BeOS has had a Finder database integration from the start (MS is just catching up with something similar)
I assume you're referring to the pseudo-database format of the befs? Very nifty idea, but it's more fakery than most people realize. Using a full-blown rdbms was too performance intensive, so while initially the befs did have an actual relational database, it eventually became lighter code that had a sql-like syntactical interface. Still very nice, I agree, and it'd be nice to see something similar in Linux.
one of the fastest OpenGL implementation on Desktop PC
For limited types of hardware, sure. When I last tried BeOS 4.5 (yes, I never tried 5), I was lucky that my nVidia TNT2 Ultra card was supported in 2D, and forget about 3D. Maybe Be's OpenGL implementation was one of the fastest software rendering implementations, but that can't hold a candle to proper hardware acceleration, and nVidia is currently the king in that area.
The OS was also ported and SUPPORTED on both PPC and Intel x86.
But not the G* PPC processors, sadly. Which meant that the PPC version was essentially dead, and Be was spending all their efforts on the x86 port.
I agree with your assessment of OS X, and I also agree that there are some nice ideas to be had from Be, but I just want to point out that Be was not the pinnacle of GUI or OS design (yeah, sure, it was good, but it had its share of problems, and quite a few of them). It'd be nice to see all the fancy features of Be on an OS with better hardware support, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
First off, considering the fact that he said it's the only console that won't fit on his VCR, nor did he specify what consoles those where, and that the gamecube is a console, it makes sense that I bring it into the equation. He didn't mention it, I did. He left the door open for it to be mentioned, though. Now, if he were trying to fit it into 3cm of space, then no console would fit, not just an XBox. Therefore, it stands to reason that he is not talking about a 3cm space.
Since he didn't mention in his original post whether he was talking about area (width*length) or depth (height), I was bringing up both possibilities. I was also providing my own empirical evidence (to counter his empirical evidence) showing that he is wrong. Had he provided the dimensions of his VCR, that would be one thing. However, since he described it as a "mammoth 1985 VCR", one would assume that it would be larger than a JVC SuperVHS hi-fi VCR made within the last two years. Since the XBox fits just fine on my VCR (the JVC just mentioned), I cannot fathom how it would not fit on a "mammoth" VCR (well, unless it's really old and has a pop-up slot for the tapes, rather than a slot in the front, in which case no console should sit on it).
Nope, your first paragraph goes away, too. They're talking specifically about LCD monitors, and I quote:
Shown above is 8-point font type rendered on LCD screens, magnified to show its structure.
Where does it say that they're rendering on CRTs there? I'm sorry, but your whole post is invalid. Too bad you can't just remove it, or at least edit it. Silly Slashdot.
The only problem I have with the XBox, aside from the expensive low quality DVD remote that you must have (and is somewhat hard to find), is its rather large area. It's the only console that won't fit on my mammoth 1985 VCR:)
Do you mean it won't fit on the VCR because it's too wide or long? Or because there's not enough clearance between the top of the VCR and wherever you keep it? If the former, you're lying. Old VCRs were huge, yet my XBox fits nicely on top of my fairly recent (2 year old) hi-fi VCR. Oh, sure, if you buy one of those tiny VCRs (the ones that aren't much wider than the width of a tape), it'll have problems sitting there. Any other VCR, not a problem. If the latter, again you're lying, because the GameCube is actually taller than the XBox, so if the XBox won't fit, neither will the GameCube.
So, either you're lying or you're lying. Or you're misrepresenting the facts. Which is it?
Games matter. Instead of wasting time, I suggest you go to www.gamespot.com and take a good long look at the list(s) of games of each console, read the unbiased reviews, stare at pictures and movies, and then decide which console is coolest.
You're right, games domatter. However, I disagree with your suggestion for Gamespot as a useful source of information. They are very much biased towards the Playstation 2, to the detriment of both the Gamecube and the XBox. Yes, I know that pretty much any site is going to be biased, but Gamespot takes it to an extreme, to the point where their XBox reviews consistently rate 1.5-3 points lower than reviews on other web sites. Maybe they're just "telling it how it is", but when the reader reviews on Gamespot actually line up well with the editorial reviews of other web sites, you get a little suspicious...
Sadly, I can't really recommend any better place, as most of the major gaming networks have gone the way of the dodo, or at least made most of their content subscription-only. What I do is keep my eye on Blue's News, which is mainly PC gaming but covers console gaming as well. Typically, you'll find links to better reviews than Gamespot reviews at Blue's. Otherwise, go to your local Blockbuster, rent a console and a couple games. Give it a spin for a week for $20 (console and a couple games), see if it's worth spending $300+.
If i remember right, demo xboxes were supposedly overheating because they were in very enlosed cases with little room for air to circulate to cool it off.
More than that, the possibility that those units were overheating was nothing more than speculation. The only units that ever had problems were those running earlier demo discs, and it was announced that the demo discs were bad -- they were built for the XDK box which has twice the memory (for development purposes), rather than the production XBox, and so would often step past the potential memory space of the real XBox (see how the XBox isn't a PC? If it were, it'd use that nice hard drive as virtual memory, but it doesn't because it's not a PC. Oh, sure, a game could implement its own virtual memory handler, but that has to be done on a per-game basis, as with any console...). Thus, software problem, not hardware problem. The possibility of overheating was just Slashdot jerking its collective knee.
My Linux box at work is a PowerMac 7200/75 MHz that gives me snappier performance than my 1200 MHz Athlon running Mandrake at home.
Odd, my PowerMac 7200/120 (running Debian unstable) runs for crap, compared even to my celeryonion 433 (running Debian unstable). Both are positively slow when compared to my 1GHz Athlon running XP. Of course, my anecdotal evidence doesn't beat yours; it's just different anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence there is!
DV may be, but the DVI outputs on video cards are not. The original poster got it wrong as well, though. The DVI output is intended primarily for use with LCD monitors that accept digital input (as opposed to LCD monitors that take a normal analog VGA input and convert to digital for displaying). It has nothing to do with firewire nor HDTV, and is a complete waste of money unless you have a supported LCD monitor or plan on buying one in the next year and a half to two years(standard lifetime for a video card, if you like to keep up with technology).
