You're all somewhat wrong. Spoilers create downforce at _any_ speeds, including 0 (more weight). It's only really appropriate at higher speeds though. An FWD car, while not up high on the list of "needs more downforce" (FWD cars usually understeer very terribly because the front wheels have so much force (and usually weight by design) on them), but any car will benefit from more downforce in the "able to stay on the road while turning" category.
You're also wrong, by the way. A spoiler doesn't create any downforce. A wing is used to create downforce (negative lift, as the wing is exactly the same areofoil shape as you'd find on an airplane, except inverted). A spoiler simply "spoils" the lift generated by the inherent shape of a car. A car is roughly shaped like an aerofoil (rounded on top, flat on the bottom), and thus at higher speeds it tends to generate lift. It's certainly not enough for your car to actually fly, but it is enough to reduce traction necessary for handling and braking. By spoiling that aerofoil shape, a spoiler lessens the natural lift generated by the body shape of a car. For most non-racing applications, a spoiler is all you need, and in most cases you don't even need that (most factory spoilers are indeed cosmetic -- why is it that a Chevy Cavalier needs a spoiler, while a C6 Corvette doesn't?).
In a racing application, a simple spoiler is often not enough, however, and it doesn't really matter where your drive wheels are in that application. That's why you'll see touring cars like the Acura RSX or TSX, or the Mazda 6 with big wings in the Speed World Challenge races (and other touring car series). These are fully adjustable wings that generated downforce (the amount determined by the angle of attack, just as the amount of lift generated by an airplane is determined by its angle of attack). You simply do not need a big-ass wing like that outside of a full race car. That is why the ricers are silly for putting big ol' wings on their cars (well, aside from the facts that they suffer from "bigger is better" and "more is better" syndrome with huge and multi-level wings, and that 9 times out of 10 the wings they're buying are not fully adjustable, and that 10th time the wing isn't properly adjusted for the conditions).
I'm on Cingular, and I have good signal strength everywhere but at work. At work, I can pick up AT&T Wireless just fine (must have a repeater in the building or something, because it's very strong, and no other cell network shows up). Does this mean that I can now use the AT&T network without worrying about roaming charges? Maybe I can finally answer my cell at work, rather than waiting for it to ring through to my work phone! (it takes 5+ rings before it forwards, after which most people will hang up.)
Slippery slope arguments don't hold water. Where do we stop? We make sure we check with the parents of a child when we're planning on giving them things that are generally accepted to be adults-only. That's it. The idea that this is somehow onerous or restrictive is absurd.
Should the clerk quiz the parent on the content of the game? The original poster implied, and you confirmed, that parents buy these games without any thought, and the way many games stores work it wouldn't really be a red flag that the game was behind the counter (most places lock up their games, or keep the actual game boxes behind the counter anyway so you have to ask them for what you want). It is a slippery slope, and we're already well down the slope with other nanny-state policies.
The fact is, parents aren't perfect. They make mistakes. Time and mental energy are at a premium when you are a parent. I know roughly what' s in the GTA games--and recently explained to a fellow parent, whose child had asked for it as a gift.
And I shouldn't be required to jump through hoops because your friend didn't care enough about his or her child to know what kinds of video games the kid likes. Besides, why did your friend need you to tell him what GTA contains? Can he not read the ESRB rating on the game box? Would this same friend allow his child to see an R-rated movie unattended because he didn't know it was an R-rated movie? (I'll laugh if you say theaters check for ages at admission, but to humor that possibility change this to "rent an R-rated movie" instead.)
That doesn't mean they "should never have had kids in the first place" or couldn't "be bothered to take an active role in their childrens' lives," it just means there was something they didn't know. Guess what? There's lots of things I don't know about being a parent. And my guess is that there are a lot of things you don't know about being a parent--all of it.
Not knowing "about being a parent" and not knowing what your child likes are two completely different things. That's the kind of attitude that leads to teen pregnancy ("I didn't know little Bobby was screwing Nancy down the block! I thought he was up in his room with the door closed, studying."), drug use ("Jimmy's friends were so nice, I never would've expected they'd be smoking the pot!"), street racing ("Johnny said he was going to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream. I didn't know that's where the rice bangers hang out, challenging each other to to street drag races!"), and so on. If you're going to be a parent, get involved!
However, you're right about one thing -- I don't know about "being a parent", because I'm not one. I do know enough that I do not want to be one anytime soon, either, because I know I'm incapable of being involved in a child's life (I have a hard enough time being involved in my own life, at times!). Maybe that makes me "immature", but I prefer to think of it as "smart". I know my limitations, and there's no damned way I would bring a child into this world if I had to raise him. If more people considered that, this world would be better off.
I have a couple of friends that recently got pregnant, and are getting married shortly. Why did they get pregnant before getting married? (she's actually showing, so it's not like she can hide it) Her mom was pregnant when she got married, and his mom was pregnant when she got married as well. Thus, they wanted to carry on the "grand tradition". To me, that screams, "SELFISH!" and I fear for the welfare of their child, but there's nothing I can do about it, nor will I (if they don't screw up, they won't learn -- sadly, it will involve the life of an innocent for them to learn).
I have another couple of friends who recently got married. She's young (married before she was 21, even!), and he's not (moving into late-20s). She's not even fin
I know that many parents don't have the time or the willpower to look into what media their children consume.
As fun as the game is, maybe this is something that should be hidden behind the counter or maybe only sold in adult venues/online.
Because some parents can't be bothered to take an active role in their childrens' lives, we should increase the nanny state and "hide" items like GTA? I'm sorry, but no. Besides, you said it yourself that parents are buying this, so what would hiding it serve? All the parents know is that little Billy wants "Grand Theft Auto: Something Or Other", and they're just going to ask the store clerk for "that Grand Theft thing". Hidden behind the counter or not, the parent is still going to buy it.
If you really want to "think of the children," consider mandatory parenting classes for expecting families, free or low-cost birth control and abortions and sterilizations available to all, and incentives for sterilization ("You want an increase on your welfare check/a free country club membership/a large tax cut/a new car? Go get a vasectomy or tubaligation."). It's not my responsibility to parent the children of folks who should never have had kids in the first place, and I should not be punished for their inteptitude either (okay, hiding GTA behind a counter isn't much "punishment", but where do we stop?). That whole crap about taking a village to raise a child is bullshit. It takes two parents that care what their children are doing, and are not afraid to punish them as necessary. Anything less, and those people should never have had children in the first place.
What?!?! No way!!! Next you're going to tell me that hot little Tidus from FF X was a guy, too! Damn...
(ps: This is a joke, as was my previous post, in case you couldn't tell. I was commenting on the feminine look of many male characters in recent Final Fantasy games.)
