't, and shouldn't be, abstract art - it should clearly and concisely explain the pros and cons of the product in question.
Don't forget "weird"
Nonsense. It gives responsible parents additional tools to help them. It's not a *replacement* for parenting, it's a *resource* to help parents monitor what their kids are playing.
Agreed - the GC controller in particular is way too small for my largish hands.
When you have over $50B in the bank, who gives a shit?
I'm sure plenty of people will respond with "I don't want a swiss army knife, I want a game machine."
What they don't understand is that CD audio/DVD functionality/Online capability is "More". Joe Sixpack likes "More". Mr. 6P goes to Best Buy to buy a console. He doesn't know much about any of them, except he wants to play videogames. He looks at the Gamecube. Plays games. He looks at the Xbox. It plays games too. And you can store your music on it. And you can play DVDs (with optional remote, natch). And you can play online (with Xbox Live subscription).
In other words "More". "More" is good. "More" is worth an extra $50 to a lot of people.
Until Nintendo wakes up and realizes that their NES/SNES model is no longer working, and that people do indeed want "More", they're going to play second fiddle to those corporations that realize a device that only plays games isn't going to cut it any longer with the unwashed masses.
Nonsense. My father is a perfect example of someone who has both. He *loves* his job as an optometrist. He gets in early, and works late. It's not because he's a workaholic or becamse he has a ton of debt. He genuinely loves his job.
He also loves his family - despite his long hours, he had time to coach my basketball, soccer, and baseball teams (and did the same with my younger brother and sister).
So don't tell me that it's not possible to live the "American Dream" and work a job you love simultaneously.
You complain about Americans being anti-intellectual, yet you can't capitalize correctly or even form a sentence with proper punctionation. Amazing.
What's your definition of "a significant minority"? Should any Joe Sixpack with an opinion be allowed to portray it as fact?
That's one of my biggest gripes with our post-modern society and it's "all opinions are equally valid" nonsense. Yes, everyone is welcome to their opinion. But they are *not* all worthwhile. If you had cancer and needed treatment, what opinion are you going to listen to? That of an experienced oncologist, or your little sister (assuming she's not an experienced oncologist)?
" wow your some kind of idiot or something." ...says the person who cannot distinguish between "your" and "you're"
If I had mod points, you'd get them. It drives me up the wall with all the idiots who just scream "BAD PARENTING" every time a kid gets out of line. Regulating game/movie/music sales to minors is NOT censorship, and it's NOT a substitute for parenting. It's simply giving RESPONSIBLE parents additional tools to help them raise their children, because unless you plan on keeping your kids locked in their room until they're 18, they are going to have access to things that you as a parent are going to disapprove of. It has nothing to do with being a good parent - it's ridiculous to assume parents can monitor their kids 24/7, and GOOD parents need every bit of help they can get.
The Virtual Boy was "innovative" as well... The DS's touch screen hasn't proven to be anything more than a gimmick yet.
The General is a classic - the train wreck in particular is still spectacular.
Random anecdote... this past weekend there were 5 kids at my house under the age of 15. They didn't touch the Dreamcast or the PS2. They asked me to hook up my ancient Atari 5200 to play Donkey Kong and Pitfall.
Yep. If these are legitimate quotes, they've obviously been cherry-picked, and quite possibly led/coerced. I've worked with many kids that age (hundreds of 3rd-6th graders over a six year period), and they simply don't talk like that on average, nor do they have the breadth of knowledge that those kids exhibit. If they're going to make a pop-culture reference, it'll have something to do with Eminem or Paris Hilton, not Mike Tyson or some skateboarding movie from 20 years ago.
No, Aleph One is just the engine, and is incompatible with the original Marathon data files. But, some kind souls have rebuilt the original from scratch - it's called M1A1, and is available at http://orbitalarm.bungie.org/downloads/alephone.ht ml
Dammit...
http://pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html
It's the second graph
Anecdote != data. Even at it's peak, the Mac didn't account for more than 13% of the market.
http://pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html/
OK, now who is going to make a companion list of what games all these are clones of?
Yeah, but then they'd probably be able to figure out where you keep your porn...
" Am I the only one who loved Tie Fighter?"
Uh, no... it's generally considered to be one of the best games to use the Star Wars franchise...
I doubt those were just homebrews that used Star Wars as a backdrop, as opposed to official Lucasarts games.
Hate to reply to my own post, but... this is straight from the designer Jeri's keyboard...
"This problem might relate to the TMode and the LFSR init. Can someone with a bad noise wavform strobe tmode with the 3.3v supply. This will reset the unit and set all registers to 0."
So that's a possible solution.
Good point. The /. headline makes it sound like people have gotten away with something potentially illegal, but it was *designed* to be hackable.
The sound reproduction on some batches are bad. The ones not affected apparently sound just fine. Ones that are labeled "C64" on the stick are ok. *Some* of the ones labeled Commodore 64 are the affected ones. You can tell for sure by launching Winter Games and playing the Hot Dog event. If the drum sounds are indistinct (just a long wave of white noise), yours is affected.
I ordered two from QVC, and unfortunately both were afflicted with the problem. The manufacture date (located on the underside of the stick) were 041108 and 041109.