If this is true, I honestly can't see the PS3 being a player in the current gen console wars. Sitting next to the sub-$200 Revolution or the re-release of the Xbox360, the pricetag will scare many people away regardless of the games they offer.
Indeed, their only justification seems to be that "it's not an expensive console, it's a cheap Blu-Ray player that ALSO plays games." While that may have worked for DVD and the PS2, when America was just beginning to move en masse to DVD and the jump from VHS was dramatic and simple, it's a recipe for disaster with the PS3 and Blu-Ray.
I remember a story not too long ago that showed fewer than half of Americans with HD capabilities had it hooked up correctly. Market penetration for HD in general is stagnant, and a multidude of ever-changing standards exist. Couple this with the fact that, while Blu-Ray is better than DVD in many ways, it's not better enough. This is nothing like the jump from VHS to DVD, and there's no way Blu-Ray alone will drive sales.
Not to sound like a fanboy, but Nintendo stands to hit the ground running and comein second or even first this round. (A lot depends on how well the Revolution controller works, what games come out for the 360 in the coming months, and if/when Microsoft releases a cheaper or updated 360).
The new hotness is Burning Wheel. Independent games written and published by creative individuals beat the hell out of the book-spam WotC has been promoting these days.
Of course, WotC also has the problem of selling a durable good: these books don't just wear out. Once they're sold, they're on the market forever. No gamer will ever buy more than one. They've tried to mitigate this with tricks like "3.5th edition," but few gamers ever bothered updating. Throw in the rampant piracy of the books and rules themselves, and there's really no way WotC can continue with D&D as it is.
You're probably much better off selling/giving away all of your large things (beds, wine cabinets, couches) and purchasing new ones at your new home. I moved from one end of New York State to the other a while back, and the cost of trucking my worldly possessions downstate was only slightly less than buying new worldly possessions. Consider the cost of a large enough truck, diesel fuel, time, food on the road, et cetera, and it adds up.
As for the rest, pack your bags as though you were going off on a long trip, and ship everything else.
Now, if you can't divest yourself of your current furnishings, or have large, difficult-to-move things that you -must- retain, you're pretty-much boned from the start. Being mobile in the modern world means travelling light, not amassing tons of "stuff," and generally being willing to lose it all and move on.
We did a show a short while back when the last article telling us why Vista won't be horrible appeared. I hate to say it, but this one doesn't really give me any more reason to give Vista a second look than that one did.
For every "improvement," they seem to be adding at least two shortcomings: no unsigned drivers, DRM, etc... I've kept both Windows and Linux around for the longest time, but I'm getting the feeling more and more that Windows XP is going to remain on my other partition indefinitely.
Search engines only "leach" off of sites that seem to base their whole business model on users clicking through all over the place and seeing a pile of ads. Search engines allow users to find just the content they desire and no other, thus removing a significant number of "ad impressions."
This isn't an issue for sites that truly publish useful or innovative content. The search engines simply allow users to find this content.
It really only hurts news agencies and sites who simply parrot the AP Wire or Reuters instead of providing their own unique content. A news site that has the same article word-for-word as 100 other news sites gets boned, but the news site with something unique will via the search engine draw and maintain visitors.
IMHO, the only people complaining about this are those out for a quick buck.
Frankly, I'm more interested in using my ipod to, well, listen to things. Not that all of this isn't cool, but most people buy the things to use them as mp3 players. There are thousands upon thousands of podcasts out there, and the signal-to-noise ratio is better than you might think. (Meaning: there are lots of good casts).
That said, suggest some good podcasts;^) What is slashdot listening to?
What steps are other online communities taking to protect themselves and their users against this?"
Using Linux? Using a Mac?
I kid. But seriously, the issue is PC security, not server security. If your PC is vulnerable to an exploit simply for viewing an image, the problem is YOURS, not the server that happens to link to an image that happens to use that exploit.
If you actually believe you have the power of "dowsing," take the JREF's One Million Dollar Challenge. Thousands of "dowsers" have tried and failed to show ANY results in real, controlled conditions.
Dowsing is a combination of statistical random chance and the ideomotor effect, nothing more. Prove otherwise, and the million dollars is yours.
