A £800 mid-range headless box from Apple would surely hit the sweet spot for quite a lot of people.
That it would. Although those aren't the people that Apple are looking for. If they provide a mid-range headless system, then why would people buy iMacs? A mid-range machine would eat into the (likely very profitable) iMac sales. Those that need more "oomph" than the mini have to buy an iMac -- and what a great value it is! Why look! You get both a computer and a monitor for that price!
And those that absolutely have to have an expandable machine are forced to step up to the Mac Pros, and they certainly aren't cheap. Apple makes you pay dearly for that privilege.
Apple has priced themselves out of the commodity market, and that's exactly their strategy. Macs are seen as chic, cool, and exclusive -- a luxury item. Sure, you can buy this cheap PC that will get the job done, but if you want to look cool while doing it, spend a little more for that Mac and be the envy of all of your friends.* Putting out a box that would compete toe to toe with a PC, which is exactly what an expandable £800 machine would do, would dilute their whole corporate image. They try very hard not to compete with PCs on an apples to apples basis, and that strategy seems to be working very well for them.
Mind you, I'm not defending them. I'm an IT director in an advertising and communications agency where I have to deal with the reality of owning and operating Macs on a daily basis. I'm looking at a desktop refresh in the next 18 months for our art people, and those are the ones that will need expandable machines. A headless desktop priced less than or even similar to an iMac would be a no brainer. Instead, I'm stuck looking at the cost of Mac Pros, which have actually gone up in price over the past year with the introduction of the Nehalem processors. And, unfortunately, we'll buy them because our art directors are exactly the kind of customers that Apple targets. So, while I can't defend their marketing and pricing strategy, I can certainly understand and even respect it.
*Note: I had a very hard time not making the obvious car analogy. I'll let the readers make that analogy on their own.
To be honest, I'd agree that most people won't cancel their pre-orders. That said, I'm a member of a fairly large gaming community that does currently run COD4 and COD5 servers. We had actually been in the pre-planning stages to support MW2 as well. Until this announcement, obviously. Now, it would at least appear that the vast majority of our COD members are indeed canceling their pre-orders and signing the petition. For that matter, I've heard from several members who play our other games who have also canceled their pre-orders. In the end will a few hundred canceled orders make a big difference? Maybe not. But there are most definitely people are are canceling their orders over this. Only time will tell if the community outrage will make a difference on IW's decision here.
WTF is car camping? Sleeping in your car? That's what I do halfway home after a night at the bars when I realize I shouldn't be driving.
My idea of camping generally involves a tent. Preferably set up somewhere nice and pretty away from most modern conveniences other than those we bring with us. All of which are powered by removable batteries for convenience. Why on earth should I bring a solar panel just to charge one device?
That said, Wikipedia is not something I consider essential to a camping trip anyway. Still, my point is, not everybody wants or needs an iPod touch. There is a market for this device, you're just not a part of it.
Because every other encyclopedia out there will provide you with the plug gap for a Ford 5.0? Get real. Encyclopedias never have been fully comprehensive and have always been meant to only provide a user with a broad overview. Or am the only slashdotter who actually remembers the days of the Brittanica?
I'm glad that somebody said it. The Palm app store is, in fact, something new and better than before. It's not like they are preventing him from distributing his app as a denial from Apple would be. Yes, it's a shame that he has to jump through some hoops, but how about we give Palm some time to get the kinks worked out before we get angry.
And even more people are going to be carrying around a cellphone with a video camera. Honestly, aside from the early iPhones, I'm having a hard time thinking of a phone in the last 3 years that didn't have a video camera built in. Additionally, I would imagine that there is a huge overlap between the cellphone owner segment and the iPod owner segment. So, unless you have one of those early iPhones without a video camera, who will this camera feature appeal to again?
Actually, as a recent convert to Vista, I feel I can speak to this a bit. For me, it was quite simple: I ordered another 4GB of RAM for my gaming rig. This was in addition to the 2GB already in there. I obviously wanted to be able to use all 6GB of my RAM, so this of course meant a 64 bit OS. Now, anybody who wants to suggest *nix can stop right there. This is my gaming rig. I use it for games. While I may not be wholly objective in this matter, I don't see that wine can be nearly as good at this as a PC running Windows native.
