I've got a 360 (admittedly only because work wanted me to have it for a demo) and a PS3. I bought the PS3 for BluRay but I find myself playing on it more and more.
I have played on the 360 a good bit, but I find it is loud and I like having controllers on the PS3 that are rechargeable without buying more stuff. I also find that, oddly, the PS3 controller works better for me. I thought the 360 controller was better at first due to the way it seemed to fit my hands better. But it is heavier and the battery pack is attached in a way that cramps my fingers.
I also like the networking options on the PS3 better.
Overall I think the PS3 is a great box that never caught on. This past holiday season I noticed that the 360 and Wii had more than 2x the shelf space for accessories. And Rock Band 2 took a month longer to come out on the PS3 than the 360. So it is no wonder that the PS3 is essentially dying out. You can't sell people what they can't find.
I will definitely be sad if the PS3 goes into "unsupported land" as soon as it seems to be. But it will still be useful both as a BluRay and as a large-screen linux box (which I've found pretty darned handy) for some time to come.
My gf has a Wii that we played alot over Christmas and it has alot of family-style gaming capability. However they weren't games I'd pick to play solo. Hopefully someone in the "4th gen" realizes there is a market for both family-style/kid games AND a console with more potential as a media and networking hub.
My ISP recently turned on a similar system. I'm quite unhappy about it but I really don't have a realistic alternate ISP (boonies, telco, blah blah blah). It really does suck when things like this happen. I don't do anything illegal, but I still like my (relative) privacy and the ISP is the easiest place to attach my real identity to my data paths.
So, for now, I'm pondering going back to a fulltime SSH VPN to my web host for everything except the few apps I use that need low latency.
In a related note I uninstalled Lively yesterday after realizing I would never log in to it again. Prescient? No. Just realistic.
I have yet to see how these things (like Second Life, Lively, etc) are any more than 3D games without the gaming content. No way do I see any reason to do use them for day-to-day computing tasks nor social interaction. We've got plenty of usable tools for that today which are far more flexible on both computer resources and computer usability.
As someone who had the "fun" of becoming a scrum master at a company that was trying (and eventually failed) move off of waterfall I got to be the main Agile advocate with our management.
This company failed from both ends. Developers began to use Agile as a shell to protect them from the problems that were in the old system. That's understandable given how badly they were overworked during deadlines. However what they didn't see was how this poisoned upper management to the entire concept. Management was willing to give a little to get a LOT (they wanted projects to miraculously start to "just work" as one put it) but wanted to have the process be open. Development wanted ANYTHING to shelter them from the hell they had been going through.
Both parties were going into Agile for the wrong reasons. They both thought they were the right reasons.
By the time I got fed up and left we had everyone calling our process "Agile" because we did scrum meetings, but all the processes behind the scenes had reverted back to waterfall at the core. And when I would tell management -or- development that they were doing things for the wrong reason. I tried to avoid saying "you don't understand Agile" so that I wouldn't get defense mechanisms raised and funny part was the more I avoided using that phrase the more they would toss it back in my face (both sides). We had multiple meetings, even bringing in outside consultants, and the meetings always ended with them agreeing to the points brought up but then a week or a month later caving back to their old ways (this was a shop that was VERY entrenched in old ways, having done web services for financial companies for well over a decade).
The point here being... it isn't always just management that doesn't "get" Agile. Sometimes the devs don't "get" it either (and very often the middle group of PMs has plenty of "wtf" left as well). Agile isn't a defense mechanism that allows you to block people from giving you work or to let you work on only the things you find interesting. And if -neither- side wants to be Agile for the right reasons it will fail hard and fast.
PS. Me? I went back to being a Sales Engineer / Field PM for companies in other timezones... however the company I went to DOES do Agile and does it WELL. My scrum master time left me with a bad taste for ever doing it again and I will -never- try to lead a transition to Agile, but it was nice to see my opinions on processes and reasons work. I had convinced myself when I left the scrum master gig that -I- didn't "get" Agile... but I did... the company just did not -want- the changes required. Only the benefits.
"Has your life been negatively impacted by these "illegal" wireless microphones ? No ? Then STFU!"
