First, an interesting thing about this is that.NET really boils down to an XML parser/generator
No, not really at all..NET is no more an XML parser/generator than the Microsoft platform SDK is. Yes, it includes an equivalent to the MSXML libraries, but it's basically the unreleased MSXML4.
I'm sure we've all expirenced haveing an audio or video tape lose quality from overplaying. CDs and DVDs don't have this problem...
Are you so sure? What's the oldest DVD you have? Are you sure it will be still playable in 25 years? The lifetime of the technology has yet to be proven, since it hasn't been around long enough to wear out. I remember reading somewhere that the estimated lifetime of a CD or DVD was around 20 years, but I can't remember where that was. If someone would post the information I'm sure it would be useful to this thread.
You're somewhat misinformed then. Some of the first computer generated images were produced in the early 50s on vectorscopes, and were used in the first CAD at that time. By the 60s, CGI was used for movie intros (Vertigo, 1961.) The first computer art competiton was in 1963, as was the first computer generated film. For more info, see the historical timeline of computer graphics and animation.
Going to Pizza Hut instead of "the pizza place" does help you relate to the game more. It makes it easier to relate to the character.
Sure it does. Players have an easier time relating to characters when they don't have to put any imagination into it, but I don't think that makes it better. Pizza Hut is a pop-culture icon, and doesn't need to be imagined by the player, or developed by the developer. How boring. I think any character developer who thinks that sending a character to Pizza Hut is a good idea is damned lazy. It would be relatively easy to send the same character to "PizzaWorld", a made-up pizza emporium with a snazzy logo and "A free GookGook doll with every large pizza!" The point being made about the character's ideals is the same... he likes to succumb to pop-culture. But, by creating an imaginary pop-culture restaurant, the player gets to imagine the rest. And in case you hadn't heard, imagination is FUN.:)
Shortcuts are a main cause of headaches for you when you use Windows? Uh...
FYI, part of the.NET runtime eliminates the former "DLL Hell" by allowing side by side oepration of multiple versions of the same library. Note, this doesn't solve the problem for existing DLLs, but it does solve the problem for any.NET DLLs.
Re:on the subject of the ps2 linux kit...
on
LinuxWorld Summary
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· Score: 2
Try to imagine trying to sell a "cache drive" to the average video game console buyer.:) A video game console is not like a home computer... no one at CompUSA is going to be able to corner people into buying this, because it's additional. Sure, on a $1500 computer purchase, most people give on the "256 more megs of RAM will make it faster", because it's in addition to a big chunk of hardware they don't understand anyway. People know consoles "just work." Who's going to buy a "cache drive?", except the same people who bought the Linux kit?:)
Re:on the subject of the ps2 linux kit...
on
LinuxWorld Summary
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Given the history of the success of drive add-ons for video game consoles in North America, I would say the may in that sentence is crucial. IMO, I don't think the PS2 hard drive will ever be released in the US except as part of the Linux kit.
There are a couple of reasons for this besides the fact that historically they just don't do well.
1) The reason mentioned by kasek. What are users who have the Linux kit going to do? Pop the hard drive out and put the other one in just to play games that require the hard drive? No... I don't really think so. That is a ridiculous inconvenience. If Sony would is really serious about releasing a stand-alone hard drive in the US, they would have made the Linux hard drive compatible with it (for example, partitioned the Linux drive so that Linux used 20Gb and 20Gb was completely free for use by games, and then the stand-alone hard drive would also be 20Gb.)
2) PS2 memory cards are much larger than memory cards for older systems where a hard drive was considered for US release. Any *reasonable* amount of game data can be stored on PS2 memory cards. Most features that save more data than can be accessed quickly off a memory card are superfluous, in my opinion, and not very valuable to consumers. This is just coming from one consumer, of course. Maybe some people do want to be able to save 150 replays of thier races in GT3. Not me.
3)Hard drives are fragile. Video game consoles are owned and handled by unresponsible American 8 year-olds. Enough said.:)
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think Sony plans to carry through with it here. May is a tipoff.