So anyway, what's a guy to do? XP64 or Vista64? Considering what I've heard about the two, Vista64 seems to have the greatest deal of support and seems to handle legacy 32 bit apps with more grace than XP64. Actually, I haven't heard much good about XP64. Vista it is.
And right there, a simple $50 purchase caused me to convert over to the dark side of windows computing. While Vista certainly has its quirks it gets the job done and I can now use ALL of my RAM.
Lastly, before any *nix trolls feel the need to chime in, I'm very much a right tool, right job kind of guy. I have machines at home running Vista, Ubuntu, OSX, and BeOS (not really the right tool for any job, but it's still there). When I game, I don't want to have to deal with the variables involved with making Linux work. I just want to game and go.
You might find yourself drinking profusely for weeks to forget all about it.
If not a full frontal lobotomy. Seriously, GP, forget about it and simply consider yourself lucky that you never saw it. It's easily one of the worst sci-fi shows I've ever the displeasure of watching.
I agree entirely. I'm sure there are corps out there are are merely a loose association of players who like to play together. I myself am a member of one, but ours is different as it's formed mostly of friends from my TF2/DOD/CSS/COD4 clan. Ours is basically run in the "who's on and who wants to run missions" vein. In fact, it was quite fun tagging along on level 3 missions in my frigate, watching them duke it out with battle cruisers, while I would gain the loyalty point and ISK benefits.
I'm sure there are other good ones out there like ours. You just have to find them.
Actaully, EVE is the first MMO that I've ever gotten into, and I think a lot of it is the skill system for me. I maybe get in 2 - 3 hours a day of good playtime, 4 days a week. So, about 8 - 12 hours a week. It's nice to know that, as long as I keep track of when my skills finish training, I can log in from work, start the new skill, log back out, and not be at all behind in skills as somebody else who started the same day as me.
IMO, EVE really gives a lot to the gamer who has to balance his gaming life with his work and social lives.
Actually, I've been replaying Diablo II on my modern computer and 22" LCD monitor and it's, well, still dark. It's hard to see the enemies at the far ends of the screen and it's easy to miss chests if they don't poke far enough into your light radius.
But then, that's kind of the point. Considering they have numerous items that add +whatever to your light radius, I think that they kind of want you to be scared. It's not quite Doom 3 (ridiculous fuckin' game that was), and you can barely make out enemies at the edges of your light radius, but it does make for great atmosphere.
One interesting thing to note, Diablo II, they manage to do a good job with dynamic, moving shadows behind obstructions as you pass them. But then, this was a 2D game that came out at the beginning of the 3D "revolution" and I'm sure the resource cost was pretty nominal for that. Also, I can't get over how jagged and pixelated everything is in the game. It sure has heck looked better in my mind's eye than on my computer screen.
In any respect, I think all of the Diablo fanboys need to go out and get a new fuckin' hobby. I mean, if you've got nothing better to do but photoshop screen shots for a game you know you'll love and play anyway, you need to get out of the house more. I trust Blizzard to make a very engaging game, as they always do, and trust them to know better than the average gaming nerd just what does and does not make a good game.
Oh, and people are actually gaming at 1280x1024? Eww!
It would have been nice if they had included a comparison against IE 6 as well. I know of several environments (mine included) where IE 6 is still considered the standard browser due to internal application incompatibility with FF or IE 7. The same goes for my previous place of employment. And I'm sure those two environments aren't the only ones, either. I would imagine that there are a lot of enterprise environments that are still stuck on IE 6 for one reason or another.
That was my first thought too. Now I'm glad that I didn't set up a streaming video server to stream the game from the satellite to all the computers in the house. Sounds like I would have been in trouble too. At least my TV is only 27"...