As others have mentioned, saving weight anywhere possible is a Good Thing (tm) in a car. Ligher weight means a higher power to weight ratio, which means a faster car at the same horsepower (or better mileage, if you're into that sort of thing). Don't believe me? Take a look at the Porsche GT3 RS. They went so far in removing weight that the Porsche emblem on the hood is a sticker! Traditionally, it's a plastic or metal badge, but they went all out in removing as much weight as possible from the GT3 for the RS revision. BMW went so far with the M3 CSL that they replaced the floor of its trunk with cardboard. The floor pan in the C6 Corvette is made out of balsa wood sandwiched between thin layers of aluminum. Obviously these cars aren't really going for gas mileage, but the principles are the same. Besides, as we move more and more towards hybrid or all-electric vehicles, a 50 pound saving in wiring gear means that you have 50 more pounds available for batteries or other electricity storage mechanisms, thus adding extra range to the car because you're adding more power reserves without adding any more weight.
The biggest hurdle here is not whether or not they can do it, but whether or not it gains acceptance. For example, Porsche has started using the MOST bus in recent model years for their audio equipment (they use Becker equipment, listed on that page), and it's difficult to find compatible aftermarket equipment. Firewire has the benefit of several years on the market already in various applications, so it's a well-known technology by now.
Historically, the Final Fantasy games have always been set in different worlds (carrying over constants like a character named Sid/Cid, chocobos, airships, sometimes light/element crystals, Bahamut, etc). The world in FF2j is not the same as FF1, nor is the world in FF3e/6j the same as in FF2e/4j or FF5j. The plot is fairly formulaic -- something has/will happen to the world, and it's up to a scrappy band of heroes to save the day. In the end, the world is changed, evil is banished forever, and everybody lives happily ever after. That's why I don't like Square's new emphasis on sequels (FF X-2, the new FF VII-related games, the FF VII movie, FF XI's attempt to cash in on the MMOG craze). The previous games were not sequels, regardless of how they were named. These new sequels now ruin the whole plot by continuing the story after what was supposedly the ultimate end. It seems to me that Square is in trouble if they can't come up with "new" story lines and characters, but instead have to rehash their old games.
Besides, if they're going to give us a sequel/prequel/extension of the story, why not do it with the best Final Fantasy game ever, FF 3e/6j? Then again, FF6 has the same "problem" as FF7 with respect to a sequel, in that the game had a very definite ending. Nothing really remains open to sequelize without reinterpreting events that happened in the original games.
Well, I hope that the A/C is controlled by some sort of humidity sensor and doesn't run whenever the climate control is turned on. There's no sense in wasting energy trying to remove moisture from air that's already dry.
Perhaps I should've been more explicit. Many higher-end cars (bimmers, Porsches, etc) call their A/C "climate control" instead, and expect you to have it on all the time. I don't know all of the plumbing behind it, but my car's climate control has auto and manual modes (or as the display says, "manuell"). In auto, I set the temperature, the A/C is "on", and it automatically adjusts the fan level to keep the cabin temperature consistent. It works well enough that I rarely ever switch to manual mode, and I don't find myself wishing for a separate humidity control. Come to think of it, the only times I've actually switched to manual mode were when I've taken the car to the racetrack. No need for A/C there, since I have to have the windows open for gesturing ("pass me", "don't pass me, it's not safe", "leaving the track", etc) and the extra drain on the engine by the A/C compressor actually makes a difference on the track, as opposed to daily driving.
I hope you enjoy having the air conditioning come on when the outdoor temperature is somewhere south of freezing
My air conditioner runs even when I'm heating the car. By using the air conditioner to remove moisture from the air, fogged windows are no longer a problem. The air conditioner is not just for making the air cool. It's for conditioning the air (uh... duh?).
or having the wipers quit at rush hour in heavy rain
I use RainX, you insensitive clod. No, really. Even in sunny Seattle, I rarely need my wipers except in very heavy rain. RainX is just that good.
Windows is worse: For example Microsoft Office, is completely uncoherent with the rest of the desktop. All widgets are different etc
This is really only true under the default Luna XP theme. Under classic or other visual styles (uxtheme hack), the widgets are not visually different from other applications. More importantly, however, the widgets and other functionality work the same. If I copy a selection in an Office application (and not just text!), I can expect to be able to paste it into any other application (that supports pasting from the clipboard, of course -- you can't paste a Word document selection into the Windows Calculator, for example:). Right-clicks, keyboard commands (for text selection and standard accessibility shortcuts), standard menu entries, and so on are all there, in the right places, working as you would expect from a Windows application. The toolbars may be a little fancier, and there may be icons in the menus, but I can live with that. Apple's applications, on the other hand, don't. Buttons do different things depending on what keys (ctrl, shift) are held when they're clicked, the gridview doesn't honor the "standard" (for Windows) menu key keyboard extension, and the interface itself adheres more closely to Mac guidelines than Windows guidelines, which is not acceptable in my opinion. In contrast, take a look at Microsoft's Office applications for OS X. They follow the OS X guidelines for look and feel. You know you're using an application designed for OS X when using them. When using iTunes in Windows, it doesn't feel like I'm using a Windows application, but a Macintosh application that just happens to run on my Windows PC.
Microsoft is not perfect, but they by and large follow the published guidelines for the platforms they support (building your own widgets isn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as they work as you expect). Apple is not perfect either, and they follow their own UI guidelines regardless of platform. In this case, I'd call Microsoft the better "digital citizen".
BTW, I'm not picking on Apple in particular. They're just a highly-visible example. iTunes has some great features, and QuickTime isn't all bad (when proper care is used, of course). There are plenty of other examples I could draw upon as well, but Apple's software is well-known and boldly flaunts Windows guidelines, so I pick on it here.
Apt works fine for both deb and rpm packages, so you really have the majority of distribution provided packages covered.
The format is not really the problem, and it's great that apt can handle both deb and rpm. The problem is that different distros put things in different places and use different naming conventions. It's not bad enough to confuse a user who knows what he's doing, but it means that you don't get a single RPM package that works on all distros that support RPMs. Instead, you get one RPM for SuSE, one RPM for Fedora/Redhat, one RPM for Mandrake, etc. Things are similar with deb, as well, where you have one deb that works for Debian, but a deb for another Debian-based distro may not work on plain-vanilla Debian.
The problem comes when users want to install something outside of their ditribution provided set. Sure, Debian has a very large repository, but it'll never have commercial software. Meanwhile Fedora has a very small repository (comparatively). For non-distribution provided packages I'd suggest you check out Autopackage. You download a packages, run it, and it will check dependencies, resolve them if at all possible, and install itself - it's like installshield but nicer and with dependency resolution. Autopackage isn't done yet, but it already has working packages - its just lacking nice to have features like integration with rpm and deb package databases etc.