Actually yes, yes it has. Multiple times.
And opening this spectrum doesn't stop the existing non-broadcast users from utilizing it... and for free... it just allows everyone else to do the same thing. Oh, wait, now other devices are going to stomp on those frequencies? Well... bone up... because those microphones have been doing it others for awhile.
And you're sitting there going off about how no one "owns" the airwaves? That sounds like the position of someone in favor of deregulation. Guess what this judgement just did for those frequencies? That's right. Deregulated them.
There are places where engine braking is the only way to go. I live in the mountains and if you use your breaks on the 10% grade for the miles in to town you're going to be replacing brake pads all the damned time (and risk having them glaze and fail even before you would expect to need to replace them).
And just for the contrarians who say that it will ruin your engine: only if you do it wrong or have the wrong engine. I've used the same Jeep ZJ for 8 years up here and have *knock on wood* only had to replace belts and plugs over the years. No major engine repairs. And the thing actually gets better mileage now than when it was new (22 vs. 20 on the interstate).
Engine braking in town or on the interstate? Yeah, stupid. But it has its place.
I've always felt that evolution has or or is near ending for a different reason: Medicine.
We are coming closer and closer to ending most terminal medical conditions.
We can fix virtually any appearance abnormality.
Fatal injuries are less and less common.
Being physically infirm is usually treatable.
Even those people who do get sick and die can usually have their life extended well past their reproductive years, meaning they still ended up in the gene pool.
We probably do continue to evolve our mental capacities, as it is increasingly important for mates to be seen as intelligent and able to cope with modern technology. And mental traits are obvious at a much younger age than most terminal illness, so that will continue to be a factor even in younger parenthood.
But physically we're hitting a dead end. At least for -natural- evolution. We will probably hit a span of artificial evolution (and may already have).
Sadly I'm getting worried about them using this in the same way Apple did to get around the fact that they are missing some features. The whole "oh, you need something else? Get someone to code it." attitude.
UMA is not on the G1. The hardware for UMA is there (UMA is the ability to take/place cell calls over WiFi, pretty much just needs a WiFi connection and a SIM card... and software) but the software isn't. Since UMA is the reason alot of us use T-Mobile (yeah, there really are alot of otherwise modernized locations in the States with zero cell signal)... lack of it locks us out of the G1.
And as much as some people may say otherwise, using Skype or some other VOIP app on top of the OS really isn't a solution. Not when you need your cell number to ring you at home and not when you want integration with basic phone functions.
The iPhone only has VOIP via 3rd party apps, or at least that was the case a couple of months ago. But I was really shocked to see a new flagship phone from TMO not having UMA.
Another search engine where # of results rules all and the ability to do refined searches is even less capable. Seems you can't even group results with "" wrapped around words that need to be next to each other. Really? I really give a crap that there are millions of results for tooth paste when there would only be a million for "tooth paste" (its an example, no those weren't the searches I tested with).
I'm sure I missed some tricks but still... a search engine shouldn't require tricks to refine a search. Google's problem is NOT a lack of content. Google's problem is a lack of refining searches. But they do a better job than Cuil so far. Simple +, - and "" grouping are useful... url: prefacing is helpful... but none of that truly lets you get a good search.
Give me Cuil's OR Google's content but with the old Altavista interface (remember when Altavista had the most content AND you could do regex searches?). That would be cool. I've heard replies from Google that regex searches take too many resources. You're GOOGLE... go figure out better ways to do them. NEARing, ANDing and ORing help but being able to break a search word -inside- the word (or expand the search word -inside- the word) is where its at. And no... your internal assumptions about plurals and singulars when grabbing like words isn't enough.
In other words don't make me shoot fish in a barrel with a shotgun.
I'd pick Australia for the fun factor, but their politics are as messy as ours here in the States.
Norway.
I loved Norway, the people were awesome, the scenery was like being able to walk from San Francisco to Colorado and the language was starting to click with me in a few days. Food was good too, and multi-cultural enough to keep variety going (I'd miss Mexican food though). I very much liked the eco-friendliness of all the Scandinavian areas. It wasn't flakey, it was a way of life.
