However, for all their ease of updates and cutting out middlemen for software retail etc, it sucks. As soon as an update like this comes out, everybody's steam client wants to update, the servers get overloaded and become effectively unavailable - I can't play online without updating, and I can't even play any of the steam games offline (offline play is part of this update). Must be hell for those with slower links.
Sure, there were problems like this when steam first came out. That's because of one thing. Valve is really good at game/software development. They are very bad at IT/Networking. That's why they got hacked and had their source code stolen.
However, I must say that ever since the very beginning of Steam when there was that huge fiasco I haven't had a problem. The bug where it crashes on map change is fixed. That's the only bug I ever experienced. Ever time there has been an update I have had no problem downloading it almost immediately. Just now I signed into steam, it updated and within 1.5 minutes I was ready to play. If my steam works like that, your steam can work like that too. If it doesn't, then you are doing something wrong.
01. Half-Life 02. Counter-Strike 03. Natural Selection 04. Tribes 2 (before it got fucked) 05. Quake 2 06. Doom 2 07. Wolfenstein 3d 08. Tribes 1 09. Doom 1 10. Team Fortress (all of 'em)
That's if you're like me and consider a mod to be a seperate game. If you think a mod isn't a seperate game, check this list.
01. Half-Life 02. Tribes 2 (before it sucked) 03. Quake 2 04. Doom 2 05. Doom 1 06. Wolfenstein 3d 07. Tribes 1 08. Quake 1 09. Duke 3d (not forever) 10. Rise of the Triad (wooo!!!!)
Notice Unreal or UT didn't make my lists. I throw Unreal and sequels in the honorable mention category with Shogo Mobile Armor Division. None of the Unreal games ever had the qualities that make a truly great game. Let me make an analogy.
Street Fighter:Marvel vs. Capcom:: Half-Life:Unreal
Why is it so easy to cheating at online fps games? Can some of you l33t h4x0rz put some effort into cheating in online casinos. Make that roulette wheel show up 00 every time. I'll split the winnings with you halfway. With that kind of money you can hire the world champion of counter-strike to play for you. Win without touching the mouse even!
If you want to be smarter do what I do. Try to learn stuff. Don't just volger around the internet reading shit like slashdot and playing stupid games. Spend that time learning something or spend it somewhere besides the computer/tv/videogames/dvd/etc.
Here are some examples from my life.
Example 1: I heard the words fast fourier transform many times. I realized, hey I don't know what the fuck that is, and I probably should. I searched on google and researched it. Now I know it as well as if I would have taken a college course on it. You know you know something when you can write a program that does it.
Example 2: Hey, this python programming language seems to fit my style. Buy Nutshell book, learn python in a couple weeks.
Example 3: hey, I have a project to do for class. I think I'll use the GTK+ library. Proceed to teach self everything about GTK from the GTK website.
Example 4: Argument about gas prices. I thought the markup was a lot, my roomate correctly knew it was only a few cents markup at the gas station. We went out on the net and not only determined who was right, but learned all about fuel prices.
Example 5: Hey, this Initial D anime is pretty cool, but no way is that drift driving realistic. Proceed to use internet to learn all about cars, drifting, etc. I now also am very fond of F1 racing. Just last week I read the entire rules at formula1.com and simultaneously learned a great deal about how they make the best cars in the world.
Pretty much, if you want to learn just try to. The information is free. Just go out and read what you want to know, and if you're serious about it you'll learn it. Things that you are genuinely interested in knowing are easy to learn because you will pay attention and actually try. If you are having a hard time learning something its probably because you don't actually want to know it, but instead are being forced to learn it. Or you could have a "learning disability".
"People like to have challenges, goals, and something to struggle toward."
Don't forget rewards. Back in the day the reward for beating a game was twofold.
1) you got to see the end of the game 2) you got to tell all your friends you beat the game, hahahaha
Nowadays #2 is jax3d because everyone beats every game that can be beaten. That's why multiplayer games like CS are so popular. Since there is no challenge anymore in playing against the computer people play against each other.
