Why is it that everyone that dislikes the polices of Israel is automatically labeled a Jew-hater? Isn't it even POSSIBLE that the Israelis could do something wrong? Perhaps those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones..
"Wrong. We gave money to aid groups. In fact, the US was (and is) the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan (pledges from other countries don't count until the money, food, and/or medicine is actually delivered). No US aid went to the Taliban, as the US (and the rest of the world except for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE) did not recognize it as the legitimate government of Afghanistan."
Wrong. The US government gave money to the Taliban as a "bribe" to encourage them to reduce opium production as Afghanistan is/was the world's biggest producer of opium. The US government indirectly funded (by way of Pakistan) the Muslim fighters that would eventually become the Taliban.
"Israel is a democracy which is the homeland of the Jews. You can be a citizen of Israel and observe any religion you want, or none at all. This is in contrast to, say, Saudi Arabia, where being Jewish is illegal. The difference is that Israel is the homeland of Jews (only Jew haters seem to forget this tidbit), and any Jew gets automatic citizenship. Non-Jews (who make up over 20% of the population) can vote, hold public office, and do all of the things that other democracies allow."
Except that Jewish law and custom is overwhelmingly prevalent in Israel, this is absolutely correct FOR ISRAELI CITIZENS. Palestinians are not citizens, cannot vote or hold public office, etc. Palestinians have been specifically denied any sort of representation in the Israeli government (because for a long time they outnumbered the Jews, and we can't have a "Jewish homeland" that isn't run by Jews). The Israelis provide no services (police, power, water, etc.) to the Palestinians.
While the Palestinian Authority is supposedly in charge of the occupied territories, they have effectively no power because they keep getting blown up every few weeks. The occupied territories are under direct Israeli military rule where the rule of Israeli guns is the only rule and you can get shot in the street fro looking at an Israeli soldier funny. I'm sure that the fact that the Israelis VOTED to oppress them makes the Palestinians feel a lot better.
"How is Israel acting "unilaterally" a bad thing? Do the Spanish need to ask for permission from the UN when arresting Basque separatists? Did the US ask for permission from, say, Sweeden, before conquering the North American continent? Or does asking permission only apply to Jews? Christians and Moslems and Communists can do whatever they feel like to anyone else, but if a Jew decides to defend his homeland, he's a criminal who can't act without permission from the UN."
Most people would say that the European invasion of the New World was a "bad thing" that resulted in great devastation for the people living in the Americas. By your obtuse reasons, the Nazis were perfectly justified in killing Jews because they were "defending their homeland".
"Anyway, back to topic. The last time "Palestine" was an independent country was when the Crusaders set up their states. Before that it was (shock of all shocks) when the Hasmonean dynasty of Jewish kings reigned. Do you konw the proper name for the West Bank (the name "West Bank" was invented in the 1950s)? It's Judea, i.e., the land of the Jews. Funny, that...
The current people calling themselves "Palestinians" are mainly immigrants from Egypt and Jordan who arrived about the same time as many Jews arrived from Europe. Heck, good old Yasser himself was born in Cairo."
This is a deep distortion. Arabs have been in Palestine for thousands of years, and while Palestine hasn't been an independent nation for at least 2000 years, it has been part of several Islamic empires, most recently the Ottoman Empire. These Muslims are what we call the "Palestinians" today, who were there long before the Zionists began to resettle Palestine in the late 19th century.
The Muslim Palestinians never really wanted an independent Palestine; they probably would have opted for a Greater Syria that include Jordan and Palestine if the Zionists hadn't invaded. Of course, they never had a choice because the former Ottoman territories were partitioned by the British who were specifically trying to please the Zionists.
"If I had to choose between killing Hilter as a kid, thus averting the Holocaust, and killing the author of that original poem as a kid, thus averting the 50 billion lame adaptations of it, I would have to go for the poet."
Ironically, the poet was a victim of the Holocaust. In fact, the poem was about the Holocaust. If you had killed Hitler he wouldn't have written it.
You comment about console piracy is simply uninformed.
I would argue that console piracy is MUCH more common than PC piracy for any number of reasons. Examples would be that console gaming is much more popularin general and that many of the best-selling PC games (Diablo II, Everquest, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, etc.) are online or have an online component that effectively kills piracy. There are very few online console games of any significance (Phantasy Star Online is basically it).
The #1 PS2 accessory is a "mod chip" and hundreds of hackers are busy trying to find out how to hack the XBox/GameCube. I personally won't invest in any console unless I can get it modded, I want to play imports. This is especially true of the PS2, which has lots of Japan-only games.