What's keeping me from going? Family, lack of money, worries of employability and naturalization issues. In that order. Same thing as I'd suspect for 99% of everyone else.
BTW, I love my country. We get many things right. Unfortunately the last 6 years of politics and war hasn't been one of those right things. Instead of me moving, can I just exile Bush?
I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty good at picking out sugar vs. corn syrup (yes, Coke and Pepsi, damn you, you really can taste and -feel- the difference with a normal human tongue)... and I would swear I've had sugared Coke in both Hawaii and in southern Florida in the last couple of years.
In fact, if you can find something like a black cherry juice it goes real well with a club soda. And the club soda is fizzy enough that you end up with more carbonation than you do from a normal soda.
Club soda with Rose's Lime Juice (nowhere NEAR 50/50 though:) is good too... especially if you have a lime to slice to add a little fresh flavor.
And they're ready for that lunchtime splash of Gin, too;)
PS. I'm serious on all accounts, they taste great even with out the distilled juniper juice.
Both green and white teas are unprocessed/unfirmented leaves. Green comes from the mature leaf while White comes from immature (not fully opened, still covered with white "hair" from budding) leaves.
So green is more processed... in that it finishes its growth cycle.
This device was a proof of concept and after hours pet project of the designer and a few others. It wasn't necessarily MEANT to be a PDA/laptop/whatever replacement. It is a gadget built by and for gadget lovers. Is there alot you have to do to make it do what you want? yeah, but it CAN do it and that's 1/2 the cool. The people who want it are picking it up faster than Nokia expected (hence its low availability when it first launched).
Its also awesome for people who want to develop on an embedded platform that mimics platforms used by cellphones. It is a TI OMAP 1710, same as a very popular TI reference architecture, and has built-in bluetooth and WiFi. A VERY cheap development target compared to the 4K you'd spend on an OMAP 1710 reference kit. And the environment can be developed on your x86 box and easily cross-compiled to the 770.
The screen (800x400) is -very- nice if you do take the time to install your apps. I have very little problem reading the small text because it is crisp... very crisp.
All in all it is what it was meant to be... the reviewer seems to have wanted it to be something else. Anyone who knows how to compile and/or install linux software is going to find it quite fun.
If they dynamically limit bandwidth, this could have one interesting side effect: fewer slashdotted sites... since the traffic pegging the server would be lowered.
You will be correct when the software I need is distributed in debian format. However as it is now, much of that software only officially supports a few distributions. I use Centos because I only have to edit 1 file (/etc/redhat-release) to get those packages to treat the system as a RHEL4 system.
I'm not talking about business usage, my company buys RH licenses for the servers and workstations that use it.
So Red Hat is still getting dollars from the people I work for, and Centos is allowing me to work at home with full updates (important) on a system that essentially mirrors my business environment. A good trade.
as far as I remember, Novell only released their desktop product as Novell Linux Desktop, which was based on SuSE Enterprise Linux. They kept the SuSE naming for the business products.
Do you blame General Motors (or whoever) for building a car that, after you drove it on the interstate and hit a huge piano in the road, got a bent rim?
Do you blame the salesman?
No, you blame the guy who left the piano. And unless you let someone else drive your car, you blame yourself for not taking defensive measure like cleaning your windshield.
Point? Ok, if you didn't get it... you are expected to defend YOURSELF from viruses. If you're going to blame anyone other than yourself, you blame the guy who wrote and/or distributed the virus.
Can some ISPs be easier targets than others, either through their size or their security measures?
Sure.
And some cars can survive running into a piano a lot better than others too. That doesn't stop rogue highway pianos.
Yes, but then you couldn't make a mysterious referrence to Red Green. That referrence alone, after having to watch this show with my father, is enough to make me want to buy a converged device.
Slashdot Mirror
And fwiw, I've been gaming since Pong was first sold as a home unit. Oy.
Never heard of the PS3/Wii/360 called the 3rd gen? Get off the semantics please, it is petty, I'm just following fairly common nomenclature.
4th gen as in "the next round".
