Since everyone seems to be sick of paying $4 for a coffee, maybe Starbucks is changing their business model to one of a wireless ISP. I'm not sure how profitable this would be, however, business travelers might enjoy the convenience of stepping into any starbucks and being able to surf and check email. At $30 a month, with stores coast to coast and in many airports (not to mention foreign countries), this may be a convenience to some, if not many, who travel with wireless enabled laptops.
First of all, it's totally proprietary. Second, there's no expansion room at all. Want a DVD-RAM and a CD-RW? Sorry. Can't do it. That's pathetic. Third, it doesn't have any nice features like front-accessible USB/Firewire, big power supply (oh yeah, that's proprietary, too), slide-out motherboard tray, multiple fan mounts, etc.
The computer you describe is 4 years old... perhaps you would like to share the name of the pc case from 4 years ago that had the features you mention? Or are you to busy installing firewire cards into your pc?
Also, I'm curious why you mention "multiple fan mounts"... it seems to me that you have never owned a RISC processor and aren't aware that macs don't get hot.
Owner of a B&W G3? I don't think so. Member of the Bill Gates pimple popping club? Most certainly.
"I'll bet Peter Parker's adventure surpasses the upcoming opening weekend of Attack of the Clones and teaches George Lucas something about the power and nature of myth."
How much do you want to bet John?
Shadow Throw... and some thoughts
on
Bang The Machine
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· Score: 1
I'm glad there is a movie about SF2. Perhaps if people see how much skill is involved in playing video games, they won't criticize them quite so much. It's about respect. Watch a good player and you know what I mean. Their hands are as nimble as a concert pianist.
The best competitors of the original SF2 know that Guile is unbeatable (original arcade ROM)... once you learn how to shadow throw and freeze. I have never been beaten after learning these tricks, and no one will play a Guile that uses a glitch in the game.
After becoming a good player, I played competitively at the Broadway Arcade in NYC (now deceased). The competition was the best I have ever seen, many players played 5 days a week for about an hour (on lunch, like me) and were significantly better than competition in any other arcade in the NYC area. I got so good I often get treated like a celebrity when I display my skills at local arcades. When good players see me shadow throw, they know they aren't on the same level and usually stop playing and start asking questions.
Hyperfighting was the best SF2, turbo sped things up too much for me. I liked Hyper the best because the characters were so well balanced. But again, a good Bison can beat anybody, so I don't play him.
You know you are playing a good SF player when you think your mind is being read by your opponent.
On a related note, its impossible to beat an arcade cabinet for these games. Having a large, unmoving arcade cabinet significantly increases your ability to execute complicated moves and combos. Even the best home controllers (the Dreamcast Arcade stick and the Shadowblade come to mind) can't duplicate the precision of a good standup unit.
One last thing to note is that no 2d or 3d fighter will ever ever translate well over tcp/ip... latency is too much of an issue. When the stakes are high, you would never trust your shoryuken to a missed packet... hence, fighting games may go the way of the arcade, since you have to have friends who come over to play, and who have their own expensive arcade sticks. Also, good competition is hard to find. When you reach a certain level of proficiency with a Capcom fighter, people can't beleive that they can lose hundreds of games in a row, and then they never play you. Its sad, but true.
What really amazes me is that most video games published were complete crap. Some games should never have been made, i.e. The Mummy for PS2. It's clear to this gamer the quality control of the major gaming houses now plays second fiddle to "getting the game to market". There were hundreds of video games made last year, the ratio of bad to good was about 10 to 1 at best. The industry is shooting itself in the foot because it realizes there are a glut of gaming systems (xbox, ps2, DC, cube, pc) hungry for games of any quality. Why? Because parents do much of the shopping for video games and they don't know shit about the quality, nor do they care, all that matters to them is that junior got the system he wants, so now he is willing to play any game under the sun, just so he can get some use out of the new hardware. Not only that, but all of the Japanese games I played with significant "plots", if you could call it that (i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2), still suffer from poor translation, or a storyline that is geared towards morons. How about originality... almost none of the games were original in any way. FFX has proven this... its a terrible game, in no way better than FF2 except graphically, it suffers from a completely linear storyline (with terrible voice acting and a plot that rivaled FF The Spirits Within for stupidity) where you couldnt get lost if you tried. I ask you: what is an RPG if you can't get lost? Its crap.
What is patently obvious from the last year is that people will buy anything that is a big franchise... GTA3, MGS2, FFX were all sequels, and none was better than the original, they just had better graphics. Pretty soon this formula is gonna wear thin... but what do I know, I like games like Pikmin, Rez, and Super Monkey Ball.
