How many times are we going to see this spiffy site
The site may look spiffy but the user experience is entire unspiffy; that has to be the most awkward scrolling mechanism I've ever come across. It was so frustrating that I even fired up IE to see if there was any improvement. There wasn't.
I'm not saying that the designer wasn't skilled, he just obviously didn't care very much about the user experience - not a very good sign for their product as a whole!
Don't forget there are a few good colleges around here. Among them is RPI, which I recall being one of the first to get a chip going over 1GHz (1.2 GHz if I recall, before it melted).
Oh, so, that's where AMD got their technology from.
...even played semi-professionally for a little bit... However, after hardware advanced too fast for me to be able to afford upgrades, I have pretty much left the gaming scene entirely.
I've heard a lot of good reasons for people moving on from hardcore gaming (getting a life, discovering sex etc) but not being able to afford the equipment isn't one of them.
Surely, if you were playing semi-pro, you would have made enough to a new graphics card every year or whatever?
If the store sells an XBox, it shows that this is a product that sells, and the store orders more units. Microsoft ships them these units and gets money from them in return.
You have a point but, from what I've seen of the specialty stores like Electronics Boutique, there real interest is in getting you to buy games and accessories along with the console. I've heard that the profit on the console is only $20 or something, hardly world it for a sizeable product with a years warranty i.e. possible paperwork and hassle for the store. In a sense, the store too is selling the basic console at a loss in order to smooth the way for future sales. If they see a disproportionate number of people buying Xboxes but not making ancillary purchases, the idea will soon get around that, for whatever reason, the Xbox doesn't offer as rich a harvest as the other consoles (actually, I've heard that this impression has already been growing). So, which console do you think the average manager of a games store is going to tell his staff to push?
All of this, however, is merely a short-term set-back for MS, taking the longer view, they've already won.
No, you're wrong. I'm glad to know that there's at least one user on slashdot that doesn't believe the "income = money loss" myth that everyone else seems to propagate.
No, Wheany is wrong. And his name sounds funny too.
His argument is that the purchase of an Xbox doesn't cost MS money because a)they'll make royalties on the games we can't resist buying and b)simply buying a unit assists MS's effort to build a user base that is attractive to developers.
If, as I suggested to the MS-hostile poster, he uses solely downloaded pirate or homebrew games he won't be giving MS any royalties and certainly less than they'll make on his purchase of the PC version of Halo. Secondly, adding to the Xbox userbase without buying games actually makes their userbase less attractive to developers: if you have one million users who are, on average, only buying, say, two games a year, that's terrible because it suggests that you've captured a particularly thrifty demographic and can expect any future growth in your userbase to spend at more or less the same rate. That sort of rep is death to any console.
The main difference between FIRST and battle bots is that battle bots focusses on money and ratings, while FIRST focuses on educating our nations youth.
Hmmm, I know which one I'd turn up to class for : )
You'll have to pick "best of breed" apps to teach the use and pricipals of, but maybe after they get out of the class room (if that's how you choose the do it), they will branch out on their own. Oh yeah, you'll need a teaching crew, that not only knows what they are doing, but can read/write/speek in many languages.
Good luck with all of that!
Or we could always, just possibly, make the software easier to install in the first place and let the people take it from there.
The guy posting the article link is from the site it's at? Jesus, that story came out about 2 days ago and this guy is pimping his site with. No dignity.
Hey, Mr. First Post, we're all whores in informational maelstorm. And, obviously, for two days no-one else picked up on his article, so, correctly assuming that it would be of interest to the/. submissions editors, he submitted it himself. Bully for him and, anyway, it can't be easy going through life with the name Smelialichu. You try it sometime!
Because I won't under any circumstances buy a Microsoft product
Bully for you but it doesn't change the essense of my question which was about why people didn't buy one (heavily subsidized) Microsoft product instead of waiting for a different MS product to be released.
BTW, those of you who pointed out that FPSs suck without a mouse, good point, should have thought of that myself.
You, however, Moofie, can sit at the back of the class.
The moral of the story is, people waste enormous amounts of time because they don't understand the software tools they have.
I guess that what we really need is for a sense of what computers can do to infiltrate down into mainstream culture. In the West we have something of a headstart, insofar as the average boss's pointy-headedness represents at least some sort of advance on the situation, say, ten years ago.
Most of the world, however, has a long, hard slog in front of it. This isn't helped by the culture of dispowerment that Microsoft promotes under the ingenious guise of empowerment. Open Source software doesn't deliberately disempower it's users as it has no particular motivation for doing so whereas proprietry products essentially want to lock the user in for the longer term.
