This company is looking to legitimize the patent by going after the shady companies which as we all know are destroying the immortal souls of kids everywhere. How can you not love them? They're fighting to keep your kids safe from nipples!
Now they'll have the parents and politicans and whatever on their side, and perhaps somehow make people believe that going along with this patent scheme is great for the moral future of a terrorist-free America... and then there would be no reason not to go after fortune 500 companies which don't much care for lawsuits but have enough money to license any patent, no matter how preposteriorous.
Given that a console costs a fair bit less than even the most basic PC, and is lot easier to look after (no BSOD or GPF on a console - yet)...
The PS2 and 'cube have no hard drive to let games mess with other games, but that's not the case for the xbox. The lord of the rings title was shipped with a game-freezing bug.
Here's my favorite part:
Microsoft's solution to the Xbox cinematic bug is to have users remove The Lord of the Rings from the hard drive, install three other games, and then reinstall The Lord of the Rings.
No word yet on whether Microsoft will send free games to new Xbox owners with less than three other games.
The most important thing for an RPG to have (this is a pet peeve of mine) is short sweet and rare combat. I can't stand those games where you walk two steps and then are forced to fight horrible monsters in a 10 minute battle. And then repeat the process 100 times before getting to the next town. Combat should be rare and quick. It doesn't have to be easy, but I want to either win or lose in about 30-45 seconds tops
Sounds like you're describing Suikoden. The 3rd installment just hit the PS2 a while back, but unfortunately the first two (PSX) are not easily available - #2 routinely fetches $80 on ebay.
Alternatively, Grandia 2 (Dreamcast, PS2 version supposedly not as good) has combat that you actually look forward to because it's FUN - just like a tiny game in and of itself (really difficult to pull off). Combat is also non-random - there are only so many enemies per area entered, and you can actually see them and even try to go around them or attack them from behind to get a free hit.
Given the normal RPG, how many of you would rather have an option to turn the battles of entirely (or get super-strong characters to make combat a 1-round hassle?)
Please don't. Operator overloading is one of those cool features that tend to create write-only software. I don't want the meaning of '+' to be different every time I look at it in someone else's code. And please, don't come up with the string concatenation example.
The meaning can be the same, or different - it depends on the body of the function, not its name. Just like, say, toString() can do what you expect it to - or something else entirely. The language should not be expected to prevent you from defining functions named toString() just because they don't perform the function you think they should. Why should it be any different with operators?
The compiler can determine at compile-time if you're comparing similar types, and error if you're not. Also, it doesn't need to do any run-time type checking to figure out which > to use.
The Java equivalent would return an Object and take two Objects as parameters.
No, the java equivalent would use an interface, probably called "comparable" or somesuch.
You know, I've never felt a need for templates. You're the one controlling what data goes into which data structure, so as long as you're not confused (and not forced to work with people who are) templates aren't necessary.
Oh, and I was thinking of another kind of templates (web pages/content/presentation) when I read the title, but of course we have waay too many of those in Java already.
So, what else is still missing from the language? It seems almost ready to go mainstream.
Given enough resources, large companies can "pollute" these networks with "garbage" (i.e. corrupted songs etc.) that top people's search lists so that it becomes an intensely frustrating thing to find a full, complete, and good quality file.
No problem, since real files work and get voted up while fakes get voted down. Before you know it, the files and IP ranges get negative trust metrics.
Hey... how can the parent comment be "overrated" if it hasn't been moderated by anybody else? Comments should not be allowed to be moderated as "overrated" or "underrated" unless they've been rated something else first.
By the same token, you'd have a hard time making the argument that you like to download files entitled real_slim_shady.mp3 because you like the name, but had no intention of actually getting an Eminem song.
This file exists on my hard drive as a kind of protest, see. I hate people stealing music over P2P, so I have lots of files that seem to be stolen music but are actually a couple of megabytes worth of silence.
If you didn't download my files, you can't tell whether I'm stealing music or protesting the stealing.
Kash n Karry (a redneck we-cant-spell-isnt-it-cute)
Typical elitist attitude. Why shouldn't words be written the way they sound?
The letter 'c' is sometimes used as an 's' and sometimes as a 'k' - both redundant and ambiguous. The letter 's' is sometimes used as a 'z'. Look at "close" and "close" - two different words with different consonants written using the same letter, making the entire spelling the same. WTH? I love languages that have a well defined mapping between textual and aural representation of words (Italian's great). They also make it easier to write text-to-speech and speech-to-text software.
P.S. Moderators: save your points. No need to moderate this as insightful only to have somebody negate it with an off-topic.