I've got a 360 (admittedly only because work wanted me to have it for a demo) and a PS3. I bought the PS3 for BluRay but I find myself playing on it more and more.
I have played on the 360 a good bit, but I find it is loud and I like having controllers on the PS3 that are rechargeable without buying more stuff. I also find that, oddly, the PS3 controller works better for me. I thought the 360 controller was better at first due to the way it seemed to fit my hands better. But it is heavier and the battery pack is attached in a way that cramps my fingers.
I also like the networking options on the PS3 better.
Overall I think the PS3 is a great box that never caught on. This past holiday season I noticed that the 360 and Wii had more than 2x the shelf space for accessories. And Rock Band 2 took a month longer to come out on the PS3 than the 360. So it is no wonder that the PS3 is essentially dying out. You can't sell people what they can't find.
I will definitely be sad if the PS3 goes into "unsupported land" as soon as it seems to be. But it will still be useful both as a BluRay and as a large-screen linux box (which I've found pretty darned handy) for some time to come.
My gf has a Wii that we played alot over Christmas and it has alot of family-style gaming capability. However they weren't games I'd pick to play solo. Hopefully someone in the "4th gen" realizes there is a market for both family-style/kid games AND a console with more potential as a media and networking hub.
My ISP recently turned on a similar system. I'm quite unhappy about it but I really don't have a realistic alternate ISP (boonies, telco, blah blah blah). It really does suck when things like this happen. I don't do anything illegal, but I still like my (relative) privacy and the ISP is the easiest place to attach my real identity to my data paths.
So, for now, I'm pondering going back to a fulltime SSH VPN to my web host for everything except the few apps I use that need low latency.
In a related note I uninstalled Lively yesterday after realizing I would never log in to it again. Prescient? No. Just realistic.
I have yet to see how these things (like Second Life, Lively, etc) are any more than 3D games without the gaming content. No way do I see any reason to do use them for day-to-day computing tasks nor social interaction. We've got plenty of usable tools for that today which are far more flexible on both computer resources and computer usability.
As someone who had the "fun" of becoming a scrum master at a company that was trying (and eventually failed) move off of waterfall I got to be the main Agile advocate with our management.
This company failed from both ends. Developers began to use Agile as a shell to protect them from the problems that were in the old system. That's understandable given how badly they were overworked during deadlines. However what they didn't see was how this poisoned upper management to the entire concept. Management was willing to give a little to get a LOT (they wanted projects to miraculously start to "just work" as one put it) but wanted to have the process be open. Development wanted ANYTHING to shelter them from the hell they had been going through.
Both parties were going into Agile for the wrong reasons. They both thought they were the right reasons.
By the time I got fed up and left we had everyone calling our process "Agile" because we did scrum meetings, but all the processes behind the scenes had reverted back to waterfall at the core. And when I would tell management -or- development that they were doing things for the wrong reason. I tried to avoid saying "you don't understand Agile" so that I wouldn't get defense mechanisms raised and funny part was the more I avoided using that phrase the more they would toss it back in my face (both sides). We had multiple meetings, even bringing in outside consultants, and the meetings always ended with them agreeing to the points brought up but then a week or a month later caving back to their old ways (this was a shop that was VERY entrenched in old ways, having done web services for financial companies for well over a decade).
The point here being ... it isn't always just management that doesn't "get" Agile. Sometimes the devs don't "get" it either (and very often the middle group of PMs has plenty of "wtf" left as well). Agile isn't a defense mechanism that allows you to block people from giving you work or to let you work on only the things you find interesting. And if -neither- side wants to be Agile for the right reasons it will fail hard and fast.
PS. Me? I went back to being a Sales Engineer / Field PM for companies in other timezones ... however the company I went to DOES do Agile and does it WELL. My scrum master time left me with a bad taste for ever doing it again and I will -never- try to lead a transition to Agile, but it was nice to see my opinions on processes and reasons work. I had convinced myself when I left the scrum master gig that -I- didn't "get" Agile ... but I did ... the company just did not -want- the changes required. Only the benefits.
"Has your life been negatively impacted by these "illegal" wireless microphones ? No ? Then STFU!"