Second time. A few months back there was an article/poll about popular Slashdot memes over the years. Somebody posed a link to Goatse then. I think I might have even modded him up, but that was surely the first time a Goatse post was on topic. Sorry to burst your bubble.:)
However if one hand driving was all that impossible then stick shifts would never have existed. That's why we also learn not to shift while in a corner. Well that and if you're driving the car at it's absolute limits, shifting mid corner will most likely upset the car and cause you to spin.
I'll admit that I drive and talk on the cell sometimes too. And I drive stick, which means that at some point I do run out of hands, but I feel like you do in that I'm probably more attentive than most other drivers on the road. (My mom especially hates to talk to me while I'm driving becuase I constantly divert my attention to something else on the road instead of the conversation.)
As for autocross, I'd very highly recommend it at least once. Even if you're driving your regular vehicle (assuming it's not a truck or van or some other similarly "tippy" vehicle). If nothing else, it will give you a much better feel for how your car behaves at the limits. Some time on an actual road course would be even better, but that gets expensive and you really don't want to take a car out on a road course unless you have the proper safety gear, such as a cage, 5-point harness, and helmet. That's not to say that I haven't done stupid things in my regular car on streets, but once you have one close experience on the streets, that kind of stops. (I experienced brake fade at about 110 MPH while rapidly approaching cars in the same lane. Thankfully, I had an out on the shoulder, but not being able to stop at those speeds is kind of scary.)
OK. I'm rambling. Just be careful and make sure you pay attention. And try to make it out to at least one autocross. Most clubs also host beginner's driver schools which can really teach you a lot as well. It'd be a great way to start.
It's early and I haven't completed my morning intake of caffiene yet, so I'm probably not going to explain this well, but here goes. Making quick turns at 5 MPH in a parking lot is NOT the same as having to quickly swerve at 55 MPH.
1) A "quick" turn in a parking lot is not quick when it happens at 5 MPH and you have time to plan for it. I tend to use one hand in parking lots as well, but I'm going slow enough that I can just use the pressure of my palm against the steering wheel to rotate it that 1 full turn I need to make the turn into a space. It's basic physics... your 2 ton car is moving at a slower rate and so less force is required to make your 2 ton car change directions.
2) I've taken some performance driving courses and also used to do some amature racing. I wasn't great, but I was above average -- I have a couple of trophies on my wall. Anyway, the point is, for proper car control you are taught two things. One: sit close to the wheel. This is something most people don't think about when driving, but the closer you are to the wheel, the further you'll be able to reach around the wheel. IE, my mom sits far enough away in her car that she can only reach to about 9 o'clock with her right arm. I sit close enough that I can reach about 7 o'clock with my right arm. This gives you a greater range of motion with the wheel without having to change hand positions - this leads to better control. The other thing they teach you is to always feed the wheel, keeping both hands on the wheel. One of my instructors was also doctor and he once explain the mechanicals of why this works. Basically, by feeding the wheel and keeping both hands on the wheel, we are doing the majority of the work with our biceps and on most normal people, that's the most fully developed muscle in their arm. Doing the work with that muscle means that we are able to exert more force and also have finer motor control over that muscle. If we just use one hand to steer, then we are using our bicep when we steer into our body, but when we steer away from our body, we are using our triceps to pull the wheel back down. The tricep is less developed and we therefore have less control when pulling the wheel in that direction. While, this doesn't make a lot of difference at parking lot speeds where little force is needed to turn the wheel, it does make a difference in being able to maintain proper control of a vehicle at 55 MPH.
So, yes, I can fathom how it is done, and I also know exactly why you have less control over the steering wheel of a car when only using one hand. Especially if, like most people, you sit about a foot further away from the wheel than is optimal. In short, if you think that you can maintain just as good of control with one hand as somebody else using two, then you are just as foolish and dangerous as all the other idiots out there who honestly think that talking on the phone while driving doesn't impair their abilities at all.
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A £800 mid-range headless box from Apple would surely hit the sweet spot for quite a lot of people.
That it would. Although those aren't the people that Apple are looking for. If they provide a mid-range headless system, then why would people buy iMacs? A mid-range machine would eat into the (likely very profitable) iMac sales. Those that need more "oomph" than the mini have to buy an iMac -- and what a great value it is! Why look! You get both a computer and a monitor for that price!