The Nintendo 64 had a literal handful of excellent titles (Mario64, Goldeneye, Zelda, Perfect Dark) a handful of mediocre title (Banjo Kazooie, etc.) and that's IT. There were perhaps a dozen memorable games for the N64 and this led to GAPING holes in the lineup. No decent sports games. No decent (serious) racing games. No turn-based RPGs at all (that I'm aware of). No decent strategy games. etc. The Sega Saturn had a much more diverse line-up.
There were also technical and asthetic problems. Many people didn't like the controlers, the peripherals, and the "cartoony" feel present in most games.
The Nintendo64 was clearly marketed towards kids. This is became even stronger after Pokemon.
The NeoGeo comparison (to the XBox) has been made before and I think it's very apt.
The PlayStation 2 is already a success with a huge lead. Given the lukewarm launch of the XBox I seriously doubt (unless the online gaming is phenomenal) that the XBox will be able to make a serious dent in the PS2's lead.
This leaves it fighting for second place with Gamecube. While technically it's superior to the Gamecube, it's important to note that the GCube is aimed at a different market segment (kids), wile the XBox and PS2 are in the SAME segment ("older" male gamers).
The market has NEVER really supported more that 2 game systems. It boils down to GameCume and XBox to see who will win second place.
"There is a reason that the US has a "drug war" is that by their very nature, drugs make people do things that they normally wouldn't do. I could care less about drugs. But the category of 'things people normally wouldn't do' usually means killing convenince store clerks for $200. THAT IS SOMETHING I DO CARE ABOUT."
Like laugh at Pauly Shore? Sorry...
"Fact: 85% of all violent crimes in the US are committed because of, or under the direct influence of drugs. That statistic has been around since hard core drugs... and has remained constant."
Well, you'd have to cite a credible source for that statistic, because I've never hear it before.
A lot of violent crimes are commited under the influence of ALCOHOL, though I don't have an exact percentage. There is also the fact that if you're under the influence of drugs and commit a crime you're probably more likely to get CAUGHT. I have no idea how they could measure the sobriety of people who get away clean.
"Does that mean that your friend that does pot is evil? Hell no. Or anyone that does pot evil? No. Have I personally seen a pot deal gone bad that caused the death of people? Hell yes."
And this would be MORE likely if you could buy pot at Starbucks?
"Really, its all about the junkie violence, and making sure that you don't get shot walkig through a bad neighborhood. Or harassed by a drug addict every time you pump your gas."
You mean homeless people, right? And they wouldn't be homeless if all they had was alcohol, right? I'm not sure I follow this.
"They have to go after the dealers. They're the ones with the money and influence. Its purely a minimumization game. Everyone is right when they say that you can't stop it. "
The drug dealers that have money and influence are the ones that won't go to jail precisely BECAUSE they have money and influence. Rich, influential people don't go to jail.
"Really, the police could give a shit about you getting high. Your boss cares about that. The police care about some idiot getting so strung out that they do something insane and attack John and Jane Q. Public."
Nobody was talking about eliminating laws against robbery, assault, etc. Intoxication isn't a defense now, nor has it been in the past.
Right. There would be no outcry about "jurisdiction". There would be massive bombing in Iran, and most of the world would be behind it. Just like the U.S. would probably be bombed into a third world country if we executed Dmitry.
Who, pray tell, would be doing this bombing exactly? The Russians? They're dependednt on US foriegn aid. Maybe other western countries would abandon a century of history and enter into a war they would probably lose to avenge the death of one Russian programmer. Right.
Absolutely NOTHING would happen if Dmitry was executed. Just as nothing will happen if the US chooses to execute the thousands of "detainees" it's holding in the states and the "prisoners of war" at Guantanamo Bay.
Why? Because the US has enough military and economic power to compltely ignore international law whenever it sees fit.
The best lossless encoder, bar none, is AAC. Anybody who has done controlled listening tests can tell you that. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of consumer AAC encoders out there.
Lossless, LPAC is pretty good.
However, you should think about your applications. While AAC and Ogg sound better than MP3, there is a great dearth of portable players, etc. for these formats and you shouldn't ecpect to seem them anytime soon. Ther is also the question of exchange. Do you intend to trade these files around? Or even thrown them on a CD and play them in remote locations? And remember, that if you even have a moderately large collection of music, transcoding it to different formats is a major hassle.
MP3s big advantage is ubiquity. It isn't likely to leave the scene anytime soon and ther are a lready a vide variedy of systems/players/components using the format.
So my reccomendation is, generally, to go with MP3 with as low a bitrate as you can stand (192 is my reccomended minimum).
If you're a hardcore audiophile, you probably won't be able to stand any level of compression. Do with PCM.
"Terrorism is NOT in the eye of the beholder. There is a very simple definition of terrorism. It is attacking civilian targets for political gains. I am not aware of a single incident in the US Revolution where US troops killed British non-combatants in an attempt to oust the Brits."