Whenever I look for quality in game design I always look to Zelda games. You can go anywhere and do stuff, so its freeform. But you have a predetermined quest, to get all the triforce pieces and beat ganon. Don't make a linear game in which the places you go and the things you do are in a predetermined order, that hasn't been fun since Mario 1 and 2. You have to at least do things like Mario 3 did or like Mega Man did if not what Zelda did. But be sure to give the player a goal, make sure that they know what the goal is and make sure that you give the player enough information in game so that they will be able to figure out what to do.
Make it hard, but don't make it stupid and arbitrary. FF:CC had this problem. The way to get lots of items and things and cast different spells requires the players to pretty much randomly figure stuff out. There were no puzzles to solve like in a Zelda game. You don't make a series of logical thougts and arrive at a conclusion that gives you the hidden shiny. You pretty much either find it randomly, or you read a FAQ. That is piss poor game design right there. I just can't understand. Everyone recognizes certain games as the best, but so few people learn from those games and apply that learning in designing new games. They just make the same design mistakes over and over. Hopefully indy developers will save the day.
You're right and wrong. Regulation is bad for OSS. It is also terrible for MS too. Nobody involved with software wants it to be regulated. Regulation stifles innovation. Imagine there was a regulation that said all software needed to be at least X secure. Both MS and OSS are screwed. Being held liable for how secure your software is would ruin everybody. That's just one example of a regulation that would mess everything up, but just about anything would be terrible. Keep it free.
Re:Prediction about "social network software"
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ICQ Universe
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· Score: 4, Informative
May I refer you to this great article by Doug Rushkoff.
The Sega Genesis controller has the same plug as the atari 2600 joystick. In fact you can plug sega genesis controllers into ataris and play just fine. You can also plug atari joysticks onto a genesis, but you will lack some buttons. So I assume that a sega genesis to USB converter, which has existed for awhile, would work just fine for a 2600 joystick. No news here, move along.
Me and my friends have a phrase that we have been using for years. "Nintendo Hard" Most games today just aren't Nintendo Hard. That's not to say they are bad games, look at something like Wind Waker, fantastic game too easy.
There are other types of games where the lack of difficulty ruins the game. But I must also note that the wrong kind of difficulty can ruin a game also.
Look at FF:CC. The game is great and all, but only because its multiplayer gameboy element makes up for what it lacks elsewhere. All the best items and secret happenings can only be found in stupid arbitrary ways. They aren't a puzzle you solve like in Wind Waker, they are something you have to know. Information you can't possibly have unless you read a FAQ or strategy guide or come across completely by accident.
Another thing I think is that sometimes game quality is not the top priority of game designers. Why make a great game that is hard? People will keep playing it and take all year to beat it, they sure as heck wont give up. If they're still playing that one why would they buy a new one? If people beat their games they'll stop playing them and buy new ones.
Pretty much I agree with this guy a whole lot. In my/journal somewhere there is an article about RPGs and how they have become movies and not games. That is very relevant.
I knew it would have wireless to be awesome. However, to be even more awesome both screens have to seperate from each other. If two people can play one game with one system and one cartridge and the two halves of the system connect wirelessly it will be the king of handhelds. Imagine the possibilities that before were difficult. Like battleship for instance.
I'm definitely buying one. At best it rules and I get my moneys worth. At worst its another Virtual Boy and I can be that one guy who still has a working Virtual boy. It's a win/win situation.
Soo. If you physically exert yourself you will be friendly with people nearby. This must be why geeks who don't get out of their chair are so anti-social. It makes sense, and I've seen and experienced this myself. I'll believe it.
Expensive Impractical
on
Quieting Your G5?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
A lot of the other posters have provided simple and practical solutions to the problem, such as directional microphones and putting the pc in another room.
I just wanted to offer the rich eccentric solution. Buy noise cancellers. They exist. Pretty much what they do is listen to the ambient noise in a room, and then begin emitting a sound wave that almost perfectly cancels out the others in the room. Problem is if you start humming a single not for a duration it will cancel it out.
