Ahh, but this engine isn't using combustion. It uses stored high-pressure air tanks to drive a pneumatic engine, supplemented by a small ICE which can power the car once the air runs out, and (iirc) refill the air tanks at the same time. It's similar to gas/electric hybrids, except it's gas/pneumatic instead, neatly avoiding all the messy battery fab/environmental issues that current hybrids have. And it can run on compressed air 100% of the time, making it pretty much a zero emissions vehicle.
I've had a 360 for quite a while now, had it die once, and it still experiences some weird issues occasionally. That said, with the recent addition of native divx/xvid codec support for the xbox's media player, the box is a good, cheap media player (even handles HD content well). I'd say great media player, but the unit is a little noisy, between the fan noise and the optical drive, so it can be a little distracting. The games selection is, in my opinion, unrivaled by any contenders this generation (especially if you include Live Arcade) And Live is a good service, in spite of technical issues this holiday season. Have there been rough spots? Sure, but MS has tried to 'make things' right each time with warranty extensions and free content.
That's a reducto ad absurbiam. The debate is on whether it's the government's job to regulate game content or whether the existing content rating system developed by the industry is sufficient.
Wow... seriously? The levels feel like they were designed by middle school kids that forgot to take their ritalin. OpenArena even pales against the original Q3A, let alone anything released in say, the last decade.
Is BioShock just "an FPS, but better along all dimensions"? (Improved AI, graphics, story) Or is there something fundamentally revolutionary about it? Well... as far as categorizing, I'd say it was a nice balance between FPS, survival horror genre with some puzzle/RPG elements thrown in. Revolutionary? No, not really. Really just a great game that fuses several genres, resulting game is more than the sum of it's parts. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.
Re:And for those wondering what PCI refers to
on
PCI Compliance
·
· Score: 1
Agreed. I work for a fairly small company that classifies as a mid-tier vendor for PCI purposes, and while the requirements have been a pain in the butt to implement at times, the fact of the matter is that most of the stuff required is pretty necessary and really should have been implemented all along. A big part of the problem is that vendors have been by-and-large shielded from the real costs of identity theft, and as such haven't had any motivation to build in even the most rudimentary protections and processes. If anything, this is a textbook case of the free market working at it's finest (contrast with Sarbanes-Oxley) in that Visa/MC/Amex/Discover have tired of paying the price for vendors' lousy security, and have implemented a minimum security bar that businesses must meet in order to be considered secure enough to deal with PCI data, plain and simple.
It's not a one-size-fits-all solution, and certainly not a panacea for online fraud, but it's a good start, and will force vendors to start addressing data security as an ongoing cost of business.
Whatever, Highbrow McCrazyPants. This isn't about control, it's about pure, unfettered greed coupled with a stale business model. All it is is these last-century media execs trying to find a way to increase their profits by taxing new technology, basically getting a free lunch off the real innovators, the technologists who are developing all these cool consumer-centric gadgets. Control of media rights is just the means to the end, not the end itself.
...which they would subsequently have to prove, or lose credibility (and any further effective use of such actions) rather instantly.
Yes, because as well all know, if there's one thing the current administration is big on, it's meeting their burden of proof and maintaining their credibility.
Please allow me to play devil's advocate here. A very frequent complaint i hear in slashdot is about censoring violent games. But it's so ironic that when talking about violent videogames you completely support the companies. Ah, but when it's music they're evil!!!.
Ahh, but in both cases you're supporting the consumer's freedom. Restrictive DRM policies instituted by the media distributers can and do hinder the consumer's fair use rights. Censorship of violent videogames hinder the right of the consumer to decide for himself what's appropriate for viewing/playing in their own house.
Read the fine print. I checked local legislation here and most of it refers to diesel, but if you look up the terminology definition section 'diesel' is defined as including bio-diesel, which is what this is. I'd guess there's probably something similar in the relevant NC statute.
Wait a minute... a person carrying a concealed weapon is told to find cover and do nothing, or flee? What? That doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense... unless you're under direct life-or-death threat (gun pointed/shot at you) you shouldn't be resorting to the firearm... a CCP isn't a license to be a vigilante.
Drop the tired 'free market society' angle on this... commercial airline travel wouldn't exist without massive government subsidies, and neither would our roadway systems.
I disagree. I've played around with and used a lot of different matchmaking/community software including XFire, Steam, All Seeing Eye, Ventrilo, Gamespy Arcade, and a few others that I don't remember by now. Steam was probably one of the most promising but suffered from slow adoption, by gamers and by developers/publishers. XBL was the only service that feels like it's worth the money... slick interface, excellent integration into games, good matchmaking, leaderboards, achivements, profile. I would liken Xbox
Live to say, a Blizzard game... almost never revolutionary; but instead producing a highly polished best-of-breed product for a given genre.