Chiropractic is pseudoscientific horseshit. While it's true that some chiropractors are merely back massagers, the majority believe in the strange teachings of their school. Some excerpts:
"Chiropractic was founded in 1895 by Daniel David Palmer, a grocer and "magnetic healer" who believed that all diseases are the result of misplaced spinal bones. According to his theory, "subluxations" (misalignment) of spinal vertebrae cause disease by interfering with the flow of "nerve energy" from the brain to the body's tissue cells. Spinal "adjustments," by restoring vertebrae to their "proper places," allow brain energy to heal the diseased condition."
"Nerve conduction studies of human spinal nerves identified as being subluxed by chiropractors were shown to be normal by conventional scientific measures. Studies involving X-ray and CT scanning of the human spine before and after chiropractic manipulation show no changes in joint position as identified by radiologists."
"Aside from placebo effect chiropractic therapy has never been shown to treat any condition other than musculoskeletal problems."
Chiropractic has never been shown to have ANY verifiable effect on ANY condition. Not only is it useless, it can often be dangerous. In fact, if you can find a chiropractor who can provide actual evidence of the practice's efficacy, or even of a simple "subluxation," you'll be eligible for the JREF's One Million Dollar award.
Penn and Teller did a succinct expose on the dangers of chiropractic on their show "Bullshit."
Heh.. Actually, in this specific case, I wouldn't. (Though for many other assertions I make, you're spot on ^_~)
I use Wine extensively in my work, typically to allow corporations with archaic, proprietary software developed for Windows to migrate wholly or partially to Linux. I've found that many applications are poorly coded and end up using strange or broken Windows APIs. They'll use a bug as a feature and rely upon it to function.
Simply put, I rely on the Wine guys to implement every "feature" of Windows, no matter how broken it is. Say they'd noticed this and corrected it. They likely would have done it in a slightly different way from Microsoft. Wine would have branched slightly from the Windows API tree, and I would have ripped out more of my hair.
I suppose this speaks very highly of the WINE developers. After all, they're not out to make something better than Windows: they're out there to duplicate every broken, strange, or inexplicable behaviour Windows exhibits.
Wine is Not an Emulator, but it's purpose is to allow all of us in Linuxland to use software developed for Windows. That means that it must replicate even the broken parts.
Luckily, I assume two things:
1. The WINE devs will plug this as soon as they get around to it.
2. Anyone using WINE successfully is probably canny enough to make due until then without getting themselves compromised.
Anti-intellectualism is seeing a renaissance, and this will only serve as "evidence" for those who decry science, deny logic, and advocate flim-flam. Despite the fact that I see this as proof that the scientific method works (they've rooted out phony research), those with other agendas will cling to it as proof that "those scientists in their ivory towers" are wrong.
Homeopaths, naturalists, new-age healers, dowsers, reflexologists, chiropractors, feng shui "experts," et all: they use any slip of a scientist to bolster their support from those who don't know better. It saddens me, but such is the nature of the game.
Real scientists need to stand up and denounce frauds loudly and strongly whenever they appear. Too many otherwise learned men stand idly by while charlatans ply their wares to the unsuspecting.
Once news of this hits the mainstream television media, I imagine the public outcry and following legislation will put the kaibosh on it.
Still, the underlying problem is far deeper than many will admit. I believe that we in the United States have a certain right to an expectation of privacy, but at the same time we cannot rely on that expectation to safeguard information regarding ourselves. Information exists beyond the scope of your personal effects, and you cannot reasonably expect others to protect it for you.
The problem is that most financial and personal transactions here rely almost entirely on security through obscurity: the identity thief can't steal your identity... until he gets ahold of your (trivial to obtain) SSN, and so forth. We rely on hiding information about ourselves as a means of securing our effects, despite the fact that such information is all but unprotectable in the face of modern technology.
No amount of legislation is going to stop people from uncovering information: the only way to mitigate this is to make the information on its own worthless.
A social security number should be useless to anyone but me. Same with a bank account number. The security needs to be seperate from the identification.
I think products like this are extremely cool. Unfortunately, I can't really see a use. I love my old NES games, and I have a sizable collection of carts. Problem is, between the NES, SNES, Atari, Intellivision, and so forth, it's impossible to pile them all up around the TV. Not to mention the huge PITA involved in keeping all the old carts readily available for play.