There are still paychecks if software is free. Just to give one example. Let's say you're a company that makes electronic gadgets and gizmos. These things need software to run on them. But since the gadget you're making is the first of its kind, since your company is engineering it right this minute, there is no software for it. Someone has to write the code that makes this thing work. Everything from wristwatches to formula 1 cars needs software. And you can search the net all you want, you wont find code for the formula machine you just built.
This is where linux comes in. The company that makes the gizmos hires one or more coders who knows embedded linux. This guy takes linux and other various open source tools and uses them together to create the software that makes the gadget work. The company saves money because they don't have to pay for expensive development tools or windows CE or anything like that. The coder gets a paycheck.
That's just one example. Can you think of more?
Pretty much what it all comes down to is this. Coders are only going to get paid for writing NEW code. What free software does is make it so coders don't have to keep re-writing the same things over and over again. Once somebody bothers to write algorithm X there's no reason to hire someone to write that same algorithm again. Just download the code. It' something completely different if you're going to get someone to come up with a new algorithm. Coders will only make money if they are writing new code, stuff that doesn't exist already.
If you use Firefox (firebird, phoenix, browzilla, etc.) the RSS reader panel extension is the highest quality. It's great for my morning routine. I go down the list of bookmark folders opening each one in tabs and reading all my non-RSS sites. Then when I'm all done I press Alt+R and I check all the news feeds with the quickness. I just wish slashdot's newsfeed didn't suck. I read penny arcade now only with RSS.
I wish all webcomics used it. Even better, consolidate all my webcomics into a single news feed. Then consolidate all the geek news into another, blogs in another, software updates in another and real news in the last one. Then have a program that makes noise when something new comes up.
I agree wholeheartedly about all the stupid MMOs that require no skill whatsoever. I have been saying it for years. Who the hell is stupid enough to pay for a program where you click on a picture, it dissapears and then a number goes up. Rinse and Repeat. Oh yeah, it's a chat room too.
Of course, planetside, while much better than games like Everquest and Asheron's call, is still crap. Why? Planetside has two large armies that are fighting against each other for land and power. But neither side ever wins. Neither side ever can win. The game is in permanent stalemate. Without goals or purpose the fps game is meaningless. It's just a ton of people running around fragging each other. Because there are no goals or victory condition the game is pointless.
This is why I have found solace in Puzzle Pirates. It's completely skill based, puzzle game skill. Not only that, but there are clear goals. Getting lots of poe to get shops to get poe to get boats to get rum to get canonballs to destroy the boats of other crews. The economics are extremely complex and if managed improperly crews and flags can go bankrupt inside a week.
The thing that makes puzzle pirates so awesome is that there is a "7th puzzle" the social puzzle. Stinky fanboys can't succeed at puzzle pirates no matter how good their puzzling skills. Crews are closely knit social groups, and if you have no social skill none of the larger flags/crews will take you in. There are plenty of nice normal people who are good at the puzzles that nobody has any reason to let you in if you're an asshole. I set up a teamspeak server for our flag and now I talk in real time to my pirate friends every night I decide to play. The pirate theme is awesome too.
Oh yeah, puzzle pirates is cheaper than just about every other MMO there is. And there's a free trial too.
The problem we have here is that linux is designed for linux users. Like myself, I prefer gentoo. It fits my person style and I just love emerge-ing all kinds of junk and making my own kernel.
I would like to see a linux distribution the exact opposite. One that I could give to people fed up with windows. It should detect all the hardware like knoppix. Then it will bring up a simple GUI style disk formatting tool, like the mandrake installer. Then after I select which partitions it should just install, no more questions asked. When its done all the hardware should be working. One of every necessary software application should be installed. The gui will be simply laid out with big pretty buttons. One that says Web Browser, another for Word Processor, etc. Wine, lilo and other things will be configured perfectly and automatically without user input. There will also be another big button that says "install software". It will have a big nice easy to use app that sorts softwares by categories, shows screenshots and readable descriptions of different programs. With a single click these programs will be installed and new icons will be created. With another click these programs should also be automatically updated to the newer versions without breaking anything. And of course easy uninstallation is a must too.
I see no reason why this isn't possible. Why hasn't anyone (that I know of) done it yet?
