Any Adobe Photoshop user who has tried multiple-monitor setups will never go back. Grab a huge monitor for the workspace, and a cheap-o 15" (or smaller) for the insane number of palettes Photoshop uses!
No, you're not a hypocrite. You're a parent. There is media out there that is fine for adults, but not appropriate for children. Vice City is one of them. There are ratings for this and that and the other, but at the end of the day, it's all up to you: the parent. It's your call if you want Little Joe to play GTA:VC.
All the comments I've seen are how much Valve sucks for delaying the game, how the source code theft is just a cover up, etc. Let me ask you this one question:
Come release date, will you stick with the opinion that Valve sucks because of this and not buy the game? Or will you still fork over your cash and buy the game like the gamer you are?
"Gripe, gripe, they suck, bitch and moan, hey waitaminute! It's out! Here's my money! Gimmeethegamedammit!!!"
Actually, the first RockMan X title was released before RockMan 6 was out. The X series and the original RockMan series have a completely different "RockMan" as the main character. Also, there was never a "RockMan 9" game released. There was Rockman 1-8, then "RockMan & Forte".
Yeah, it's a shame that a lot of parents aren't having anything to do with their children. But it's not the local school's job to play babysitter or surrogate parent.
From the Houston Chronicle article: [quote] District officials also are considering a plan to assign an adult to each student. [/quote]
I've got news for the district: the plan is already in existance. They're called "parents". Besides, can you imagine the expense of paying a salary for each person who is watching a single child? Thousands and thousands of salaries for adults!
[quote] For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts.... [/quote]
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out of school? Also, what business is it of the schools?
[quote] Privacy Manager... Combine this with CallerID, CallWaiting CallerID, CallNotes, CallBlocker and Anonymous CallBlocker and very few calls get through.... Sure, the entire package costs $80/mo but its worth it. [/quote]
But the point is that we shouldn't HAVE to fork out an extra $80/month to not receive this harassment. It shouldn't be so difficult and expensive (in terms of time AND money) to get the calls to stop.
Would you think an extra $80/month is reasonable to remove 95% of your SPAM? Think about it: $80/month. Doesn't matter what job you have, it's still a lot of money. If you think it's reasonable, then go out and buy every spam-stopping piece of software available and don't complain about all the junk email you still get.
[quote] A representative of Aladdin Systems summed it up: "The good thing about the.zip file format was that you knew you could send it to everyone. Now that's getting broke." [/quote]
This quote is funny coming from a company that sells a competing compression format (.sit)
[quote]
What you aren't reading is that SBC conned all these ISPs into jumping on the DSL bandwagon, and signing up thousands of DSL subscribers...
After they did all the leg work, SBC then lowered the price they offer the public. Hence making it too expensive for the ISPs to compete with SBC (since they still are paying the old rate, they actually pay MORE for 'wholesale' DSL access then SBC is selling to the public for)
[/quote]
The bold part is the kicker. If SBC lowers the montly rate for ADSL service, our monthly SBC bill per ADSL line we resell stayles the same - we don't get the same price cut! There is no way we can compete with that. We are charged the "wholesale" rate of $39.99 per month per ADSL line. We are charged $125 per CPE (equipment shipped to customer). SBC charges its ADSL customers $25/month for service, with no equipment charges. How can we compete with that? Our "wholesale" rate is almost double what SBC customers are being charged! In order to break even we have to charge $60/month and have a two year service agreement to recover the cost of the CPE. There is no way this can be called "fair competition".
[quote] "...will develop a special version of Counter-Strike [...] which is ripped of all violent content,... [/quote]
How do they expect to do that? The whole point of CS is to overcome violence with violence. Is this some new expression of quantum computing? "If we don't look at CS, it's not violent!"
The current trend is that if you add the word "digital", or some other computer-techie words to something, it's instantly better. It's just smokescreens and mirrors.
Let's think about how a person would get one of these new passports:
Like today, a person would conceivably need to have a photo taken somewhere to submit with the paperwork. A simple walk to a 1-hour-photo place will take care of that. Then this person, like today, will go to a govt. office to file the paperwork and sumbit the photo. Like today, the govt. employee will take the photo and paperwork, send it to someone who doesn't care if the photo and name match up - it's not his job, he just makes the passport - and several weeks later the applicant will get a letter in the mail with his passport. So what in this digital "biometric" data is stopping someone from getting a false ID (say, state drivers' licence), getting a photo, and submitting false paperwork to the govt. clerk in the hopes of getting a false passport? Better yet, since the digital photo is "signed" by the US Govt's private key, this false passport is even more authoritative and "legit" than my current (real) passport. Just wrap something in computer-speak, and instantly it's a whole lot safer, apparenly.