And those that absolutely have to have an expandable machine are forced to step up to the Mac Pros, and they certainly aren't cheap. Apple makes you pay dearly for that privilege.
Apple has priced themselves out of the commodity market, and that's exactly their strategy. Macs are seen as chic, cool, and exclusive -- a luxury item. Sure, you can buy this cheap PC that will get the job done, but if you want to look cool while doing it, spend a little more for that Mac and be the envy of all of your friends.* Putting out a box that would compete toe to toe with a PC, which is exactly what an expandable £800 machine would do, would dilute their whole corporate image. They try very hard not to compete with PCs on an apples to apples basis, and that strategy seems to be working very well for them.
Mind you, I'm not defending them. I'm an IT director in an advertising and communications agency where I have to deal with the reality of owning and operating Macs on a daily basis. I'm looking at a desktop refresh in the next 18 months for our art people, and those are the ones that will need expandable machines. A headless desktop priced less than or even similar to an iMac would be a no brainer. Instead, I'm stuck looking at the cost of Mac Pros, which have actually gone up in price over the past year with the introduction of the Nehalem processors. And, unfortunately, we'll buy them because our art directors are exactly the kind of customers that Apple targets. So, while I can't defend their marketing and pricing strategy, I can certainly understand and even respect it.
*Note: I had a very hard time not making the obvious car analogy. I'll let the readers make that analogy on their own.
To be honest, I'd agree that most people won't cancel their pre-orders. That said, I'm a member of a fairly large gaming community that does currently run COD4 and COD5 servers. We had actually been in the pre-planning stages to support MW2 as well. Until this announcement, obviously. Now, it would at least appear that the vast majority of our COD members are indeed canceling their pre-orders and signing the petition. For that matter, I've heard from several members who play our other games who have also canceled their pre-orders. In the end will a few hundred canceled orders make a big difference? Maybe not. But there are most definitely people are are canceling their orders over this. Only time will tell if the community outrage will make a difference on IW's decision here.
WTF is car camping? Sleeping in your car? That's what I do halfway home after a night at the bars when I realize I shouldn't be driving.
My idea of camping generally involves a tent. Preferably set up somewhere nice and pretty away from most modern conveniences other than those we bring with us. All of which are powered by removable batteries for convenience. Why on earth should I bring a solar panel just to charge one device?
That said, Wikipedia is not something I consider essential to a camping trip anyway. Still, my point is, not everybody wants or needs an iPod touch. There is a market for this device, you're just not a part of it.
Because every other encyclopedia out there will provide you with the plug gap for a Ford 5.0? Get real. Encyclopedias never have been fully comprehensive and have always been meant to only provide a user with a broad overview. Or am the only slashdotter who actually remembers the days of the Brittanica?
This is the internet. You're allowed to say fuck here.
Can you not still use HotSync to install apps on the Pre?
I'm glad that somebody said it. The Palm app store is, in fact, something new and better than before. It's not like they are preventing him from distributing his app as a denial from Apple would be. Yes, it's a shame that he has to jump through some hoops, but how about we give Palm some time to get the kinks worked out before we get angry.
And even more people are going to be carrying around a cellphone with a video camera. Honestly, aside from the early iPhones, I'm having a hard time thinking of a phone in the last 3 years that didn't have a video camera built in. Additionally, I would imagine that there is a huge overlap between the cellphone owner segment and the iPod owner segment. So, unless you have one of those early iPhones without a video camera, who will this camera feature appeal to again?
Actually, as a recent convert to Vista, I feel I can speak to this a bit. For me, it was quite simple: I ordered another 4GB of RAM for my gaming rig. This was in addition to the 2GB already in there. I obviously wanted to be able to use all 6GB of my RAM, so this of course meant a 64 bit OS. Now, anybody who wants to suggest *nix can stop right there. This is my gaming rig. I use it for games. While I may not be wholly objective in this matter, I don't see that wine can be nearly as good at this as a PC running Windows native.