I hate stuff like this. It makes the false assumption that the most popular games are the best games. Look at any other medium of entertainment and you can see how plainly false this is. Movies, Star Wars is probably one of the most popular, yet Citizen Kane is "the best" whether you like it or not.
With a poll on gamefaqs there are sure to be a zillion 12 year olds voting for GTA 3 and a million dumbasses voting for FF7. Heck, I'm almost 22 years old. Some of the 18 year olds who are coming into college now never owned an NES and were all about the Playstation. Playstation! Not even SNES! Just as if you've never seen Citizen Kane you can't be a movie critic you can't be a video game critic if you haven't played Zelda 1. Well, I guess you could be a critic, but you wouldn't have any credibility.
Zelda 1 is probably the Citizen Kane of video games. Although Mega Man 2 is #1 in my personal book. PC games? TIE Fighter or Civ2. I mean, it is so plainly obvious which games are the best to anyone who knows their shit.
Really I just wish they would rename the contest to "most popular video game as of right now". As opposed to "best game ever".
That's a pretty good idea. They're just missing one thing. I wont pay. I'll never pay. As long as someone besides the person who writes and performs music is making money from that music I will not pay a half a cent for it. That's all there is to it.
The business model of the future is the penny arcade/homestarrunner model. Acquire a large loyal fanbase. Actually BE good people who make quality art and gain the trust of your fans. Allow your art to be distributed freely all around the globe without a care in the world. Make money from merchandise, voluntary donations from fans, and "legitimate" advertising (google and PA style advertising NOT weather.com or superbowl style advertising).
The real problem here is this. The RIAA can think of a ton of business models that work considering new technologies. While the organization as a whole is "evil" the people that make it up are not all stupid drones. They know. The thing is that there is no longer a business model which will turn musicians into multi-zillionaires.
Musiciains can live with a new business model and make enough money for food and rent and all that. What they can no longer do is make millions of dollars at the same time some record company also makes millions. It just wont happen anymore. Until the record company accepts that, they are going to keep suing us.
Why? personal philosophy on life. I can't be offended by anything anyone says. I don't worry and be happy. I take it easy. If shit hits the fan I don't freak out, I deal with it. I use logic to deal with any obstacles I encounter in everyday life, usually avoiding them. It takes a whole lot to mess me up. You'd have to like shoot my mom or something.
Technology gives me the least stress. In fact it takes me into the realm of negative stress. I'm so good with my computer and other technologies that in order for them to cause me any trouble all my hard drives would have to crash and burn in an unrecoverable fury.
Here's an example. We have a cheapo crap Apex DVD player and a DVD-ROM. We wanted to watch a DVD. The Apex was old and crappy and we couldn't find the remote. The DVD ROM has a problem where it wont allow you to watch past a certain spot of the movie. We think the laser is stuck and wont move to the edge of the disc. Not only that, but we couldn't find a free dvd playing software for windows. Instead of stressing and freaking out we had a lot of fun. We searched the net for dvd playing software in italian. We opened up the case on the apex and put a fan near it to prevent overheating. It was a total fiasco and a ton of fun.
Normal people would have stressed out. By dealing with problems in life by applying basic problem solving skills, stress goes away. I believe that the majority of stress in the world is due to people who don't have or use basic problem solving skills. These people come to a problem and are stopped dead in their tracks until either it explodes or someone saves them from their misery.
If you are stressed out, its your fault, not the fault of any technology. Adopt the philosophy of me, my roomate and others and you will live a happy life of perfect.
Also I once saw a thing that converts a PCI slot on a desktop machine into a PCMCIA slot. You could get a half-height one of those and put a laptop modem in it.
Or just use micro-atx motherboards that have builtin modems.
Don't try to switch a 2.4 sytem to the 2.6 kernel. Or vice versa for that matter. If you want 2.6, build the rest of the system fresh. Unless you are uber l33t you wont get everything to work perfectly. But if you start from scratch getting everything to work in 2.6 is cake.
Slashdot Mirror
However, for all their ease of updates and cutting out middlemen for software retail etc, it sucks. As soon as an update like this comes out, everybody's steam client wants to update, the servers get overloaded and become effectively unavailable - I can't play online without updating, and I can't even play any of the steam games offline (offline play is part of this update). Must be hell for those with slower links.