The security of any system is only as good as it's weakest link. That weak link in this new passport system still is the human element. True security has three aspects: something you have (like a key), something you are (like a fingerprint or retina scan), and something you know (like a passphrase). Combining these three elements, it is extremely difficult to comprimise a system.
[quote] I sure wish I had a Japanese friend though... I REALLY want a slime doll....:P [/quote] I've got a Slime cell-phone strap on my GBA. It has 4 slimes and they can move up and down on the strap:)
Yeah, all the advancement of old 2-d games to a 3-d environment always makes me nervous: Metroid Prime, Rockman 7, etc.
However, I think that the Enix arm of Squarenix will be able to pull this off. Enix has always produced the highest quality software. DQ7 was delayed a full year because they weren't happy with it. When released, it became the most-selling PSX game in Japan in the platform's history. My Japanese friend is telling me that DQ7 was released on a Wednesday - kids cut school, millions lined up outside of stores to get a copy, and when the stores sold out, those who were able to get a copy were mugged by those who were still waiting in line. It's now a law in Japan that DQ games can only be released on a Sunday or a holiday because of the chaos DQ7's release caused.
Similarly, I was worried when Square announced FFXI was going to be an online-only adventure. But after playing the US closed and open betas, I'll be waiting in line to get it on release day.
[quote] Not only that, but I don't see how this is beneficial to anyone but Console Classix. They are providing a ROM image (the legalities of that are very questionable) and making money off something that most people can download with a few searches on google. Is this beneficial to the players? I don't really see how. It would be a whole lot different if somebody like Enix Squaresoft decided to open a ROM store. [/quote]
What they're doing is basically a rental store. It's a legal alternative to downloading ROM images of games that you do not own. Sure, you can do a search in Google for a desired ROM and download it, but if you don't own the physical hardware the ROM is from, that is against the law. It's like a streaming MP3 radio station: They send copyrighted data to your computer in a method that (theoretically) prevents copyright-infringing use (i.e. not savable locally). Console Classix does the same thing. The only difference is that in CC's case, when a ROM image is in use, that specific file can't be used by anyone else until it is "returned". When the user quits the CC emulator, the ROM is "returned" by removing the lockout from the file on the server, thereby making that specific ROM file usable by other players. I agree with you - I like having the actual cartridge to play with without my computer. This is just a nice alternative. Similarly, I prefer to own the physical audio CD of a recording I like, but streaming audio webcasts are a nice alternative when I can't access that CD.
I'm in a team re-engineering our company's website. We had done bleeding edge technology (CSS-2, XHTML, etc) to make maintenance easier. The code was valid all across the board. However, in doing so, we left Netscape 4-era browsers in the dust. A lot of our customer base (we're a small town ISP, not exactly in a high-tech area) still uses NS4, and they were unhappy.
So, in doing the correct and proper, we alienated a sizable percentage of our customer base. We're now working on scaling things down (i.e. quick and dirty code) to make it work in as many client programs as possible.
I know that my experience is not quite what Not-So Anonymous Coward was talking about. My example is more along the lines of large, general product for wide user base versus small, specialized product for small user base. It's bad business to tell a large number of your customers "tough, we're not going to fix it, upgrade your software" when the problem can be fixed with a little quick-and-dirty magic.
More on topic, for an easy way to explain why the quick-and-dirty can't be the final solution, try this: Print out some of the source code, and say "Ok, you make sense of it." When they can't, continue with "If I leave this project the way it is, and I'm hit by a bus tomorrow, you're screwed. Documentation, etc, is corporate insurance."
[quote]
I usually don't advocate piracy, but there are so many games you can't really find anymore on cartridge. Chrono Trigger routinely gets $75-$100 on e-bay for the cart, and Sqaresoft doesn't see one dime of this anyways. I think it would be a lot wiser for companies to take all their old roms and sell them for like $10 a piece or something. It would certainly make tracking them down a hell of a lot easier at least.:)
zosX If you do not come here with love, then leave this gathering. -Rumi
[/quote]
There is a legal alternative to downlaoding ROMs. Go to Console Classix and download their client software. They have a huge library of NES, SNES, Genesis and Atari games available that you can play. It's set up like a rental shop: if they have only one image of a game available, and you play it, nobody else can play that image until you're done. Check it out!
Re:3.3% of the data is good enough for me!
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely right. I made a mistake. I apologize. Apparently mistakes are not tolerated on/.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah
Any Adobe Photoshop user who has tried multiple-monitor setups will never go back. Grab a huge monitor for the workspace, and a cheap-o 15" (or smaller) for the insane number of palettes Photoshop uses!
No, you're not a hypocrite. You're a parent. There is media out there that is fine for adults, but not appropriate for children. Vice City is one of them. There are ratings for this and that and the other, but at the end of the day, it's all up to you: the parent. It's your call if you want Little Joe to play GTA:VC.