So anyway, what's a guy to do? XP64 or Vista64? Considering what I've heard about the two, Vista64 seems to have the greatest deal of support and seems to handle legacy 32 bit apps with more grace than XP64. Actually, I haven't heard much good about XP64. Vista it is.
And right there, a simple $50 purchase caused me to convert over to the dark side of windows computing. While Vista certainly has its quirks it gets the job done and I can now use ALL of my RAM.
Lastly, before any *nix trolls feel the need to chime in, I'm very much a right tool, right job kind of guy. I have machines at home running Vista, Ubuntu, OSX, and BeOS (not really the right tool for any job, but it's still there). When I game, I don't want to have to deal with the variables involved with making Linux work. I just want to game and go.
Ugh. Now you've done it. Now we'll get to hear the Linux folks wine about games some more...
Which is why they removed the numerical value for karma, I'm guessing...
Actually, there is mining in one of the expansion packs. I can't remember which one, though. It's been a year since I've played it.
I'm not sure which is sadder. The fact that you're referencing Eve Online here on /. Or the fact that I know you're referencing Eve Online.
You might find yourself drinking profusely for weeks to forget all about it.
If not a full frontal lobotomy. Seriously, GP, forget about it and simply consider yourself lucky that you never saw it. It's easily one of the worst sci-fi shows I've ever the displeasure of watching.
I agree entirely. I'm sure there are corps out there are are merely a loose association of players who like to play together. I myself am a member of one, but ours is different as it's formed mostly of friends from my TF2/DOD/CSS/COD4 clan. Ours is basically run in the "who's on and who wants to run missions" vein. In fact, it was quite fun tagging along on level 3 missions in my frigate, watching them duke it out with battle cruisers, while I would gain the loyalty point and ISK benefits.
I'm sure there are other good ones out there like ours. You just have to find them.
Actaully, EVE is the first MMO that I've ever gotten into, and I think a lot of it is the skill system for me. I maybe get in 2 - 3 hours a day of good playtime, 4 days a week. So, about 8 - 12 hours a week. It's nice to know that, as long as I keep track of when my skills finish training, I can log in from work, start the new skill, log back out, and not be at all behind in skills as somebody else who started the same day as me.
IMO, EVE really gives a lot to the gamer who has to balance his gaming life with his work and social lives.
Actually, I've been replaying Diablo II on my modern computer and 22" LCD monitor and it's, well, still dark. It's hard to see the enemies at the far ends of the screen and it's easy to miss chests if they don't poke far enough into your light radius.
But then, that's kind of the point. Considering they have numerous items that add +whatever to your light radius, I think that they kind of want you to be scared. It's not quite Doom 3 (ridiculous fuckin' game that was), and you can barely make out enemies at the edges of your light radius, but it does make for great atmosphere.
One interesting thing to note, Diablo II, they manage to do a good job with dynamic, moving shadows behind obstructions as you pass them. But then, this was a 2D game that came out at the beginning of the 3D "revolution" and I'm sure the resource cost was pretty nominal for that. Also, I can't get over how jagged and pixelated everything is in the game. It sure has heck looked better in my mind's eye than on my computer screen.
In any respect, I think all of the Diablo fanboys need to go out and get a new fuckin' hobby. I mean, if you've got nothing better to do but photoshop screen shots for a game you know you'll love and play anyway, you need to get out of the house more. I trust Blizzard to make a very engaging game, as they always do, and trust them to know better than the average gaming nerd just what does and does not make a good game.
Oh, and people are actually gaming at 1280x1024? Eww!
I wonder how much it will cost the general public once the technology matures. An arm and a leg?
Best. Analogy. Ever. Mod parent up.
It would have been nice if they had included a comparison against IE 6 as well. I know of several environments (mine included) where IE 6 is still considered the standard browser due to internal application incompatibility with FF or IE 7. The same goes for my previous place of employment. And I'm sure those two environments aren't the only ones, either. I would imagine that there are a lot of enterprise environments that are still stuck on IE 6 for one reason or another.