Its been a long time since I read the book, but as I recall, Robert Heinlein came up with this idea about 30 years ago in his novella "Starship Troopers". Instead of the jointed exoskeloton mentioned in the Discovery article, soldiers wear a "suit" that is basically made up of nanomotors, sensitive to the movement of the user. Essentially, this system mimics human movement in every way, only it amplifies the strength of the user hundreds of times over. Think of it as full body chainmail armor comprised of millions of tiny motors, all working in unison. This would amplify human musculature much more efficiently than what is being proposed by DARPA. It seems to me that the army hasn't been doing their reading, this exoskeleton is a step in the wrong direction, micromachines are clearly the way to go, pistons and joints seem like old technology by comparison.
"Burned by years of outrageously poor tech support, increasingly expensive software, and hardware that's almost instantly outdated..."
1) Apple has the best tech support of any company out there. I recently had a problem with my 3 year old 21" Apple Studio Display (still under Apple extended warranty)... it was sent to Apple overnight ($500 on their dime) and was back with me in less than a week (this is a 100lb monitor mind you).
2) iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD... all free, all best in class. Nuff said.
3) And if their hardware is almost instantly outdated, how come my 3 year old g4 500 runs Return to Castle Wolfenstein 1024*768 at more than acceptable framerates using normal settings? No small feat by my estimation.
Steve cannot introduce new towers until photoshop is up and running on g5's natively in OSX. Otherwise, he has no speed test against wintel based hardware... and he certainly ain't booting into OS9 to show off what the g5 can do.
If it wasn't for Apple, Adobe wouldn't exist... you have your facts confused. Adobe was "Mac Only" up until a few years ago... Apple practically made Adobe what it is today, they pioneered desktop publishing, a revoltuion that Adobe was more than happy to take "cross-platform" after Windows copied enough of the Macintosh GUI that porting was economically efficient, despite inferior performance (which is still the case today). As a side note, the recently released iPhoto is proof that if Adobe doesn't get its act together Apple could (with the 5 billion in cash it has in the bank) easily create their own graphics suite... if they havent already done so. The same can be said of any Adobe app.
I have had macs for 15 years... never had a virus, worm, or anything hostile infect my computer (and this is quite common). It makes me laugh when windows users get infected... can you hear me?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
As long as there is windows, it will be insecure, largely because MS wants control over your computer and have purposely engineered a "backdoor" into all their software. Unfortunately, the cracker community uses these backdoors to get at your personal info and infect your computer. If MS was less interested in spying on people this would never happen, but since they want "total control", malicious people will exploit the same vulnerabilities that MS has been using for years to slip onto peoples' HD's without them knowing it.
Apple introduced what you are talking about nearly 9 years ago now, it was called MacTV. It was a Mac with a built in TV tuner, and it worked really well, although it was only a 15 inch monitor.
I use apple's airport technology to stream huge playlists to my ibook from my main computer to my living room stereo... not only that, but the ibook makes pretty pictures when it plays music. This is a good way to get your pc into the living room, as even the most robust cd changer doesnt hold the hundred's of albums I have collected over the years. As for integration of pc's into the living room, they are only good as media servers, and currently, the media and music on TV is better (primarily because you pay for it). Also, how do you control the pc without getting off the couch, you need wireless trackballs and the like. Although the wireless control device isnt a problem, very few TV's have the resolution required to display the GUI without squinting.
Basically, there is no way in hell any pc will come close to the performance of a Denon amp, a purpose built DVD player, and a Runco TV.
It should also be noted that many current DVD players support SACD, DVD-audio, and other sound formats, I doubt the same can be said about pc's.
Well, maybe not, but as a everyday user of OSX its easy to see how Cocoa apps are the future. They interact better with the OS, they seem less bloated, and they just seem tighter. Cocoa apps like Okito Composer are compelling reasons to move to X... it blows away MS Word.
Squaresoft hasn't made a game since FF2...
on
History of SquareSoft
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
I lose respect for companies that fail to innovate. This is why I cannot respect Square. It's pretty clear that everything has gone downhill at Square since FF2, which is one of the greatest games I have ever played. All subsequent Square adventures were based exactly on the FF2 engine, which is now about 10 years old. To draw a parallel in the FPS world, this is the equivalent of the new Doom using the vector graphics of the original Star Wars game. Gaming, particularly RPG's, is about evolution and inspiration and new fight engines, not adding a couple of new textures or new lighting effects. Square will be out of business within 5 years if they continue down this path.
This is the most racist video game ever made, the review is posted somewhere online if someone can find it. Square's portrayal of black people in this NES "classic" was nothing short of outrageous... does anyone remember this game?
yes i have tried the other cables a S-video and composite... but they arent sending the maximum resoltuion image that the GC is capable of... which is what i really want.
Although I love my Gamecube, I am noticing some wierd visual anomalies when playing Pikmin in 480p on my XBR 400.
Since I am an owner of many macs with powerpc and ATI chipsets I am familiar with some of the "syncing" problems ATI has with their cards, specifically, their tendency to refresh different parts of the screen at different times...