Actually yes, yes it has. Multiple times.
And opening this spectrum doesn't stop the existing non-broadcast users from utilizing it ... and for free ... it just allows everyone else to do the same thing. Oh, wait, now other devices are going to stomp on those frequencies? Well ... bone up ... because those microphones have been doing it others for awhile.
And you're sitting there going off about how no one "owns" the airwaves? That sounds like the position of someone in favor of deregulation. Guess what this judgement just did for those frequencies? That's right. Deregulated them.
There are places where engine braking is the only way to go. I live in the mountains and if you use your breaks on the 10% grade for the miles in to town you're going to be replacing brake pads all the damned time (and risk having them glaze and fail even before you would expect to need to replace them).
And just for the contrarians who say that it will ruin your engine: only if you do it wrong or have the wrong engine. I've used the same Jeep ZJ for 8 years up here and have *knock on wood* only had to replace belts and plugs over the years. No major engine repairs. And the thing actually gets better mileage now than when it was new (22 vs. 20 on the interstate).
Engine braking in town or on the interstate? Yeah, stupid. But it has its place.
I've always felt that evolution has or or is near ending for a different reason: Medicine.
We are coming closer and closer to ending most terminal medical conditions.
We can fix virtually any appearance abnormality.
Fatal injuries are less and less common.
Being physically infirm is usually treatable.
Even those people who do get sick and die can usually have their life extended well past their reproductive years, meaning they still ended up in the gene pool.
We probably do continue to evolve our mental capacities, as it is increasingly important for mates to be seen as intelligent and able to cope with modern technology. And mental traits are obvious at a much younger age than most terminal illness, so that will continue to be a factor even in younger parenthood.
But physically we're hitting a dead end. At least for -natural- evolution. We will probably hit a span of artificial evolution (and may already have).
Sadly I'm getting worried about them using this in the same way Apple did to get around the fact that they are missing some features. The whole "oh, you need something else? Get someone to code it." attitude.
UMA is not on the G1. The hardware for UMA is there (UMA is the ability to take/place cell calls over WiFi, pretty much just needs a WiFi connection and a SIM card ... and software) but the software isn't. Since UMA is the reason alot of us use T-Mobile (yeah, there really are alot of otherwise modernized locations in the States with zero cell signal) ... lack of it locks us out of the G1.
And as much as some people may say otherwise, using Skype or some other VOIP app on top of the OS really isn't a solution. Not when you need your cell number to ring you at home and not when you want integration with basic phone functions.
The iPhone only has VOIP via 3rd party apps, or at least that was the case a couple of months ago. But I was really shocked to see a new flagship phone from TMO not having UMA.
Who really cares? I'd have watched it either way. Happily.
Another search engine where # of results rules all and the ability to do refined searches is even less capable. Seems you can't even group results with "" wrapped around words that need to be next to each other. Really? I really give a crap that there are millions of results for tooth paste when there would only be a million for "tooth paste" (its an example, no those weren't the searches I tested with).
I'm sure I missed some tricks but still ... a search engine shouldn't require tricks to refine a search. Google's problem is NOT a lack of content. Google's problem is a lack of refining searches. But they do a better job than Cuil so far. Simple +, - and "" grouping are useful ... url: prefacing is helpful ... but none of that truly lets you get a good search.
Give me Cuil's OR Google's content but with the old Altavista interface (remember when Altavista had the most content AND you could do regex searches?). That would be cool. I've heard replies from Google that regex searches take too many resources. You're GOOGLE ... go figure out better ways to do them. NEARing, ANDing and ORing help but being able to break a search word -inside- the word (or expand the search word -inside- the word) is where its at. And no ... your internal assumptions about plurals and singulars when grabbing like words isn't enough.
In other words don't make me shoot fish in a barrel with a shotgun.
I'd pick Australia for the fun factor, but their politics are as messy as ours here in the States.
Norway.
I loved Norway, the people were awesome, the scenery was like being able to walk from San Francisco to Colorado and the language was starting to click with me in a few days. Food was good too, and multi-cultural enough to keep variety going (I'd miss Mexican food though). I very much liked the eco-friendliness of all the Scandinavian areas. It wasn't flakey, it was a way of life.