What, like the US military bombing civilian targets and Afghanistan or Iraq? "Terrorism" is merely a buzzword for "political violence we don't like".
"The PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Hizbollah/PFLP/etc. seem to specialize in killing civilians, or using their own civilians (especially children) as cover for snipers. They claim that since all Israelis can be drafted, they're all military targets. Therefore, none of their acts are terrorism. Then, through an amazing act of sophistry, they declare that they have no military of their own, so any Israeli attack that kills Palestinians is an attack on civilians. With the Palestinians being brown-ish and poor and the Israelis being white-ish and rich, the Left worldwide decides that clearly, the richer, whiter group of people must be in the wrong. And we get the absurd idea that all violence is terrorism."
Except, of course, that it wasn't the Arab Palestinians that invaded and conquered Palestine in the first half of the 20th century. "Occupied Palestine" is called that because it's been conquered by a foreign military. Nobody in the West complained very loudly because of the power and influence of Zionist lobbies in the USA and Britan. Every nation on earth has condemned Israel, EXCEPT the USA and Britian.
This is besides the fact the Al Qaeda really has nothing to do with Palestine.
I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that LAN gamers are an incredibly tiny niche of the overall PC market. Those that want portability typically buy a laptop.
CRT monitors are typically too heavy to easily transport, handles would just encourage people to drop them. OTOH, I've seen several LCD monitors with handles.
And the reality is, there ARE plenty of cases out there that have handles. There are even custom-built sytems you can buy, usually for industrial purposes. Do a Google search for "lunchbox PC".
Basically, the NLX and to a lesser extent the FlexATX form factor are dead. Witness the lack of NLX and FlexATX Pentium4 and Athlon motherboards.
If you really wanted to though, you can still build an NLX system. Enlight makes a pretty good NLX case, and you can get a motherboard from Gigabyte, no AGP though. For an AGP motherboard you're probably looking at i810 or i815, these guys seems to have a couple. You could also try Ebay.
You'll also need an NLX-complaint AGP video card. These cards have the VGA connector at the top and a "notch" below, like the one in this picture. As far as I know they stopped making NLX video cards after the GeForce, so that's the best you'll be able to do.
Basically, there is no REALLY good reason to go for a NLX system anymore. If you don't care about performance, you can find plenty of FlexATX Socket-370 boards with onboard video/sound/LAN.
If you DO care about performance your best bet is to go with a MicroATX i845 board like this one. Pentium 4 is better for a small PC than Athlon because of the heat issues with the Athlon. You should be able to pair up this kind of board with any video card you want, like a Geforce3.
A Windows version of this design is available here. Running Windows ME, though it couls probably be easily upgraded to Windows XP.
The Video card is an onboard Trident Blade 3D using shared memory. It also has 1 AMR slot and 1 PCI slot.
It's being manufactured by Future Fower, who settled their "trade dress" lawsuit with Apple some time ago. Another lawsuit over the same design is highly unlikely.
This is because the demo DOESN'T CONTAIN hundreds of megs of textures and samples. This is a 'demoscene' demo probably submitted for a contest somewhere.
The demo contains only a tiny handful of very small textures (the bricks, the grass/trees, a few others) that are carefully used in what amounts to a long list of Direct3D commands. The misic is MIDI *again, no actual samples, just MIDI commands).
Back in the day, these kinds of demos used to be hand-coded in assembler, before Direct3D and OpenGL hardware made it easy. Commands were made directly to the video hardware in some cases.
If you think this is impressive, you should check out some of the 8K demos.
The point is that this isn't "compression" at all, but programming tricks using graphics APIs.
As others have said... this would be difficult to impossible to implement because a persistent world requires shared servers. Now it might be possibile to create a MMORPG that was simply hosted on a gamer's server (something akin to MUDs), but the massive bandwidth required to run it would be prohibative for most people.
It seems likely that a "small scale" version of what you're describing might become possible, this is what is being attempted with Everwinter Nights, but since the number of players would be greatly limited it wouldn't be "massive" anymore.
However, you assertion that with the "company server" model the game won't be commercially successful is simply wrong. Look at Diablo, UO, Everquest, PSO, etc.
Re:One avenue to take if you don't like what they
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Monsanto and PCBs
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Just one quick note. It's very unfair to compare Monsanto to Microsoft. Whatever else you might say about Microsoft, they don't poison and kill people.
I'll respond to soem of the anti-libertarian rhetoric by pointing out that the classic libertarian solution to many of these kinds of issues is LIABILITY LAWSUITS, which are perfectly libertarian.
In the Real World, liability lawsuits make up the majority of product and anti-pollution measures anyways because the government, FDA, EPA, etc. are largely bought and paid for by big business.
