On Windows, exactaudiocopy + lame. EAC can use LAME too, it is a bit of configuration hassle but then it works like a single program. It can also grab titles from an external database (CDDB IIRC).
Even if you have such legal limitations, they may not hold for very long. Germany has such electronic bridge passes. The purpose is to collect road tolls for trucks, and the law explicitly says that the information from the bridge passes may not be used for any other purpose. Now, two years after activation of the system, we have politicians wanting to change the law and make the data available for law enforcement. With the usual terrorist scaremongering in the argumentation.
Nothing new has happened on either side in 2000 or 2004 that hasn't ever happened before. That's just a fact of life. These are the same county election entities that have run elections in locales for generations. Yes, things change a bit, especially with the introduction of electronic voting machines (which, ironically, were the result of various Democratic and bipartisan initiatives designed to allow more equal and consistent management of and access to polling places). But all e-voting vendors offer permament voter-verified receipt options on current and some previous models of machines - but these additions cost even more money; money that many municipalities weren't willing to spend.
In the meantime, it has become public knowledge how easy these machines can be manipulated. I do, however, not hear much about consequences. A few states or municipalities seem to take the problem seriously but they are a minority. That does not inspire much trust in future US elections.
I think you are correct on the cost side, a few years ago I've heard an estimate of 120,000 Euros/year/employee for the engineering company I worked for. Mostly academics and some moderately expensive hardware, so I think the cost of qualified IT employees might be lower but not by much.
Now this would be acceptable if Vista would seriously increase the productivity of the users. But according to all reviews of Vista I've read so far, it might be more of an impediment;-)
I don't know, I'm guessing here, but it sounds like an attempt to label the "other side" fascist, in order to evoke towards them the anti-fascist feelings that survived after the WWII, and also to avoid to be labeled themselves as fascists.
I think that the "Islamofascist" expression showed up after the Iranian president Ahmadinejad made noises about Israel being wiped off the map some day. Which was of course an invitation to compare him to Hitler, even if antisemitism is only one of many aspects of the Nazi regime. So I think certain US politicians took this as a welcome opportunity for anti-Islam propaganda.
Boot Linux. Insert Linux based game DVD from company X which is not so concerned about cheats, especially in single player mode (players can only ruin the game for themselves). Company X does not pay any license fees to Sony, and I doubt there is a law Sony could use to force them.
Result: Less income for Sony.
And that is what all console manufacturers have tried to avoid so far. Now it is possible that Sony has a different business model this time, or that they are simply not getting it and will have a rude awakening. But I'm still sceptical about that Linux on PS3 thing.
On the processor? AFAIK yes, the few existing Cell Workstations run Linux. And there are no reports of that linux version being bastardized.
On the PS3? I believe that when it is reported by independent reviewers. Because it would be a radical break from the current business model for console: 1) The console is sold at a loss 2) The console maker recoups the losses from licens fees the game makers have to pay 3) The console is heavily protected against the starting of unlicensed software.
Having an unrestricted Linux on the PS3 would eliminate 3) and thus make it very difficult to enforce 2). So unless the expected price of $600 per PS3 actually pays for the hardware, Sony cannot afford to allow unrestricted Linux on the PS3.
They will be forced to drop the prices, because Intel is ramping up Conroe production. It is only a matter of time until the supply can meet demand. Fortunately for AMD, they have managed to start their own 65nm manufacturing now. http://amd.vendors.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/ 09/12/0159259 That should allow them to reduce their own manufacturing costs and afford the price cut.
Oh, I guess that games on new console generations (PS3 ?) will eventually support whatever the display can take. That means 1080i or 1080p, which should be hi-def enough. Of course, the PS3 is also a lot more expensive than earlier consoles, which makes TFA's point #1 extra moot.
For surfing the web and running an office suite, I agree that an older machine does fine. Games will happily use all power your machine can provide, and so does compiling large programs, depending on language/compiler. My next upgrade will probably be triggered by something from that field. Right now, my 2.4 Ghz P4 is barely adequate to handle DOD:Source. Video editing is supposed to be even more power hungry (I have no experience of my own with that).
The end of the graphics card race might not be that far off. I guess once most systems can handle HDTV or 1600x1200 at decent frame rates, we will be at a point where further improvements won't be much of a selling point. Like few people bother with audio DVDs over CDs. With the PS3 this may be closer than you think on the console side (sorry I'm not up to date about XBox II, does it do HDTV?). On the PC side, high end graphics cards already handle 1600x1200 at decent frame rates. One or two more generations, and such cards will be quite affordable.