Where OSS often falls down is in assuming that anyone with an interest in it will already be a hacker. This is just plain wrong, especially when you take the poorer majority of the human race into consideration. They don't have the necessary skills/cultural exposure for OSS or the $$$ for M$ and, therefore, for most of our species computers may as well not exist.
The best thing about Open Source software is that it doesn't lock it's users in.
It's main failing is that it locks them out in the first place by setting the skills bar unnecessarily high.
Why.. Or they hate the damn XBOX controllers? Or they dislike MS (in which case they wouldn't pay for the game anyway, but would love to pirate it.)...
In that case they should cost M$ money by buying an Xbox, mod it and download Halo. You can't really go wrong in terms of a $199 console, especially if you're not tied into playing $50 per game.
And as for the controllers, playing an Xbox while sitting in an armchair in front of our TVs has to to be better then spending further hours hunched in front of our PCs.
Why do you want ALL distros to use it? I use debian because it is complete, yet minimally so. I want my configuration to be done with joe or vi, not pretty menus. This is good for a redhat or mandrake, distros that are geared towards n00bs.
Well, obviously, it should be a choice but, when you get down to it, we're all n00bs outside our specific areas of expertise and most people just don't have time to develop macho,hacker cred.
I may be envisaging too rosy a picture here but, it seems to me that all the people who spend so much time contributing to OSS projects do so because they want to see as many people as possible benefiting from "what computers can be".
It's just plain wrong that, for instance, millions of office workers in poorer countries are laboriously doing by hand tasks that can, with simple, existing tech, be automated. If the only path towards eliminating this waste is an "easy" option from M$ that costs $$$$$, or a free alternative that's too tricky to actually implement, the waste will remain.
I don't think you can assume that just because a fence is there, there was a building there. I'm sure there are fences all around the rocket test range to prevent people from wandering onto it. Looks like they need a wider radius though, if it crashed that close to the edge.
Maybe it's there to stop the kangeroos from escaping.
"Do you believe that all Linux distributions should use such a friendly series of dialog boxes in order to attract more users to Linux?"
God, yes!
The potential of OSS won't be truly realized until it's actually easier to deploy than commercial offerings.
I was particularly impressed by PostNuke's no sweat installation procedure... it made me realize just how much more far-reaching it's effect on society is going to be if society is actually able to use it.
Did anyone else notice that, if you look closely at the right pictures, this thing took out some sort of building, compound?
You can't see it in the amusing but fairly cruddy BBC Real Video clip but it's fairly clear in this reuters shot, you can clearly see the security fencing.
I guess, in the current climate, they're keen not to emphasis this thing's ability to take out man-made structures.
Talk about avoiding awkward subjects! The quite impressive Concorde website manages to not once mention the crash! Even the extensive sections on safety enhancements and the plane's history refer only vaguely to the "August 2000 suspension of service".
Hell, I don't want my favorite artists distracting themselves with this business bullshit, unless being a fighter is part of what they already are, like Ani diFranco or Courtney Love. Life is too short, time too scarce for the few genuinely talented artists we have to go running off on tangents.
This is a battle that we, the consumers, should be fighting. If we decide, en masse, not to play the RIAA's game, what the Hell can they do.
And, remember, if we really want to stop these bastards shagging us, we must always remember that our participation in P2P has to be about growing a new, fairer system, not just getting our hands on free stuff.
16.1"? Why? Whats the point? Aren't laptops supposed to be/portable/? The last thing I want is to carry around a 16.1" diagonal behemoth, I'd much rather keep my 12.1" P2 300, which I can easily fit in my backpack.
Given the incredible convenience those extra inches give while you're actually working, I'd gladly put up with a little extra weight.
I'd like to abandon the desktop but I don't want to have to waste time constantly scrolling.
In any case, how much can a few inches of screen add? Sure, the bottom section of the laptop has to be wider too, but they can mostly do that by redistributing the existing weight.
If somebody brings out a laptop with a 17" screen, I'll buy one.
Well, that's not bad I guess but remember that we're talking about a temporary, short-term job involving autonomy, initiative and self-motivation for a 24 year old middle class guy with, presumably, social and selling skills that made him shine more brightly than the other 700 applicants.
There's also the likelihood that if the concept takes off (and it does seem reasonably sound) that the role of games walker will be McJobbed down to lower pay and longer hours. No doubt Nintendo predicted that the pay and conditions of this novel position would, at least initially, be subject to public attention. Targetting the younger kids and parents demographic as they are, Nintendo have to be ultra-careful about generating any sense that they're taking advantage of kids, especially when some campaigner might use it to draw further attention to the fact that the company take no responsibility for the child labor policies of their Asian parts suppliers.
Incidentally, child labor and inhumane, dangerous working conditions are the big, dirty secret of tech: you can bet that your own computer computer contains its own share of human misery.