A great many people operate under the delusion that the LP, and libertarians in general, are simply big business stooges. Were that true, the LP would be the largest, most powerful, political party in the country. This clearly isn't the case.
This is because the LP is for free enterprise, which is the LAST thing the government wants. They want to USE the govenment as a club to attack their competitors, close and monopolize markets, etc. This is not what the LP would do and they know it.
Now that the whole world knows we are taking Linux seriously based on the leak of my last email... Wait -- stop there -- since when did they think we weren't taking them serious?!? Did they think we are not going to build the best products possible? Did they think we were going to just be fat, dumb and happy and not continue to win business? Did they think we were going to forget about taking care of our customers??? NO!
Who do they think we are? We have the best d*mn sales force in the world backed by the best engineers in the world -- of course we will take any non-Windows OS serious. The thing about the leak that made me mad was not that we would legitimize Linux, etc. it's good in some places, we are better, and it's not very good in other places and we are much better. but they are a competitor and we will compete. What made me mad was that my friends -- some of you and some of our customer's names where in that email and then available for all to see on the web. That made me mad. I want you selling and supporting our products -- not having to take random calls, emails, etc from the press and others and I know what out customers share with us is in confidence that we will keep it internal. I have no problem any random Linux person sending me hate mail, junk mail, adding my email address to every list server out there, you name it -- that comes with the job, but I don't want my friends to have to deal with the same junk.
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At the very best, this email was heavily doctored. Why else would the write bother to include this "disclaimer".
This kind of paranoid FUD I'm sure feeds all the anti-MS loonies on Slashdot, but it shouldn't even rate a post.
This post perfectly illustrates the difference between insiders ant the company and clueless outsiders. The great thing about Slashdot is that we can have access to some of this insider info because people can post pseudo-anonymously.
By this "rationale", Osama Bin Laden was 100% justified in attacking the WTC because it was filled with evil Americans who run around slaughtering Muslims because they feel like it. He was merely acting in self-defense.
Your statements completely justify all further terrorist attacks on the USA.
The most disturbing thing is that, increasingly, Real Life(tm) resembles the Paranoia! RPG.
Send in the clones!
Re:why so negative towards xbox?
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XBox Released
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You're definitely not imagining things, Slashdot has a well-known unreasoning anti-MS bias. Slashdot posters rarely comment on MS products that are "non-monopolistic" or even innovative like MS's new optical mice or the Sidewinder series of game controllers. Or even WebTV, which is definitely a niche product but it works pretty well.
I find it ironic that the posters are rooting for Sony and Nintendo which are EVEN MORE RUTHLESS monopolies. The Xbox will have to stand on it's own merits, exceptional marketing, and lots of luck.
Personally, I think the Xbox is probably doomed. It's doubtful that the market can support 3 different major consoles, look at PS1 vs. N64 vs. Saturn. And Microsoft has essentially already ceded 1/3 of the market (Japan) to PS2 and Gamecube. I strongly suspect that MS will focus almost entirely on the US market, where I suspect MS will see most of their sales. The real battle will be in Europe, How will the XBox fare in the land where Pokemon and Final Fantasy don't completely rule?
The problem that MS has is that the PS2 and Gamecube DEFINITELY won't fail. The PS2 has a religious following in Japan and has several key franchises like Final Fantasy, Tekken, and Metal Gear Solid. Likewise, the Gamecube is assured the under 15 crowd with Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon franchises.
I suspect the Xbox will either go the way of the 3D0 and get pulled after a year or so, or the Neo Geo and become a niche product for a certain "core" of gamers. Or they might just abandon the "games only" approach and make it a "convergence box".
Why not sue? What is the joystick worth? $50 tops?
That's called "small-claims". Take them to small claims court in YOUR juristiction (typically they use the juristiction of the plantiff). The filing fee is usually around $20.
I guarentee you that MS won't appear. As soon as they're notified they'll call you to settle the claim.
Without getting too involved in the discussion I'd like to point out that, at least in my case as someone who worked for a "downstream" ISP, we were VERY MUCH AWARE that Abovenet was using the MAPS RBL and other features.
In fact, this was/is something of a "selling point" to ISPs because it meant that they could save bandwidth costs by having the spam blocked upstream before it got anywhere near their pipes.
Another related issue is that by being under the Abovenet banner they have some "street credit" from other ISPs. For example, Abovenet has cut off entire ISPs without notice for hosting spam and they make a very big deal about it in the contracts. For this reason, other backbone providers/ISP are unlikely to block suspected spam coming from your ISP because you're hosted by Abovenet. I think Brightmail actually let's all email from Abovenet go thoruhg without filtering, for this reason.
So, in effect, it saves money for the ISPs any way to slice it. Customer complaints from occasionally blocked email are a relatively small issue for them compared to the potential bandwidth savings.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that everyone that dislikes the polices of Israel is automatically labeled a Jew-hater? Isn't it even POSSIBLE that the Israelis could do something wrong? Perhaps those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones..