Thus, emulators. Instead of a dozen consoles, I have one Gamecube and one PC, the PC running every emulator you can imagine. I physically OWN the cartridges, yet I prefer playing the games themselves on the PC: improved graphics, better controllers, and best of all, no blowing furiously into carts trying to make them work.
Thus, my collection of physical games sits in myriad boxes for posterity's sake (excepting my gold Zelda cart, which rests lovingly on display) while I actually -play- the games on a PC.
"Legitimate free music or video won't be tagged, and so the DRM software ignores it; it can be output on any device."
Then all the pirates have to do is get the content (analogue hole as a last resort) and re-release it sans tag. If the "copy-protected" devices display anything without a tag, they are effectively useless.
The only workable method is to only display things with a VALID tag and lock everything else out: much harder to beat.
You know what I want to see? A movie based on Final Fantasy IV (II for you USians). Not a movie that happens to be called "Final Fantasy," but one that's actually an adapted retelling of the story from a REAL, playable Final Fantasy. There's definitely enough of a nostalgia gamer market for such an endeavor to make a decent profit.
There are so many games with rich characters and engaging settings that would be perfect for cinema. Sadly, movie producers go after the franchise crapola games and make franchise crapola movies. Even sadder is that these films make money.
Take a chance! Hell, animate the thing and save money on actors/sets/locations. Buy the rights to an older game for a song. The first one to take a leap and make a good movie based on a good game and catering to the right demographic is going to go gangbusters.
I guess the Japanese are smarter when it comes to gaming.
Buying a system on release is practically useless beyond the "hey, guess what I have!" factor: hardly any games, high prices, and first-generation bugs/issues.
Even if you really want an Xbox360, there's no reason not to wait. The games that are actually worth playing won't be out for a while yet, and the release catalogue is laughable. Having the system early only gets you some negative cashflow.
Now, don't think I'm some Nintendo fanboy or Microsoft detractor. There's no reason to buy ANY system on launch unless it has a decent game catalogue.
IMHO, the people spending thousands on Xboxe360s on Ebay are fools. Maybe if Halo were already released...
I heard the voicemail one of these scumbags left for someone not too long ago. I don't know about others, but I would have had the police online to file charges... These people are scary.
Luckily, they're not the most intelligent people, as the voicemail seems to show. Calling someone a "bitch" repeatedly and threatening to kill them via an easily traced means is just asking for legal trouble. They don't know how to deal with the actual bad publicity they're starting to get. (Ratings sites are not actual bad publicity, since hardly anyone uses them, and there are many different ones).
I have a feeling this sort of scam will disappear in due time. It's getting harder and harder to hide from geeks with net connections and blogs, and bad word of mouth, unlike bad "reviews," is killer for a business. Just think of how many techies you know who refuse to buy a particular brand of hard drive simply for hearing about a friend's bad experience once.
Oh, the rest is a total shameless plug, but we did a bit about this on GeekNights last Thursday.
If there's one organization on this Earth that I can't stand, it's the Cult of Scientology. I make a point of harrassing them every chance I get.
We actually did a bit about this story last night on GeekNights.
They typically have their people sitting at little tables in the subways of NYC offering "free stress tests" and copies of Dianetics, hoping to get new converts. Every time I pass them, I take the time to stop and explain to the people they've ensnared that it's a cult. It's scary how many people don't know.
Typical example:
Me: Scientology is a cult. "You know that, right? They believe in an ancient alien named Xenu who exploded the souls of other murdered aliens with H-Bombs billions of years ago. They take your money."
Prospective Scientologist: "What? Wow... Thanks for the warning." -leaves-
Scientologst Asshole: "Hey! You can't say things like that! I'll call the fucking police! Leave NOW or I'll call the police! We're not a cult! It's slander to say we're a cult!"
Me: "The police, eh? Yes, why don't you call them? I'll stick around and wait."
They never actually call the police, but I wish they would sometime. I'd love to see these geniuses attempt to explain to a cop just what illegal act I was committing. "He was telling people about us!" "He says Scientology is a cult!"
I love Miyamoto, but this is a dirty way to generate buzz. Simply announcing your new feature is one press release. Announcing that you're going to announce your new feature is two! Genius!