Sure, there were problems like this when steam first came out. That's because of one thing. Valve is really good at game/software development. They are very bad at IT/Networking. That's why they got hacked and had their source code stolen.
However, I must say that ever since the very beginning of Steam when there was that huge fiasco I haven't had a problem. The bug where it crashes on map change is fixed. That's the only bug I ever experienced. Ever time there has been an update I have had no problem downloading it almost immediately. Just now I signed into steam, it updated and within 1.5 minutes I was ready to play. If my steam works like that, your steam can work like that too. If it doesn't, then you are doing something wrong.
Can't argue with this list
01. Half-Life
02. Counter-Strike
03. Natural Selection
04. Tribes 2 (before it got fucked)
05. Quake 2
06. Doom 2
07. Wolfenstein 3d
08. Tribes 1
09. Doom 1
10. Team Fortress (all of 'em)
That's if you're like me and consider a mod to be a seperate game. If you think a mod isn't a seperate game, check this list.
01. Half-Life
02. Tribes 2 (before it sucked)
03. Quake 2
04. Doom 2
05. Doom 1
06. Wolfenstein 3d
07. Tribes 1
08. Quake 1
09. Duke 3d (not forever)
10. Rise of the Triad (wooo!!!!)
Notice Unreal or UT didn't make my lists. I throw Unreal and sequels in the honorable mention category with Shogo Mobile Armor Division. None of the Unreal games ever had the qualities that make a truly great game. Let me make an analogy.
Street Fighter:Marvel vs. Capcom::
Half-Life:Unreal
get it?
I just brought me home my apple //gs and my mac plus. I'm a gettin' some unhealthy ideas maybe...
Why is it so easy to cheating at online fps games? Can some of you l33t h4x0rz put some effort into cheating in online casinos. Make that roulette wheel show up 00 every time. I'll split the winnings with you halfway. With that kind of money you can hire the world champion of counter-strike to play for you. Win without touching the mouse even!
If you want to be smarter do what I do. Try to learn stuff. Don't just volger around the internet reading shit like slashdot and playing stupid games. Spend that time learning something or spend it somewhere besides the computer/tv/videogames/dvd/etc.
Here are some examples from my life.
Example 1: I heard the words fast fourier transform many times. I realized, hey I don't know what the fuck that is, and I probably should. I searched on google and researched it. Now I know it as well as if I would have taken a college course on it. You know you know something when you can write a program that does it.
Example 2: Hey, this python programming language seems to fit my style. Buy Nutshell book, learn python in a couple weeks.
Example 3: hey, I have a project to do for class. I think I'll use the GTK+ library. Proceed to teach self everything about GTK from the GTK website.
Example 4: Argument about gas prices. I thought the markup was a lot, my roomate correctly knew it was only a few cents markup at the gas station. We went out on the net and not only determined who was right, but learned all about fuel prices.
Example 5: Hey, this Initial D anime is pretty cool, but no way is that drift driving realistic. Proceed to use internet to learn all about cars, drifting, etc. I now also am very fond of F1 racing. Just last week I read the entire rules at formula1.com and simultaneously learned a great deal about how they make the best cars in the world.
Pretty much, if you want to learn just try to. The information is free. Just go out and read what you want to know, and if you're serious about it you'll learn it. Things that you are genuinely interested in knowing are easy to learn because you will pay attention and actually try. If you are having a hard time learning something its probably because you don't actually want to know it, but instead are being forced to learn it. Or you could have a "learning disability".
Read.
"People like to have challenges, goals, and something to struggle toward."
Don't forget rewards. Back in the day the reward for beating a game was twofold.
1) you got to see the end of the game
2) you got to tell all your friends you beat the game, hahahaha
Nowadays #2 is jax3d because everyone beats every game that can be beaten. That's why multiplayer games like CS are so popular. Since there is no challenge anymore in playing against the computer people play against each other.