"Wrong. We gave money to aid groups. In fact, the US was (and is) the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan (pledges from other countries don't count until the money, food, and/or medicine is actually delivered). No US aid went to the Taliban, as the US (and the rest of the world except for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE) did not recognize it as the legitimate government of Afghanistan."
Wrong. The US government gave money to the Taliban as a "bribe" to encourage them to reduce opium production as Afghanistan is/was the world's biggest producer of opium. The US government indirectly funded (by way of Pakistan) the Muslim fighters that would eventually become the Taliban.
"Israel is a democracy which is the homeland of the Jews. You can be a citizen of Israel and observe any religion you want, or none at all. This is in contrast to, say, Saudi Arabia, where being Jewish is illegal. The difference is that Israel is the homeland of Jews (only Jew haters seem to forget this tidbit), and any Jew gets automatic citizenship. Non-Jews (who make up over 20% of the population) can vote, hold public office, and do all of the things that other democracies allow."
Except that Jewish law and custom is overwhelmingly prevalent in Israel, this is absolutely correct FOR ISRAELI CITIZENS. Palestinians are not citizens, cannot vote or hold public office, etc. Palestinians have been specifically denied any sort of representation in the Israeli government (because for a long time they outnumbered the Jews, and we can't have a "Jewish homeland" that isn't run by Jews). The Israelis provide no services (police, power, water, etc.) to the Palestinians.
While the Palestinian Authority is supposedly in charge of the occupied territories, they have effectively no power because they keep getting blown up every few weeks. The occupied territories are under direct Israeli military rule where the rule of Israeli guns is the only rule and you can get shot in the street fro looking at an Israeli soldier funny. I'm sure that the fact that the Israelis VOTED to oppress them makes the Palestinians feel a lot better.
"How is Israel acting "unilaterally" a bad thing? Do the Spanish need to ask for permission from the UN when arresting Basque separatists? Did the US ask for permission from, say, Sweeden, before conquering the North American continent? Or does asking permission only apply to Jews? Christians and Moslems and Communists can do whatever they feel like to anyone else, but if a Jew decides to defend his homeland, he's a criminal who can't act without permission from the UN."
Most people would say that the European invasion of the New World was a "bad thing" that resulted in great devastation for the people living in the Americas. By your obtuse reasons, the Nazis were perfectly justified in killing Jews because they were "defending their homeland".
"Anyway, back to topic. The last time "Palestine" was an independent country was when the Crusaders set up their states. Before that it was (shock of all shocks) when the Hasmonean dynasty of Jewish kings reigned. Do you konw the proper name for the West Bank (the name "West Bank" was invented in the 1950s)? It's Judea, i.e., the land of the Jews. Funny, that...
The current people calling themselves "Palestinians" are mainly immigrants from Egypt and Jordan who arrived about the same time as many Jews arrived from Europe. Heck, good old Yasser himself was born in Cairo."
This is a deep distortion. Arabs have been in Palestine for thousands of years, and while Palestine hasn't been an independent nation for at least 2000 years, it has been part of several Islamic empires, most recently the Ottoman Empire. These Muslims are what we call the "Palestinians" today, who were there long before the Zionists began to resettle Palestine in the late 19th century.
The Muslim Palestinians never really wanted an independent Palestine; they probably would have opted for a Greater Syria that include Jordan and Palestine if the Zionists hadn't invaded. Of course, they never had a choice because the former Ottoman territories were partitioned by the British who were specifically trying to please the Zionists.
Please check your "facts" before posting.
"If I had to choose between killing Hilter as a kid, thus averting the Holocaust, and killing the author of that original poem as a kid, thus averting the 50 billion lame adaptations of it, I would have to go for the poet."
Ironically, the poet was a victim of the Holocaust. In fact, the poem was about the Holocaust. If you had killed Hitler he wouldn't have written it.
You comment about console piracy is simply uninformed.
I would argue that console piracy is MUCH more common than PC piracy for any number of reasons. Examples would be that console gaming is much more popularin general and that many of the best-selling PC games (Diablo II, Everquest, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, etc.) are online or have an online component that effectively kills piracy. There are very few online console games of any significance (Phantasy Star Online is basically it).
The #1 PS2 accessory is a "mod chip" and hundreds of hackers are busy trying to find out how to hack the XBox/GameCube. I personally won't invest in any console unless I can get it modded, I want to play imports. This is especially true of the PS2, which has lots of Japan-only games.
AOL is supposedly making a AOL/Tivo thing that will allow web browsing, email, and instant messaging. All running on Linux.