Regardless of all that, however, I'm really looking forward to this. The Revolution is honestly the only console I'm even considering this time around. The xBox360 doesn't have a single game I care enough about to spend that much money. (Halo? Bah.. Counterstrike and Natural Selection are all I need.) As for the PS3, I think I'll opt for an uber cheap used PS2 and a pile of cheap used games.
The so-called "next gen" consoles may be nice, but they don't seem worth the cost. The xbox's super HD whatever video output is useless on my non-HD television, and I don't plan to upgrade anytime soon. The Revolution is going to have innovative new features, and yet will still be SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper.
The DS was far less powerful than the PSP, not to mention cheaper. Despite this, it completely dominated the market. Never underestimate Nintendo.
Sony, like all megalithic corporations, behaves internally like dozens of smaller, independant companies. They're vying for their shares of the corp's limited resources and trying to justify their continued existence. I work for IBM, and it's the same way.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who received this warning never had any contact with the people responsible for the rootkit. Intra-company communication is horrid in large corps, and often the people implementing solutions get little or no real information beyond requirements and specs from those making the decisions above them.
One manager tells another manager who tells a team to hire people to write a DRM. Another manager gets a message about how dangerous these "rootkits" are, and forwards it to another manager who thinks "we're not making a rootkit, we're making a DRM."
Sony's music division cannot reconcile its business with Sony's technology division. They're competing directly, and eventually one of them is going to win. I'm hoping this was another nail in the former's coffin.
Considering how well the DS has fared, despite initial bemusement or cries of gimmickry, I think that the Revolution has a good chance of making waves. Even I was skeptical of the DS at first. I bought it with the rationale that it would either be an excellent system, or that it would be so terrible that, years from now, I could point to it as my friends point to their ancient Virtual Boys.
The DS is doing insanely well. It's practically flooded the PSP out of the market, and must-have games are coming out in droves. That touch screen isn't a gimmick: it's a whole new world of gaming. I know several people who consider their DS to be their primary gaming platform.
Sony is coming late to the field with an expensive system and ill will from their DRM fiasco. Microsoft arrived early with an unstable, overheating, overpriced system and a mediocre launch lineup.
Both systems are hellishly expensive, and many of their titles will overlap. I can't imagine that many people will bother to have both: the only real deciding factor is between Halo/Xbox Live or Final Fantasy n+1.
The Revolution, however, will be massively cheaper and offer games that can't even be emulated on the other systems. Nintendo would have to go out of its way to ruin the launch.
This would be fantastic. Steam is an excellent platform, and I used to love playing Natural Selection and Counterstrike on it, not to mention Half Life 2 et all. I would probably have picked Darwinia up in a second. Well, except...
Steam doesn't support Linux.
I love these games, and I love Steam, but I don't even own Windows. There is no way for me to play them. Wine alone fails miserably. Cedega works somewhat, but seems to break anytime Steam updates, not to mention the fact that it isn't free.
I really wanted Half Life 2. I was looking forward to Civ IV. I even wanted to play Pirates! But I'm done with half-assed solutions like Wine. If developers can't be bothered to at least offer token support to Linux, I certainly can't be bothered to give them my money.
I'm absolutely fascinated by the idea, but it raises several important questions...
Imagine a world where the vast majority of skilled people live effectively forever. What opportunity will there be for the young, if the elders have had a centuries-long head start?
How could we possibly provide the resources necessary to feed an effectively undying yet still growing population? Would famine become the determiner or longevity?
Can the human brain retain the sheer volume of information and experience achievable in a millenia of living? Would we forget the past, or become unable to learn the future?
Not all of the questions are negative, either. Would longer-lived decision makers take longer-term factors into account? Would humanity be more inclined to space travel if time were no longer the limiting factor?
Realistically, we do not have the capability as a civilization to cope with this sort of thing as we stand. Individuals could take advantage of it and live long, and believe me when I say that I'd be the first one in line, but to provide something of this magnitude to the masses would be suicidal.
Ideals aside, I would want this for myself, but not for my neighbors. Selfish, yes, but better some than all or none.
Of course, scientists have said as much before, and little has come of it, so it may be a moot point for centuries yet to come.
Slashdot Mirror
If this is true, I honestly can't see the PS3 being a player in the current gen console wars. Sitting next to the sub-$200 Revolution or the re-release of the Xbox360, the pricetag will scare many people away regardless of the games they offer.