Yet Another Package Format is not what Linux needs. There's absolutely nothing that prevents commercial developers from building debs that will work on Debian, for example. Have a look at Microsoft's MSI installers. Microsoft builds MSIs, third parties build MSIs, and they all work (assuming the developers aren't idiots, of course), they all integrate into the Add/Remove Programs applet, and they all can benefit from built-in features of the MSI software like package repair. The problem is that they have to build one for Debian, and one for Xandros, and then an RPM for Redhat, and an RPM for SuSE, and so on. If distributions could all agree on a standardized filesystem (yes, there's been a project dedicated to this for years, but for years nothing has happened) it wouldn't matter if commercial software is shipped as a deb, an rpm, or even a tgz so long as the package software can handle each format.
Given a combination of Synaptic and Autopackage for base and third party software I think Linux has a very bright future for installing and managing software.
A good interface is a must-have feature, but another package format is not. Focus on standardizing what already exists rather than building Yet Another Package Format!
(BTW, looking at the Synaptic screenshots (I've not used Synaptic), it looks like it still has a long way to go before it will be "user-friendly". The average user just wants to know, "What is already installed?" so they can remove it if necessary. Giving them the option to install other stuff is nice, but the UI for Synaptic is too cluttered up with that. The Windows Add/Remove Software applet is good in this respect, because while you can install new software through it, the functionality is secondary and not in-your-face all of the time.)
Because finally someone really *gets* what the problem is with linux - the damn thing is uninstallable by the rest of us.
IMHO, the "installation problem" has been solved for quite some time now. Most Linux installers (Debian excluded:) are easier to install than Windows. Therefore, it's also my opinion that distro developers are still spending too much time on initial installation and not enough time on the real problems. As I see it, the real problems right now are two-fold:
Linux is still hard to come by pre-installed, so in that case you're correct - installation is difficult. That's relative, though, because the installation of a pre-installed Windows PC is 0, while installing Linux will always require some work so long as it's not pre-installed.
Everything else. Applications. User interfaces. Hardware support. GNOME and KDE have made great strides in the desktop area, as have a number of applications, but there's still no coherent UI guidelines. As a developer, you get to make the choice between GNOME's guidelines, KDE's different guidelines, or something else entirely. Too often, applications opt for the "something else entirely" route (Mozilla's XUL, for example). That results in applications that don't share a common look & feel even within the same desktop environment. Part of that is due to the large number of environments (competition is a good thing, but it has plenty of downsides), part is due to the open source process itself (most developers have no UI sense at all, and the lack of oversight for UI cohesiveness doesn't help), and part is due to the fact that GNOME, KDE, etc are not cross-platform (Mozilla won't follow GNOME guideliness, because then it won't be right on Windows or OS X).*
I don't have the answers to solve these problems, but I'm confident they are solvable. The biggest requirement I see is a coherent user experience, which is where distributions become very important. However, so long as distro makers continue to focus on installation (face it, how many times have you seen a "review" of a Linux distribution that focuses only on the installation of that distro?), they're going to get nowhere fast.
* To be fair, Windows has problems with this as well, and it stems from a large, diverse, and active development community. It also can result from ego. For example, Microsoft makes excellent Macintosh software, and they generally follow Apple's guidelines whether the software was for OS 9 or earlier, or OS X. Apple, on the other hand, is either completely ignorant of Microsoft's UI guidelines for Windows, or they don't care. Therefore, you get crap like Quicktime or iTunes on Windows that don't follow any of the standard Windows interface guidelines. They're not "bad" applications, but the best that can be said about them on Windows is that they're Mac apps wrapped in a Windows frame. Not good for the overall user experience, and shame on Apple in my opinion.
Re:Why I dislike Halo (and all modern console game
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Older GCs have digital outputs suitable for HDTV but it is still 480p
More correctly, older GCs have digital outputs for component video (YPrPb), which does not mean it's capable of HD resolutions (I have an older GC, with the component cable). Component video just means that a) you get better color and sharpness due to signal separation, and b) you can do progressive scan video. That HD signals are often sent over component video does not mean that component video implies HD compatibility. For example, my TV has three component inputs, but only one supports HD (it's also shared with a RGBHV input, but nothing uses RGBHV these days). The other two top out at 480p, which is not HD, contrary to what Nintendo, Sony, or Fox (whose "HDTV" broadcasts are really just "EDTV", or "Enhanced Definition", meaning they're broadcast at 480p 16:9) will tell you.
On the audio front, only XBox natively supports Dolby Digital 5.1, though PS2 could theoretically support it since it has a TOSLink optical output port (IIRC, some games have dedicated one of the PS2's vector units to DD5.1 encoding, but that takes away power that could be used for graphics or gameplay). The GC is stuck with ancient DPL2 via analog stereo outputs.
Re:Why I dislike Halo (and all modern console game
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Xbox and GC both support HDTV, although not all the games do.
Are you sure about that? XBox certainly supports the 720p and 1080i HD resolutions, but I thought GC was limited to 480p (16:9 or 4:3). If that's the case, then only the XBox supports HD resolutions, and the PS2 and Gamecube are left with 480p.
Re:Why I dislike Halo (and all modern console game
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Many people would surely agree with me that they're oversized and poorly laid out. There are of course third party replacements.
Maybe you have little girly hands? Just kidding. The complaints about the original Duke-style large XBox controllers had some merit (personally, I always liked the large controller -- it fit well in my hand, was comfortable for hours on end, and just felt "substantial", like it was a tool rather than a toy). The Akebono (S, smaller controller) that's the standard now successfully addresses the complaints of size while leaving comfort intact. For my gaming goodness, I'd choose an XBox Controller S over a Gamecube or PS2 controller any day. Oh, and third party controllers invariably suck. I don't know why that's the case, but it is.
This leads me to a conclusion that PC gaming is just "better" from a usability standpoint. In a PC FPS I get freelook with the mouse, and 5 individual buttons to map (at least on my mouse). On the left, I get movement and strafe as well as any other function I want to bind near those keys. The classic "Quake" layout. And I can change this layout at will. It is far more powerful and far more natural.
That's your opinion, of course. The dual joystick approach works quite well for many of us. Maybe we don't have the pinpoint accuracy you do with a mouse (though many accomplished Halo snipers would vehemently disagree), but what matters is that the game is fun to play. Also keep in mind that there are more genres of games than just FPS. PC keyboard+mouse combos work horribly for sports titles, racing titles, action/adventure titles, and even RPGs (console-style like Final Fantasy, not PC-style like Baldur's Gate). Yes, you can buy gamepads for your PC, but these tend to fall into the same category as 3rd-party controllers for consoles -- they suck.
Beyond that, PC games have readily available multiplayer over the internet; the apex of multiplayer gaming. Console games are only just now getting this, and some of them are even subscription only.
XBox Live! is maturing quite well (it'll be two years old next month; older if you consider the time it spent in beta). While you may dislike the subscription aspect of Live! ($50/year or $5/month, not a huge bank breaker), it does act as a minor barrier to entry, keeping the asshat population in check somewhat (which has been completely negated by the proliferation of 2 month trial cards). For that subscription fee, you get ubiquitous voice support, single sign-on (one nick across all games), cross-game invites, cross-game friends list, and more.