All the comments I've seen are how much Valve sucks for delaying the game, how the source code theft is just a cover up, etc. Let me ask you this one question:
Come release date, will you stick with the opinion that Valve sucks because of this and not buy the game? Or will you still fork over your cash and buy the game like the gamer you are?
"Gripe, gripe, they suck, bitch and moan, hey waitaminute! It's out! Here's my money! Gimmeethegamedammit!!!"
[quote]
On the other hand, it seems like, if they get too many users, the service would become useless.
[/quote]
Very true. But, the more paying users they have, the more ROM carts they can buy, and therefore offer more copies of the same ROM image for play.
Console Classix (www.consoleclassix.com) has a legal console emulation service, offering titles for the NES, SNES, Genesis and Atari 2600.
Nintendo Creates Piracy-Proof Console For China
Remember kids, bits are meant to be copied!
[geek hat on]
Actually, the first RockMan X title was released before RockMan 6 was out. The X series and the original RockMan series have a completely different "RockMan" as the main character. Also, there was never a "RockMan 9" game released. There was Rockman 1-8, then "RockMan & Forte".
Man, I am such a dork.
[/geek hat on]
It's a "re-usable" camera. Re-usable != disposable.
At first glance I was thinking "oh great, more trash in our land-fills", but it's not meant to be thrown away after a single use.
Bad choice of descriptive words, there.
Yeah, it's a shame that a lot of parents aren't having anything to do with their children. But it's not the local school's job to play babysitter or surrogate parent.
From the Houston Chronicle article:
[quote]
District officials also are considering a plan to assign an adult to each student.
[/quote]
I've got news for the district: the plan is already in existance. They're called "parents".
Besides, can you imagine the expense of paying a salary for each person who is watching a single child? Thousands and thousands of salaries for adults!
[quote] ...
For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts.
[/quote]
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out of school? Also, what business is it of the schools?
[quote] ... ...
Privacy Manager
Combine this with CallerID, CallWaiting CallerID, CallNotes, CallBlocker and Anonymous CallBlocker and very few calls get through.
Sure, the entire package costs $80/mo but its worth it.
[/quote]
But the point is that we shouldn't HAVE to fork out an extra $80/month to not receive this harassment. It shouldn't be so difficult and expensive (in terms of time AND money) to get the calls to stop.
Would you think an extra $80/month is reasonable to remove 95% of your SPAM? Think about it: $80/month. Doesn't matter what job you have, it's still a lot of money. If you think it's reasonable, then go out and buy every spam-stopping piece of software available and don't complain about all the junk email you still get.
You lousy stalker, you!!
"I'll get you Hey Steve if it's the last thing I ever doooooooo!!!"
[quote] .zip file format was that you knew you could send it to everyone. Now that's getting broke."
A representative of Aladdin Systems summed it up: "The good thing about the
[/quote]
This quote is funny coming from a company that sells a competing compression format (.sit)
looks like an elevation map
[quote]
What you aren't reading is that SBC conned all these ISPs into jumping on the DSL bandwagon, and signing up thousands of DSL subscribers...
After they did all the leg work, SBC then lowered the price they offer the public. Hence making it too expensive for the ISPs to compete with SBC (since they still are paying the old rate, they actually pay MORE for 'wholesale' DSL access then SBC is selling to the public for)
[/quote]
The bold part is the kicker. If SBC lowers the montly rate for ADSL service, our monthly SBC bill per ADSL line we resell stayles the same - we don't get the same price cut! There is no way we can compete with that. We are charged the "wholesale" rate of $39.99 per month per ADSL line. We are charged $125 per CPE (equipment shipped to customer). SBC charges its ADSL customers $25/month for service, with no equipment charges. How can we compete with that? Our "wholesale" rate is almost double what SBC customers are being charged! In order to break even we have to charge $60/month and have a two year service agreement to recover the cost of the CPE. There is no way this can be called "fair competition".
[quote]
"...will develop a special version of Counter-Strike [...] which is ripped of all violent content,...
[/quote]
How do they expect to do that? The whole point of CS is to overcome violence with violence. Is this some new expression of quantum computing? "If we don't look at CS, it's not violent!"
The current trend is that if you add the word "digital", or some other computer-techie words to something, it's instantly better. It's just smokescreens and mirrors.
Let's think about how a person would get one of these new passports:
Like today, a person would conceivably need to have a photo taken somewhere to submit with the paperwork. A simple walk to a 1-hour-photo place will take care of that. Then this person, like today, will go to a govt. office to file the paperwork and sumbit the photo. Like today, the govt. employee will take the photo and paperwork, send it to someone who doesn't care if the photo and name match up - it's not his job, he just makes the passport - and several weeks later the applicant will get a letter in the mail with his passport. So what in this digital "biometric" data is stopping someone from getting a false ID (say, state drivers' licence), getting a photo, and submitting false paperwork to the govt. clerk in the hopes of getting a false passport? Better yet, since the digital photo is "signed" by the US Govt's private key, this false passport is even more authoritative and "legit" than my current (real) passport. Just wrap something in computer-speak, and instantly it's a whole lot safer, apparenly.