Indeed, their only justification seems to be that "it's not an expensive console, it's a cheap Blu-Ray player that ALSO plays games." While that may have worked for DVD and the PS2, when America was just beginning to move en masse to DVD and the jump from VHS was dramatic and simple, it's a recipe for disaster with the PS3 and Blu-Ray.
I remember a story not too long ago that showed fewer than half of Americans with HD capabilities had it hooked up correctly. Market penetration for HD in general is stagnant, and a multidude of ever-changing standards exist. Couple this with the fact that, while Blu-Ray is better than DVD in many ways, it's not better enough. This is nothing like the jump from VHS to DVD, and there's no way Blu-Ray alone will drive sales.
Not to sound like a fanboy, but Nintendo stands to hit the ground running and comein second or even first this round. (A lot depends on how well the Revolution controller works, what games come out for the 360 in the coming months, and if/when Microsoft releases a cheaper or updated 360).
The new hotness is Burning Wheel. Independent games written and published by creative individuals beat the hell out of the book-spam WotC has been promoting these days.
Of course, WotC also has the problem of selling a durable good: these books don't just wear out. Once they're sold, they're on the market forever. No gamer will ever buy more than one. They've tried to mitigate this with tricks like "3.5th edition," but few gamers ever bothered updating. Throw in the rampant piracy of the books and rules themselves, and there's really no way WotC can continue with D&D as it is.
(I prefered AD&D 2nd Edition anyway ^_~)
You're probably much better off selling/giving away all of your large things (beds, wine cabinets, couches) and purchasing new ones at your new home. I moved from one end of New York State to the other a while back, and the cost of trucking my worldly possessions downstate was only slightly less than buying new worldly possessions. Consider the cost of a large enough truck, diesel fuel, time, food on the road, et cetera, and it adds up.
As for the rest, pack your bags as though you were going off on a long trip, and ship everything else.
Now, if you can't divest yourself of your current furnishings, or have large, difficult-to-move things that you -must- retain, you're pretty-much boned from the start. Being mobile in the modern world means travelling light, not amassing tons of "stuff," and generally being willing to lose it all and move on.
We did a show a short while back when the last article telling us why Vista won't be horrible appeared. I hate to say it, but this one doesn't really give me any more reason to give Vista a second look than that one did.
For every "improvement," they seem to be adding at least two shortcomings: no unsigned drivers, DRM, etc... I've kept both Windows and Linux around for the longest time, but I'm getting the feeling more and more that Windows XP is going to remain on my other partition indefinitely.
Search engines only "leach" off of sites that seem to base their whole business model on users clicking through all over the place and seeing a pile of ads. Search engines allow users to find just the content they desire and no other, thus removing a significant number of "ad impressions."
This isn't an issue for sites that truly publish useful or innovative content. The search engines simply allow users to find this content.
It really only hurts news agencies and sites who simply parrot the AP Wire or Reuters instead of providing their own unique content. A news site that has the same article word-for-word as 100 other news sites gets boned, but the news site with something unique will via the search engine draw and maintain visitors.
IMHO, the only people complaining about this are those out for a quick buck.
Frankly, I'm more interested in using my ipod to, well, listen to things. Not that all of this isn't cool, but most people buy the things to use them as mp3 players. There are thousands upon thousands of podcasts out there, and the signal-to-noise ratio is better than you might think. (Meaning: there are lots of good casts).
;^) What is slashdot listening to?
That said, suggest some good podcasts
What steps are other online communities taking to protect themselves and their users against this?"
Using Linux? Using a Mac?
I kid. But seriously, the issue is PC security, not server security. If your PC is vulnerable to an exploit simply for viewing an image, the problem is YOURS, not the server that happens to link to an image that happens to use that exploit.
"But as an odd aside related to dowsing."
If you actually believe you have the power of "dowsing," take the JREF's One Million Dollar Challenge. Thousands of "dowsers" have tried and failed to show ANY results in real, controlled conditions.
Dowsing is a combination of statistical random chance and the ideomotor effect, nothing more. Prove otherwise, and the million dollars is yours.