In short, if I were to purchase Halo, I wouldn't touch the console. I'd get it for the PC.
So buy it on PC. Halo has been on PC for quite a while now. This story, however, is about Halo 2.
In short, if Halo 2 is available for PC (and Linux in my case), I would consider it.
Hahahahahahaha BREATHE hahahahahahahaha. That's funny. If H2 ever makes it off of the XBox (highly doubtful), you'll never see it for Linux. PC for sure, maybe Mac, but not Linux, at least not officially. You can probably play H1 with WineX or whatever it's called these days, and if H2 ever makes it to PC you'll probably be able to do the same, but there will be no native Linux port.
Tell me, anyone, what is the lure of console games? Is it merely the plug it in and go aspect? Why settle for an inferior user interface? Or am I missing something important here regarding the design of modern contollers?
No more hardware treadmill (you buy a console and you don't need to upgrade for 4-5 years). Wider array of viable genres (when was the last time you saw a playable 2D fighter on PC?). Better control for most game types (FPS
I just spent 5 minutes figuring out if Halo 2 will sold on Nov 9th for the PC Platform, and it's not.
It took you that long? Bungie has never said one word about Halo 2 making it to PC, and it certainly wouldn't sim-ship with the XBox version if it does get ported.
The Tv licence fee goes to funding the BBC and as a result the bbc doesnt have advert breaks! Ever seen a movie on regular tv with no adverts? its heaven!
It's becoming more and more common for advertisors to sponsor a show commercial-free, rather than buy a spot within the show. For example, Nip/Tuck on FX recently aired the season finale (at almost a full hour, something like 56 minutes or so of actual show time, unlike the usual 45 minutes of show you get for an hour including commercials) ad-free, and all they had to do was pimp Stacker 2 (whatever that is, I don't know or care) at the beginning and end (not within the show, mind you, but with the actors saying, "This season finale brought to you commercial-free by Stacker 2"). The same thing was done with Rescue Me's season opener, and I believe Nip/Tuck did the same on the opener. Maybe it's just FX doing this (they're turning into the best channel for prime time drama shows, and being a non-broadcast cable channel they can get away with some profanity like "shit" and near nudity), but I wouldn't mind more stations going this route.
did you know an episode of the simpsons lasts only 20 minutes without adverts?
Yes. It's pretty awesome that I can watch a half-hour show in 20 minutes, thanks to my TiVO. If I'm actually around and I don't want to wait for the TiVO to finish recording, I'll just delay watching a show for 5-10 minutes, and still end up with a nearly ad-free episode (sometimes I don't time it right, and have to watch to final commercial break, but usually I'm not around to watch TV when my TiVO is recording a show).
Ad-free television is not incentive enough for me to pay nearly $30 US (16 pounds) per month.
By opening up the source and making it possible for OSS developers to use a high quality installer, Microsoft has shown that it realizes the importance of Open Source software to its user base.
WiX is not the installer. WiX is an XML schema and processor that let's you more easily build MSI installers. There's nothing stopping you from looking up the documentation on the Windows Installer at MSDN and building your own MSI programmatically, or building your own WiX-like processor, or whatever you want. The Windows Installer SDK is part of the Platform SDK, and I'm pretty sure that linking against base platform libraries is allowed even by the GPL (it's one of those things that's frowned upon, but allowed because otherwise you could only write GPL software to run on Linux or HURD).
Also, Nullsoft's NSIS (I still think they should've carried on the PiMP/SuperPiMP naming, rather than getting all "professional") has been open source and available for years. It doesn't compile down to an MSI installer, but Nullsoft's own format, and the language and installer is pretty powerful. MSIs give you some pretty cool and powerful abilities that you can't do from NSIS, but 90% of all installers don't need much more than the ability to decompress some files, copy them around, and write some regkeys.
Someone open-sourcing something causes more people to use it?!?!?
No, it's closer to, "Open-source something causes already open-source-centric people to use it." Also keep in mind that WiX is just a wrapper on top of Microsoft's proprietary Windows Installer bits. Therefore, while you can modify the syntax supported by WiX because that part is open, you can't change core functionality of the installer software (that part is not open).
and to Microsoft for trying something they have otherwise sworn against.
Microsoft is not against open source. They've used BSD-licensed software, and more than WiX has been released under an open source license. What Microsoft has "sworn against" is "Free Software" as RMS would call it, or to the rest of us, software using the GPL or other "viral" license.
It's great for Microsoft, since Fable and Halo are pretty much the only reasons for a gamer to own an XBox.
That's a little short-sighted. As another poster pointed out, Ninja Gaiden (and indeed, all of Team Ninja's recent and known-future work) is exclusive to XBox. If you're into racing, it's hard to beat Project: Gotham Racing 2 (no, it's not a psuedo-simulation like the Gran Turismo series, but it has the best XBox Live! online play I've seen to date, and the physics engine backing the cars seems much more powerful than Gran Turismo's) or the Rallisport Challenge series. If you're looking for a GT killer, Forza Motorsports is shaping up nicely. Cross-platform games are better on the XBox (Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and now that EA has finally pulled their heads out of their asses and embraced Live!, the EA titles).
I guess the real question here is, what games do you like? The Xbox is currently weak in RPG games, with only KOTOR and, to a lesser extent, Fable representing the genre with any sense of style. That's set to change (Jade Empire, KOTOR 2, The Bard's Tale, Lord of the Rings, Third Age, etc) in the near future. If you like FPS, it's hard to do better than PC, so long as you don't mind the constant hardware upgrade treadmill. However, for action/adventure games (PoP and NG of course, but also lesser-known titles like Sphynx and the Cursed Mummy, Metal Arms, Otogi, Beyond Good & Evil, etc) it's hard to beat XBox. As I mentioned before, the XBox also shines with racing games, though noone has successfully produced a "GT3-killer" yet (Sega GT 2002 tried, and was a fun game in and of itself, but it fell short of the Gran Turismo mark). Forza Motorsports looks to be a serious contender for the racing simulation crown, however, especially since Gran Turismo 4 doesn't look like it will expand much on Gran Turismo 3. Sports games are also better on XBox, especially Sega's ESPN lineup (and at $20 per game for the 2005 season, it's pretty damned hard to beat -- better graphics than the EA games, comparable gameplay, much better online implementation, and $20+ cheaper than EA's offerings). RTS games don't translate well to consoles, but Full Spectrum Warrior could be considered in the RTS genre and is quite enjoyable (yes, it's now out on the PC).
So, what do you like?