The security of any system is only as good as it's weakest link. That weak link in this new passport system still is the human element. True security has three aspects: something you have (like a key), something you are (like a fingerprint or retina scan), and something you know (like a passphrase). Combining these three elements, it is extremely difficult to comprimise a system.
[quote] :P :)
I sure wish I had a Japanese friend though... I REALLY want a slime doll....
[/quote]
I've got a Slime cell-phone strap on my GBA. It has 4 slimes and they can move up and down on the strap
Yeah, all the advancement of old 2-d games to a 3-d environment always makes me nervous:
Metroid Prime, Rockman 7, etc.
However, I think that the Enix arm of Squarenix will be able to pull this off. Enix has always produced the highest quality software. DQ7 was delayed a full year because they weren't happy with it. When released, it became the most-selling PSX game in Japan in the platform's history. My Japanese friend is telling me that DQ7 was released on a Wednesday - kids cut school, millions lined up outside of stores to get a copy, and when the stores sold out, those who were able to get a copy were mugged by those who were still waiting in line. It's now a law in Japan that DQ games can only be released on a Sunday or a holiday because of the chaos DQ7's release caused.
Similarly, I was worried when Square announced FFXI was going to be an online-only adventure. But after playing the US closed and open betas, I'll be waiting in line to get it on release day.
Squarenix will do DQ8 right.
[quote]
Not only that, but I don't see how this is beneficial to anyone but Console Classix. They are providing a ROM image (the legalities of that are very questionable) and making money off something that most people can download with a few searches on google. Is this beneficial to the players? I don't really see how. It would be a whole lot different if somebody like Enix Squaresoft decided to open a ROM store.
[/quote]
What they're doing is basically a rental store. It's a legal alternative to downloading ROM images of games that you do not own. Sure, you can do a search in Google for a desired ROM and download it, but if you don't own the physical hardware the ROM is from, that is against the law.
It's like a streaming MP3 radio station: They send copyrighted data to your computer in a method that (theoretically) prevents copyright-infringing use (i.e. not savable locally). Console Classix does the same thing. The only difference is that in CC's case, when a ROM image is in use, that specific file can't be used by anyone else until it is "returned". When the user quits the CC emulator, the ROM is "returned" by removing the lockout from the file on the server, thereby making that specific ROM file usable by other players.
I agree with you - I like having the actual cartridge to play with without my computer. This is just a nice alternative. Similarly, I prefer to own the physical audio CD of a recording I like, but streaming audio webcasts are a nice alternative when I can't access that CD.
I'm in a team re-engineering our company's website. We had done bleeding edge technology (CSS-2, XHTML, etc) to make maintenance easier. The code was valid all across the board. However, in doing so, we left Netscape 4-era browsers in the dust. A lot of our customer base (we're a small town ISP, not exactly in a high-tech area) still uses NS4, and they were unhappy.
So, in doing the correct and proper, we alienated a sizable percentage of our customer base. We're now working on scaling things down (i.e. quick and dirty code) to make it work in as many client programs as possible.
I know that my experience is not quite what Not-So Anonymous Coward was talking about. My example is more along the lines of large, general product for wide user base versus small, specialized product for small user base. It's bad business to tell a large number of your customers "tough, we're not going to fix it, upgrade your software" when the problem can be fixed with a little quick-and-dirty magic.
More on topic, for an easy way to explain why the quick-and-dirty can't be the final solution, try this:
Print out some of the source code, and say "Ok, you make sense of it." When they can't, continue with "If I leave this project the way it is, and I'm hit by a bus tomorrow, you're screwed. Documentation, etc, is corporate insurance."
[quote] :)
zosX If you do not come here with love, then leave this gathering. -Rumi
[/quote]
I usually don't advocate piracy, but there are so many games you can't really find anymore on cartridge. Chrono Trigger routinely gets $75-$100 on e-bay for the cart, and Sqaresoft doesn't see one dime of this anyways. I think it would be a lot wiser for companies to take all their old roms and sell them for like $10 a piece or something. It would certainly make tracking them down a hell of a lot easier at least.
There is a legal alternative to downlaoding ROMs. Go to Console Classix and download their client software. They have a huge library of NES, SNES, Genesis and Atari games available that you can play. It's set up like a rental shop: if they have only one image of a game available, and you play it, nobody else can play that image until you're done. Check it out!
Absolutely right. I made a mistake. I apologize. Apparently mistakes are not tolerated on /.