Whenever I look for quality in game design I always look to Zelda games. You can go anywhere and do stuff, so its freeform. But you have a predetermined quest, to get all the triforce pieces and beat ganon. Don't make a linear game in which the places you go and the things you do are in a predetermined order, that hasn't been fun since Mario 1 and 2. You have to at least do things like Mario 3 did or like Mega Man did if not what Zelda did. But be sure to give the player a goal, make sure that they know what the goal is and make sure that you give the player enough information in game so that they will be able to figure out what to do.
Make it hard, but don't make it stupid and arbitrary. FF:CC had this problem. The way to get lots of items and things and cast different spells requires the players to pretty much randomly figure stuff out. There were no puzzles to solve like in a Zelda game. You don't make a series of logical thougts and arrive at a conclusion that gives you the hidden shiny. You pretty much either find it randomly, or you read a FAQ. That is piss poor game design right there. I just can't understand. Everyone recognizes certain games as the best, but so few people learn from those games and apply that learning in designing new games. They just make the same design mistakes over and over. Hopefully indy developers will save the day.
Put one of these in a cameraphone. You'll soon have people giving slideshows of the pictures they took on vacation straight from the phone. oy.
You're right and wrong. Regulation is bad for OSS. It is also terrible for MS too. Nobody involved with software wants it to be regulated. Regulation stifles innovation. Imagine there was a regulation that said all software needed to be at least X secure. Both MS and OSS are screwed. Being held liable for how secure your software is would ruin everybody. That's just one example of a regulation that would mess everything up, but just about anything would be terrible. Keep it free.
May I refer you to this great article by Doug Rushkoff.
Social Currency
The Sega Genesis controller has the same plug as the atari 2600 joystick. In fact you can plug sega genesis controllers into ataris and play just fine. You can also plug atari joysticks onto a genesis, but you will lack some buttons. So I assume that a sega genesis to USB converter, which has existed for awhile, would work just fine for a 2600 joystick. No news here, move along.
Me and my friends have a phrase that we have been using for years. "Nintendo Hard" Most games today just aren't Nintendo Hard. That's not to say they are bad games, look at something like Wind Waker, fantastic game too easy.
/journal somewhere there is an article about RPGs and how they have become movies and not games. That is very relevant.
There are other types of games where the lack of difficulty ruins the game. But I must also note that the wrong kind of difficulty can ruin a game also.
Look at FF:CC. The game is great and all, but only because its multiplayer gameboy element makes up for what it lacks elsewhere. All the best items and secret happenings can only be found in stupid arbitrary ways. They aren't a puzzle you solve like in Wind Waker, they are something you have to know. Information you can't possibly have unless you read a FAQ or strategy guide or come across completely by accident.
Another thing I think is that sometimes game quality is not the top priority of game designers. Why make a great game that is hard? People will keep playing it and take all year to beat it, they sure as heck wont give up. If they're still playing that one why would they buy a new one? If people beat their games they'll stop playing them and buy new ones.
Pretty much I agree with this guy a whole lot. In my
I knew it would have wireless to be awesome. However, to be even more awesome both screens have to seperate from each other. If two people can play one game with one system and one cartridge and the two halves of the system connect wirelessly it will be the king of handhelds. Imagine the possibilities that before were difficult. Like battleship for instance.
I'm definitely buying one. At best it rules and I get my moneys worth. At worst its another Virtual Boy and I can be that one guy who still has a working Virtual boy. It's a win/win situation.
Soo. If you physically exert yourself you will be friendly with people nearby. This must be why geeks who don't get out of their chair are so anti-social. It makes sense, and I've seen and experienced this myself. I'll believe it.
A lot of the other posters have provided simple and practical solutions to the problem, such as directional microphones and putting the pc in another room.
I just wanted to offer the rich eccentric solution. Buy noise cancellers. They exist. Pretty much what they do is listen to the ambient noise in a room, and then begin emitting a sound wave that almost perfectly cancels out the others in the room. Problem is if you start humming a single not for a duration it will cancel it out.
If all else fails.