(disclaimer: All of the links are from Gamespot, but I have no affiliation with them. I'm not even a Gamespot Complete member. I simply didn't feel like trolling around for links from various different web sites. I don't necessarily agree with all of Gamespot's reviews, either. Also, I realize that many of the games I mentioned are available on multiple platforms. My intent is not to show the number of exclusive titles for XBox, but to show that these multi-platform games are best on XBox.)
So you're the guy who uses "bob@dole.com" before I get a chance! Now it would be really freaky if you switched to "dob@bole.com" as your backup (and "teve@torbes.com" after that -- I wonder how people know where those come from).
Yes because signing out a form to get a program means it spyware free, right? E-mail Adress * * denotes a required field
How do they know that bob@dole.com isn't your real email address? I'm not defending Real, but I've also never had a problem with forms that "require" your email address (or name, or postal address, or even your birthday). They only get your information if you willingly give them your information.
On a side note, I wonder how much spam goes to:
Bob Dole
123 Main St
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
bob@dole.com
555-555-1212
I think everyone would agree that RMS would be considered the "father of Free Software" (or "Open Source" to the less anally retentive). Linus's operating system was largely responsible for bringing FOSS into the mainstream. Interestingly, neither of these de facto FOSS leaders started out with "Destroy Microsoft!" as their end goal, nor do they preach that today. In fact, most FOSS leaders (well, with the exception of some nuts like ESR) don't have "Destroy Microsoft" on their agenda. It's the zealous fanboys that put forward this goal, and those folks are safely ignored. (Of course, the quiet guy who goes about his business and gets things done is much more dangerous than the boisterous fanboy just making noise)
Would still be unix workstation projects without the support of thousands of former Microsoft customers who have now switched to open source projects because they are fed up with sub-par software at premium prices.
Again with the revisionist history. For years, Linux's growth in the server market was at the cost of other *nixes (and still is to a large extent), not Microsoft, while Apache and Sendmail had dominance long before Microsoft even mattered. Microsoft grew their server market with hardware and software that was cheaper than the status quo (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris). Linux did the same, while undercutting Microsoft on the price. If you think Win2k3 server machines are sold at a "premium price", you should check out commercial *nixes!
There are thousands of projects on sourceforge that were written as replacement for Microsoft products.
There are also thousands of projects on sourceforge that never made it out of the "Planning" stage, much less even made it to an Alpha state. I wonder how many of those were started as a replacement for Microsoft products? Even Microsoft has software on SourceForge!
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You're also wrong, by the way. A spoiler doesn't create any downforce. A wing is used to create downforce (negative lift, as the wing is exactly the same areofoil shape as you'd find on an airplane, except inverted). A spoiler simply "spoils" the lift generated by the inherent shape of a car. A car is roughly shaped like an aerofoil (rounded on top, flat on the bottom), and thus at higher speeds it tends to generate lift. It's certainly not enough for your car to actually fly, but it is enough to reduce traction necessary for handling and braking. By spoiling that aerofoil shape, a spoiler lessens the natural lift generated by the body shape of a car. For most non-racing applications, a spoiler is all you need, and in most cases you don't even need that (most factory spoilers are indeed cosmetic -- why is it that a Chevy Cavalier needs a spoiler, while a C6 Corvette doesn't?).
In a racing application, a simple spoiler is often not enough, however, and it doesn't really matter where your drive wheels are in that application. That's why you'll see touring cars like the Acura RSX or TSX, or the Mazda 6 with big wings in the Speed World Challenge races (and other touring car series). These are fully adjustable wings that generated downforce (the amount determined by the angle of attack, just as the amount of lift generated by an airplane is determined by its angle of attack). You simply do not need a big-ass wing like that outside of a full race car. That is why the ricers are silly for putting big ol' wings on their cars (well, aside from the facts that they suffer from "bigger is better" and "more is better" syndrome with huge and multi-level wings, and that 9 times out of 10 the wings they're buying are not fully adjustable, and that 10th time the wing isn't properly adjusted for the conditions).
I'm on Cingular, and I have good signal strength everywhere but at work. At work, I can pick up AT&T Wireless just fine (must have a repeater in the building or something, because it's very strong, and no other cell network shows up). Does this mean that I can now use the AT&T network without worrying about roaming charges? Maybe I can finally answer my cell at work, rather than waiting for it to ring through to my work phone! (it takes 5+ rings before it forwards, after which most people will hang up.)
Should the clerk quiz the parent on the content of the game? The original poster implied, and you confirmed, that parents buy these games without any thought, and the way many games stores work it wouldn't really be a red flag that the game was behind the counter (most places lock up their games, or keep the actual game boxes behind the counter anyway so you have to ask them for what you want). It is a slippery slope, and we're already well down the slope with other nanny-state policies.
And I shouldn't be required to jump through hoops because your friend didn't care enough about his or her child to know what kinds of video games the kid likes. Besides, why did your friend need you to tell him what GTA contains? Can he not read the ESRB rating on the game box? Would this same friend allow his child to see an R-rated movie unattended because he didn't know it was an R-rated movie? (I'll laugh if you say theaters check for ages at admission, but to humor that possibility change this to "rent an R-rated movie" instead.)
Not knowing "about being a parent" and not knowing what your child likes are two completely different things. That's the kind of attitude that leads to teen pregnancy ("I didn't know little Bobby was screwing Nancy down the block! I thought he was up in his room with the door closed, studying."), drug use ("Jimmy's friends were so nice, I never would've expected they'd be smoking the pot!"), street racing ("Johnny said he was going to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream. I didn't know that's where the rice bangers hang out, challenging each other to to street drag races!"), and so on. If you're going to be a parent, get involved!
However, you're right about one thing -- I don't know about "being a parent", because I'm not one. I do know enough that I do not want to be one anytime soon, either, because I know I'm incapable of being involved in a child's life (I have a hard enough time being involved in my own life, at times!). Maybe that makes me "immature", but I prefer to think of it as "smart". I know my limitations, and there's no damned way I would bring a child into this world if I had to raise him. If more people considered that, this world would be better off.
I have a couple of friends that recently got pregnant, and are getting married shortly. Why did they get pregnant before getting married? (she's actually showing, so it's not like she can hide it) Her mom was pregnant when she got married, and his mom was pregnant when she got married as well. Thus, they wanted to carry on the "grand tradition". To me, that screams, "SELFISH!" and I fear for the welfare of their child, but there's nothing I can do about it, nor will I (if they don't screw up, they won't learn -- sadly, it will involve the life of an innocent for them to learn).
I have another couple of friends who recently got married. She's young (married before she was 21, even!), and he's not (moving into late-20s). She's not even fin
Because some parents can't be bothered to take an active role in their childrens' lives, we should increase the nanny state and "hide" items like GTA? I'm sorry, but no. Besides, you said it yourself that parents are buying this, so what would hiding it serve? All the parents know is that little Billy wants "Grand Theft Auto: Something Or Other", and they're just going to ask the store clerk for "that Grand Theft thing". Hidden behind the counter or not, the parent is still going to buy it.