The Nintendo 64 had a literal handful of excellent titles (Mario64, Goldeneye, Zelda, Perfect Dark) a handful of mediocre title (Banjo Kazooie, etc.) and that's IT. There were perhaps a dozen memorable games for the N64 and this led to GAPING holes in the lineup. No decent sports games. No decent (serious) racing games. No turn-based RPGs at all (that I'm aware of). No decent strategy games. etc. The Sega Saturn had a much more diverse line-up.
There were also technical and asthetic problems. Many people didn't like the controlers, the peripherals, and the "cartoony" feel present in most games.
The Nintendo64 was clearly marketed towards kids. This is became even stronger after Pokemon.
The NeoGeo comparison (to the XBox) has been made before and I think it's very apt.
The PlayStation 2 is already a success with a huge lead. Given the lukewarm launch of the XBox I seriously doubt (unless the online gaming is phenomenal) that the XBox will be able to make a serious dent in the PS2's lead.
This leaves it fighting for second place with Gamecube. While technically it's superior to the Gamecube, it's important to note that the GCube is aimed at a different market segment (kids), wile the XBox and PS2 are in the SAME segment ("older" male gamers).
The market has NEVER really supported more that 2 game systems. It boils down to GameCume and XBox to see who will win second place.
"There is a reason that the US has a "drug war" is that by their very nature, drugs make people do things that they normally wouldn't do. I could care less about drugs. But the category of 'things people normally wouldn't do' usually means killing convenince store clerks for $200. THAT IS SOMETHING I DO CARE ABOUT."
Like laugh at Pauly Shore? Sorry...
"Fact: 85% of all violent crimes in the US are committed because of, or under the direct influence of drugs. That statistic has been around since hard core drugs... and has remained constant."
Well, you'd have to cite a credible source for that statistic, because I've never hear it before.
A lot of violent crimes are commited under the influence of ALCOHOL, though I don't have an exact percentage. There is also the fact that if you're under the influence of drugs and commit a crime you're probably more likely to get CAUGHT. I have no idea how they could measure the sobriety of people who get away clean.
"Does that mean that your friend that does pot is evil? Hell no. Or anyone that does pot evil? No. Have I personally seen a pot deal gone bad that caused the death of people? Hell yes."
And this would be MORE likely if you could buy pot at Starbucks?
"Really, its all about the junkie violence, and making sure that you don't get shot walkig through a bad neighborhood. Or harassed by a drug addict every time you pump your gas."
You mean homeless people, right? And they wouldn't be homeless if all they had was alcohol, right? I'm not sure I follow this.
"They have to go after the dealers. They're the ones with the money and influence. Its purely a minimumization game. Everyone is right when they say that you can't stop it. "
The drug dealers that have money and influence are the ones that won't go to jail precisely BECAUSE they have money and influence. Rich, influential people don't go to jail.
"Really, the police could give a shit about you getting high. Your boss cares about that. The police care about some idiot getting so strung out that they do something insane and attack John and Jane Q. Public."
Nobody was talking about eliminating laws against robbery, assault, etc. Intoxication isn't a defense now, nor has it been in the past.
Who, pray tell, would be doing this bombing exactly? The Russians? They're dependednt on US foriegn aid. Maybe other western countries would abandon a century of history and enter into a war they would probably lose to avenge the death of one Russian programmer. Right.
Absolutely NOTHING would happen if Dmitry was executed. Just as nothing will happen if the US chooses to execute the thousands of "detainees" it's holding in the states and the "prisoners of war" at Guantanamo Bay.
Why? Because the US has enough military and economic power to compltely ignore international law whenever it sees fit.
Did you think you were living in a "free world"?
The best lossless encoder, bar none, is AAC. Anybody who has done controlled listening tests can tell you that. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of consumer AAC encoders out there.
Lossless, LPAC is pretty good.
However, you should think about your applications. While AAC and Ogg sound better than MP3, there is a great dearth of portable players, etc. for these formats and you shouldn't ecpect to seem them anytime soon. Ther is also the question of exchange. Do you intend to trade these files around? Or even thrown them on a CD and play them in remote locations? And remember, that if you even have a moderately large collection of music, transcoding it to different formats is a major hassle.
MP3s big advantage is ubiquity. It isn't likely to leave the scene anytime soon and ther are a lready a vide variedy of systems/players/components using the format.
So my reccomendation is, generally, to go with MP3 with as low a bitrate as you can stand (192 is my reccomended minimum).
If you're a hardcore audiophile, you probably won't be able to stand any level of compression. Do with PCM.
"Terrorism is NOT in the eye of the beholder. There is a very simple definition of terrorism. It is attacking civilian targets for political gains. I am not aware of a single incident in the US Revolution where US troops killed British non-combatants in an attempt to oust the Brits."