Quackwatch
Professor Protests
Warning Signs of Chiropractic foolery
Wikipedia Article
Chiropractic is pseudoscientific horseshit. While it's true that some chiropractors are merely back massagers, the majority believe in the strange teachings of their school. Some excerpts:
"Chiropractic was founded in 1895 by Daniel David Palmer, a grocer and "magnetic healer" who believed that all diseases are the result of misplaced spinal bones. According to his theory, "subluxations" (misalignment) of spinal vertebrae cause disease by interfering with the flow of "nerve energy" from the brain to the body's tissue cells. Spinal "adjustments," by restoring vertebrae to their "proper places," allow brain energy to heal the diseased condition."
"Nerve conduction studies of human spinal nerves identified as being subluxed by chiropractors were shown to be normal by conventional scientific measures. Studies involving X-ray and CT scanning of the human spine before and after chiropractic manipulation show no changes in joint position as identified by radiologists."
"Aside from placebo effect chiropractic therapy has never been shown to treat any condition other than musculoskeletal problems."
Chiropractic has never been shown to have ANY verifiable effect on ANY condition. Not only is it useless, it can often be dangerous. In fact, if you can find a chiropractor who can provide actual evidence of the practice's efficacy, or even of a simple "subluxation," you'll be eligible for the JREF's One Million Dollar award.
Penn and Teller did a succinct expose on the dangers of chiropractic on their show "Bullshit."
Heh.. Actually, in this specific case, I wouldn't. (Though for many other assertions I make, you're spot on ^_~)
I use Wine extensively in my work, typically to allow corporations with archaic, proprietary software developed for Windows to migrate wholly or partially to Linux. I've found that many applications are poorly coded and end up using strange or broken Windows APIs. They'll use a bug as a feature and rely upon it to function.
Simply put, I rely on the Wine guys to implement every "feature" of Windows, no matter how broken it is. Say they'd noticed this and corrected it. They likely would have done it in a slightly different way from Microsoft. Wine would have branched slightly from the Windows API tree, and I would have ripped out more of my hair.
I suppose this speaks very highly of the WINE developers. After all, they're not out to make something better than Windows: they're out there to duplicate every broken, strange, or inexplicable behaviour Windows exhibits.
Wine is Not an Emulator, but it's purpose is to allow all of us in Linuxland to use software developed for Windows. That means that it must replicate even the broken parts.
Luckily, I assume two things:
1. The WINE devs will plug this as soon as they get around to it.
2. Anyone using WINE successfully is probably canny enough to make due until then without getting themselves compromised.
Anti-intellectualism is seeing a renaissance, and this will only serve as "evidence" for those who decry science, deny logic, and advocate flim-flam. Despite the fact that I see this as proof that the scientific method works (they've rooted out phony research), those with other agendas will cling to it as proof that "those scientists in their ivory towers" are wrong.
Homeopaths, naturalists, new-age healers, dowsers, reflexologists, chiropractors, feng shui "experts," et all: they use any slip of a scientist to bolster their support from those who don't know better. It saddens me, but such is the nature of the game.
Real scientists need to stand up and denounce frauds loudly and strongly whenever they appear. Too many otherwise learned men stand idly by while charlatans ply their wares to the unsuspecting.
Once news of this hits the mainstream television media, I imagine the public outcry and following legislation will put the kaibosh on it.
Still, the underlying problem is far deeper than many will admit. I believe that we in the United States have a certain right to an expectation of privacy, but at the same time we cannot rely on that expectation to safeguard information regarding ourselves. Information exists beyond the scope of your personal effects, and you cannot reasonably expect others to protect it for you.
The problem is that most financial and personal transactions here rely almost entirely on security through obscurity: the identity thief can't steal your identity... until he gets ahold of your (trivial to obtain) SSN, and so forth. We rely on hiding information about ourselves as a means of securing our effects, despite the fact that such information is all but unprotectable in the face of modern technology.
No amount of legislation is going to stop people from uncovering information: the only way to mitigate this is to make the information on its own worthless.
A social security number should be useless to anyone but me. Same with a bank account number. The security needs to be seperate from the identification.
I think products like this are extremely cool. Unfortunately, I can't really see a use. I love my old NES games, and I have a sizable collection of carts. Problem is, between the NES, SNES, Atari, Intellivision, and so forth, it's impossible to pile them all up around the TV. Not to mention the huge PITA involved in keeping all the old carts readily available for play.