If you really want to "think of the children," consider mandatory parenting classes for expecting families, free or low-cost birth control and abortions and sterilizations available to all, and incentives for sterilization ("You want an increase on your welfare check/a free country club membership/a large tax cut/a new car? Go get a vasectomy or tubaligation."). It's not my responsibility to parent the children of folks who should never have had kids in the first place, and I should not be punished for their inteptitude either (okay, hiding GTA behind a counter isn't much "punishment", but where do we stop?). That whole crap about taking a village to raise a child is bullshit. It takes two parents that care what their children are doing, and are not afraid to punish them as necessary. Anything less, and those people should never have had children in the first place.
What?!?! No way!!! Next you're going to tell me that hot little Tidus from FF X was a guy, too! Damn ...
(ps: This is a joke, as was my previous post, in case you couldn't tell. I was commenting on the feminine look of many male characters in recent Final Fantasy games.)
As others have mentioned, saving weight anywhere possible is a Good Thing (tm) in a car. Ligher weight means a higher power to weight ratio, which means a faster car at the same horsepower (or better mileage, if you're into that sort of thing). Don't believe me? Take a look at the Porsche GT3 RS. They went so far in removing weight that the Porsche emblem on the hood is a sticker! Traditionally, it's a plastic or metal badge, but they went all out in removing as much weight as possible from the GT3 for the RS revision. BMW went so far with the M3 CSL that they replaced the floor of its trunk with cardboard. The floor pan in the C6 Corvette is made out of balsa wood sandwiched between thin layers of aluminum. Obviously these cars aren't really going for gas mileage, but the principles are the same. Besides, as we move more and more towards hybrid or all-electric vehicles, a 50 pound saving in wiring gear means that you have 50 more pounds available for batteries or other electricity storage mechanisms, thus adding extra range to the car because you're adding more power reserves without adding any more weight.
The biggest hurdle here is not whether or not they can do it, but whether or not it gains acceptance. For example, Porsche has started using the MOST bus in recent model years for their audio equipment (they use Becker equipment, listed on that page), and it's difficult to find compatible aftermarket equipment. Firewire has the benefit of several years on the market already in various applications, so it's a well-known technology by now.
I dunno, I always thought that Sephiroth chick was pretty hot!
Historically, the Final Fantasy games have always been set in different worlds (carrying over constants like a character named Sid/Cid, chocobos, airships, sometimes light/element crystals, Bahamut, etc). The world in FF2j is not the same as FF1, nor is the world in FF3e/6j the same as in FF2e/4j or FF5j. The plot is fairly formulaic -- something has/will happen to the world, and it's up to a scrappy band of heroes to save the day. In the end, the world is changed, evil is banished forever, and everybody lives happily ever after. That's why I don't like Square's new emphasis on sequels (FF X-2, the new FF VII-related games, the FF VII movie, FF XI's attempt to cash in on the MMOG craze). The previous games were not sequels, regardless of how they were named. These new sequels now ruin the whole plot by continuing the story after what was supposedly the ultimate end. It seems to me that Square is in trouble if they can't come up with "new" story lines and characters, but instead have to rehash their old games.
Besides, if they're going to give us a sequel/prequel/extension of the story, why not do it with the best Final Fantasy game ever, FF 3e/6j? Then again, FF6 has the same "problem" as FF7 with respect to a sequel, in that the game had a very definite ending. Nothing really remains open to sequelize without reinterpreting events that happened in the original games.
Perhaps I should've been more explicit. Many higher-end cars (bimmers, Porsches, etc) call their A/C "climate control" instead, and expect you to have it on all the time. I don't know all of the plumbing behind it, but my car's climate control has auto and manual modes (or as the display says, "manuell"). In auto, I set the temperature, the A/C is "on", and it automatically adjusts the fan level to keep the cabin temperature consistent. It works well enough that I rarely ever switch to manual mode, and I don't find myself wishing for a separate humidity control. Come to think of it, the only times I've actually switched to manual mode were when I've taken the car to the racetrack. No need for A/C there, since I have to have the windows open for gesturing ("pass me", "don't pass me, it's not safe", "leaving the track", etc) and the extra drain on the engine by the A/C compressor actually makes a difference on the track, as opposed to daily driving.
My air conditioner runs even when I'm heating the car. By using the air conditioner to remove moisture from the air, fogged windows are no longer a problem. The air conditioner is not just for making the air cool. It's for conditioning the air (uh ... duh?).
I use RainX, you insensitive clod. No, really. Even in sunny Seattle, I rarely need my wipers except in very heavy rain. RainX is just that good.
This is really only true under the default Luna XP theme. Under classic or other visual styles (uxtheme hack), the widgets are not visually different from other applications. More importantly, however, the widgets and other functionality work the same. If I copy a selection in an Office application (and not just text!), I can expect to be able to paste it into any other application (that supports pasting from the clipboard, of course -- you can't paste a Word document selection into the Windows Calculator, for example :). Right-clicks, keyboard commands (for text selection and standard accessibility shortcuts), standard menu entries, and so on are all there, in the right places, working as you would expect from a Windows application. The toolbars may be a little fancier, and there may be icons in the menus, but I can live with that. Apple's applications, on the other hand, don't. Buttons do different things depending on what keys (ctrl, shift) are held when they're clicked, the gridview doesn't honor the "standard" (for Windows) menu key keyboard extension, and the interface itself adheres more closely to Mac guidelines than Windows guidelines, which is not acceptable in my opinion. In contrast, take a look at Microsoft's Office applications for OS X. They follow the OS X guidelines for look and feel. You know you're using an application designed for OS X when using them. When using iTunes in Windows, it doesn't feel like I'm using a Windows application, but a Macintosh application that just happens to run on my Windows PC.
Microsoft is not perfect, but they by and large follow the published guidelines for the platforms they support (building your own widgets isn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as they work as you expect). Apple is not perfect either, and they follow their own UI guidelines regardless of platform. In this case, I'd call Microsoft the better "digital citizen".
BTW, I'm not picking on Apple in particular. They're just a highly-visible example. iTunes has some great features, and QuickTime isn't all bad (when proper care is used, of course). There are plenty of other examples I could draw upon as well, but Apple's software is well-known and boldly flaunts Windows guidelines, so I pick on it here.
The format is not really the problem, and it's great that apt can handle both deb and rpm. The problem is that different distros put things in different places and use different naming conventions. It's not bad enough to confuse a user who knows what he's doing, but it means that you don't get a single RPM package that works on all distros that support RPMs. Instead, you get one RPM for SuSE, one RPM for Fedora/Redhat, one RPM for Mandrake, etc. Things are similar with deb, as well, where you have one deb that works for Debian, but a deb for another Debian-based distro may not work on plain-vanilla Debian.