YES, the TV can be used as a display.
on
LinuxWorld Summary
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· Score: 5, Informative
Yes. However, it is necessary to install Linux (for PlayStation 2) for the first time using a compatible VESA Monitor that supports "sync on green". Once Linux has been installed, it is possible to configure it to boot using TV display from then on. Some digital TV (DTV) modes are also supported (separate cables may be required for DTV).
He was quoting retail prices for those items, and estimating that $117 retail is $60 actual cost. I think that's pretty close. So they're charging you approx $140 for Linux... Windows upgrades are cheaper than that.:)
Yeah, like you won't notice if coca-cola starts putting 1/60 more water in their coke. Ask yourself why they don't do it.
I am positive I wouldn't notice if they started putting more water in thier Coke. I'm not going to ask myself why they don't do it, though, because if I don't notice, how do I know they aren't?:) You've proved my point quite well.
No one these days has enough time to do anything they want to do anyway... why not do something useful with that 30 seconds? Perhaps this means you'll be able to get more done during commercial breaks now. The whole point of the system is that you won't notice if the show is made 30 seconds shorter anyway... so will you?
Or, you could just not watch TV and gain 1/2 and whole hours at a time!
Uh huh... have you ever used a reasonably new 32bit PCI computer when it's transfering data at close to 100mbps? Let alone when it's actually supposed to do something with that data, like write it to a hard drive or process it. Want to multiply that effect by 2... or 3... or 8... or 10?
How about NOT taking them all and allowing other people the opportunity to make up thier own minds? Or push for a Linux distro company to advertise with free CDs of thier own.
Fine. Take them all. Be greedy, take as much as you want, everything's for you and only you. Why does this sound familiar? It's Microsoft's (and Slashdot's) mantra!:)
That doesn't apply at all. Being proven guilty does not legally impede a persons actions until a punishment or imposition has been decided. And as you pointed out, nothing has been laid out yet. So, besides the karma whored, is there a point?
Has anyone picked up one of these CDs? I really doubt it's a demo install of XP. You assume the target audience of this campaign is the same as the MSDN Beta/RC... it's very different. Novice users don't have the time, ability, or means to install a 30-day trial of an operating system.
It's probably just a 20 minute AVI commercial for XP.
The post office is not really part of the government, but rather a business run to support an important country function. Regardless of how its set up, it's a business nontheless. There's nothing illegal or even really that strange about this. In fact, the government has thier hands in other businesses much more than they do in the Post Office's. (Enron, for example.)
The point is, do you lose sleep over the fact that someone can easily take note of your license plate number without your knowledge? Without you having any control over whether they can or not? Or over the existance of the many other ways you personally, and your belongings, can be IDed, without you knowing about it? I really doubt it. There are so many things we DON'T have control over related to privacy, so we choose to bitch about the things that we do. It's a flawed arguement that something you can control (if you care) is a privacy issue at all, when 99% of the things that are (more severe) privacy issues can't be controlled.
I see what you're getting at, but that doesn't apply. Try this one:
Hide in a 3rd floor window near the parking lot with binoculars, and write down license plate numbers of everybody who enters. Now who gives a damn? Are you going to start bringing binoculars when you drive so you can make a quick security check of the parking lots you stop in?:) There's a difference between doing something that is fairly benign in a flagrant way and doing something benign that no one knows about. When you're flagrant about anything, people tend to respond in an equally flagrant (and occasionally irrational manner.)
Hey, MS didn't HAVE to provide a checkbox for you to turn it off...
It's also standard user behavior not to care if someone can ID thier media player. Caller ID ID standard users by phone number (which can be used against them in fraud), license plates ID the cars of standard users (which really sucks if you kill someone with your car.... they can find you!) and drivers licenses ID standard users themselves (again, for the same reason as license plates, this can suck.) Prove to me that everyone is against this "terrible" thing that MS is perpetrating, which is no different than placing IDs on millions of other common everyday things... then I will understand why this particular default is right up there with corporations losing millions of dollars because of NT servers being broken in to.
Slashdot Mirror
First, an interesting thing about this is that .NET really boils down to an XML parser/generator
.NET is no more an XML parser/generator than the Microsoft platform SDK is. Yes, it includes an equivalent to the MSXML libraries, but it's basically the unreleased MSXML4.