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I'm not saying that the designer wasn't skilled, he just obviously didn't care very much about the user experience - not a very good sign for their product as a whole!
Surely, if you were playing semi-pro, you would have made enough to a new graphics card every year or whatever?
All of this, however, is merely a short-term set-back for MS, taking the longer view, they've already won.
His argument is that the purchase of an Xbox doesn't cost MS money because a)they'll make royalties on the games we can't resist buying and b)simply buying a unit assists MS's effort to build a user base that is attractive to developers.
If, as I suggested to the MS-hostile poster, he uses solely downloaded pirate or homebrew games he won't be giving MS any royalties and certainly less than they'll make on his purchase of the PC version of Halo. Secondly, adding to the Xbox userbase without buying games actually makes their userbase less attractive to developers: if you have one million users who are, on average, only buying, say, two games a year, that's terrible because it suggests that you've captured a particularly thrifty demographic and can expect any future growth in your userbase to spend at more or less the same rate. That sort of rep is death to any console.
BTW, those of you who pointed out that FPSs suck without a mouse, good point, should have thought of that myself.
You, however, Moofie, can sit at the back of the class.
Most of the world, however, has a long, hard slog in front of it. This isn't helped by the culture of dispowerment that Microsoft promotes under the ingenious guise of empowerment. Open Source software doesn't deliberately disempower it's users as it has no particular motivation for doing so whereas proprietry products essentially want to lock the user in for the longer term.
Where OSS often falls down is in assuming that anyone with an interest in it will already be a hacker. This is just plain wrong, especially when you take the poorer majority of the human race into consideration. They don't have the necessary skills/cultural exposure for OSS or the $$$ for M$ and, therefore, for most of our species computers may as well not exist.
The best thing about Open Source software is that it doesn't lock it's users in.
It's main failing is that it locks them out in the first place by setting the skills bar unnecessarily high.
And as for the controllers, playing an Xbox while sitting in an armchair in front of our TVs has to to be better then spending further hours hunched in front of our PCs.
I may be envisaging too rosy a picture here but, it seems to me that all the people who spend so much time contributing to OSS projects do so because they want to see as many people as possible benefiting from "what computers can be".
It's just plain wrong that, for instance, millions of office workers in poorer countries are laboriously doing by hand tasks that can, with simple, existing tech, be automated. If the only path towards eliminating this waste is an "easy" option from M$ that costs $$$$$, or a free alternative that's too tricky to actually implement, the waste will remain.
The potential of OSS won't be truly realized until it's actually easier to deploy than commercial offerings.
I was particularly impressed by PostNuke's no sweat installation procedure... it made me realize just how much more far-reaching it's effect on society is going to be if society is actually able to use it.
Did anyone else notice that, if you look closely at the right pictures, this thing took out some sort of building, compound?
You can't see it in the amusing but fairly cruddy BBC Real Video clip but it's fairly clear in this reuters shot, you can clearly see the security fencing.
I guess, in the current climate, they're keen not to emphasis this thing's ability to take out man-made structures.
Talk about avoiding awkward subjects! The quite impressive Concorde website manages to not once mention the crash! Even the extensive sections on safety enhancements and the plane's history refer only vaguely to the "August 2000 suspension of service".
Flyer Beware!
it took the European plane decades to achieve this level of carnage.
Hell, I don't want my favorite artists distracting themselves with this business bullshit, unless being a fighter is part of what they already are, like Ani diFranco or Courtney Love. Life is too short, time too scarce for the few genuinely talented artists we have to go running off on tangents.
This is a battle that we, the consumers, should be fighting. If we decide, en masse, not to play the RIAA's game, what the Hell can they do.
Can I suggest that PeerCast (as discussed on /. earlier) is a very good place to start.
And, remember, if we really want to stop these bastards shagging us, we must always remember that our participation in P2P has to be about growing a new, fairer system, not just getting our hands on free stuff.
In any case, how much can a few inches of screen add? Sure, the bottom section of the laptop has to be wider too, but they can mostly do that by redistributing the existing weight.
If somebody brings out a laptop with a 17" screen, I'll buy one.
There's also the likelihood that if the concept takes off (and it does seem reasonably sound) that the role of games walker will be McJobbed down to lower pay and longer hours. No doubt Nintendo predicted that the pay and conditions of this novel position would, at least initially, be subject to public attention. Targetting the younger kids and parents demographic as they are, Nintendo have to be ultra-careful about generating any sense that they're taking advantage of kids, especially when some campaigner might use it to draw further attention to the fact that the company take no responsibility for the child labor policies of their Asian parts suppliers.
Incidentally, child labor and inhumane, dangerous working conditions are the big, dirty secret of tech: you can bet that your own computer computer contains its own share of human misery.