That said, the Radeon 8500 is not the only card that has DVI outs. Many GeForce 3 cards have it (not all, as many OEMs save money by not adding those components since very few people need it), as well as older GeForce 2 cards, older Radeons, and even older GeForce 256 cards.
also progressive scan DVD players may look decent on one
s/may/will/. Only HD-upgradeable TVs (at a minimum. HD-ready is the same but with an HD tuner) will make use of the progressive-scan features of a progressive-scan DVD player. Otherwise, you're just wasting your money on the player (unless, of course, you're worried about future-proofing your investment, in which case you may as well buy a progressive-scan player if you expect to buy a new HDTV within the next couple years). Regular TVs only do 480i.
IMHO, an HD-upgradeable TV is very much worth it, and at $2000 for the 46" 16:9 Mitsubishi 46809 (I got the 807, but same difference), it's quite affordable. Sure, you don't get an HD tuner in the set, but for a couple hundred $$$ you can have one added. Or you can use your DirectTV tuner, or cable box (in select markets) instead, and not need an HD tuner at all. Plus as you already mentioned, it's great for progressive-scan DVD players (and non-progressive scan DVD players, even), and the latest generation of game consoles have HD support (XBox will do progressive scan natively if your TV supports it, though not all games are 16:9, and it's also capable of doing 720i, 720p, and 1080i once games begin supporting those resolutions; Gamecube requires you to enable progressive scan per game in games that support it; I don't know how the PS2 works). A good investment, and about $1000 less than you're expecting (a $2000 TV will cost you near $2700 once you've added in a base for the TV, tax, and a service contract, but then a $3000 TV will end up costing that much more as well).
For every *nix hacker who switches from Linux or *BSD to OS X there must be dozens of non-unix users becoming unix users via OS X. This will only make more and higher quality developers and applications available on all unix platforms.
You're missing the most important part -- Mac OS X software is not neccessarily going to be any more portable to UNIX than Windows software is, because 99.9% of commercial developers will target the proprietary APIs like Cocoa. For example, Microsoft Office X (for OS X) is no more portable to Linux than Microsoft Microsoft Office XP (for Windows). Just because OS X has a UNIX core doesn't mean it looks like a UNIX at a high enough API level.
Okay, sure, if developers target X, using portable APIs like qt, then maybe your argument would hold. I doubt that will be the case, though.
Yes indeed, especially when it's on nice hardware. It's a wonderful thing to show off Linux with when visitors come over (as opposed to running a matrix screensaver in the root window). And the whole 'look at what we can do with a cute penguin' thing really helps Linux. Yes, some people go for the 'ooh, a penguin' thing as opposed to a 'flying, multi(5)coloured window'. I mean, you can do lots of things with Tux, like make it slide down ice or give it guns, but a picture of a window really doesn't kick it.
This would be the difference between a logo and a mascot. It's fine to have a mascot, but it's usually also a good idea to have a logo if you're a company. For instance, Redhat has their little hat thing which works well as a logo. Microsoft has the Windows flag. Comparing the Windows flag to Linux's Tux is comparing apples to oranges. The flag is not supposed to be personified.
Of course, I guess you could make a case for comparing Clippy to Tux...
It seems to me the patent relates to any interface that changes stylus strokes into text. So wouldn't all PDAs be open to lawsuits since any PDA that does not use a keyboard uses a method of interpreting stylus strokes into text.
I understood the patent to be about using single strokes to represent characters (ie, without lifting the stylus). Other PDAs (Pocket PC machines, for instance) allow you to use multiple strokes, and thus better approximates the alphabet. A little slower writing, and a little more prone to error (well, unless you take the time to configure it properly, and until you get used to it) than graffiti, maybe, but still very nice. And apparently immune to the patent in question.
Of course, web site defacements are pretty trivial compared to other things. How many linux boxes do you think are sitting out there on cable modems, with a default "install everything" redhat install, running BIND? Where do you think all the DDoS kiddies get their bandwidth? Hacked linux boxes on broadband connections. Personally, I'd much rather have a defaced web site, because even though I'd still have to do a reinstall to make sure the system was clean, at least I'd know about it. If instead my box was rooted and used in a DDoS, my only inclination something is wrong would be when I can't check my e-mail or my web browsing was going much slower than usual. Hell, the box could be rooted for months, or even years, and I'd never know. (note: "I" here is the "collective I", not me in particular.) Linux, or any unix for that matter, is much more dangerous when compromised than any Windows box.
what are you that LESKO guy on tv with the bushey eyebrows and the garish purple question mark suit?
I am not Matthew Lesko. I find the guy annoying, and insulting (that's my money he's trying to give away). Regardless, the government is going to subsidize poor people. That can't be helped. However, I would much rather my tax dollars went to putting people through school so that maybe they can eventually become tax payers themselves and take some burden off of me, rather than feeding the crackwhore baby factories through welfare checks. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
The primary problem that causes most convenience stores to go under is the cost of labor. Do you want the minimum wage repealed to fix it? (Note: some people do, I'm not attempting to argue the point, just to present the things you have to consider.)
The answer here is, "It depends." What that means is that if the minimum wage is a fair, low wage that allows for subsistence living and little more (if even that -- we're talking a minimum wage here, after all), then fine. But when you have places like California that have a minimum wage of $10+ for certain jobs (hotel workers, in this example), that's just wrong. So in that case, yes, the minimum wage should be repealed. If you're talking about the $5.25 McDonalds jobs, then no, that's fair enough. It could actually be a little lower ("Back in my day, we were lucky to get $5.00/hr for a job!"), even. Yes, it sucks for the people that have to try living on such a wage, but they have options. They can get a second job, they can try for a better job, they can get government help to go to school to better themselves and get a better job, they can join the armed forces, etc. When many American jobs are being exported to other countries because the labor is exponentially cheaper, there is obviously a problem.
Umm.. no they won't. The X-box is a specific setup PC in a box from a development point of view. Developers could just go and write new libraries, but they haven't done so for nVidia based PC games.. so its unlikely they will for the X-Box.
Hello? Anybody in there? This is the point of console hardware! It's static for 5-6 years. IT DOES NOT CHANGE! Yes, the XBox is built from various different PC components. That's completely beside the point, because the important part is that all XBox units are exactly the same (well, aside from the 8GB/10GB hard drive thing, but that's not important). This means that developers can safely write new libraries that are just a thin layer over the hardware itself, or even skip the library part and write directly to the hardware, because they're assured that that hardware will not change. Everybody who buys their game will be able to run it, because they all have the same hardware. You cannot do this on a PC, for obvious reasons. I have a GeForce 3, so I'd be able to play games written specifically for the GF3, but all those people with older cards, or with Radeons, wouldn't be able to play. As well, I have an athlon, so I'd be SOL if game developers were to write specifically to the Intel CPUs. If they targetted specifically the Pentium 3, for instance, then not only would AMD owners like myself be out of luck, but so would all those people with old pentium 2 CPUs, or celeryonions, or P4s. You cannot do this with PC games. You can and should do this with console games.