Yet Another Package Format is not what Linux needs. There's absolutely nothing that prevents commercial developers from building debs that will work on Debian, for example. Have a look at Microsoft's MSI installers. Microsoft builds MSIs, third parties build MSIs, and they all work (assuming the developers aren't idiots, of course), they all integrate into the Add/Remove Programs applet, and they all can benefit from built-in features of the MSI software like package repair. The problem is that they have to build one for Debian, and one for Xandros, and then an RPM for Redhat, and an RPM for SuSE, and so on. If distributions could all agree on a standardized filesystem (yes, there's been a project dedicated to this for years, but for years nothing has happened) it wouldn't matter if commercial software is shipped as a deb, an rpm, or even a tgz so long as the package software can handle each format.
A good interface is a must-have feature, but another package format is not. Focus on standardizing what already exists rather than building Yet Another Package Format!
(BTW, looking at the Synaptic screenshots (I've not used Synaptic), it looks like it still has a long way to go before it will be "user-friendly". The average user just wants to know, "What is already installed?" so they can remove it if necessary. Giving them the option to install other stuff is nice, but the UI for Synaptic is too cluttered up with that. The Windows Add/Remove Software applet is good in this respect, because while you can install new software through it, the functionality is secondary and not in-your-face all of the time.)
IMHO, the "installation problem" has been solved for quite some time now. Most Linux installers (Debian excluded :) are easier to install than Windows. Therefore, it's also my opinion that distro developers are still spending too much time on initial installation and not enough time on the real problems. As I see it, the real problems right now are two-fold:
- Linux is still hard to come by pre-installed, so in that case you're correct - installation is difficult. That's relative, though, because the installation of a pre-installed Windows PC is 0, while installing Linux will always require some work so long as it's not pre-installed.
- Everything else. Applications. User interfaces. Hardware support. GNOME and KDE have made great strides in the desktop area, as have a number of applications, but there's still no coherent UI guidelines. As a developer, you get to make the choice between GNOME's guidelines, KDE's different guidelines, or something else entirely. Too often, applications opt for the "something else entirely" route (Mozilla's XUL, for example). That results in applications that don't share a common look & feel even within the same desktop environment. Part of that is due to the large number of environments (competition is a good thing, but it has plenty of downsides), part is due to the open source process itself (most developers have no UI sense at all, and the lack of oversight for UI cohesiveness doesn't help), and part is due to the fact that GNOME, KDE, etc are not cross-platform (Mozilla won't follow GNOME guideliness, because then it won't be right on Windows or OS X).*
I don't have the answers to solve these problems, but I'm confident they are solvable. The biggest requirement I see is a coherent user experience, which is where distributions become very important. However, so long as distro makers continue to focus on installation (face it, how many times have you seen a "review" of a Linux distribution that focuses only on the installation of that distro?), they're going to get nowhere fast.* To be fair, Windows has problems with this as well, and it stems from a large, diverse, and active development community. It also can result from ego. For example, Microsoft makes excellent Macintosh software, and they generally follow Apple's guidelines whether the software was for OS 9 or earlier, or OS X. Apple, on the other hand, is either completely ignorant of Microsoft's UI guidelines for Windows, or they don't care. Therefore, you get crap like Quicktime or iTunes on Windows that don't follow any of the standard Windows interface guidelines. They're not "bad" applications, but the best that can be said about them on Windows is that they're Mac apps wrapped in a Windows frame. Not good for the overall user experience, and shame on Apple in my opinion.
Face it, your computer's a tracer
More correctly, older GCs have digital outputs for component video (YPrPb), which does not mean it's capable of HD resolutions (I have an older GC, with the component cable). Component video just means that a) you get better color and sharpness due to signal separation, and b) you can do progressive scan video. That HD signals are often sent over component video does not mean that component video implies HD compatibility. For example, my TV has three component inputs, but only one supports HD (it's also shared with a RGBHV input, but nothing uses RGBHV these days). The other two top out at 480p, which is not HD, contrary to what Nintendo, Sony, or Fox (whose "HDTV" broadcasts are really just "EDTV", or "Enhanced Definition", meaning they're broadcast at 480p 16:9) will tell you.
On the audio front, only XBox natively supports Dolby Digital 5.1, though PS2 could theoretically support it since it has a TOSLink optical output port (IIRC, some games have dedicated one of the PS2's vector units to DD5.1 encoding, but that takes away power that could be used for graphics or gameplay). The GC is stuck with ancient DPL2 via analog stereo outputs.
Are you sure about that? XBox certainly supports the 720p and 1080i HD resolutions, but I thought GC was limited to 480p (16:9 or 4:3). If that's the case, then only the XBox supports HD resolutions, and the PS2 and Gamecube are left with 480p.
Maybe you have little girly hands? Just kidding. The complaints about the original Duke-style large XBox controllers had some merit (personally, I always liked the large controller -- it fit well in my hand, was comfortable for hours on end, and just felt "substantial", like it was a tool rather than a toy). The Akebono (S, smaller controller) that's the standard now successfully addresses the complaints of size while leaving comfort intact. For my gaming goodness, I'd choose an XBox Controller S over a Gamecube or PS2 controller any day. Oh, and third party controllers invariably suck. I don't know why that's the case, but it is.
That's your opinion, of course. The dual joystick approach works quite well for many of us. Maybe we don't have the pinpoint accuracy you do with a mouse (though many accomplished Halo snipers would vehemently disagree), but what matters is that the game is fun to play. Also keep in mind that there are more genres of games than just FPS. PC keyboard+mouse combos work horribly for sports titles, racing titles, action/adventure titles, and even RPGs (console-style like Final Fantasy, not PC-style like Baldur's Gate). Yes, you can buy gamepads for your PC, but these tend to fall into the same category as 3rd-party controllers for consoles -- they suck.
XBox Live! is maturing quite well (it'll be two years old next month; older if you consider the time it spent in beta). While you may dislike the subscription aspect of Live! ($50/year or $5/month, not a huge bank breaker), it does act as a minor barrier to entry, keeping the asshat population in check somewhat (which has been completely negated by the proliferation of 2 month trial cards). For that subscription fee, you get ubiquitous voice support, single sign-on (one nick across all games), cross-game invites, cross-game friends list, and more.
So buy it on PC. Halo has been on PC for quite a while now. This story, however, is about Halo 2.
Hahahahahahaha BREATHE hahahahahahahaha. That's funny. If H2 ever makes it off of the XBox (highly doubtful), you'll never see it for Linux. PC for sure, maybe Mac, but not Linux, at least not officially. You can probably play H1 with WineX or whatever it's called these days, and if H2 ever makes it to PC you'll probably be able to do the same, but there will be no native Linux port.
No more hardware treadmill (you buy a console and you don't need to upgrade for 4-5 years). Wider array of viable genres (when was the last time you saw a playable 2D fighter on PC?). Better control for most game types (FPS
It took you that long? Bungie has never said one word about Halo 2 making it to PC, and it certainly wouldn't sim-ship with the XBox version if it does get ported.