Actually, we'd just DVR it on our MythTV boxes and then replay it later while skipping the commercials altogether. And you call yourself a geek...
That was my first thought too. Now I'm glad that I didn't set up a streaming video server to stream the game from the satellite to all the computers in the house. Sounds like I would have been in trouble too. At least my TV is only 27"...
Second time. A few months back there was an article/poll about popular Slashdot memes over the years. Somebody posed a link to Goatse then. I think I might have even modded him up, but that was surely the first time a Goatse post was on topic. Sorry to burst your bubble. :)
I'll admit that I drive and talk on the cell sometimes too. And I drive stick, which means that at some point I do run out of hands, but I feel like you do in that I'm probably more attentive than most other drivers on the road. (My mom especially hates to talk to me while I'm driving becuase I constantly divert my attention to something else on the road instead of the conversation.)
As for autocross, I'd very highly recommend it at least once. Even if you're driving your regular vehicle (assuming it's not a truck or van or some other similarly "tippy" vehicle). If nothing else, it will give you a much better feel for how your car behaves at the limits. Some time on an actual road course would be even better, but that gets expensive and you really don't want to take a car out on a road course unless you have the proper safety gear, such as a cage, 5-point harness, and helmet. That's not to say that I haven't done stupid things in my regular car on streets, but once you have one close experience on the streets, that kind of stops. (I experienced brake fade at about 110 MPH while rapidly approaching cars in the same lane. Thankfully, I had an out on the shoulder, but not being able to stop at those speeds is kind of scary.)
OK. I'm rambling. Just be careful and make sure you pay attention. And try to make it out to at least one autocross. Most clubs also host beginner's driver schools which can really teach you a lot as well. It'd be a great way to start.
It's early and I haven't completed my morning intake of caffiene yet, so I'm probably not going to explain this well, but here goes. Making quick turns at 5 MPH in a parking lot is NOT the same as having to quickly swerve at 55 MPH.
1) A "quick" turn in a parking lot is not quick when it happens at 5 MPH and you have time to plan for it. I tend to use one hand in parking lots as well, but I'm going slow enough that I can just use the pressure of my palm against the steering wheel to rotate it that 1 full turn I need to make the turn into a space. It's basic physics... your 2 ton car is moving at a slower rate and so less force is required to make your 2 ton car change directions.
2) I've taken some performance driving courses and also used to do some amature racing. I wasn't great, but I was above average -- I have a couple of trophies on my wall. Anyway, the point is, for proper car control you are taught two things. One: sit close to the wheel. This is something most people don't think about when driving, but the closer you are to the wheel, the further you'll be able to reach around the wheel. IE, my mom sits far enough away in her car that she can only reach to about 9 o'clock with her right arm. I sit close enough that I can reach about 7 o'clock with my right arm. This gives you a greater range of motion with the wheel without having to change hand positions - this leads to better control. The other thing they teach you is to always feed the wheel, keeping both hands on the wheel. One of my instructors was also doctor and he once explain the mechanicals of why this works. Basically, by feeding the wheel and keeping both hands on the wheel, we are doing the majority of the work with our biceps and on most normal people, that's the most fully developed muscle in their arm. Doing the work with that muscle means that we are able to exert more force and also have finer motor control over that muscle. If we just use one hand to steer, then we are using our bicep when we steer into our body, but when we steer away from our body, we are using our triceps to pull the wheel back down. The tricep is less developed and we therefore have less control when pulling the wheel in that direction. While, this doesn't make a lot of difference at parking lot speeds where little force is needed to turn the wheel, it does make a difference in being able to maintain proper control of a vehicle at 55 MPH.
So, yes, I can fathom how it is done, and I also know exactly why you have less control over the steering wheel of a car when only using one hand. Especially if, like most people, you sit about a foot further away from the wheel than is optimal. In short, if you think that you can maintain just as good of control with one hand as somebody else using two, then you are just as foolish and dangerous as all the other idiots out there who honestly think that talking on the phone while driving doesn't impair their abilities at all.