No, not really at all.
I'm sure we've all expirenced haveing an audio or video tape lose quality from overplaying. CDs and DVDs don't have this problem...
Are you so sure? What's the oldest DVD you have? Are you sure it will be still playable in 25 years? The lifetime of the technology has yet to be proven, since it hasn't been around long enough to wear out. I remember reading somewhere that the estimated lifetime of a CD or DVD was around 20 years, but I can't remember where that was. If someone would post the information I'm sure it would be useful to this thread.
You're somewhat misinformed then. Some of the first computer generated images were produced in the early 50s on vectorscopes, and were used in the first CAD at that time. By the 60s, CGI was used for movie intros (Vertigo, 1961.) The first computer art competiton was in 1963, as was the first computer generated film. For more info, see the historical timeline of computer graphics and animation.
Going to Pizza Hut instead of "the pizza place" does help you relate to the game more. It makes it easier to relate to the character.
:)
Sure it does. Players have an easier time relating to characters when they don't have to put any imagination into it, but I don't think that makes it better. Pizza Hut is a pop-culture icon, and doesn't need to be imagined by the player, or developed by the developer. How boring. I think any character developer who thinks that sending a character to Pizza Hut is a good idea is damned lazy. It would be relatively easy to send the same character to "PizzaWorld", a made-up pizza emporium with a snazzy logo and "A free GookGook doll with every large pizza!" The point being made about the character's ideals is the same... he likes to succumb to pop-culture. But, by creating an imaginary pop-culture restaurant, the player gets to imagine the rest. And in case you hadn't heard, imagination is FUN.
CGI is an acronym for "Computer Generated Imagery", and it's been used since the 60's, or possibly before that.
Noooooooo! Damn! Thanks for letting me know about that. I will see if I have a backup. :)
Shortcuts are a main cause of headaches for you when you use Windows? Uh...
.NET runtime eliminates the former "DLL Hell" by allowing side by side oepration of multiple versions of the same library. Note, this doesn't solve the problem for existing DLLs, but it does solve the problem for any .NET DLLs.
FYI, part of the
Try to imagine trying to sell a "cache drive" to the average video game console buyer. :) A video game console is not like a home computer... no one at CompUSA is going to be able to corner people into buying this, because it's additional. Sure, on a $1500 computer purchase, most people give on the "256 more megs of RAM will make it faster", because it's in addition to a big chunk of hardware they don't understand anyway. People know consoles "just work." Who's going to buy a "cache drive?", except the same people who bought the Linux kit? :)
Given the history of the success of drive add-ons for video game consoles in North America, I would say the may in that sentence is crucial. IMO, I don't think the PS2 hard drive will ever be released in the US except as part of the Linux kit.
:)
There are a couple of reasons for this besides the fact that historically they just don't do well.
1) The reason mentioned by kasek. What are users who have the Linux kit going to do? Pop the hard drive out and put the other one in just to play games that require the hard drive? No... I don't really think so. That is a ridiculous inconvenience. If Sony would is really serious about releasing a stand-alone hard drive in the US, they would have made the Linux hard drive compatible with it (for example, partitioned the Linux drive so that Linux used 20Gb and 20Gb was completely free for use by games, and then the stand-alone hard drive would also be 20Gb.)
2) PS2 memory cards are much larger than memory cards for older systems where a hard drive was considered for US release. Any *reasonable* amount of game data can be stored on PS2 memory cards. Most features that save more data than can be accessed quickly off a memory card are superfluous, in my opinion, and not very valuable to consumers. This is just coming from one consumer, of course. Maybe some people do want to be able to save 150 replays of thier races in GT3. Not me.
3)Hard drives are fragile. Video game consoles are owned and handled by unresponsible American 8 year-olds. Enough said.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think Sony plans to carry through with it here. May is a tipoff.
*Sigh*
From the PS2 Linux FAQ:
Can I use a TV as my display ?
Yes. However, it is necessary to install Linux (for PlayStation 2) for the first time using a compatible VESA Monitor that supports "sync on green". Once Linux has been installed, it is possible to configure it to boot using TV display from then on. Some digital TV (DTV) modes are also supported (separate cables may be required for DTV).