What, like the US military bombing civilian targets and Afghanistan or Iraq? "Terrorism" is merely a buzzword for "political violence we don't like".
"The PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Hizbollah/PFLP/etc. seem to specialize in killing civilians, or using their own civilians (especially children) as cover for snipers. They claim that since all Israelis can be drafted, they're all military targets. Therefore, none of their acts are terrorism. Then, through an amazing act of sophistry, they declare that they have no military of their own, so any Israeli attack that kills Palestinians is an attack on civilians. With the Palestinians being brown-ish and poor and the Israelis being white-ish and rich, the Left worldwide decides that clearly, the richer, whiter group of people must be in the wrong. And we get the absurd idea that all violence is terrorism."
Except, of course, that it wasn't the Arab Palestinians that invaded and conquered Palestine in the first half of the 20th century. "Occupied Palestine" is called that because it's been conquered by a foreign military. Nobody in the West complained very loudly because of the power and influence of Zionist lobbies in the USA and Britan. Every nation on earth has condemned Israel, EXCEPT the USA and Britian.
This is besides the fact the Al Qaeda really has nothing to do with Palestine.
I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that LAN gamers are an incredibly tiny niche of the overall PC market. Those that want portability typically buy a laptop.
CRT monitors are typically too heavy to easily transport, handles would just encourage people to drop them. OTOH, I've seen several LCD monitors with handles.
And the reality is, there ARE plenty of cases out there that have handles. There are even custom-built sytems you can buy, usually for industrial purposes. Do a Google search for "lunchbox PC".
Basically, the NLX and to a lesser extent the FlexATX form factor are dead. Witness the lack of NLX and FlexATX Pentium4 and Athlon motherboards.
If you really wanted to though, you can still build an NLX system. Enlight makes a pretty good NLX case, and you can get a motherboard from Gigabyte, no AGP though. For an AGP motherboard you're probably looking at i810 or i815, these guys seems to have a couple. You could also try Ebay.
You'll also need an NLX-complaint AGP video card. These cards have the VGA connector at the top and a "notch" below, like the one in this picture. As far as I know they stopped making NLX video cards after the GeForce, so that's the best you'll be able to do.
Basically, there is no REALLY good reason to go for a NLX system anymore. If you don't care about performance, you can find plenty of FlexATX Socket-370 boards with onboard video/sound/LAN.
If you DO care about performance your best bet is to go with a MicroATX i845 board like this one. Pentium 4 is better for a small PC than Athlon because of the heat issues with the Athlon. You should be able to pair up this kind of board with any video card you want, like a Geforce3.
A Windows version of this design is available here. Running Windows ME, though it couls probably be easily upgraded to Windows XP.
The Video card is an onboard Trident Blade 3D using shared memory. It also has 1 AMR slot and 1 PCI slot.
It's being manufactured by Future Fower, who settled their "trade dress" lawsuit with Apple some time ago. Another lawsuit over the same design is highly unlikely.
Are you calling Slashdot a respectable technical publication?
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
This is because the demo DOESN'T CONTAIN hundreds of megs of textures and samples. This is a 'demoscene' demo probably submitted for a contest somewhere.
The demo contains only a tiny handful of very small textures (the bricks, the grass/trees, a few others) that are carefully used in what amounts to a long list of Direct3D commands. The misic is MIDI *again, no actual samples, just MIDI commands).
Back in the day, these kinds of demos used to be hand-coded in assembler, before Direct3D and OpenGL hardware made it easy. Commands were made directly to the video hardware in some cases.
If you think this is impressive, you should check out some of the 8K demos.
The point is that this isn't "compression" at all, but programming tricks using graphics APIs.
As others have said... this would be difficult to impossible to implement because a persistent world requires shared servers. Now it might be possibile to create a MMORPG that was simply hosted on a gamer's server (something akin to MUDs), but the massive bandwidth required to run it would be prohibative for most people.
It seems likely that a "small scale" version of what you're describing might become possible, this is what is being attempted with Everwinter Nights, but since the number of players would be greatly limited it wouldn't be "massive" anymore.
However, you assertion that with the "company server" model the game won't be commercially successful is simply wrong. Look at Diablo, UO, Everquest, PSO, etc.
Just one quick note. It's very unfair to compare Monsanto to Microsoft. Whatever else you might say about Microsoft, they don't poison and kill people.
I'll respond to soem of the anti-libertarian rhetoric by pointing out that the classic libertarian solution to many of these kinds of issues is LIABILITY LAWSUITS, which are perfectly libertarian.
In the Real World, liability lawsuits make up the majority of product and anti-pollution measures anyways because the government, FDA, EPA, etc. are largely bought and paid for by big business.
A great many people operate under the delusion that the LP, and libertarians in general, are simply big business stooges. Were that true, the LP would be the largest, most powerful, political party in the country. This clearly isn't the case.