You can't "run out" of wind or "stop" wind by using wind energy any more than you can "use up" a river with a mill wheel. Wind is pretty much just the atmosphere trying to correct pressure differentials caused by uneven heating and cooling caused by solar radiation. So really it's just a kinetic form of solar power:-P
...it demonstrates that "50 achievements per person" is really not that impressive; a person could probably get that many achievements by casually playing a couple of the most popular games on the XBox 360.
Actually, that's not true. From my experience, 'casually' playing an XBox 360 game will get you less than 5 achievements, usually around 3 tops (although this varies by game). And the easy to unlock achievements tend to be weighted accordingly, usually accounting for less than 10% of the total achivement points possible.
# It's not a new way to play games
Unlike the GameCube, PS3, PS2, PS1, N64, SNES, Genesis, NES? So you have one new console with a new way to play games. Of course, had Microsoft gone with some sort of wii-like control scheme, you'd have blasted them for 'ripping off' the Wii, right? And I seem to remember alot of dismay about the Wii controller (even from Nintendo fanboys) when it was first demoed... let's face it, Nintendo took a big gamble sacrificing the graphics/performance one-upsmanship and betting the farm on a 'between-gen' console with an innovative control scheme.
# It's not a BluRay (or HD-DVD) player.
It can be. But doesn't have to be. I guess choices are bad though? Much better to force the user to adopt technology that they may or may not want, in a format war that's not even decided yet? And how great is having a BluRay player going to be if HD-DVD wins the war and BluRay goes the way of BetaMax?
# It's not fully backward compatible
No, but it's a pretty hefty list (300+ titles) and being actively worked on.
# It's not a Linux platform.
Not out of the box, but it can be. And given that the people that factor this type of thing into their buying decisions aren't likely to buy it anyways because it's supporting 'Micro$oft', I don't really think this is a big deal.
# It's not friendly to casual gamers
I'd also disagree here. There's alot of shooters for the platform, I'll grant you that, but there's also a large number of very fun, family-friendly games out there, both in retail and on Xbox live arcade. And for the casual gamer looking to try out a potential purchase, the live-accessible free demos are a very nice feature.
What it *is* is a worthy successor to the previous console generation, that can hold it's own graphically against a console that costs nearly twice as much. As for as Sony and MS as companies are concerned, they're both in my bad books (MS for the usual reasons, Sony for all their DRM/virus BS) so basically I factored that out as part of the buying decision.
Yup, they're working on it actively, they released a bunch of backwards compatibility updates in December, I think the total number of supported games is up around 300 now.
I wouldn't hold your breath on the 'doing away with online fee' thing any time soon.... given that they've been doing it since the original Xbox debuted. And even then, you can access 90% of XBL's functionality for free, through their XBL Silver level, which lets you access the Marketplace, which actually has alot of pretty cool content at reasonable prices... all the premium live service really adds is online multiplayer capabilities, if I remember correctly.
Slashdot Mirror
#if 0
for the win
#endif
As a Slashdot user with a relatively low UID, I feel entitled to say "Man up, nancy-boy". SERIOUSLY.
Ahh, but this engine isn't using combustion. It uses stored high-pressure air tanks to drive a pneumatic engine, supplemented by a small ICE which can power the car once the air runs out, and (iirc) refill the air tanks at the same time. It's similar to gas/electric hybrids, except it's gas/pneumatic instead, neatly avoiding all the messy battery fab/environmental issues that current hybrids have. And it can run on compressed air 100% of the time, making it pretty much a zero emissions vehicle.
I've had a 360 for quite a while now, had it die once, and it still experiences some weird issues occasionally. That said, with the recent addition of native divx/xvid codec support for the xbox's media player, the box is a good, cheap media player (even handles HD content well). I'd say great media player, but the unit is a little noisy, between the fan noise and the optical drive, so it can be a little distracting. The games selection is, in my opinion, unrivaled by any contenders this generation (especially if you include Live Arcade) And Live is a good service, in spite of technical issues this holiday season. Have there been rough spots? Sure, but MS has tried to 'make things' right each time with warranty extensions and free content.
That's a reducto ad absurbiam. The debate is on whether it's the government's job to regulate game content or whether the existing content rating system developed by the industry is sufficient.
Wow... seriously? The levels feel like they were designed by middle school kids that forgot to take their ritalin. OpenArena even pales against the original Q3A, let alone anything released in say, the last decade.
Agreed. I work for a fairly small company that classifies as a mid-tier vendor for PCI purposes, and while the requirements have been a pain in the butt to implement at times, the fact of the matter is that most of the stuff required is pretty necessary and really should have been implemented all along. A big part of the problem is that vendors have been by-and-large shielded from the real costs of identity theft, and as such haven't had any motivation to build in even the most rudimentary protections and processes. If anything, this is a textbook case of the free market working at it's finest (contrast with Sarbanes-Oxley) in that Visa/MC/Amex/Discover have tired of paying the price for vendors' lousy security, and have implemented a minimum security bar that businesses must meet in order to be considered secure enough to deal with PCI data, plain and simple. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution, and certainly not a panacea for online fraud, but it's a good start, and will force vendors to start addressing data security as an ongoing cost of business.