Everybody that says that the XBox is just a PC in a console form factor is ignoring this very important distinguishing characteristic. Had the Indrema not died, would it also be considered a PC in a console form-factor? I'd say no, because as with the XBox, it would be static. It would not change. Is the GameCube a macintosh in a cute little cube because it uses standard components like a PowerPC CPU? No, it's not, because the hardware will not change.
Blockbuster, eh? Yeah, I've looked to rent many games, and you know what? They aren't there.
Shenmue 2 for dreamcast is a perfect example. Japan got their dreamcast release, and even Europe saw shenmue 2 for dreamcast. I would pay 40 bucks for it, but damned if I can find a place that will take my money.
So I'm getting a pirated copy. Sure, it might be illegal, but for fucks sake, how can it be wrong to get it for free when they don't give me the opportunity to purchase it?
First off, let me point out that you're talking about an import title. I specifically mentioned importing vs pirating in my post. I'm of the belief that importing games and playing them should be legal. However, that doesn't mean you don't pay for those games. You might even pay a premium for the "right" to import them, but you can still get them. If you want Shenumue II on your dreamcast so bad, then go import it. I don't buy it for a second that you can't find a reputable retailer that will import it for you.
for fucks sake, how can it be wrong to get it for free when they don't give me the opportunity to purchase it?
That would never hold up in a court of law. The channels are available to legally purchase these kinds of things (through importers), so you have no justification for pirating the game. Even more, if those channels weren't there, you still would not be justified in stealing. Bottom line, it's illegal. If you don't find that to be a problem, then good luck to you when you're sitting in front of a judge.
First things first. Equating the old "blast processing" bit to an economic reality is a red herring. You could make a case if you were to compare the whole "32 bit vs 64 bit vs 128 bit" argument to "blast processing", as both are pretty much bogus, but it has no bearing on the discussion at hand. I commend you for attempting to clear up these little misconceptions, however.
Your whole argument assumes that the classic economic model of "give away the razors to make a profit on the blades" is illegal. It's certainly not, and is a very useful tactic in a market where the normal price of a product would be prohibitive, but it's possible to make a healthy sum on a related product. To whit, the console market. Console hardware can be expensive. Not so much the manufacturing of said hardware (which can also be quite expensive), but more the research and development involved. When considering the price for a console, it's require that you factor in not only manufacturing but also all the expenses related to design and marketing as well. The old Neo Geo and 3DO consoles proved quite clearly that a $500 console does not go over well. $400 appears to be the maximum most consumers are willing to pay for the hardware (based on the PS2 launch price). Because the console makers can and do charge licensing fees per game sold, they can afford to lower the price of the consoles themselves to a more appealing price. This is what Sega did, as your article pointed out. This is also what Sony does, and what Microsoft is doing.
Now, to address the other issue of dumping, by the definition,
"Dumped" imports are imports that are sold at prices in an export market lower than those in their home market, that injure or are likely to injure a domestic industry making a "like product." Dumping may also occur when sales are below cost of production.
Since the Playstation is obviously an import, that passage would apply. However, the key here is that for a company to be dumping, it is assumed that the competitors of that firm are unable to match or beat the price. A loss-leader market is obviously economically and legally legitimate, and that's what we have with the console market. As such, I don't think dumping could be charged unless we're talking about a very low price. For instance, if Sony were to reprice the PS2 at $150 while the GC is still $200 and the XBox $300. That would clearly be a case of dumping. (side note: Sega is not guilty of dumping by pricing the Dreamcast at < $100, because they're liquidating.)
I don't even have to prove that I am right when I can prove that I can't possibly be wrong.
My point here is that your arguments of collusion on the parts of Sony employees, dumping, and other illegal activities are off-base. I'm sure the Sony share-holders know what Sony is doing and have the utmost confidence in Sony to keep their interests in mind. Otherwise, we'd have seen some form of legal action already. I believe I've proven you wrong here, so now the onus on you is to prove you're right. Let's see some official numbers from Sony, big boy!
Oh, yeah, and just to clarify my statement about you being a Sony apologist with a bad case of sour grapes, re-read your articles predicting the futures of XBox and Gamecube. I've read them, and your arguments boil down to little more than "They are not the Playstation 2". Seems a little short-sighted, to me, and works against your credibility in certain ways. I've been accused of bein a Microsoft shill, so I probably don't have much credibility either, though.
At least we all agree the humour on the site is good...;)
Yes, we can agree there. Update more, please! The stories and anecdotes are very amusing, but it only took me a single night to read through the archives, and I was left wanting more. Focus on the humor, please, and leave the economic pontificating and sage-like forecasts to those better suited.
Re:I hate "crippleware"
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Sony vs Modchips
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Damn straight the money was never there in the first place. If the pirates stop supplying free games there will be some folks who buy even less since they don't get to check them out first anymore.
Ever heard of Blockbuster? Less than $5 for 5 nights with a game. If you can't afford that, then it's highly unlikely you can afford the game to begin with, and so don't spout bullshit when you know that the reason you pirate games is so that you don't have to pay $40 for them.
The same goes for music, movies, and a lot of other software. I have bought software we use at work, and recommended we purchase software at work that I tried at home first. I could never have done that with a 30 day eval or money-back program.
Does your work know you recommend software based on your pirate activities? And how do you figure you can't get the same type of information from a 30-day eval or a money-back guarantee? Seems to me you'd be getting the same software you pirated. You just have a time limit on how long you can use it/get your money back. Wherein lies the problem. I bet you continue using the warezed software at home, don't you? And I wonder how much warez you use at work...
Is piracy right? Is it wrong? I'm not here to debate that, but I'm not sure it's all one or the other. I _am_ sure I don't like to be told I can't buy a DVD/game on a trip and expect it to play when I get home or send a DVD to a friend in Canada and expect he'll be able to enjoy it.
That has nothing to do with piracy. That's due to region-coding, which is a completely different animal. I know there were modchips for the old PSX that would kill the region coding without allowing pirated software. I don't know if such a thing exists for the PS2 yet (probably not), but I'm sure one will soon enough. It's a bit hazy whether or not playing movies/games from other regions is illegal (I don't believe it is illegal, but IANAL). It's very clear that playing "backups" (euphemism for pirated movies/games) is illegal. "Right" and "wrong" don't come into it, unless you subscribe to the school of thought that believes the law defines what's "right" and "wrong".