/* Insert Insane rant about how gentoo is the greatest thing since sliced bread here */
There are still paychecks if software is free. Just to give one example. Let's say you're a company that makes electronic gadgets and gizmos. These things need software to run on them. But since the gadget you're making is the first of its kind, since your company is engineering it right this minute, there is no software for it. Someone has to write the code that makes this thing work. Everything from wristwatches to formula 1 cars needs software. And you can search the net all you want, you wont find code for the formula machine you just built.
This is where linux comes in. The company that makes the gizmos hires one or more coders who knows embedded linux. This guy takes linux and other various open source tools and uses them together to create the software that makes the gadget work. The company saves money because they don't have to pay for expensive development tools or windows CE or anything like that. The coder gets a paycheck.
That's just one example. Can you think of more?
Pretty much what it all comes down to is this. Coders are only going to get paid for writing NEW code. What free software does is make it so coders don't have to keep re-writing the same things over and over again. Once somebody bothers to write algorithm X there's no reason to hire someone to write that same algorithm again. Just download the code. It' something completely different if you're going to get someone to come up with a new algorithm. Coders will only make money if they are writing new code, stuff that doesn't exist already.
Can you think of other examples?
If you use Firefox (firebird, phoenix, browzilla, etc.) the RSS reader panel extension is the highest quality. It's great for my morning routine. I go down the list of bookmark folders opening each one in tabs and reading all my non-RSS sites. Then when I'm all done I press Alt+R and I check all the news feeds with the quickness. I just wish slashdot's newsfeed didn't suck. I read penny arcade now only with RSS.
I wish all webcomics used it. Even better, consolidate all my webcomics into a single news feed. Then consolidate all the geek news into another, blogs in another, software updates in another and real news in the last one. Then have a program that makes noise when something new comes up.
Life would be sweet.
If you don't have an RSS feed, get one!
I agree wholeheartedly about all the stupid MMOs that require no skill whatsoever. I have been saying it for years. Who the hell is stupid enough to pay for a program where you click on a picture, it dissapears and then a number goes up. Rinse and Repeat. Oh yeah, it's a chat room too.
Of course, planetside, while much better than games like Everquest and Asheron's call, is still crap. Why? Planetside has two large armies that are fighting against each other for land and power. But neither side ever wins. Neither side ever can win. The game is in permanent stalemate. Without goals or purpose the fps game is meaningless. It's just a ton of people running around fragging each other. Because there are no goals or victory condition the game is pointless.
This is why I have found solace in Puzzle Pirates. It's completely skill based, puzzle game skill. Not only that, but there are clear goals. Getting lots of poe to get shops to get poe to get boats to get rum to get canonballs to destroy the boats of other crews. The economics are extremely complex and if managed improperly crews and flags can go bankrupt inside a week.
The thing that makes puzzle pirates so awesome is that there is a "7th puzzle" the social puzzle. Stinky fanboys can't succeed at puzzle pirates no matter how good their puzzling skills. Crews are closely knit social groups, and if you have no social skill none of the larger flags/crews will take you in. There are plenty of nice normal people who are good at the puzzles that nobody has any reason to let you in if you're an asshole. I set up a teamspeak server for our flag and now I talk in real time to my pirate friends every night I decide to play. The pirate theme is awesome too.
Oh yeah, puzzle pirates is cheaper than just about every other MMO there is. And there's a free trial too.
The problem we have here is that linux is designed for linux users. Like myself, I prefer gentoo. It fits my person style and I just love emerge-ing all kinds of junk and making my own kernel.
I would like to see a linux distribution the exact opposite. One that I could give to people fed up with windows. It should detect all the hardware like knoppix. Then it will bring up a simple GUI style disk formatting tool, like the mandrake installer. Then after I select which partitions it should just install, no more questions asked. When its done all the hardware should be working. One of every necessary software application should be installed. The gui will be simply laid out with big pretty buttons. One that says Web Browser, another for Word Processor, etc. Wine, lilo and other things will be configured perfectly and automatically without user input. There will also be another big button that says "install software". It will have a big nice easy to use app that sorts softwares by categories, shows screenshots and readable descriptions of different programs. With a single click these programs will be installed and new icons will be created. With another click these programs should also be automatically updated to the newer versions without breaking anything. And of course easy uninstallation is a must too.