Whatever, Highbrow McCrazyPants. This isn't about control, it's about pure, unfettered greed coupled with a stale business model. All it is is these last-century media execs trying to find a way to increase their profits by taxing new technology, basically getting a free lunch off the real innovators, the technologists who are developing all these cool consumer-centric gadgets. Control of media rights is just the means to the end, not the end itself.
...which they would subsequently have to prove, or lose credibility (and any further effective use of such actions) rather instantly.Yes, because as well all know, if there's one thing the current administration is big on, it's meeting their burden of proof and maintaining their credibility.
Ahh, but in both cases you're supporting the consumer's freedom. Restrictive DRM policies instituted by the media distributers can and do hinder the consumer's fair use rights. Censorship of violent videogames hinder the right of the consumer to decide for himself what's appropriate for viewing/playing in their own house.
Read the fine print. I checked local legislation here and most of it refers to diesel, but if you look up the terminology definition section 'diesel' is defined as including bio-diesel, which is what this is. I'd guess there's probably something similar in the relevant NC statute.
Oh really? Better have them yank this then...
It makes perfect sense... unless you're under direct life-or-death threat (gun pointed/shot at you) you shouldn't be resorting to the firearm... a CCP isn't a license to be a vigilante.
My kingdom for some mod points!
Drop the tired 'free market society' angle on this... commercial airline travel wouldn't exist without massive government subsidies, and neither would our roadway systems.
I disagree. I've played around with and used a lot of different matchmaking/community software including XFire, Steam, All Seeing Eye, Ventrilo, Gamespy Arcade, and a few others that I don't remember by now. Steam was probably one of the most promising but suffered from slow adoption, by gamers and by developers/publishers. XBL was the only service that feels like it's worth the money... slick interface, excellent integration into games, good matchmaking, leaderboards, achivements, profile. I would liken Xbox Live to say, a Blizzard game... almost never revolutionary; but instead producing a highly polished best-of-breed product for a given genre.
You can't "run out" of wind or "stop" wind by using wind energy any more than you can "use up" a river with a mill wheel. Wind is pretty much just the atmosphere trying to correct pressure differentials caused by uneven heating and cooling caused by solar radiation. So really it's just a kinetic form of solar power :-P
Actually, that's not true. From my experience, 'casually' playing an XBox 360 game will get you less than 5 achievements, usually around 3 tops (although this varies by game). And the easy to unlock achievements tend to be weighted accordingly, usually accounting for less than 10% of the total achivement points possible.
Actually, I think the Final Fantasies (post-12) are going back to Nintendo.
# It's not a new way to play games Unlike the GameCube, PS3, PS2, PS1, N64, SNES, Genesis, NES? So you have one new console with a new way to play games. Of course, had Microsoft gone with some sort of wii-like control scheme, you'd have blasted them for 'ripping off' the Wii, right? And I seem to remember alot of dismay about the Wii controller (even from Nintendo fanboys) when it was first demoed... let's face it, Nintendo took a big gamble sacrificing the graphics/performance one-upsmanship and betting the farm on a 'between-gen' console with an innovative control scheme. # It's not a BluRay (or HD-DVD) player. It can be. But doesn't have to be. I guess choices are bad though? Much better to force the user to adopt technology that they may or may not want, in a format war that's not even decided yet? And how great is having a BluRay player going to be if HD-DVD wins the war and BluRay goes the way of BetaMax? # It's not fully backward compatible No, but it's a pretty hefty list (300+ titles) and being actively worked on. # It's not a Linux platform. Not out of the box, but it can be. And given that the people that factor this type of thing into their buying decisions aren't likely to buy it anyways because it's supporting 'Micro$oft', I don't really think this is a big deal. # It's not friendly to casual gamers I'd also disagree here. There's alot of shooters for the platform, I'll grant you that, but there's also a large number of very fun, family-friendly games out there, both in retail and on Xbox live arcade. And for the casual gamer looking to try out a potential purchase, the live-accessible free demos are a very nice feature. What it *is* is a worthy successor to the previous console generation, that can hold it's own graphically against a console that costs nearly twice as much. As for as Sony and MS as companies are concerned, they're both in my bad books (MS for the usual reasons, Sony for all their DRM/virus BS) so basically I factored that out as part of the buying decision.
Yup, they're working on it actively, they released a bunch of backwards compatibility updates in December, I think the total number of supported games is up around 300 now.
I wouldn't hold your breath on the 'doing away with online fee' thing any time soon.... given that they've been doing it since the original Xbox debuted. And even then, you can access 90% of XBL's functionality for free, through their XBL Silver level, which lets you access the Marketplace, which actually has alot of pretty cool content at reasonable prices... all the premium live service really adds is online multiplayer capabilities, if I remember correctly.
It benefits alot of folks. Defense contractors, the banking/investment industry, oil companies, independent civilian contractors (logistics, procurement, transportation, etc..)
Most states also have what are known as "Use Taxes". Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_Tax