Sony can take their "regional" restrictions and...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Gord needs to stick with what he knows. That's sharing amusing tails of retail horrors. It's not pontificating on the profitability of various console systems. But then, I've already covered this, explaining why Gord's conclusions are incorrect based on numbers he gives.
Please, please, please only look to Gord for some humor. Otherwise, he just ends up looking like a Sony apologist with a bad case of sour grapes.
Fortunately, the GameCube seems to be cracking this stigma a little. Too bad I can't get it on the net yet.
It's not so much the Gamecube that's "cracking the stigma", as Sega. Chu Chu Rocket, Jet Set Radio, Super Monkey Ball, etc. All Sega games. I'm assuming that you're referring to Super Monkey Ball, and possibly Pikmin, when referring to the GameCube breaking the trend, but look at Rogue Leader (hey, it's a sequel to Rogue Squadron!), Wave Race: whatever it's called (look! sequel to Wave Race on the N64), and Super Smash Bros. Melee (look! sequel to Super Smash Bros.!). The Gamecube is just as "me-too" as any other platform. It's the game developers that have to make the difference. Thankfully, Sega is playing all the consoles (Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube, Chu Chu Rocket and Sonic on the GameBoy Advanced, Shemue II and Jet Set Radio: Grind on the XBox, and I don't remember what they're bringing to the PS2, besides things like the Crazy Taxi series (was that Sega?)).
I miss the days of 'Garage Developers' creating shareware games on BBS's.
Check out Garage Games. If the next John Carmack (mmm... Commander Keen) is going to be found anywhere, it's highly likely it'll be there. Sure, you can license the Tribes 2 engine (or V12, now the "Torque Game Engine", as it's not completely the T2 engine) for cheap, but there are plenty of other engines, or you can write your own. Also, check out places like FlipCode, GameDev, and GamaSutra (probably need a free registration to read most of the interesting things) to see what's going on in the world of amatuer graphics and games development (the first two more than the third, as gamasutra seems aimed more towards the game development professional). There's some crazy stuff going on, and lots of great little games that you'll never see elsewhere (the games, that is, not always the concepts. You'll see a lot of tetris clones, defender clones, whatever. but every now and then a completely off-the-wall concept shows up).
Nope, the first poster was right. It's not anti-aliased. Yes, the XBox can do anti-aliasing (2x, 4x, and nVidia's quincunx), but no launch titles (or any titles yet, for that matter) use it. Why? Performance issues, among other things. To take Halo as an example, had Bungie added anti-aliasing, it would've needed at least another month of playtesting and tweaking to make sure that the framerate stays acceptable in all situations. Bungie obviously didn't have that time. Along with time concerns, more importantly is performance. Anti-aliasing is expensive (4x anti-aliasing of a 640x480 scene means you're rendering at 2560x1920. That's a lot of pixels to push. Yes, you can use a lower sampling rate, but those just don't look as good). However, as developers get used to the XBox hardware and begin to write their own native libraries (which they will, you can be sure), they'll be squeezing more and more out of the XBox. At a certain point in the future (I'm guessing roughly six months from now, but I'm by no means an expert), it will be possible to tweak out Halo- or DOA3-level graphics with AA at the framerates Halo or DOA3 play at now. The key is the fact that the XBox is a console, and so will be a static piece of hardware for the next 5-6 years. That means developers can safely write directly to the hardware. Even though most of the XBox components are familiar to developers, I'd wager that the reason most (all?) launch games used DX was because few developers have the experience of writing directly to p3 or geforce hardware. They'll learn, and things will get even better.
That said, the Gamecube doesn't have anti-aliasing either, to my knowledge, nor does the PS2 (okay, so I'm sure there are some PS2 games that do AA, but that's due to experience with the platform. But look at earlier PS2 titles, like DOA2: Hardcore. Jaggies galore!).
Capitalism is the enemy of the Free Market! The goal of any true capitalist is to create a monopoly. A monopoly means they have no competition, and without competition there is no free market! The Free Market is a good and wonderful thing, it is the foundation of our way of life and the root of just about everything that is good about the USA. It needs to be protected from the predations of the powerful corporations who would crush it in the pursuit of their vision of Capitalist Brand Utopia. That's why we need anti-trust law.
Welcome to monopoly economics 101, wherein we will detail why you are wrong and I am right. Err, I mean why you're misguided about capitalism/monopolies vs the Free Market.
See, there's this interesting thing called competition. It's the drive to succeed. In a free market, it is competition that drives prices down, all the way to the point where one of two outcomes happen:
In a perfect competition market, all players have exactly the same product, and they have exactly the same operating costs. This means that at a certain point, companies can no longer undercut each other on price, and so all companies run at a subsistence level (enough to pay the bills, but no profit). This is the "ideal" state of a free market, but it's a very bad state to get in. Luckily, it's also near impossible to reach, as before that point the various players will beging differentiating their product, building customer loyalties that allow them to charge a bit more than their competitors without losing too much business.
A monopoly arises when all but one company is no longer able to compete in a market. That can come about in several ways:
A natural monopoly exists when there is some "natural" barrier to entry. In a natural monopoly, the monopolist can easily charge what's called the "monopoly price" (a price point above the "competitive" subsistence level that the firm would be able to charge if there were others in the market)
The more-likely case is when a monopoly springs into existance through competition -- a single company has lower operating costs than the other firms in a market, and thus drives them out by lowering prices to just below the operating costs of everybody else. This will eventually drive those companies out of business if they cannot reduce their own overhead. Once the other firms are gone, however, the monopolist firm can not re-price at the monopoly price because they'd simply be inviting new firms into their market.
There's also the red-headed step-child of monopolies -- the government sponsored and endorsed monopoly. This would include things like air traffic control and cable companies (the first being a nationalized industry, thus a de facto monopoly, and the second being a case of government-enforced "natural" monopoly, where the only "natural" thing about it is that it's apparently "natural" for a single entity to own what could be considered public infrastructure. I'm not saying cable companies should be nationalized, because they shouldn't. Just that this is an example of a government-enforced monopoly).