This is because the LP is for free enterprise, which is the LAST thing the government wants. They want to USE the govenment as a club to attack their competitors, close and monopolize markets, etc. This is not what the LP would do and they know it.
This is obviously fake. Check this out:
Now that the whole world knows we are taking Linux seriously based on the leak of my last email... Wait -- stop there -- since when did they think we weren't taking them serious?!? Did they think we are not going to build the best products possible? Did they think we were going to just be fat, dumb and happy and not continue to win business? Did they think we were going to forget about taking care of our customers??? NO!
Who do they think we are? We have the best d*mn sales force in the world backed by the best engineers in the world -- of course we will take any non-Windows OS serious. The thing about the leak that made me mad was not that we would legitimize Linux, etc. it's good in some places, we are better, and it's not very good in other places and we are much better. but they are a competitor and we will compete. What made me mad was that my friends -- some of you and some of our customer's names where in that email and then available for all to see on the web. That made me mad. I want you selling and supporting our products -- not having to take random calls, emails, etc from the press and others and I know what out customers share with us is in confidence that we will keep it internal. I have no problem any random Linux person sending me hate mail, junk mail, adding my email address to every list server out there, you name it -- that comes with the job, but I don't want my friends to have to deal with the same junk.
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At the very best, this email was heavily doctored. Why else would the write bother to include this "disclaimer".
This kind of paranoid FUD I'm sure feeds all the anti-MS loonies on Slashdot, but it shouldn't even rate a post.
Why isn't this post modded up to +5?
This post perfectly illustrates the difference between insiders ant the company and clueless outsiders. The great thing about Slashdot is that we can have access to some of this insider info because people can post pseudo-anonymously.
By this "rationale", Osama Bin Laden was 100% justified in attacking the WTC because it was filled with evil Americans who run around slaughtering Muslims because they feel like it. He was merely acting in self-defense.
Your statements completely justify all further terrorist attacks on the USA.
Shut up, troll.
The most disturbing thing is that, increasingly, Real Life(tm) resembles the Paranoia! RPG.
Send in the clones!
You're definitely not imagining things, Slashdot has a well-known unreasoning anti-MS bias. Slashdot posters rarely comment on MS products that are "non-monopolistic" or even innovative like MS's new optical mice or the Sidewinder series of game controllers. Or even WebTV, which is definitely a niche product but it works pretty well.
I find it ironic that the posters are rooting for Sony and Nintendo which are EVEN MORE RUTHLESS monopolies. The Xbox will have to stand on it's own merits, exceptional marketing, and lots of luck.
Personally, I think the Xbox is probably doomed. It's doubtful that the market can support 3 different major consoles, look at PS1 vs. N64 vs. Saturn. And Microsoft has essentially already ceded 1/3 of the market (Japan) to PS2 and Gamecube. I strongly suspect that MS will focus almost entirely on the US market, where I suspect MS will see most of their sales. The real battle will be in Europe, How will the XBox fare in the land where Pokemon and Final Fantasy don't completely rule?
The problem that MS has is that the PS2 and Gamecube DEFINITELY won't fail. The PS2 has a religious following in Japan and has several key franchises like Final Fantasy, Tekken, and Metal Gear Solid. Likewise, the Gamecube is assured the under 15 crowd with Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon franchises.
I suspect the Xbox will either go the way of the 3D0 and get pulled after a year or so, or the Neo Geo and become a niche product for a certain "core" of gamers. Or they might just abandon the "games only" approach and make it a "convergence box".
Why not sue? What is the joystick worth? $50 tops?
That's called "small-claims". Take them to small claims court in YOUR juristiction (typically they use the juristiction of the plantiff). The filing fee is usually around $20.
I guarentee you that MS won't appear. As soon as they're notified they'll call you to settle the claim.
Or you can just use Yahoo! Auctions.
Without getting too involved in the discussion I'd like to point out that, at least in my case as someone who worked for a "downstream" ISP, we were VERY MUCH AWARE that Abovenet was using the MAPS RBL and other features.
In fact, this was/is something of a "selling point" to ISPs because it meant that they could save bandwidth costs by having the spam blocked upstream before it got anywhere near their pipes.
Another related issue is that by being under the Abovenet banner they have some "street credit" from other ISPs. For example, Abovenet has cut off entire ISPs without notice for hosting spam and they make a very big deal about it in the contracts. For this reason, other backbone providers/ISP are unlikely to block suspected spam coming from your ISP because you're hosted by Abovenet. I think Brightmail actually let's all email from Abovenet go thoruhg without filtering, for this reason.
So, in effect, it saves money for the ISPs any way to slice it. Customer complaints from occasionally blocked email are a relatively small issue for them compared to the potential bandwidth savings.