SideTrack lets you assign different functions to trackpad tap vs. button press. I've got my tap assigned to regular mouse click and button press assigned to right click. Of course, some people find this annoying too...
I'll give that a try. I'm use to tapping the trackpad for the mouse click, so using the mouse button as a right click might actually make the game playable without an external mouse.
Definitely a lot better than some weird mouse + key_modifier combination.
...that you can use any USB or Bluetooth (if your computer is equipped) mouse or input device on earth, for as little as $5,
The problem I have with that is that it's not always convenient to lug around another device like an external mouse with my iBook. And is even less convenient to plug it in and use it - for example while I'm carpooling with people on the way to work.
Have you ever tried to play WarCraft 3 without 2 buttons? As far as I can tell, it's not even possible.
Nice Mac apologist post though. I'll give you an F for open mindedness.
more to do with differentiating the apple than anything else.
I think they should include a second button because I can't even figure out how to play WarCraft 3 on my iBook without plugging in an external, 2 button mouse. The CTRL+CLICK "trick" doesn't work. And would be an extremely annoying way to play the game anyway. Does anyone know? Seriously, I'm asking. There have been a few times where I've been stuck without my external mouse and have wanted to fire up a quick game of WC3 (or StarCraft) to kill the time but I can't play the game without a second mouse button.
Leo was excellent in what he did. Actually, Pat wasn't half bad either.
I completely agree except I think Pat was excellent as well. He was a little more serious and low key which I thought was a good balance to Leo's often highly upbeat and comical style.
I hate what the've done to TSS recently. The guy they added to replace Pat just after the LA move - Alex - actually worked pretty well with Kevin Rose, once you got used to his style, I guess, but they got rid of him too. What's the story on that, BTW? It was very sudden. And now Kevin Rose has taken a back seat.
I agree there too. I warmed up to Alex pretty quick. He has a blog that I follow but he doesn't update it all that much. I liked Alex enough that I wouldn't have wanted to see him go completely away... but I still would have given anything to have the old 90 minute TSS back with Leo and Patrick.
In any case, I absolutely HATE The other Kevin and Chi-Lan. They're horrible at what they've been tasked to do.
No doubt. I almost cried when TSS came back from Thanksgiving break and I saw that the new hosts were some teeny-boppy chick and a guy from G4.
I know a lot of people gave up on TechTV long before that, but I held out longer. But *that* Chi-Lan+Kevin2 thing was the final nail in the coffin for me. I gave the new hosts a chance, but I can safely say that all of G4TechTV sucks now. There's nothing left except Sarah's low cut shirts. But that's just not enough.
Re:Is that really of significance?
on
Inside TechTV/G4
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Bingo. It seems very few people acknowledge this. Leo was one of the few people on TechTV who appeared to actually have some training and experience in live television. Jittery nerds do not make good TV...
Bingo. The part I find "funny" though is all the geek elitists think that just because a person puts on a smile and speaks fluently in a way that normal people can comprehend that the TV Show and/or person is "clueless" or whatever.
I really liked watching Leo and Patrick. I thought they had a nice balance of TV presence and intelligence. I hate all the slashbots that would bash ZDTV/TechTV as being a show for morons. Get over yourselves.
How interesting would it be to watch a completely introverted super nerd with a squeaky voice stumble and stutter every word while he's standing there on live TV staring at his shoe laces because he's too withdrawn to look at the camera.
I liked the format of ZDTV/TechTV... I thought it was interesting and yes, even informative at times.
I don't like what the network has become. G4TechTV or whatever. I believe they are actually just calling it G4TV now because they don't want anything to do with Tech. But I don't hate the network because I'm so full of myself that I can't enjoy watching a "remedial" television show. I hate the network because they have completely gotten rid of everything tech related.
But have you seen the programming lately? It's ALL games. One or two shows about games is cool.. I like a game every now and then and like to hear opinions and stay abreast about the latest games. But holy crap... it's 24/7 video games now. And it's not even interesting to watch. Who wants to watch an hour of video game cut scenes ala Cinematech? Do we really need 3 different shows about video game reviews? Do we really need an entire show dedicated to video game cheat codes?