Now, I know I just said that those are the only two outcomes, and if I were talking about theoretical economics, I'd be correct. So let's revise that to allow for product differentiation and brand loyalty. Now, goods are no longer interchangeable, and so competing firms are no longer forced to subsistence-level earning. Now, differentiation can also lead to introduction of competition back into a monopolized market (differentiation is brought about by R&D, which often has a side-effect of reducing operating costs by researching newer and more efficient production methods. lower overhead means the ability to charge a lower price, and thus slip into that monopoly market where the price was previously below your costs). In other words, the free market fixes these situations. The old policy of Laissez Faire was the best policy, in regards to government involvement in the marketplace. A free market works best when it's not shackled by government (because government *never* works efficiently, which puts it totally at odds with the goals of a free market). Yes, I know the event that changed the US's policy was the Great Depression, but what most people conveniently forget is that our current welfare state was only meant to last for a duration of 5-10 years or so, just long enough to get the economy back on its feet after the depression. FDR never intended things like welfare and social security to extend past a generation at the most, and realistically no more than needed to get out of the Depression. But here we are, with a socialist mindset where we expect the government to take care of us and protect us from the big mean capitalists. And we're going into another recession, so it's not even like these social welfare plans stopped that (which, btw, is the natural ebb and flow of a free market. it goes up, and it comes down. and it goes up again, and so on. we can help "flatten" the wave by having lower highs and higher lows, mainly by doing things like manipulating interest levels to encourage spending or saving as appropriate, but we can't make the cycle go away).
Anyway, I would argue that the free market was the foundation of our way of life, but no longer is. We're well on our way to becoming a socialist nation like many European nations (the day I pay 50% of my salary in taxes is the day I move to Mexico), and too many consumers have forgotten the fundamentals of a free market, instead preferring to have the warm safety blanket of Big Brother Government to keep them safe and warm at night, and scare the Evil Capitalists out from under their beds.
What is with IRC and DDOS attacks? If you abuse it you lose it... What about this do the DDOS attackers not understand, they are only hurting themselves, if the whole internet gets shut down because of their antics then what? Don't they see they are only hurting themselves?
Most of them don't realize 100% what they're doing. They're stuck in the old "IRC war" mindset, where most people were on dialups, or if they were lucky on a faster connection at college. It didn't take much to packet a person off when they were at 28.8 or less. As broadband has become more widespread, however, it gets harder and harder. That means the kiddies need more bandwidth to do the same thing (hey, sounds like a drug addiction...). At a certain point, it became easier to attack the servers themselves than the people and bots in a channel you wanted.
That's only one scenario, of course. There's also many kiddies that somehow feel they have a personal (real or imagined) beef with an IRCop, and so they attack that opper's server. They don't realize they're hurting more than the single person they have a problem with.
Few kiddies can see past their own personal anger to the actual damage they're doing. They have the bandwidth (countless compromised machines with broadband connections -- thank you, @Home), and they have no qualms about using it. Part of the problem could be solved simply by getting people to fix all those compromised machines, or more drastically by getting rid of broadband altogether (not a realistic course of action, and not one I would condone even if it were realistic). The deeper problem lies in the mindset of the kiddie -- they're often your typical angsty teen, and this is a way they can gain power. It's very sad, but what can you do?
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I assume you're referring to the pseudo-database format of the befs? Very nifty idea, but it's more fakery than most people realize. Using a full-blown rdbms was too performance intensive, so while initially the befs did have an actual relational database, it eventually became lighter code that had a sql-like syntactical interface. Still very nice, I agree, and it'd be nice to see something similar in Linux.
For limited types of hardware, sure. When I last tried BeOS 4.5 (yes, I never tried 5), I was lucky that my nVidia TNT2 Ultra card was supported in 2D, and forget about 3D. Maybe Be's OpenGL implementation was one of the fastest software rendering implementations, but that can't hold a candle to proper hardware acceleration, and nVidia is currently the king in that area.
But not the G* PPC processors, sadly. Which meant that the PPC version was essentially dead, and Be was spending all their efforts on the x86 port.
I agree with your assessment of OS X, and I also agree that there are some nice ideas to be had from Be, but I just want to point out that Be was not the pinnacle of GUI or OS design (yeah, sure, it was good, but it had its share of problems, and quite a few of them). It'd be nice to see all the fancy features of Be on an OS with better hardware support, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
First off, considering the fact that he said it's the only console that won't fit on his VCR, nor did he specify what consoles those where, and that the gamecube is a console, it makes sense that I bring it into the equation. He didn't mention it, I did. He left the door open for it to be mentioned, though. Now, if he were trying to fit it into 3cm of space, then no console would fit, not just an XBox. Therefore, it stands to reason that he is not talking about a 3cm space.
Since he didn't mention in his original post whether he was talking about area (width*length) or depth (height), I was bringing up both possibilities. I was also providing my own empirical evidence (to counter his empirical evidence) showing that he is wrong. Had he provided the dimensions of his VCR, that would be one thing. However, since he described it as a "mammoth 1985 VCR", one would assume that it would be larger than a JVC SuperVHS hi-fi VCR made within the last two years. Since the XBox fits just fine on my VCR (the JVC just mentioned), I cannot fathom how it would not fit on a "mammoth" VCR (well, unless it's really old and has a pop-up slot for the tapes, rather than a slot in the front, in which case no console should sit on it).
Nope, your first paragraph goes away, too. They're talking specifically about LCD monitors, and I quote:
Where does it say that they're rendering on CRTs there? I'm sorry, but your whole post is invalid. Too bad you can't just remove it, or at least edit it. Silly Slashdot.
Do you mean it won't fit on the VCR because it's too wide or long? Or because there's not enough clearance between the top of the VCR and wherever you keep it? If the former, you're lying. Old VCRs were huge, yet my XBox fits nicely on top of my fairly recent (2 year old) hi-fi VCR. Oh, sure, if you buy one of those tiny VCRs (the ones that aren't much wider than the width of a tape), it'll have problems sitting there. Any other VCR, not a problem. If the latter, again you're lying, because the GameCube is actually taller than the XBox, so if the XBox won't fit, neither will the GameCube.
So, either you're lying or you're lying. Or you're misrepresenting the facts. Which is it?
You're right, games domatter. However, I disagree with your suggestion for Gamespot as a useful source of information. They are very much biased towards the Playstation 2, to the detriment of both the Gamecube and the XBox. Yes, I know that pretty much any site is going to be biased, but Gamespot takes it to an extreme, to the point where their XBox reviews consistently rate 1.5-3 points lower than reviews on other web sites. Maybe they're just "telling it how it is", but when the reader reviews on Gamespot actually line up well with the editorial reviews of other web sites, you get a little suspicious ...