Don't jump the gun, you only need the VGA adapter/monitor to get the system set up. This info is straight from the press release.
He was quoting retail prices for those items, and estimating that $117 retail is $60 actual cost. I think that's pretty close. So they're charging you approx $140 for Linux... Windows upgrades are cheaper than that. :)
That, and their absolute fascination with TuxRacer....
Sure, but adults have a absolution facination with Solitare. Who's got the money?
Yeah, like you won't notice if coca-cola starts putting 1/60 more water in their coke. Ask yourself why they don't do it.
:) You've proved my point quite well.
I am positive I wouldn't notice if they started putting more water in thier Coke. I'm not going to ask myself why they don't do it, though, because if I don't notice, how do I know they aren't?
No one these days has enough time to do anything they want to do anyway... why not do something useful with that 30 seconds? Perhaps this means you'll be able to get more done during commercial breaks now. The whole point of the system is that you won't notice if the show is made 30 seconds shorter anyway... so will you?
Or, you could just not watch TV and gain 1/2 and whole hours at a time!
Uh huh... have you ever used a reasonably new 32bit PCI computer when it's transfering data at close to 100mbps? Let alone when it's actually supposed to do something with that data, like write it to a hard drive or process it. Want to multiply that effect by 2... or 3... or 8... or 10?
How about NOT taking them all and allowing other people the opportunity to make up thier own minds? Or push for a Linux distro company to advertise with free CDs of thier own.
:)
Fine. Take them all. Be greedy, take as much as you want, everything's for you and only you. Why does this sound familiar? It's Microsoft's (and Slashdot's) mantra!
Slashdot.org.
Slashdot.com
What's your point?
That doesn't apply at all. Being proven guilty does not legally impede a persons actions until a punishment or imposition has been decided. And as you pointed out, nothing has been laid out yet. So, besides the karma whored, is there a point?
Has anyone picked up one of these CDs? I really doubt it's a demo install of XP. You assume the target audience of this campaign is the same as the MSDN Beta/RC... it's very different. Novice users don't have the time, ability, or means to install a 30-day trial of an operating system.
It's probably just a 20 minute AVI commercial for XP.
The post office is not really part of the government, but rather a business run to support an important country function. Regardless of how its set up, it's a business nontheless. There's nothing illegal or even really that strange about this. In fact, the government has thier hands in other businesses much more than they do in the Post Office's. (Enron, for example.)
The point is, do you lose sleep over the fact that someone can easily take note of your license plate number without your knowledge? Without you having any control over whether they can or not? Or over the existance of the many other ways you personally, and your belongings, can be IDed, without you knowing about it? I really doubt it. There are so many things we DON'T have control over related to privacy, so we choose to bitch about the things that we do. It's a flawed arguement that something you can control (if you care) is a privacy issue at all, when 99% of the things that are (more severe) privacy issues can't be controlled.
I see what you're getting at, but that doesn't apply. Try this one:
:) There's a difference between doing something that is fairly benign in a flagrant way and doing something benign that no one knows about. When you're flagrant about anything, people tend to respond in an equally flagrant (and occasionally irrational manner.)
Hide in a 3rd floor window near the parking lot with binoculars, and write down license plate numbers of everybody who enters. Now who gives a damn? Are you going to start bringing binoculars when you drive so you can make a quick security check of the parking lots you stop in?
Hey, MS didn't HAVE to provide a checkbox for you to turn it off...
It's also standard user behavior not to care if someone can ID thier media player. Caller ID ID standard users by phone number (which can be used against them in fraud), license plates ID the cars of standard users (which really sucks if you kill someone with your car.... they can find you!) and drivers licenses ID standard users themselves (again, for the same reason as license plates, this can suck.) Prove to me that everyone is against this "terrible" thing that MS is perpetrating, which is no different than placing IDs on millions of other common everyday things... then I will understand why this particular default is right up there with corporations losing millions of dollars because of NT servers being broken in to.
Do note, on the Star Trek website it says "less than $100." Of course, that means $99.99, but that is less than $100.