Thus, emulators. Instead of a dozen consoles, I have one Gamecube and one PC, the PC running every emulator you can imagine. I physically OWN the cartridges, yet I prefer playing the games themselves on the PC: improved graphics, better controllers, and best of all, no blowing furiously into carts trying to make them work.
Thus, my collection of physical games sits in myriad boxes for posterity's sake (excepting my gold Zelda cart, which rests lovingly on display) while I actually -play- the games on a PC.
"Legitimate free music or video won't be tagged, and so the DRM software ignores it; it can be output on any device."
Then all the pirates have to do is get the content (analogue hole as a last resort) and re-release it sans tag. If the "copy-protected" devices display anything without a tag, they are effectively useless.
The only workable method is to only display things with a VALID tag and lock everything else out: much harder to beat.
You know what I want to see? A movie based on Final Fantasy IV (II for you USians). Not a movie that happens to be called "Final Fantasy," but one that's actually an adapted retelling of the story from a REAL, playable Final Fantasy. There's definitely enough of a nostalgia gamer market for such an endeavor to make a decent profit.
There are so many games with rich characters and engaging settings that would be perfect for cinema. Sadly, movie producers go after the franchise crapola games and make franchise crapola movies. Even sadder is that these films make money.
Take a chance! Hell, animate the thing and save money on actors/sets/locations. Buy the rights to an older game for a song. The first one to take a leap and make a good movie based on a good game and catering to the right demographic is going to go gangbusters.
I guess the Japanese are smarter when it comes to gaming.
Buying a system on release is practically useless beyond the "hey, guess what I have!" factor: hardly any games, high prices, and first-generation bugs/issues.
Even if you really want an Xbox360, there's no reason not to wait. The games that are actually worth playing won't be out for a while yet, and the release catalogue is laughable. Having the system early only gets you some negative cashflow.
Now, don't think I'm some Nintendo fanboy or Microsoft detractor. There's no reason to buy ANY system on launch unless it has a decent game catalogue.
IMHO, the people spending thousands on Xboxe360s on Ebay are fools. Maybe if Halo were already released...
I heard the voicemail one of these scumbags left for someone not too long ago. I don't know about others, but I would have had the police online to file charges... These people are scary.
Luckily, they're not the most intelligent people, as the voicemail seems to show. Calling someone a "bitch" repeatedly and threatening to kill them via an easily traced means is just asking for legal trouble. They don't know how to deal with the actual bad publicity they're starting to get. (Ratings sites are not actual bad publicity, since hardly anyone uses them, and there are many different ones).
I have a feeling this sort of scam will disappear in due time. It's getting harder and harder to hide from geeks with net connections and blogs, and bad word of mouth, unlike bad "reviews," is killer for a business. Just think of how many techies you know who refuse to buy a particular brand of hard drive simply for hearing about a friend's bad experience once.
Oh, the rest is a total shameless plug, but we did a bit about this on GeekNights last Thursday.
If there's one organization on this Earth that I can't stand, it's the Cult of Scientology. I make a point of harrassing them every chance I get.
We actually did a bit about this story last night on GeekNights.
They typically have their people sitting at little tables in the subways of NYC offering "free stress tests" and copies of Dianetics, hoping to get new converts. Every time I pass them, I take the time to stop and explain to the people they've ensnared that it's a cult. It's scary how many people don't know.
Typical example:
Me: Scientology is a cult. "You know that, right? They believe in an ancient alien named Xenu who exploded the souls of other murdered aliens with H-Bombs billions of years ago. They take your money."
Prospective Scientologist: "What? Wow... Thanks for the warning." -leaves-
Scientologst Asshole: "Hey! You can't say things like that! I'll call the fucking police! Leave NOW or I'll call the police! We're not a cult! It's slander to say we're a cult!"
Me: "The police, eh? Yes, why don't you call them? I'll stick around and wait."
They never actually call the police, but I wish they would sometime. I'd love to see these geniuses attempt to explain to a cop just what illegal act I was committing. "He was telling people about us!" "He says Scientology is a cult!"
So do a good deed. Spread the word about scientology.
I love Miyamoto, but this is a dirty way to generate buzz. Simply announcing your new feature is one press release. Announcing that you're going to announce your new feature is two! Genius!