Sadly, I can't really recommend any better place, as most of the major gaming networks have gone the way of the dodo, or at least made most of their content subscription-only. What I do is keep my eye on Blue's News, which is mainly PC gaming but covers console gaming as well. Typically, you'll find links to better reviews than Gamespot reviews at Blue's. Otherwise, go to your local Blockbuster, rent a console and a couple games. Give it a spin for a week for $20 (console and a couple games), see if it's worth spending $300+.
More than that, the possibility that those units were overheating was nothing more than speculation. The only units that ever had problems were those running earlier demo discs, and it was announced that the demo discs were bad -- they were built for the XDK box which has twice the memory (for development purposes), rather than the production XBox, and so would often step past the potential memory space of the real XBox (see how the XBox isn't a PC? If it were, it'd use that nice hard drive as virtual memory, but it doesn't because it's not a PC. Oh, sure, a game could implement its own virtual memory handler, but that has to be done on a per-game basis, as with any console ...). Thus, software problem, not hardware problem. The possibility of overheating was just Slashdot jerking its collective knee.
Odd, my PowerMac 7200/120 (running Debian unstable) runs for crap, compared even to my celeryonion 433 (running Debian unstable). Both are positively slow when compared to my 1GHz Athlon running XP. Of course, my anecdotal evidence doesn't beat yours; it's just different anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is the best kind of evidence there is!
DV may be, but the DVI outputs on video cards are not. The original poster got it wrong as well, though. The DVI output is intended primarily for use with LCD monitors that accept digital input (as opposed to LCD monitors that take a normal analog VGA input and convert to digital for displaying). It has nothing to do with firewire nor HDTV, and is a complete waste of money unless you have a supported LCD monitor or plan on buying one in the next year and a half to two years(standard lifetime for a video card, if you like to keep up with technology).
That said, the Radeon 8500 is not the only card that has DVI outs. Many GeForce 3 cards have it (not all, as many OEMs save money by not adding those components since very few people need it), as well as older GeForce 2 cards, older Radeons, and even older GeForce 256 cards.
s/may/will/. Only HD-upgradeable TVs (at a minimum. HD-ready is the same but with an HD tuner) will make use of the progressive-scan features of a progressive-scan DVD player. Otherwise, you're just wasting your money on the player (unless, of course, you're worried about future-proofing your investment, in which case you may as well buy a progressive-scan player if you expect to buy a new HDTV within the next couple years). Regular TVs only do 480i.
IMHO, an HD-upgradeable TV is very much worth it, and at $2000 for the 46" 16:9 Mitsubishi 46809 (I got the 807, but same difference), it's quite affordable. Sure, you don't get an HD tuner in the set, but for a couple hundred $$$ you can have one added. Or you can use your DirectTV tuner, or cable box (in select markets) instead, and not need an HD tuner at all. Plus as you already mentioned, it's great for progressive-scan DVD players (and non-progressive scan DVD players, even), and the latest generation of game consoles have HD support (XBox will do progressive scan natively if your TV supports it, though not all games are 16:9, and it's also capable of doing 720i, 720p, and 1080i once games begin supporting those resolutions; Gamecube requires you to enable progressive scan per game in games that support it; I don't know how the PS2 works). A good investment, and about $1000 less than you're expecting (a $2000 TV will cost you near $2700 once you've added in a base for the TV, tax, and a service contract, but then a $3000 TV will end up costing that much more as well).
You're missing the most important part -- Mac OS X software is not neccessarily going to be any more portable to UNIX than Windows software is, because 99.9% of commercial developers will target the proprietary APIs like Cocoa. For example, Microsoft Office X (for OS X) is no more portable to Linux than Microsoft Microsoft Office XP (for Windows). Just because OS X has a UNIX core doesn't mean it looks like a UNIX at a high enough API level.
Okay, sure, if developers target X, using portable APIs like qt, then maybe your argument would hold. I doubt that will be the case, though.
This would be the difference between a logo and a mascot. It's fine to have a mascot, but it's usually also a good idea to have a logo if you're a company. For instance, Redhat has their little hat thing which works well as a logo. Microsoft has the Windows flag. Comparing the Windows flag to Linux's Tux is comparing apples to oranges. The flag is not supposed to be personified.
Of course, I guess you could make a case for comparing Clippy to Tux ...
I understood the patent to be about using single strokes to represent characters (ie, without lifting the stylus). Other PDAs (Pocket PC machines, for instance) allow you to use multiple strokes, and thus better approximates the alphabet. A little slower writing, and a little more prone to error (well, unless you take the time to configure it properly, and until you get used to it) than graffiti, maybe, but still very nice. And apparently immune to the patent in question.
Of course, web site defacements are pretty trivial compared to other things. How many linux boxes do you think are sitting out there on cable modems, with a default "install everything" redhat install, running BIND? Where do you think all the DDoS kiddies get their bandwidth? Hacked linux boxes on broadband connections. Personally, I'd much rather have a defaced web site, because even though I'd still have to do a reinstall to make sure the system was clean, at least I'd know about it. If instead my box was rooted and used in a DDoS, my only inclination something is wrong would be when I can't check my e-mail or my web browsing was going much slower than usual. Hell, the box could be rooted for months, or even years, and I'd never know. (note: "I" here is the "collective I", not me in particular.) Linux, or any unix for that matter, is much more dangerous when compromised than any Windows box.
I am not Matthew Lesko. I find the guy annoying, and insulting (that's my money he's trying to give away). Regardless, the government is going to subsidize poor people. That can't be helped. However, I would much rather my tax dollars went to putting people through school so that maybe they can eventually become tax payers themselves and take some burden off of me, rather than feeding the crackwhore baby factories through welfare checks. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
The answer here is, "It depends." What that means is that if the minimum wage is a fair, low wage that allows for subsistence living and little more (if even that -- we're talking a minimum wage here, after all), then fine. But when you have places like California that have a minimum wage of $10+ for certain jobs (hotel workers, in this example), that's just wrong. So in that case, yes, the minimum wage should be repealed. If you're talking about the $5.25 McDonalds jobs, then no, that's fair enough. It could actually be a little lower ("Back in my day, we were lucky to get $5.00/hr for a job!"), even. Yes, it sucks for the people that have to try living on such a wage, but they have options. They can get a second job, they can try for a better job, they can get government help to go to school to better themselves and get a better job, they can join the armed forces, etc. When many American jobs are being exported to other countries because the labor is exponentially cheaper, there is obviously a problem.