What's keeping me from going? Family, lack of money, worries of employability and naturalization issues. In that order. Same thing as I'd suspect for 99% of everyone else.
BTW, I love my country. We get many things right. Unfortunately the last 6 years of politics and war hasn't been one of those right things. Instead of me moving, can I just exile Bush?
I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty good at picking out sugar vs. corn syrup (yes, Coke and Pepsi, damn you, you really can taste and -feel- the difference with a normal human tongue) ... and I would swear I've had sugared Coke in both Hawaii and in southern Florida in the last couple of years.
Far superior imo.
Yep!
:) is good too ... especially if you have a lime to slice to add a little fresh flavor.
;)
In fact, if you can find something like a black cherry juice it goes real well with a club soda. And the club soda is fizzy enough that you end up with more carbonation than you do from a normal soda.
Club soda with Rose's Lime Juice (nowhere NEAR 50/50 though
And they're ready for that lunchtime splash of Gin, too
PS. I'm serious on all accounts, they taste great even with out the distilled juniper juice.
Sorta ...
... in that it finishes its growth cycle.
Both green and white teas are unprocessed/unfirmented leaves. Green comes from the mature leaf while White comes from immature (not fully opened, still covered with white "hair" from budding) leaves.
So green is more processed
This device was a proof of concept and after hours pet project of the designer and a few others. It wasn't necessarily MEANT to be a PDA/laptop/whatever replacement. It is a gadget built by and for gadget lovers. Is there alot you have to do to make it do what you want? yeah, but it CAN do it and that's 1/2 the cool. The people who want it are picking it up faster than Nokia expected (hence its low availability when it first launched).
... very crisp.
... the reviewer seems to have wanted it to be something else. Anyone who knows how to compile and/or install linux software is going to find it quite fun.
Its also awesome for people who want to develop on an embedded platform that mimics platforms used by cellphones. It is a TI OMAP 1710, same as a very popular TI reference architecture, and has built-in bluetooth and WiFi. A VERY cheap development target compared to the 4K you'd spend on an OMAP 1710 reference kit. And the environment can be developed on your x86 box and easily cross-compiled to the 770.
The screen (800x400) is -very- nice if you do take the time to install your apps. I have very little problem reading the small text because it is crisp
All in all it is what it was meant to be
What is the
Me too! Let us read the threaded replies to the article in wonder!
If they dynamically limit bandwidth, this could have one interesting side effect: fewer slashdotted sites ... since the traffic pegging the server would be lowered.
You will be correct when the software I need is distributed in debian format. However as it is now, much of that software only officially supports a few distributions. I use Centos because I only have to edit 1 file (/etc/redhat-release) to get those packages to treat the system as a RHEL4 system.
I'm not talking about business usage, my company buys RH licenses for the servers and workstations that use it.
So Red Hat is still getting dollars from the people I work for, and Centos is allowing me to work at home with full updates (important) on a system that essentially mirrors my business environment. A good trade.
as far as I remember, Novell only released their desktop product as Novell Linux Desktop, which was based on SuSE Enterprise Linux. They kept the SuSE naming for the business products.
A virus doesn't make your ISP connection a lemon.
... you are expected to defend YOURSELF from viruses. If you're going to blame anyone other than yourself, you blame the guy who wrote and/or distributed the virus.
3 terrible analogies.
Do you blame General Motors (or whoever) for building a car that, after you drove it on the interstate and hit a huge piano in the road, got a bent rim?
Do you blame the salesman?
No, you blame the guy who left the piano. And unless you let someone else drive your car, you blame yourself for not taking defensive measure like cleaning your windshield.
Point? Ok, if you didn't get it
Can some ISPs be easier targets than others, either through their size or their security measures?
Sure.
And some cars can survive running into a piano a lot better than others too. That doesn't stop rogue highway pianos.
Hark! It be a dupe!
Yes, but then you couldn't make a mysterious referrence to Red Green. That referrence alone, after having to watch this show with my father, is enough to make me want to buy a converged device.