So I buy an Xbox, have it connect through a sniffing proxy (a linux box with a modem and a serial nullmodem connection). Then I mod it, do the same. At this point, I should be able to start spoofing Xboxen, with fake or even strategically chosen GUIDs. That asshole that beat me at Q3 3 times last sunday? He better hope his GUID isn't available to me through my proxy.
You probably need to supply an account username/password to log into the service, which means logging on with multiple GUIDs from the same account can easily be detected. If that's the case, you can only do what you propose for $50 a GUID.
I'm not sure about the specifics, but one of the things that really really sucked about SEGA's Phantasy Star Online was that you could only play your saved game on the console you started it on.
The activision unit was not VCS2600 compatible - some of the games were changed and the graphics/gameplay were a little bit off. Oh yes, and it had two huge reset buttons you couldn't help pressing by accident and a d-pad instead of a single fire button (?)
Oh, and is it really the exact same design as an Atari joystick, or does the Avon site show an "Artist's conception"? It's slashdotted so I can't check.
If it really is a VCS2600 clone inside, what would it take to modify it to run -ahem- other 2600 games?
We discussed the reasons instant messaging software doesn't display non-ISO-8859-1 characters a few weeks ago - where are the smart libraries that can figure out font-groups and tell apps that with the current user preferences, they should display encoding such-and-such using this font, and the other encoding using that one? For that matter the same thing is needed for input (key code * encoding = character) - whose responsibility is that?
I know this is a little bit off topic, but think about all the kids/adults kids in India (or any non-ISO-8859-1 country) being unable to use certain apps or even operating systems because key aspects cannot be localized.
So we could use open source software where appropriate, saving the taxpayer a couple of billion dollars (sooner or later it adds up to real money, and all that).
A shame no slashdot readers are fit enough to join the navy.
But seriously... if the costs can be lowered by using OSS, can we influence the choices made before it's too late?
Slashdot Mirror
This company is looking to legitimize the patent by going after the shady companies which as we all know are destroying the immortal souls of kids everywhere. How can you not love them? They're fighting to keep your kids safe from nipples!
Now they'll have the parents and politicans and whatever on their side, and perhaps somehow make people believe that going along with this patent scheme is great for the moral future of a terrorist-free America... and then there would be no reason not to go after fortune 500 companies which don't much care for lawsuits but have enough money to license any patent, no matter how preposteriorous.
the Game Cube, although far from lacking in adult titles (Eternal Darkness was great) is probably the strongest console for kids games.
The Resident Evil series is now gamecube exclusive.
The PS2 and 'cube have no hard drive to let games mess with other games, but that's not the case for the xbox. The lord of the rings title was shipped with a game-freezing bug.
Here's my favorite part:
No word yet on whether Microsoft will send free games to new Xbox owners with less than three other games.
The most important thing for an RPG to have (this is a pet peeve of mine) is short sweet and rare combat. I can't stand those games where you walk two steps and then are forced to fight horrible monsters in a 10 minute battle. And then repeat the process 100 times before getting to the next town. Combat should be rare and quick. It doesn't have to be easy, but I want to either win or lose in about 30-45 seconds tops
Sounds like you're describing Suikoden. The 3rd installment just hit the PS2 a while back, but unfortunately the first two (PSX) are not easily available - #2 routinely fetches $80 on ebay.
Alternatively, Grandia 2 (Dreamcast, PS2 version supposedly not as good) has combat that you actually look forward to because it's FUN - just like a tiny game in and of itself (really difficult to pull off). Combat is also non-random - there are only so many enemies per area entered, and you can actually see them and even try to go around them or attack them from behind to get a free hit.
Given the normal RPG, how many of you would rather have an option to turn the battles of entirely (or get super-strong characters to make combat a 1-round hassle?)
Since they're music-industry prepaid, I can record any (RIAA) music I like legally on them, right?
Please don't. Operator overloading is one of those cool features that tend to create write-only software. I don't want the meaning of '+' to be different every time I look at it in someone else's code. And please, don't come up with the string concatenation example.
The meaning can be the same, or different - it depends on the body of the function, not its name. Just like, say, toString() can do what you expect it to - or something else entirely. The language should not be expected to prevent you from defining functions named toString() just because they don't perform the function you think they should. Why should it be any different with operators?
The compiler can determine at compile-time if you're comparing similar types, and error if you're not. Also, it doesn't need to do any run-time type checking to figure out which > to use.
The Java equivalent would return an Object and take two Objects as parameters.
No, the java equivalent would use an interface, probably called "comparable" or somesuch.
You know, I've never felt a need for templates. You're the one controlling what data goes into which data structure, so as long as you're not confused (and not forced to work with people who are) templates aren't necessary.
Oh, and I was thinking of another kind of templates (web pages/content/presentation) when I read the title, but of course we have waay too many of those in Java already.