Hello? Anybody in there? This is the point of console hardware! It's static for 5-6 years. IT DOES NOT CHANGE! Yes, the XBox is built from various different PC components. That's completely beside the point, because the important part is that all XBox units are exactly the same (well, aside from the 8GB/10GB hard drive thing, but that's not important). This means that developers can safely write new libraries that are just a thin layer over the hardware itself, or even skip the library part and write directly to the hardware, because they're assured that that hardware will not change. Everybody who buys their game will be able to run it, because they all have the same hardware. You cannot do this on a PC, for obvious reasons. I have a GeForce 3, so I'd be able to play games written specifically for the GF3, but all those people with older cards, or with Radeons, wouldn't be able to play. As well, I have an athlon, so I'd be SOL if game developers were to write specifically to the Intel CPUs. If they targetted specifically the Pentium 3, for instance, then not only would AMD owners like myself be out of luck, but so would all those people with old pentium 2 CPUs, or celeryonions, or P4s. You cannot do this with PC games. You can and should do this with console games.
Everybody that says that the XBox is just a PC in a console form factor is ignoring this very important distinguishing characteristic. Had the Indrema not died, would it also be considered a PC in a console form-factor? I'd say no, because as with the XBox, it would be static. It would not change. Is the GameCube a macintosh in a cute little cube because it uses standard components like a PowerPC CPU? No, it's not, because the hardware will not change.
First off, let me point out that you're talking about an import title. I specifically mentioned importing vs pirating in my post. I'm of the belief that importing games and playing them should be legal. However, that doesn't mean you don't pay for those games. You might even pay a premium for the "right" to import them, but you can still get them. If you want Shenumue II on your dreamcast so bad, then go import it. I don't buy it for a second that you can't find a reputable retailer that will import it for you.
That would never hold up in a court of law. The channels are available to legally purchase these kinds of things (through importers), so you have no justification for pirating the game. Even more, if those channels weren't there, you still would not be justified in stealing. Bottom line, it's illegal. If you don't find that to be a problem, then good luck to you when you're sitting in front of a judge.
First things first. Equating the old "blast processing" bit to an economic reality is a red herring. You could make a case if you were to compare the whole "32 bit vs 64 bit vs 128 bit" argument to "blast processing", as both are pretty much bogus, but it has no bearing on the discussion at hand. I commend you for attempting to clear up these little misconceptions, however.
Your whole argument assumes that the classic economic model of "give away the razors to make a profit on the blades" is illegal. It's certainly not, and is a very useful tactic in a market where the normal price of a product would be prohibitive, but it's possible to make a healthy sum on a related product. To whit, the console market. Console hardware can be expensive. Not so much the manufacturing of said hardware (which can also be quite expensive), but more the research and development involved. When considering the price for a console, it's require that you factor in not only manufacturing but also all the expenses related to design and marketing as well. The old Neo Geo and 3DO consoles proved quite clearly that a $500 console does not go over well. $400 appears to be the maximum most consumers are willing to pay for the hardware (based on the PS2 launch price). Because the console makers can and do charge licensing fees per game sold, they can afford to lower the price of the consoles themselves to a more appealing price. This is what Sega did, as your article pointed out. This is also what Sony does, and what Microsoft is doing.
Now, to address the other issue of dumping, by the definition,
Since the Playstation is obviously an import, that passage would apply. However, the key here is that for a company to be dumping, it is assumed that the competitors of that firm are unable to match or beat the price. A loss-leader market is obviously economically and legally legitimate, and that's what we have with the console market. As such, I don't think dumping could be charged unless we're talking about a very low price. For instance, if Sony were to reprice the PS2 at $150 while the GC is still $200 and the XBox $300. That would clearly be a case of dumping. (side note: Sega is not guilty of dumping by pricing the Dreamcast at < $100, because they're liquidating.)
My point here is that your arguments of collusion on the parts of Sony employees, dumping, and other illegal activities are off-base. I'm sure the Sony share-holders know what Sony is doing and have the utmost confidence in Sony to keep their interests in mind. Otherwise, we'd have seen some form of legal action already. I believe I've proven you wrong here, so now the onus on you is to prove you're right. Let's see some official numbers from Sony, big boy!
Oh, yeah, and just to clarify my statement about you being a Sony apologist with a bad case of sour grapes, re-read your articles predicting the futures of XBox and Gamecube. I've read them, and your arguments boil down to little more than "They are not the Playstation 2". Seems a little short-sighted, to me, and works against your credibility in certain ways. I've been accused of bein a Microsoft shill, so I probably don't have much credibility either, though.
Yes, we can agree there. Update more, please! The stories and anecdotes are very amusing, but it only took me a single night to read through the archives, and I was left wanting more. Focus on the humor, please, and leave the economic pontificating and sage-like forecasts to those better suited.
Ever heard of Blockbuster? Less than $5 for 5 nights with a game. If you can't afford that, then it's highly unlikely you can afford the game to begin with, and so don't spout bullshit when you know that the reason you pirate games is so that you don't have to pay $40 for them.
Does your work know you recommend software based on your pirate activities? And how do you figure you can't get the same type of information from a 30-day eval or a money-back guarantee? Seems to me you'd be getting the same software you pirated. You just have a time limit on how long you can use it/get your money back. Wherein lies the problem. I bet you continue using the warezed software at home, don't you? And I wonder how much warez you use at work ...
That has nothing to do with piracy. That's due to region-coding, which is a completely different animal. I know there were modchips for the old PSX that would kill the region coding without allowing pirated software. I don't know if such a thing exists for the PS2 yet (probably not), but I'm sure one will soon enough. It's a bit hazy whether or not playing movies/games from other regions is illegal (I don't believe it is illegal, but IANAL). It's very clear that playing "backups" (euphemism for pirated movies/games) is illegal. "Right" and "wrong" don't come into it, unless you subscribe to the school of thought that believes the law defines what's "right" and "wrong".
... take you to court for copyright infringement.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Gord needs to stick with what he knows. That's sharing amusing tails of retail horrors. It's not pontificating on the profitability of various console systems. But then, I've already covered this, explaining why Gord's conclusions are incorrect based on numbers he gives.
Please, please, please only look to Gord for some humor. Otherwise, he just ends up looking like a Sony apologist with a bad case of sour grapes.