Re:Since when is this news?
on
Inside TechTV/G4
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Does anyone really care that the calls were scripted/easy/whatever? I know I didn't. Actually the live calls have always been my least favorite part of TechTV. 2 to 3 minutes of complete boredom. You just simply can't answer an "interesting" question in the time they are allotted for live calls.
In reading Dan's article, I was actually surprised to learn that the calls were ever pseudo-live at all. I started watching TechTV back when it was still ZDTV and The Screen Savers was a 90 minute show. Even back then I assumed the live calls were spoon fed. To me it always seemed natural that it would have to be that way. The only way you could take a live call of the cuff would be to just have someone call in and chime in with a 20 second opinion about something like they do on Talk Radio.
1. I don't want to be on a monthly payment plan ($17.99 or something) where I have to get 7 movies in that month in order to be paying less than renting the movies at the video store.
If you don't watch enough movies to make it worth while, then it's not for you.
2. Netflix's commercials annoy me.
What commercials?
...and honestly, putting them into the mail takes longer for me than does going to the video store that's less than two miles away.
How is driving 2 miles to the video store, getting out of your car, dropping the movies into the drop box (or taking them inside), then driving 2 miles back home faster than walking to the end of your drive way and putting a couple of envelopes in the mail while you are out there anyway picking up today's mail?
3. Downloading movies is free. 66 cents each still costs more than downloading them.
Duh. Of course it would be cheaper for me to walk into Walmart and steal a stack of DVD's than it would be to pay for them.
4. They come in a format that is all ready to be played on your computer (if you so desire) instead of having to wait to convert the 4GB to that format yourself....except the downloads are always garbage. "Ripped by [TMZ]" logo plastered on the bottom of the movie I'm trying to watch. Heads bobbing up and down in the aisle of the theater. The sounds quality is muffled and the screen is so dark you can't make out anything. And even if you are only talking about DVD rips, people compress the crap out of their video files to make the downloads faster; but using that much compression makes the video unwatchable.
According to a story on eWeek, AOL has mistakenly suspended a very large number of AOL Instant Messenger (one of the most widely used IM programs) accounts, by mistake.
As opposed to mistakenly locking them out on purpose?
I think it would be cool to setup a Nintendo DS server (if such a thing existed) here in my house on my spare Soekris box. I could stick a miniPCI wireless card in it, hook it up to an antenna that I could mount on my roof, and then host a 24/7 Metroid Prime Wireless LAN party to all the people in my area.
..but they could have made much more if it wasnt for those pirates eh?
Doubtful. I would venture to guess that a lot of people who pirate music wouldn't pay for it anyway. I buy 99% of the songs I listen to. The occasional song I "steal" is a song I never would have paid for anyway.
Unless something has changed drasticly, I would not get any boxed version of Half-life 2. Disregarding every other consideration, you get a far bigger bang for your buck with the Steam/download packages.
If I buy the online version, do I have the ability to download it for life? I still have a working store bought Star Craft CD that is 6 or 7 years old, but my CDR's don't seem to last more than a couple of years. Sometimes they don't even last a year.
Is this just an attempt to ride on the coat tails of the problems in Florida in the last election? (Which by the way were blown WAY out of proportion by the media. Other states had similar voting issues in 2000, but since Florida was the only state that had enough electoral votes to make a difference, the entire state became an election time whipping boy.) Bush clearly won Florida this time around. Ohio was a much closer call.
It does rhyme if you know the rhythm of the original song. The original song was not written in a perfect, metered tempo.
and some point
It's a parody. It's not supposed to have a meaninful point. It's meaningless point, however, is about some loser that hooked up with an ordinary, not so great looking girl. He totally loved her and tried to make her happy by getting all this plastic surgery she wanted. But as soon as she looked great, all these other guys that would never have given her a second look were now wanting to bang her. And being the stupid bitch that she is, she left the guy that loved her for who she was for a bunch of "hot" guys that only wanted her for her new body.