So, what else is still missing from the language? It seems almost ready to go mainstream.
Given enough resources, large companies can "pollute" these networks with "garbage" (i.e. corrupted songs etc.) that top people's search lists so that it becomes an intensely frustrating thing to find a full, complete, and good quality file.
No problem, since real files work and get voted up while fakes get voted down. Before you know it, the files and IP ranges get negative trust metrics.
Anything that increases the barrier of entry is a good thing to a huge business competing with many small ones.
Oh, and can I please do one of those soviet russia lines again?
"In Soviet Russia, PCs dispose of YOU!"
Multiple traveling profiles exchange YOU!
Plastics sweeten YOU!
1 length - the distance across 1 hydrogen atom
1 time unit - the time required for a hydrogen nucleus to vibrate once
Are these values completely constant? Whenever somebody tried to convince me that something is always constant, turned out it wasn't.
Are you sure these values haven't changed since the creation of the universe and will not change in the future?
Also: What happens when you can measure these values more accurately? Suddenly all your old measurements are wrong.
Hey... how can the parent comment be "overrated" if it hasn't been moderated by anybody else? Comments should not be allowed to be moderated as "overrated" or "underrated" unless they've been rated something else first.
Unless I have been overrated personally?
when the server-to-server communication is plaintext?
The Phantasy Star pages - all you need to know about the series. There are more PS games than you know about.
By the same token, you'd have a hard time making the argument that you like to download files entitled real_slim_shady.mp3 because you like the name, but had no intention of actually getting an Eminem song.
This file exists on my hard drive as a kind of protest, see. I hate people stealing music over P2P, so I have lots of files that seem to be stolen music but are actually a couple of megabytes worth of silence.
If you didn't download my files, you can't tell whether I'm stealing music or protesting the stealing.
Maybe you can play around with text files to tweak your system's fonts, but most users have neither the technical expertise nor the inclination.
If you release a distro with unreadable font, people don't say "hey, this distribution isn't configured very well". They say "Linux is hard to read".
Oh, and can we please have checkboxes that make it obvious whether they're checked or not?
That way we replace both .doc and .pdf at once.
Kash n Karry (a redneck we-cant-spell-isnt-it-cute)
Typical elitist attitude. Why shouldn't words be written the way they sound?
The letter 'c' is sometimes used as an 's' and sometimes as a 'k' - both redundant and ambiguous. The letter 's' is sometimes used as a 'z'. Look at "close" and "close" - two different words with different consonants written using the same letter, making the entire spelling the same. WTH? I love languages that have a well defined mapping between textual and aural representation of words (Italian's great). They also make it easier to write text-to-speech and speech-to-text software.
P.S. Moderators: save your points. No need to moderate this as insightful only to have somebody negate it with an off-topic.
So I buy an Xbox, have it connect through a sniffing proxy (a linux box with a modem and a serial nullmodem connection). Then I mod it, do the same. At this point, I should be able to start spoofing Xboxen, with fake or even strategically chosen GUIDs. That asshole that beat me at Q3 3 times last sunday? He better hope his GUID isn't available to me through my proxy.
You probably need to supply an account username/password to log into the service, which means logging on with multiple GUIDs from the same account can easily be detected. If that's the case, you can only do what you propose for $50 a GUID.
I'm not sure about the specifics, but one of the things that really really sucked about SEGA's Phantasy Star Online was that you could only play your saved game on the console you started it on.
Personally, I'd like to see this problem go away. I propose unique URLs based on DNA code, but clones might object.
The activision unit was not VCS2600 compatible - some of the games were changed and the graphics/gameplay were a little bit off. Oh yes, and it had two huge reset buttons you couldn't help pressing by accident and a d-pad instead of a single fire button (?)
Oh, and is it really the exact same design as an Atari joystick, or does the Avon site show an "Artist's conception"? It's slashdotted so I can't check.
If it really is a VCS2600 clone inside, what would it take to modify it to run -ahem- other 2600 games?
We discussed the reasons instant messaging software doesn't display non-ISO-8859-1 characters a few weeks ago - where are the smart libraries that can figure out font-groups and tell apps that with the current user preferences, they should display encoding such-and-such using this font, and the other encoding using that one? For that matter the same thing is needed for input (key code * encoding = character) - whose responsibility is that?
I know this is a little bit off topic, but think about all the kids/adults kids in India (or any non-ISO-8859-1 country) being unable to use certain apps or even operating systems because key aspects cannot be localized.
So we could use open source software where appropriate, saving the taxpayer a couple of billion dollars (sooner or later it adds up to real money, and all that).
A shame no slashdot readers are fit enough to join the navy.
But seriously... if the costs can be lowered by using OSS, can we influence the choices made before it's too late?