Put simply, when my gamecube displays at 480p it seems like the top 1/3 of the screen refreshes before the bottom 2/3, resulting in unnatural pixel shift in (a sort of invisible line) and around the top 1/3 of my screen. This is very similar (if not identical) to the display problems of ATI cards on the mac in graphically intensive situations. When playing quake 3 on my mac with a ppc g4 500mhz with radeon will sometimes choke and refresh different parts of the screen at different times.
If anyone out there knows what the hell I am talking about, I would enjoy any feedback regarding these GC visual farts, which are very evident in Pikmin. Please assume I have hooked everything correctly and have troubleshooted everything I can think of.
I refuse to beleive this is a problem with my TV as it has diplayed 480p very well in the past.
My real question is... is anyone else experiencing these visual anomalies?
Of all the games, the only must have this Christmas is Super Monkey Ball. Although the "Main Game" may get repetitive, the multiplayer modes have many of my friends chanting the praises of the gamecube.
On a personal note, its nice to see SEGA out of the Dreamcast debacle and on to better things.
The other must have is RTCW... busting through axis defenses hasen't been this much fun since Combat Mission. http://www.combatmission.com/
Slashdot Mirror
Since everyone seems to be sick of paying $4 for a coffee, maybe Starbucks is changing their business model to one of a wireless ISP. I'm not sure how profitable this would be, however, business travelers might enjoy the convenience of stepping into any starbucks and being able to surf and check email. At $30 a month, with stores coast to coast and in many airports (not to mention foreign countries), this may be a convenience to some, if not many, who travel with wireless enabled laptops.
The computer you describe is 4 years old... perhaps you would like to share the name of the pc case from 4 years ago that had the features you mention? Or are you to busy installing firewire cards into your pc?
Also, I'm curious why you mention "multiple fan mounts"... it seems to me that you have never owned a RISC processor and aren't aware that macs don't get hot.
Owner of a B&W G3? I don't think so. Member of the Bill Gates pimple popping club? Most certainly.
Boy, its a good time to be a gamer.
"I'll bet Peter Parker's adventure surpasses the upcoming opening weekend of Attack of the Clones and teaches George Lucas something about the power and nature of myth."
How much do you want to bet John?
The best competitors of the original SF2 know that Guile is unbeatable (original arcade ROM)... once you learn how to shadow throw and freeze. I have never been beaten after learning these tricks, and no one will play a Guile that uses a glitch in the game.
After becoming a good player, I played competitively at the Broadway Arcade in NYC (now deceased). The competition was the best I have ever seen, many players played 5 days a week for about an hour (on lunch, like me) and were significantly better than competition in any other arcade in the NYC area. I got so good I often get treated like a celebrity when I display my skills at local arcades. When good players see me shadow throw, they know they aren't on the same level and usually stop playing and start asking questions.
Hyperfighting was the best SF2, turbo sped things up too much for me. I liked Hyper the best because the characters were so well balanced. But again, a good Bison can beat anybody, so I don't play him.
You know you are playing a good SF player when you think your mind is being read by your opponent.
On a related note, its impossible to beat an arcade cabinet for these games. Having a large, unmoving arcade cabinet significantly increases your ability to execute complicated moves and combos. Even the best home controllers (the Dreamcast Arcade stick and the Shadowblade come to mind) can't duplicate the precision of a good standup unit.
One last thing to note is that no 2d or 3d fighter will ever ever translate well over tcp/ip... latency is too much of an issue. When the stakes are high, you would never trust your shoryuken to a missed packet... hence, fighting games may go the way of the arcade, since you have to have friends who come over to play, and who have their own expensive arcade sticks. Also, good competition is hard to find. When you reach a certain level of proficiency with a Capcom fighter, people can't beleive that they can lose hundreds of games in a row, and then they never play you. Its sad, but true.
What is patently obvious from the last year is that people will buy anything that is a big franchise... GTA3, MGS2, FFX were all sequels, and none was better than the original, they just had better graphics. Pretty soon this formula is gonna wear thin... but what do I know, I like games like Pikmin, Rez, and Super Monkey Ball.
Its been a long time since I read the book, but as I recall, Robert Heinlein came up with this idea about 30 years ago in his novella "Starship Troopers". Instead of the jointed exoskeloton mentioned in the Discovery article, soldiers wear a "suit" that is basically made up of nanomotors, sensitive to the movement of the user. Essentially, this system mimics human movement in every way, only it amplifies the strength of the user hundreds of times over. Think of it as full body chainmail armor comprised of millions of tiny motors, all working in unison. This would amplify human musculature much more efficiently than what is being proposed by DARPA. It seems to me that the army hasn't been doing their reading, this exoskeleton is a step in the wrong direction, micromachines are clearly the way to go, pistons and joints seem like old technology by comparison.