But I do not think the PC will die, as it has a lot of other uses beside gaming. The "media center" PC in the living room and the console might merge to some universal entertainment machine, but I don't think that PCs in general will disappear.
And on the controller front, some real innovation would be needed. Which is difficult to predict.
Thanks for putting this here - my take on a few of the points
1. It's cheaper. Unless you want/need a PC anyway for other reasons. Then the extra parts you need on top of an office PC (faster graphics card, headphones/speakers, maybe a better sound card) are not more expensive than a console.
3. You needn't tweak, optimize, or otherwise fiddle with a console game to make it look good. Don't believe the screenshots on the back of a PC game box. Unless your machine resembles the WOPR from War Games, you probably don't have enough juice to run it with all the settings turned up to 11. If you use your console with a normal television, you will get only a resolution that is comparable to 640x480 or at best 600x800 (asssuming a very good TV set). PCs usually have no trouble at such low resolutions;-) Only if you go for the full resolution of your PC screen, you need a monster PC.
4. Lots of console exclusives to choose from. Funny, my preferred genres (FPS, RTS, MMORPGs and simulation) offer a lot more choice on the PC.
Yes, by going back to an earlier save you can get around the random world generation in CIV (which is optional anyway, you can play on the fixed "real" map of Earth if you like). But that never bothered me because I consider the above cheating anyway. If a campaing goes sour, I'd rather abort it and start a completely new one.
Our main result is that in the absence of cost asymmetries and as long as Windows has a first-mover advantage (a larger installed base at time zero), Linux never displaces Windows of its leadership position. This result holds true regardless of the strength of Linux's demand-side learning. Furthermore, the result persists regardless of the intrinsically better design and potential differential value of Linux. In other words, harnessing demand-side learning more efficiently is not sufficient for Linux to win the competitive battle against Windows.
Others may have pointed this out before, but if Linux has "intrinsically better design and potential differential value", this will translate into a cost asymmetry because of less downtime, lower administration costs etc. Assuming that "absence of cost asymmetries" and "intrinsically better design" can coexist in the long term shows that the makers of this study do not understand software.
I've done exactly that, because I dislike software that needs remote "activation". Now XP has a few detail improvements that might be nice, but not enough to persuade me;-)
I was told Windows XP would be great, it's widely credited with being worse than Windows 98.
Only if your PC is really ancient, or if you want/need to run some programs that are not fully compatible to XP. I know exactly one person who fits this description: A colleague of mine who is maintaining a MS-DOS based "industrial" computer system as programmer. For him, the better DOS compatibility of Windows 98 makes it a good choice. For anyone else, I'd expect Windows 2000/XP to be much more reliable.
Umm, random generate stuff when you start the game? Civilization could do that, and you had to re-discover the world with each new game. I think this is the easiest way to generate the replay value you look for.
So far, those seem really short of AI. Maybe because they have less computing power per player (that server farm must be affordable). With dedicated AI cards for the servers, MMORPGs might be able to catch up to newer single player games that have at least half-decent AI.
And I just can't resist even though it's non-sequitur: You don't start wars on questionable intelligence.
You Bush apologists crack me up. A damned blowjob does not equal a half trillion dollar war. Don't >even get me started on "I didn't inhale" as opposed to the lack of response to the cocaine accusation.
To me it looks even worse. It seems that the Bush government knew the intelligence was spotty but massaged the data to justify the war anyway. Maybe not Bush himself, he may be clueless enough that it was done behind his back. But I think there are some people in the current administration who deserve to be hanged.
I don't think the format will fall into obsolescence anytime soon. It is too well established and convenient. The small advantage that Ogg (for instance) is said to have in quality vs. bandwidth has so far not lead to a massive move to Ogg. And that is a freely available format you don't have to pay license fees for. Neither have the various proprietary formats like WMA managed to displace MP3, despite being pushed by rather influential companies;-)
A good idea, and if significant amounts of text are in an image, I'd view the mail as dubious anyway. If not because of spam, then because of the idiotic format. Images are for illustrations, but using them to transfer major amounts of text is just stupid and inefficient.
Sure, the quad cores will be great for high end systems. Think E-ATX systems with two sockets and a total of eight cores. But for the average buyer, I think AMD moving to 65nm manufacturing will be more relevant. It should result in lower manufacturing costs and hopefully higher clock speeds, making the Athlon X2 more competitive compared to Intel's Core 2 Duo. The shrink to 65 nm will also arrive sooner than the quad cores. Others in this thread have speculated that Dell might be the first to get some of the new chips in September(did AMD convince Dell with that?). In the mass market, they might show up late this year or early next year.