My wife is mostly plastic everything's so fake Her tits are full of saline now they are in perfect place Filled her lips with fat They sucked out of her thighs Her teeth were stained and yellow but now they are pure white
If only I had said no to plastic surgery I would still be with you and you'd still be with me I use to be your world I use to be your man But now I'm just this guy who pays for all your tans
Chorus: I paid for everything But you left me anyway You slapped me in the face You sprayed me with some mace I paid for everything But you left me anyway You slapped me in the face
Everything has changed now There's nothing left that's you You wear a ton of makeup and clothes that are see through It wasn't always this way You use to be a troll But now all men adore you And want to tag your hole
But I know all about you I know who you are You're just a gutter rat who grew up in the park You're just a dirty tramp now using guys for cash I hope someone rapes you so I can have a laugh.
because WASTE networks dont scale very well. these people are trying to create, in effect, one giant network where each node belonges to a (relatively) trusted incividual.
I see. Personally I would rather just have a WASTE network with the people on my Budd List who also have the would-be Gaim WASTE plugin. I don't want or need to transfer files with strangers. Though options ARE good. Too bad we can't accommodate both.
If you're looking for the buddy to buddies of buddies, why not just use WASTE? Doesn't take down GAIM with it and it makes a nice little secure private network.
Why not make a WASTE plugin for Gaim? That's what I have wanted ever since I first heard of WASTE. WASTE file transfers actually work. And they are reasonably secure. And they allow for browsing and transfering of files if the other person isn't there to attend to his computer. Regardless if I use Jabber, Yahoo!, MSN, or AOL, file transfers rarely, if ever, work. (Due to NAT, proxy, and other firewall related issues. But magically, my friends and I are always able to get WASTE transfers to work.)
Is that you can rip out the DRM. I refuse to buy anything that has DRM such that if the company goes under I'm stuck.
I don't like the DRM either. But I did run into this nice little utility which takes care of that. Obvioulsy it would be ideal to not have DRM at all, but unfortunately we live in reality.
Now - if Apple will just start offering lossless downloads on iTMS, I'll actually be a regular customer. I don't mind the relative headache of unDRM'ing the music, but there's nothing I can do to bring the quality back to the original. Also - if iTMS sold lossless quality music, I could unDRM it and then convert it to FLAC/Ogg without losing anything.
yeah, MS wants you to buy another XBox so they lose another $50... what an evil corporation.
Are they still losing money on each console they sell? The cost of electronics constantly goes down. When consoles are designed, this fact is taken into consideration. Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony may lose $X on the first million consoles they ship. Then they break even on the next million. Every console after that has an increasing profit margin.
But that really isn't even the point. They make money by selling games, X-Box live subscriptions, and peripherals. They will gladly trade a $50 loss on the sale of a new console to keep you buying games for the X-Box. And that is still less of a loss to them than it would be to repair your old product. By selling you a new console, at least they get some money back. By fixing your old one, it's 100% money lost.
I'm not suggesting that they are built to fail 1 day after the warranty expires. That's idiotic conspiratorial thinking. I believe it is in MS's best interest to sell you a console that works for at LEAST the life cycle of that generation of consoles, and preferably a few years beyond. During which time you *buy* lots of X-Box games, peripherals, and subscribe to X-Box Live.
But if it does fail after the warranty period, the manufacturer doesn't have much incentive to fix it. Maybe if you mailed photo copies that showed that you buy at least 10 games per month for the last year, and planned on buying 10 games per month for the next 3 years, that would provide them with enough incentive to fix/replace your console. But short of that, the manufacturer would prefer you just buy a new console. As said before, at least then they get some money back even if the consoles haven't hit an age of profit yet.
And lets not forget the whole concept of market share and units shipped. Those numbers are very important to manufacturers for selling advertising and getting other companies to back your product. Why fix thousands of broken consoles if you aren't legally obligated? Many of those people will undoubtedly buy another one which will increase the total number of units sold.
Slashdot Mirror
SideTrack lets you assign different functions to trackpad tap vs. button press. I've got my tap assigned to regular mouse click and button press assigned to right click. Of course, some people find this annoying too...
I'll give that a try. I'm use to tapping the trackpad for the mouse click, so using the mouse button as a right click might actually make the game playable without an external mouse.
Definitely a lot better than some weird mouse + key_modifier combination.