1) Apple has the best tech support of any company out there. I recently had a problem with my 3 year old 21" Apple Studio Display (still under Apple extended warranty)... it was sent to Apple overnight ($500 on their dime) and was back with me in less than a week (this is a 100lb monitor mind you).
2) iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD... all free, all best in class. Nuff said.
3) And if their hardware is almost instantly outdated, how come my 3 year old g4 500 runs Return to Castle Wolfenstein 1024*768 at more than acceptable framerates using normal settings? No small feat by my estimation.
Ever hear of the RIAA?
Steve cannot introduce new towers until photoshop is up and running on g5's natively in OSX. Otherwise, he has no speed test against wintel based hardware... and he certainly ain't booting into OS9 to show off what the g5 can do.
If it wasn't for Apple, Adobe wouldn't exist... you have your facts confused. Adobe was "Mac Only" up until a few years ago... Apple practically made Adobe what it is today, they pioneered desktop publishing, a revoltuion that Adobe was more than happy to take "cross-platform" after Windows copied enough of the Macintosh GUI that porting was economically efficient, despite inferior performance (which is still the case today). As a side note, the recently released iPhoto is proof that if Adobe doesn't get its act together Apple could (with the 5 billion in cash it has in the bank) easily create their own graphics suite... if they havent already done so. The same can be said of any Adobe app.
Im not a power user.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
As long as there is windows, it will be insecure, largely because MS wants control over your computer and have purposely engineered a "backdoor" into all their software. Unfortunately, the cracker community uses these backdoors to get at your personal info and infect your computer. If MS was less interested in spying on people this would never happen, but since they want "total control", malicious people will exploit the same vulnerabilities that MS has been using for years to slip onto peoples' HD's without them knowing it.
Windows=Virus
I do think q3 is way different than the original quake, largely because when you go online, the game becomes dynamic rather than static.
Apple introduced what you are talking about nearly 9 years ago now, it was called MacTV. It was a Mac with a built in TV tuner, and it worked really well, although it was only a 15 inch monitor.
After reading this article there is no way in hell I will ever move to Wisconsin. Clearly, there is nothing to do there.
Basically, there is no way in hell any pc will come close to the performance of a Denon amp, a purpose built DVD player, and a Runco TV.
It should also be noted that many current DVD players support SACD, DVD-audio, and other sound formats, I doubt the same can be said about pc's.
Well, maybe not, but as a everyday user of OSX its easy to see how Cocoa apps are the future. They interact better with the OS, they seem less bloated, and they just seem tighter. Cocoa apps like Okito Composer are compelling reasons to move to X... it blows away MS Word.
Everyone should read that review... Something Awful's ROM Pit: Review of Tom Sawyer" [somethingawful.com]
It's hilarious.
I lose respect for companies that fail to innovate. This is why I cannot respect Square. It's pretty clear that everything has gone downhill at Square since FF2, which is one of the greatest games I have ever played. All subsequent Square adventures were based exactly on the FF2 engine, which is now about 10 years old. To draw a parallel in the FPS world, this is the equivalent of the new Doom using the vector graphics of the original Star Wars game. Gaming, particularly RPG's, is about evolution and inspiration and new fight engines, not adding a couple of new textures or new lighting effects. Square will be out of business within 5 years if they continue down this path.
This is the most racist video game ever made, the review is posted somewhere online if someone can find it. Square's portrayal of black people in this NES "classic" was nothing short of outrageous... does anyone remember this game?
yes i have tried the other cables a S-video and composite... but they arent sending the maximum resoltuion image that the GC is capable of... which is what i really want.
Since I am an owner of many macs with powerpc and ATI chipsets I am familiar with some of the "syncing" problems ATI has with their cards, specifically, their tendency to refresh different parts of the screen at different times...
Put simply, when my gamecube displays at 480p it seems like the top 1/3 of the screen refreshes before the bottom 2/3, resulting in unnatural pixel shift in (a sort of invisible line) and around the top 1/3 of my screen. This is very similar (if not identical) to the display problems of ATI cards on the mac in graphically intensive situations. When playing quake 3 on my mac with a ppc g4 500mhz with radeon will sometimes choke and refresh different parts of the screen at different times.
If anyone out there knows what the hell I am talking about, I would enjoy any feedback regarding these GC visual farts, which are very evident in Pikmin. Please assume I have hooked everything correctly and have troubleshooted everything I can think of.
I refuse to beleive this is a problem with my TV as it has diplayed 480p very well in the past.
My real question is... is anyone else experiencing these visual anomalies?
On a personal note, its nice to see SEGA out of the Dreamcast debacle and on to better things.
The other must have is RTCW... busting through axis defenses hasen't been this much fun since Combat Mission. http://www.combatmission.com/
If it doesnt have T-pol.... Im not watching it.