AFAIK Deus Ex did nothing completely new, as it is younger than the other games listed by GP. But the overall quality was indeed exceptional, so I would rate it as outstanding example from a (previously) existing genre.
Scam might be a bit exaggerated, but ISO 9000 is indeed easy to get.
In a small company I worked before (medical field), the documentation and process were not quite as nonexistent as you describe, but they were thin to put it politely. We were ISO 9000 certified, too.
I know that the individual VIA CPU does not need much power, but it is also significantly weaker in performance than an AMD or Core 2 Duo dual-core. So how many VIAs do you need to replace one AMD or Intel?
Slashdot Mirror
On Windows, exactaudiocopy + lame.
EAC can use LAME too, it is a bit of configuration hassle but then it works like a single program.
It can also grab titles from an external database (CDDB IIRC).
Even if you have such legal limitations, they may not hold for very long.
Germany has such electronic bridge passes. The purpose is to collect road tolls for trucks, and the law explicitly says that the information from the bridge passes may not be used for any other purpose. Now, two years after activation of the system, we have politicians wanting to change the law and make the data available for law enforcement. With the usual terrorist scaremongering in the argumentation.
I think you are correct on the cost side, a few years ago I've heard an estimate of 120,000 Euros/year/employee for the engineering company I worked for. Mostly academics and some moderately expensive hardware, so I think the cost of qualified IT employees might be lower but not by much.
;-)
Now this would be acceptable if Vista would seriously increase the productivity of the users. But according to all reviews of Vista I've read so far, it might be more of an impediment
I think that the "Islamofascist" expression showed up after the Iranian president Ahmadinejad made noises about Israel being wiped off the map some day. Which was of course an invitation to compare him to Hitler, even if antisemitism is only one of many aspects of the Nazi regime.
So I think certain US politicians took this as a welcome opportunity for anti-Islam propaganda.
Boot Linux. Insert Linux based game DVD from company X which is not so concerned about cheats, especially in single player mode (players can only ruin the game for themselves). Company X does not pay any license fees to Sony, and I doubt there is a law Sony could use to force them.
Result: Less income for Sony.
And that is what all console manufacturers have tried to avoid so far. Now it is possible that Sony has a different business model this time, or that they are simply not getting it and will have a rude awakening. But I'm still sceptical about that Linux on PS3 thing.
On the processor? AFAIK yes, the few existing Cell Workstations run Linux. And there are no reports of that linux version being bastardized.
On the PS3? I believe that when it is reported by independent reviewers. Because it would be a radical break from the current business model for console:
1) The console is sold at a loss
2) The console maker recoups the losses from licens fees the game makers have to pay
3) The console is heavily protected against the starting of unlicensed software.
Having an unrestricted Linux on the PS3 would eliminate 3) and thus make it very difficult to enforce 2). So unless the expected price of $600 per PS3 actually pays for the hardware, Sony cannot afford to allow unrestricted Linux on the PS3.
They will be forced to drop the prices, because Intel is ramping up Conroe production. It is only a matter of time until the supply can meet demand./ 09/12/0159259
Fortunately for AMD, they have managed to start their own 65nm manufacturing now.
http://amd.vendors.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06
That should allow them to reduce their own manufacturing costs and afford the price cut.
Oh, I guess that games on new console generations (PS3 ?) will eventually support whatever the display can take. That means 1080i or 1080p, which should be hi-def enough.
Of course, the PS3 is also a lot more expensive than earlier consoles, which makes TFA's point #1 extra moot.
Depends a lot on the applications.
For surfing the web and running an office suite, I agree that an older machine does fine. Games will happily use all power your machine can provide, and so does compiling large programs, depending on language/compiler. My next upgrade will probably be triggered by something from that field. Right now, my 2.4 Ghz P4 is barely adequate to handle DOD:Source.
Video editing is supposed to be even more power hungry (I have no experience of my own with that).
The end of the graphics card race might not be that far off. I guess once most systems can handle HDTV or 1600x1200 at decent frame rates, we will be at a point where further improvements won't be much of a selling point. Like few people bother with audio DVDs over CDs.
With the PS3 this may be closer than you think on the console side (sorry I'm not up to date about XBox II, does it do HDTV?). On the PC side, high end graphics cards already handle 1600x1200 at decent frame rates. One or two more generations, and such cards will be quite affordable.