It's becoming more and more common for advertisors to sponsor a show commercial-free, rather than buy a spot within the show. For example, Nip/Tuck on FX recently aired the season finale (at almost a full hour, something like 56 minutes or so of actual show time, unlike the usual 45 minutes of show you get for an hour including commercials) ad-free, and all they had to do was pimp Stacker 2 (whatever that is, I don't know or care) at the beginning and end (not within the show, mind you, but with the actors saying, "This season finale brought to you commercial-free by Stacker 2"). The same thing was done with Rescue Me's season opener, and I believe Nip/Tuck did the same on the opener. Maybe it's just FX doing this (they're turning into the best channel for prime time drama shows, and being a non-broadcast cable channel they can get away with some profanity like "shit" and near nudity), but I wouldn't mind more stations going this route.
Yes. It's pretty awesome that I can watch a half-hour show in 20 minutes, thanks to my TiVO. If I'm actually around and I don't want to wait for the TiVO to finish recording, I'll just delay watching a show for 5-10 minutes, and still end up with a nearly ad-free episode (sometimes I don't time it right, and have to watch to final commercial break, but usually I'm not around to watch TV when my TiVO is recording a show).
Ad-free television is not incentive enough for me to pay nearly $30 US (16 pounds) per month.
WiX is not the installer. WiX is an XML schema and processor that let's you more easily build MSI installers. There's nothing stopping you from looking up the documentation on the Windows Installer at MSDN and building your own MSI programmatically, or building your own WiX-like processor, or whatever you want. The Windows Installer SDK is part of the Platform SDK, and I'm pretty sure that linking against base platform libraries is allowed even by the GPL (it's one of those things that's frowned upon, but allowed because otherwise you could only write GPL software to run on Linux or HURD).
Also, Nullsoft's NSIS (I still think they should've carried on the PiMP/SuperPiMP naming, rather than getting all "professional") has been open source and available for years. It doesn't compile down to an MSI installer, but Nullsoft's own format, and the language and installer is pretty powerful. MSIs give you some pretty cool and powerful abilities that you can't do from NSIS, but 90% of all installers don't need much more than the ability to decompress some files, copy them around, and write some regkeys.
No, it's closer to, "Open-source something causes already open-source-centric people to use it." Also keep in mind that WiX is just a wrapper on top of Microsoft's proprietary Windows Installer bits. Therefore, while you can modify the syntax supported by WiX because that part is open, you can't change core functionality of the installer software (that part is not open).
Microsoft is not against open source. They've used BSD-licensed software, and more than WiX has been released under an open source license. What Microsoft has "sworn against" is "Free Software" as RMS would call it, or to the rest of us, software using the GPL or other "viral" license.
That's a little short-sighted. As another poster pointed out, Ninja Gaiden (and indeed, all of Team Ninja's recent and known-future work) is exclusive to XBox. If you're into racing, it's hard to beat Project: Gotham Racing 2 (no, it's not a psuedo-simulation like the Gran Turismo series, but it has the best XBox Live! online play I've seen to date, and the physics engine backing the cars seems much more powerful than Gran Turismo's) or the Rallisport Challenge series. If you're looking for a GT killer, Forza Motorsports is shaping up nicely. Cross-platform games are better on the XBox (Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and now that EA has finally pulled their heads out of their asses and embraced Live!, the EA titles).
I guess the real question here is, what games do you like? The Xbox is currently weak in RPG games, with only KOTOR and, to a lesser extent, Fable representing the genre with any sense of style. That's set to change (Jade Empire, KOTOR 2, The Bard's Tale, Lord of the Rings, Third Age, etc) in the near future. If you like FPS, it's hard to do better than PC, so long as you don't mind the constant hardware upgrade treadmill. However, for action/adventure games (PoP and NG of course, but also lesser-known titles like Sphynx and the Cursed Mummy, Metal Arms, Otogi, Beyond Good & Evil, etc) it's hard to beat XBox. As I mentioned before, the XBox also shines with racing games, though noone has successfully produced a "GT3-killer" yet (Sega GT 2002 tried, and was a fun game in and of itself, but it fell short of the Gran Turismo mark). Forza Motorsports looks to be a serious contender for the racing simulation crown, however, especially since Gran Turismo 4 doesn't look like it will expand much on Gran Turismo 3. Sports games are also better on XBox, especially Sega's ESPN lineup (and at $20 per game for the 2005 season, it's pretty damned hard to beat -- better graphics than the EA games, comparable gameplay, much better online implementation, and $20+ cheaper than EA's offerings). RTS games don't translate well to consoles, but Full Spectrum Warrior could be considered in the RTS genre and is quite enjoyable (yes, it's now out on the PC).
So, what do you like?
(disclaimer: All of the links are from Gamespot, but I have no affiliation with them. I'm not even a Gamespot Complete member. I simply didn't feel like trolling around for links from various different web sites. I don't necessarily agree with all of Gamespot's reviews, either. Also, I realize that many of the games I mentioned are available on multiple platforms. My intent is not to show the number of exclusive titles for XBox, but to show that these multi-platform games are best on XBox.)
So you're the guy who uses "bob@dole.com" before I get a chance! Now it would be really freaky if you switched to "dob@bole.com" as your backup (and "teve@torbes.com" after that -- I wonder how people know where those come from).
How do they know that bob@dole.com isn't your real email address? I'm not defending Real, but I've also never had a problem with forms that "require" your email address (or name, or postal address, or even your birthday). They only get your information if you willingly give them your information.
On a side note, I wonder how much spam goes to:
I think everyone would agree that RMS would be considered the "father of Free Software" (or "Open Source" to the less anally retentive). Linus's operating system was largely responsible for bringing FOSS into the mainstream. Interestingly, neither of these de facto FOSS leaders started out with "Destroy Microsoft!" as their end goal, nor do they preach that today. In fact, most FOSS leaders (well, with the exception of some nuts like ESR) don't have "Destroy Microsoft" on their agenda. It's the zealous fanboys that put forward this goal, and those folks are safely ignored. (Of course, the quiet guy who goes about his business and gets things done is much more dangerous than the boisterous fanboy just making noise)
Again with the revisionist history. For years, Linux's growth in the server market was at the cost of other *nixes (and still is to a large extent), not Microsoft, while Apache and Sendmail had dominance long before Microsoft even mattered. Microsoft grew their server market with hardware and software that was cheaper than the status quo (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris). Linux did the same, while undercutting Microsoft on the price. If you think Win2k3 server machines are sold at a "premium price", you should check out commercial *nixes!
There are also thousands of projects on sourceforge that never made it out of the "Planning" stage, much less even made it to an Alpha state. I wonder how many of those were started as a replacement for Microsoft products? Even Microsoft has software on SourceForge!