The problem I have with that is that it's not always convenient to lug around another device like an external mouse with my iBook. And is even less convenient to plug it in and use it - for example while I'm carpooling with people on the way to work.
Have you ever tried to play WarCraft 3 without 2 buttons? As far as I can tell, it's not even possible.
Nice Mac apologist post though. I'll give you an F for open mindedness.
more to do with differentiating the apple than anything else.
I think they should include a second button because I can't even figure out how to play WarCraft 3 on my iBook without plugging in an external, 2 button mouse. The CTRL+CLICK "trick" doesn't work. And would be an extremely annoying way to play the game anyway. Does anyone know? Seriously, I'm asking. There have been a few times where I've been stuck without my external mouse and have wanted to fire up a quick game of WC3 (or StarCraft) to kill the time but I can't play the game without a second mouse button.
Oh well, trolls will be trolls... ...and Mac apologists will be Mac apologists.
(I'm a Mac user BTW. But the 1 button mouse is stupid.)
Maybe the blog menace will go away.
Or maybe you could learn to "turn the dial"?
Leo was excellent in what he did. Actually, Pat wasn't half bad either.
... but I still would have given anything to have the old 90 minute TSS back with Leo and Patrick.
I completely agree except I think Pat was excellent as well. He was a little more serious and low key which I thought was a good balance to Leo's often highly upbeat and comical style.
I hate what the've done to TSS recently. The guy they added to replace Pat just after the LA move - Alex - actually worked pretty well with Kevin Rose, once you got used to his style, I guess, but they got rid of him too. What's the story on that, BTW? It was very sudden. And now Kevin Rose has taken a back seat.
I agree there too. I warmed up to Alex pretty quick. He has a blog that I follow but he doesn't update it all that much. I liked Alex enough that I wouldn't have wanted to see him go completely away
In any case, I absolutely HATE The other Kevin and Chi-Lan. They're horrible at what they've been tasked to do.
No doubt. I almost cried when TSS came back from Thanksgiving break and I saw that the new hosts were some teeny-boppy chick and a guy from G4.
I know a lot of people gave up on TechTV long before that, but I held out longer. But *that* Chi-Lan+Kevin2 thing was the final nail in the coffin for me. I gave the new hosts a chance, but I can safely say that all of G4TechTV sucks now. There's nothing left except Sarah's low cut shirts. But that's just not enough.
Bingo. It seems very few people acknowledge this. Leo was one of the few people on TechTV who appeared to actually have some training and experience in live television. Jittery nerds do not make good TV...
... I thought it was interesting and yes, even informative at times.
.. I like a game every now and then and like to hear opinions and stay abreast about the latest games. But holy crap ... it's 24/7 video games now. And it's not even interesting to watch. Who wants to watch an hour of video game cut scenes ala Cinematech? Do we really need 3 different shows about video game reviews? Do we really need an entire show dedicated to video game cheat codes?
Bingo. The part I find "funny" though is all the geek elitists think that just because a person puts on a smile and speaks fluently in a way that normal people can comprehend that the TV Show and/or person is "clueless" or whatever.
I really liked watching Leo and Patrick. I thought they had a nice balance of TV presence and intelligence. I hate all the slashbots that would bash ZDTV/TechTV as being a show for morons. Get over yourselves.
How interesting would it be to watch a completely introverted super nerd with a squeaky voice stumble and stutter every word while he's standing there on live TV staring at his shoe laces because he's too withdrawn to look at the camera.
I liked the format of ZDTV/TechTV
I don't like what the network has become. G4TechTV or whatever. I believe they are actually just calling it G4TV now because they don't want anything to do with Tech. But I don't hate the network because I'm so full of myself that I can't enjoy watching a "remedial" television show. I hate the network because they have completely gotten rid of everything tech related.
But have you seen the programming lately? It's ALL games. One or two shows about games is cool
Does anyone really care that the calls were scripted/easy/whatever? I know I didn't. Actually the live calls have always been my least favorite part of TechTV. 2 to 3 minutes of complete boredom. You just simply can't answer an "interesting" question in the time they are allotted for live calls.