I see no reason why this isn't possible. Why hasn't anyone (that I know of) done it yet?
I hate stuff like this. It makes the false assumption that the most popular games are the best games. Look at any other medium of entertainment and you can see how plainly false this is. Movies, Star Wars is probably one of the most popular, yet Citizen Kane is "the best" whether you like it or not.
With a poll on gamefaqs there are sure to be a zillion 12 year olds voting for GTA 3 and a million dumbasses voting for FF7. Heck, I'm almost 22 years old. Some of the 18 year olds who are coming into college now never owned an NES and were all about the Playstation. Playstation! Not even SNES! Just as if you've never seen Citizen Kane you can't be a movie critic you can't be a video game critic if you haven't played Zelda 1. Well, I guess you could be a critic, but you wouldn't have any credibility.
Zelda 1 is probably the Citizen Kane of video games. Although Mega Man 2 is #1 in my personal book. PC games? TIE Fighter or Civ2. I mean, it is so plainly obvious which games are the best to anyone who knows their shit.
Really I just wish they would rename the contest to "most popular video game as of right now". As opposed to "best game ever".
because they aren't as smart as you are.
That's a pretty good idea. They're just missing one thing. I wont pay. I'll never pay. As long as someone besides the person who writes and performs music is making money from that music I will not pay a half a cent for it. That's all there is to it.
The business model of the future is the penny arcade/homestarrunner model. Acquire a large loyal fanbase. Actually BE good people who make quality art and gain the trust of your fans. Allow your art to be distributed freely all around the globe without a care in the world. Make money from merchandise, voluntary donations from fans, and "legitimate" advertising (google and PA style advertising NOT weather.com or superbowl style advertising).
The real problem here is this. The RIAA can think of a ton of business models that work considering new technologies. While the organization as a whole is "evil" the people that make it up are not all stupid drones. They know. The thing is that there is no longer a business model which will turn musicians into multi-zillionaires.
Musiciains can live with a new business model and make enough money for food and rent and all that. What they can no longer do is make millions of dollars at the same time some record company also makes millions. It just wont happen anymore. Until the record company accepts that, they are going to keep suing us.
Why? personal philosophy on life. I can't be offended by anything anyone says. I don't worry and be happy. I take it easy. If shit hits the fan I don't freak out, I deal with it. I use logic to deal with any obstacles I encounter in everyday life, usually avoiding them. It takes a whole lot to mess me up. You'd have to like shoot my mom or something.
Technology gives me the least stress. In fact it takes me into the realm of negative stress. I'm so good with my computer and other technologies that in order for them to cause me any trouble all my hard drives would have to crash and burn in an unrecoverable fury.
Here's an example. We have a cheapo crap Apex DVD player and a DVD-ROM. We wanted to watch a DVD. The Apex was old and crappy and we couldn't find the remote. The DVD ROM has a problem where it wont allow you to watch past a certain spot of the movie. We think the laser is stuck and wont move to the edge of the disc. Not only that, but we couldn't find a free dvd playing software for windows. Instead of stressing and freaking out we had a lot of fun. We searched the net for dvd playing software in italian. We opened up the case on the apex and put a fan near it to prevent overheating. It was a total fiasco and a ton of fun.
Normal people would have stressed out. By dealing with problems in life by applying basic problem solving skills, stress goes away. I believe that the majority of stress in the world is due to people who don't have or use basic problem solving skills. These people come to a problem and are stopped dead in their tracks until either it explodes or someone saves them from their misery.
If you are stressed out, its your fault, not the fault of any technology. Adopt the philosophy of me, my roomate and others and you will live a happy life of perfect.
external USB modems?
Also I once saw a thing that converts a PCI slot on a desktop machine into a PCMCIA slot. You could get a half-height one of those and put a laptop modem in it.
Or just use micro-atx motherboards that have builtin modems.
Don't try to switch a 2.4 sytem to the 2.6 kernel. Or vice versa for that matter. If you want 2.6, build the rest of the system fresh. Unless you are uber l33t you wont get everything to work perfectly. But if you start from scratch getting everything to work in 2.6 is cake.