But I do not think the PC will die, as it has a lot of other uses beside gaming. The "media center" PC in the living room and the console might merge to some universal entertainment machine, but I don't think that PCs in general will disappear.
And on the controller front, some real innovation would be needed. Which is difficult to predict.
Thanks for putting this here - my take on a few of the points
;-)
1. It's cheaper.
Unless you want/need a PC anyway for other reasons. Then the extra parts you need on top of an office PC (faster graphics card, headphones/speakers, maybe a better sound card) are not more expensive than a console.
3. You needn't tweak, optimize, or otherwise fiddle with a console game to make it look good. Don't believe the screenshots on the back of a PC game box. Unless your machine resembles the WOPR from War Games, you probably don't have enough juice to run it with all the settings turned up to 11.
If you use your console with a normal television, you will get only a resolution that is comparable to 640x480 or at best 600x800 (asssuming a very good TV set). PCs usually have no trouble at such low resolutions
Only if you go for the full resolution of your PC screen, you need a monster PC.
4. Lots of console exclusives to choose from.
Funny, my preferred genres (FPS, RTS, MMORPGs and simulation) offer a lot more choice on the PC.
Yes, by going back to an earlier save you can get around the random world generation in CIV (which is optional anyway, you can play on the fixed "real" map of Earth if you like).
But that never bothered me because I consider the above cheating anyway. If a campaing goes sour, I'd rather abort it and start a completely new one.
Others may have pointed this out before, but if Linux has "intrinsically better design and potential differential value", this will translate into a cost asymmetry because of less downtime, lower administration costs etc.
Assuming that "absence of cost asymmetries" and "intrinsically better design" can coexist in the long term shows that the makers of this study do not understand software.
I've done exactly that, because I dislike software that needs remote "activation". Now XP has a few detail improvements that might be nice, but not enough to persuade me ;-)
Only if your PC is really ancient, or if you want/need to run some programs that are not fully compatible to XP. I know exactly one person who fits this description:
A colleague of mine who is maintaining a MS-DOS based "industrial" computer system as programmer. For him, the better DOS compatibility of Windows 98 makes it a good choice. For anyone else, I'd expect Windows 2000/XP to be much more reliable.
Umm, random generate stuff when you start the game?
Civilization could do that, and you had to re-discover the world with each new game. I think this is the easiest way to generate the replay value you look for.
So far, those seem really short of AI. Maybe because they have less computing power per player (that server farm must be affordable). With dedicated AI cards for the servers, MMORPGs might be able to catch up to newer single player games that have at least half-decent AI.
To me it looks even worse. It seems that the Bush government knew the intelligence was spotty but massaged the data to justify the war anyway. Maybe not Bush himself, he may be clueless enough that it was done behind his back.
But I think there are some people in the current administration who deserve to be hanged.
I don't think the format will fall into obsolescence anytime soon. It is too well established and convenient. ;-)
The small advantage that Ogg (for instance) is said to have in quality vs. bandwidth has so far not lead to a massive move to Ogg. And that is a freely available format you don't have to pay license fees for.
Neither have the various proprietary formats like WMA managed to displace MP3, despite being pushed by rather influential companies
A good idea, and if significant amounts of text are in an image, I'd view the mail as dubious anyway.
If not because of spam, then because of the idiotic format. Images are for illustrations, but using them to transfer major amounts of text is just stupid and inefficient.
Sure, the quad cores will be great for high end systems. Think E-ATX systems with two sockets and a total of eight cores.
But for the average buyer, I think AMD moving to 65nm manufacturing will be more relevant. It should result in lower manufacturing costs and hopefully higher clock speeds, making the Athlon X2 more competitive compared to Intel's Core 2 Duo.
The shrink to 65 nm will also arrive sooner than the quad cores. Others in this thread have speculated that Dell might be the first to get some of the new chips in September(did AMD convince Dell with that?). In the mass market, they might show up late this year or early next year.
AFAIK Deus Ex did nothing completely new, as it is younger than the other games listed by GP. But the overall quality was indeed exceptional, so I would rate it as outstanding example from a (previously) existing genre.
Scam might be a bit exaggerated, but ISO 9000 is indeed easy to get.
In a small company I worked before (medical field), the documentation and process were not quite as nonexistent as you describe, but they were thin to put it politely. We were ISO 9000 certified, too.
I know that the individual VIA CPU does not need much power, but it is also significantly weaker in performance than an AMD or Core 2 Duo dual-core.
So how many VIAs do you need to replace one AMD or Intel?