Regardless of all that, however, I'm really looking forward to this. The Revolution is honestly the only console I'm even considering this time around. The xBox360 doesn't have a single game I care enough about to spend that much money. (Halo? Bah.. Counterstrike and Natural Selection are all I need.) As for the PS3, I think I'll opt for an uber cheap used PS2 and a pile of cheap used games.
The so-called "next gen" consoles may be nice, but they don't seem worth the cost. The xbox's super HD whatever video output is useless on my non-HD television, and I don't plan to upgrade anytime soon. The Revolution is going to have innovative new features, and yet will still be SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper.
The DS was far less powerful than the PSP, not to mention cheaper. Despite this, it completely dominated the market. Never underestimate Nintendo.
Sony, like all megalithic corporations, behaves internally like dozens of smaller, independant companies. They're vying for their shares of the corp's limited resources and trying to justify their continued existence. I work for IBM, and it's the same way.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who received this warning never had any contact with the people responsible for the rootkit. Intra-company communication is horrid in large corps, and often the people implementing solutions get little or no real information beyond requirements and specs from those making the decisions above them.
One manager tells another manager who tells a team to hire people to write a DRM. Another manager gets a message about how dangerous these "rootkits" are, and forwards it to another manager who thinks "we're not making a rootkit, we're making a DRM."
Sony's music division cannot reconcile its business with Sony's technology division. They're competing directly, and eventually one of them is going to win. I'm hoping this was another nail in the former's coffin.
Considering how well the DS has fared, despite initial bemusement or cries of gimmickry, I think that the Revolution has a good chance of making waves. Even I was skeptical of the DS at first. I bought it with the rationale that it would either be an excellent system, or that it would be so terrible that, years from now, I could point to it as my friends point to their ancient Virtual Boys.
The DS is doing insanely well. It's practically flooded the PSP out of the market, and must-have games are coming out in droves. That touch screen isn't a gimmick: it's a whole new world of gaming. I know several people who consider their DS to be their primary gaming platform.
Sony is coming late to the field with an expensive system and ill will from their DRM fiasco. Microsoft arrived early with an unstable, overheating, overpriced system and a mediocre launch lineup.
Both systems are hellishly expensive, and many of their titles will overlap. I can't imagine that many people will bother to have both: the only real deciding factor is between Halo/Xbox Live or Final Fantasy n+1.
The Revolution, however, will be massively cheaper and offer games that can't even be emulated on the other systems. Nintendo would have to go out of its way to ruin the launch.
This would be fantastic. Steam is an excellent platform, and I used to love playing Natural Selection and Counterstrike on it, not to mention Half Life 2 et all. I would probably have picked Darwinia up in a second. Well, except...
Steam doesn't support Linux.
I love these games, and I love Steam, but I don't even own Windows. There is no way for me to play them. Wine alone fails miserably. Cedega works somewhat, but seems to break anytime Steam updates, not to mention the fact that it isn't free.
I really wanted Half Life 2. I was looking forward to Civ IV. I even wanted to play Pirates! But I'm done with half-assed solutions like Wine. If developers can't be bothered to at least offer token support to Linux, I certainly can't be bothered to give them my money.
GeekNights is a late night show for geeks. It's pretty new, but it's done by a couple of slashdotters, and I like it.
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I'm absolutely fascinated by the idea, but it raises several important questions...
Imagine a world where the vast majority of skilled people live effectively forever. What opportunity will there be for the young, if the elders have had a centuries-long head start?
How could we possibly provide the resources necessary to feed an effectively undying yet still growing population? Would famine become the determiner or longevity?
Can the human brain retain the sheer volume of information and experience achievable in a millenia of living? Would we forget the past, or become unable to learn the future?
Not all of the questions are negative, either. Would longer-lived decision makers take longer-term factors into account? Would humanity be more inclined to space travel if time were no longer the limiting factor?
Realistically, we do not have the capability as a civilization to cope with this sort of thing as we stand. Individuals could take advantage of it and live long, and believe me when I say that I'd be the first one in line, but to provide something of this magnitude to the masses would be suicidal.
Ideals aside, I would want this for myself, but not for my neighbors. Selfish, yes, but better some than all or none.
Of course, scientists have said as much before, and little has come of it, so it may be a moot point for centuries yet to come.