In reading Dan's article, I was actually surprised to learn that the calls were ever pseudo-live at all. I started watching TechTV back when it was still ZDTV and The Screen Savers was a 90 minute show. Even back then I assumed the live calls were spoon fed. To me it always seemed natural that it would have to be that way. The only way you could take a live call of the cuff would be to just have someone call in and chime in with a 20 second opinion about something like they do on Talk Radio.
#!/bin/bash /usr/bin/WhatHeSaid.py
1. I don't want to be on a monthly payment plan ($17.99 or something) where I have to get 7 movies in that month in order to be paying less than renting the movies at the video store.
...and honestly, putting them into the mail takes longer for me than does going to the video store that's less than two miles away.
...except the downloads are always garbage. "Ripped by [TMZ]" logo plastered on the bottom of the movie I'm trying to watch. Heads bobbing up and down in the aisle of the theater. The sounds quality is muffled and the screen is so dark you can't make out anything. And even if you are only talking about DVD rips, people compress the crap out of their video files to make the downloads faster; but using that much compression makes the video unwatchable.
If you don't watch enough movies to make it worth while, then it's not for you.
2. Netflix's commercials annoy me.
What commercials?
How is driving 2 miles to the video store, getting out of your car, dropping the movies into the drop box (or taking them inside), then driving 2 miles back home faster than walking to the end of your drive way and putting a couple of envelopes in the mail while you are out there anyway picking up today's mail?
3. Downloading movies is free. 66 cents each still costs more than downloading them.
Duh. Of course it would be cheaper for me to walk into Walmart and steal a stack of DVD's than it would be to pay for them.
4. They come in a format that is all ready to be played on your computer (if you so desire) instead of having to wait to convert the 4GB to that format yourself.
According to a story on eWeek, AOL has mistakenly suspended a very large number of AOL Instant Messenger (one of the most widely used IM programs) accounts, by mistake.
As opposed to mistakenly locking them out on purpose?
I think it would be cool to setup a Nintendo DS server (if such a thing existed) here in my house on my spare Soekris box. I could stick a miniPCI wireless card in it, hook it up to an antenna that I could mount on my roof, and then host a 24/7 Metroid Prime Wireless LAN party to all the people in my area.
Doubtful. I would venture to guess that a lot of people who pirate music wouldn't pay for it anyway. I buy 99% of the songs I listen to. The occasional song I "steal" is a song I never would have paid for anyway.
It's just a pity that this book is 1 year late.
The book isn't a year late, the review is. I've had this book since February of this year. The date of the book is December 2003.
Unless something has changed drasticly, I would not get any boxed version of Half-life 2. Disregarding every other consideration, you get a far bigger bang for your buck with the Steam/download packages.
If I buy the online version, do I have the ability to download it for life? I still have a working store bought Star Craft CD that is 6 or 7 years old, but my CDR's don't seem to last more than a couple of years. Sometimes they don't even last a year.
I don't really understand the logic of this. Why would you say Bush won Florida, so therefore any evidence of tampering must be irrelevent?
I didn't.
Is this just an attempt to ride on the coat tails of the problems in Florida in the last election? (Which by the way were blown WAY out of proportion by the media. Other states had similar voting issues in 2000, but since Florida was the only state that had enough electoral votes to make a difference, the entire state became an election time whipping boy.) Bush clearly won Florida this time around. Ohio was a much closer call.
Add some rhymes
It does rhyme if you know the rhythm of the original song. The original song was not written in a perfect, metered tempo.
and some point
It's a parody. It's not supposed to have a meaninful point. It's meaningless point, however, is about some loser that hooked up with an ordinary, not so great looking girl. He totally loved her and tried to make her happy by getting all this plastic surgery she wanted. But as soon as she looked great, all these other guys that would never have given her a second look were now wanting to bang her. And being the stupid bitch that she is, she left the guy that loved her for who she was for a bunch of "hot" guys that only wanted her for her new body.
Seemed obvious to me.
Plastic Surgery!
Something I wrote a couple of years back.
To the tune of Blurry by Puddle of Mudd.