It's not so much the Gamecube that's "cracking the stigma", as Sega. Chu Chu Rocket, Jet Set Radio, Super Monkey Ball, etc. All Sega games. I'm assuming that you're referring to Super Monkey Ball, and possibly Pikmin, when referring to the GameCube breaking the trend, but look at Rogue Leader (hey, it's a sequel to Rogue Squadron!), Wave Race: whatever it's called (look! sequel to Wave Race on the N64), and Super Smash Bros. Melee (look! sequel to Super Smash Bros.!). The Gamecube is just as "me-too" as any other platform. It's the game developers that have to make the difference. Thankfully, Sega is playing all the consoles (Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube, Chu Chu Rocket and Sonic on the GameBoy Advanced, Shemue II and Jet Set Radio: Grind on the XBox, and I don't remember what they're bringing to the PS2, besides things like the Crazy Taxi series (was that Sega?)).
Check out Garage Games. If the next John Carmack (mmm ... Commander Keen) is going to be found anywhere, it's highly likely it'll be there. Sure, you can license the Tribes 2 engine (or V12, now the "Torque Game Engine", as it's not completely the T2 engine) for cheap, but there are plenty of other engines, or you can write your own. Also, check out places like FlipCode, GameDev, and GamaSutra (probably need a free registration to read most of the interesting things) to see what's going on in the world of amatuer graphics and games development (the first two more than the third, as gamasutra seems aimed more towards the game development professional). There's some crazy stuff going on, and lots of great little games that you'll never see elsewhere (the games, that is, not always the concepts. You'll see a lot of tetris clones, defender clones, whatever. but every now and then a completely off-the-wall concept shows up).
Nope, the first poster was right. It's not anti-aliased. Yes, the XBox can do anti-aliasing (2x, 4x, and nVidia's quincunx), but no launch titles (or any titles yet, for that matter) use it. Why? Performance issues, among other things. To take Halo as an example, had Bungie added anti-aliasing, it would've needed at least another month of playtesting and tweaking to make sure that the framerate stays acceptable in all situations. Bungie obviously didn't have that time. Along with time concerns, more importantly is performance. Anti-aliasing is expensive (4x anti-aliasing of a 640x480 scene means you're rendering at 2560x1920. That's a lot of pixels to push. Yes, you can use a lower sampling rate, but those just don't look as good). However, as developers get used to the XBox hardware and begin to write their own native libraries (which they will, you can be sure), they'll be squeezing more and more out of the XBox. At a certain point in the future (I'm guessing roughly six months from now, but I'm by no means an expert), it will be possible to tweak out Halo- or DOA3-level graphics with AA at the framerates Halo or DOA3 play at now. The key is the fact that the XBox is a console, and so will be a static piece of hardware for the next 5-6 years. That means developers can safely write directly to the hardware. Even though most of the XBox components are familiar to developers, I'd wager that the reason most (all?) launch games used DX was because few developers have the experience of writing directly to p3 or geforce hardware. They'll learn, and things will get even better.
That said, the Gamecube doesn't have anti-aliasing either, to my knowledge, nor does the PS2 (okay, so I'm sure there are some PS2 games that do AA, but that's due to experience with the platform. But look at earlier PS2 titles, like DOA2: Hardcore. Jaggies galore!).
Hrm, haven't we seen this already? Okay, so now the Register has an article, but it adds nothing. Woo. Go Slashdot. Bah.
Welcome to monopoly economics 101, wherein we will detail why you are wrong and I am right. Err, I mean why you're misguided about capitalism/monopolies vs the Free Market.
See, there's this interesting thing called competition. It's the drive to succeed. In a free market, it is competition that drives prices down, all the way to the point where one of two outcomes happen:
Now, I know I just said that those are the only two outcomes, and if I were talking about theoretical economics, I'd be correct. So let's revise that to allow for product differentiation and brand loyalty. Now, goods are no longer interchangeable, and so competing firms are no longer forced to subsistence-level earning. Now, differentiation can also lead to introduction of competition back into a monopolized market (differentiation is brought about by R&D, which often has a side-effect of reducing operating costs by researching newer and more efficient production methods. lower overhead means the ability to charge a lower price, and thus slip into that monopoly market where the price was previously below your costs). In other words, the free market fixes these situations. The old policy of Laissez Faire was the best policy, in regards to government involvement in the marketplace. A free market works best when it's not shackled by government (because government *never* works efficiently, which puts it totally at odds with the goals of a free market). Yes, I know the event that changed the US's policy was the Great Depression, but what most people conveniently forget is that our current welfare state was only meant to last for a duration of 5-10 years or so, just long enough to get the economy back on its feet after the depression. FDR never intended things like welfare and social security to extend past a generation at the most, and realistically no more than needed to get out of the Depression. But here we are, with a socialist mindset where we expect the government to take care of us and protect us from the big mean capitalists. And we're going into another recession, so it's not even like these social welfare plans stopped that (which, btw, is the natural ebb and flow of a free market. it goes up, and it comes down. and it goes up again, and so on. we can help "flatten" the wave by having lower highs and higher lows, mainly by doing things like manipulating interest levels to encourage spending or saving as appropriate, but we can't make the cycle go away).
Anyway, I would argue that the free market was the foundation of our way of life, but no longer is. We're well on our way to becoming a socialist nation like many European nations (the day I pay 50% of my salary in taxes is the day I move to Mexico), and too many consumers have forgotten the fundamentals of a free market, instead preferring to have the warm safety blanket of Big Brother Government to keep them safe and warm at night, and scare the Evil Capitalists out from under their beds.
Most of them don't realize 100% what they're doing. They're stuck in the old "IRC war" mindset, where most people were on dialups, or if they were lucky on a faster connection at college. It didn't take much to packet a person off when they were at 28.8 or less. As broadband has become more widespread, however, it gets harder and harder. That means the kiddies need more bandwidth to do the same thing (hey, sounds like a drug addiction ...). At a certain point, it became easier to attack the servers themselves than the people and bots in a channel you wanted.
That's only one scenario, of course. There's also many kiddies that somehow feel they have a personal (real or imagined) beef with an IRCop, and so they attack that opper's server. They don't realize they're hurting more than the single person they have a problem with.
Few kiddies can see past their own personal anger to the actual damage they're doing. They have the bandwidth (countless compromised machines with broadband connections -- thank you, @Home), and they have no qualms about using it. Part of the problem could be solved simply by getting people to fix all those compromised machines, or more drastically by getting rid of broadband altogether (not a realistic course of action, and not one I would condone even if it were realistic). The deeper problem lies in the mindset of the kiddie -- they're often your typical angsty teen, and this is a way they can gain power. It's very sad, but what can you do?