(Still a work in progress)
My wife is mostly plastic
everything's so fake
Her tits are full of saline
now they are in perfect place
Filled her lips with fat
They sucked out of her thighs
Her teeth were stained and yellow
but now they are pure white
If only I had said no
to plastic surgery
I would still be with you
and you'd still be with me
I use to be your world
I use to be your man
But now I'm just this guy
who pays for all your tans
Chorus:
I paid for everything
But you left me anyway
You slapped me in the face
You sprayed me with some mace
I paid for everything
But you left me anyway
You slapped me in the face
Everything has changed now
There's nothing left that's you
You wear a ton of makeup and
clothes that are see through
It wasn't always this way
You use to be a troll
But now all men adore you
And want to tag your hole
But I know all about you
I know who you are
You're just a gutter rat
who grew up in the park
You're just a dirty tramp now
using guys for cash
I hope someone rapes you
so I can have a laugh.
because WASTE networks dont scale very well.
these people are trying to create, in effect, one giant network where each node belonges to a (relatively) trusted incividual.
I see. Personally I would rather just have a WASTE network with the people on my Budd List who also have the would-be Gaim WASTE plugin. I don't want or need to transfer files with strangers. Though options ARE good. Too bad we can't accommodate both.
If you're looking for the buddy to buddies of buddies, why not just use WASTE? Doesn't take down GAIM with it and it makes a nice little secure private network.
Why not make a WASTE plugin for Gaim? That's what I have wanted ever since I first heard of WASTE. WASTE file transfers actually work. And they are reasonably secure. And they allow for browsing and transfering of files if the other person isn't there to attend to his computer. Regardless if I use Jabber, Yahoo!, MSN, or AOL, file transfers rarely, if ever, work. (Due to NAT, proxy, and other firewall related issues. But magically, my friends and I are always able to get WASTE transfers to work.)
Fuck Nintendo. I haven't spent a cent on one of their products in about 9 years now. I have no plan on every giving them another cent of my money.
Now that I know Nintendo is pissed off about these "1200 games in one" devices, I just might have to pick one up.
You go girl.
>> Sound impossible?
> No, Just stupid.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Haha.
Ha.
Is that you can rip out the DRM. I refuse to buy anything that has DRM such that if the company goes under I'm stuck.
I don't like the DRM either. But I did run into this nice little utility which takes care of that. Obvioulsy it would be ideal to not have DRM at all, but unfortunately we live in reality.
Now - if Apple will just start offering lossless downloads on iTMS, I'll actually be a regular customer. I don't mind the relative headache of unDRM'ing the music, but there's nothing I can do to bring the quality back to the original. Also - if iTMS sold lossless quality music, I could unDRM it and then convert it to FLAC/Ogg without losing anything.
yeah, MS wants you to buy another XBox so they lose another $50... what an evil corporation.
Are they still losing money on each console they sell? The cost of electronics constantly goes down. When consoles are designed, this fact is taken into consideration. Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony may lose $X on the first million consoles they ship. Then they break even on the next million. Every console after that has an increasing profit margin.
But that really isn't even the point. They make money by selling games, X-Box live subscriptions, and peripherals. They will gladly trade a $50 loss on the sale of a new console to keep you buying games for the X-Box. And that is still less of a loss to them than it would be to repair your old product. By selling you a new console, at least they get some money back. By fixing your old one, it's 100% money lost.
I'm not suggesting that they are built to fail 1 day after the warranty expires. That's idiotic conspiratorial thinking. I believe it is in MS's best interest to sell you a console that works for at LEAST the life cycle of that generation of consoles, and preferably a few years beyond. During which time you *buy* lots of X-Box games, peripherals, and subscribe to X-Box Live.
But if it does fail after the warranty period, the manufacturer doesn't have much incentive to fix it. Maybe if you mailed photo copies that showed that you buy at least 10 games per month for the last year, and planned on buying 10 games per month for the next 3 years, that would provide them with enough incentive to fix/replace your console. But short of that, the manufacturer would prefer you just buy a new console. As said before, at least then they get some money back even if the consoles haven't hit an age of profit yet.
And lets not forget the whole concept of market share and units shipped. Those numbers are very important to manufacturers for selling advertising and getting other companies to back your product. Why fix thousands of broken consoles if you aren't legally obligated? Many of those people will undoubtedly buy another one which will increase the total number of units sold.