This will be the death of the television industry in the USA.
People won't want to go back on features.
It's like selling me a BMW without power windows. The dumbest idea ever.
Tell these nimrods will watch more of their precious shows and commercials when they can GET WHAT THEY WANT WHEN THEY WANT IT.
People will just go to the 'net when the TV was designed not to work. Once again, I would just like to reiterate what happens when people ban things, the resistance just becomes more organized and stronger.
If you think banning something the public wants, let me point to a little time in American history called prohibition. Americans are hooked on television. There will be riots in the streets when the television industry realized they fucked up, and everyone leaves them en masse.
When they stare at the numbers and realize that they just alienated a good 30% of their audience that uses videotape and PVRs all the time just to catch TV in their busy lives, they are going to backpedal on this stuff so fast it is insane when they realize that no one in their target demographic of rich and motivated people will sit down and watch their TV on their schedule. Just be patient. It will blow up in their face.
Currently, HD is burning. The public has not adopted it. Sure, they are buying a lot of them at Circuit City, when they hit the switch to go to HD only, the public is going to walk away from TV, and they are going to burn alive when everyone decides that playing outside with the kids is more fun.
"The tighter you squeeze, the more video signals will slip through your fingers."
"Where are these cards manufactured?"
"Somewhere in Europe, maybe in Algeria, someplace like that."
"See, I told you they could be reasonable."
"Continue targeting the Korean card manufacturers."
"No. You cannot! They are peaceful, they have no malice.. they only want to record television to see it later! You cannot disrupt their..."
"We are onto their little KaZaA games."
"You cannot!"
"Then tell me another target, a military target!"
"Sealand. They make the cards on, Sealand."
"Thank you. Continue targeting the Korean card manufacturers."
"I just, wait!"
"Sealand is too sparsely populated to manufacture cards of that sophistication.You may target when ready."
"Nooooooo!"/I felt a disturbance as though a million cable subscribers cried out in agony, and then suddenly, snow.
I noticed in the commercial, that the enemy is attacking Earth and blowing up a city bus in the attack. So here is my question:
Why the hell is there a city bus that looks like it should have Keanu Reeves in it in a future where the Master Chief's ship can fly light years away into space?
Just a *&%$ question.
I mean, cmon people, you can fly from planet to planet, but you are attacking people in a Toyota Tacoma with a WW2 macninegun on the back.
Anyone? ANYONE?!?
Here is what all the hype was about.
on
Halo 2 Reviews
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I mean, the game was okay and everything, but I'm still not sure what all the hype is about.
The hype was that a whole new generation of people who never played a competetive FPS online got the chance. Anyone that screams Halo is the best game ever just hasn't been around the block, and used to be a non-gamer or a very casual gamer.
Face it, the guys that scream "HALO!" at the top of their lungs are just not PC players. If they were, their buffet plate would be very full.
"Halo, seriously dude, the best ever."
"Ever played Starcraft?"
"No."
"Ever played Tribes?"
"No."
"Quake?"
"No."
"Pong?"
"No."
"Goldeneye?"
"Had a friend that had it, it rocked. Played it once."
"How about Uneal Tournament?"
"Never heard of it."
It's nothing bad.
These people are the same ones that buy The Day After Tommorrow and Van Helsing on DVD the day it comes out.
I would guess that it would be less than that. Playstation 2 processor and a beautiful screen? It will eat those batteries alive. Those screens don't just bust out all of those colors so efficiently.
2. Plays movies in letterbox format.
Correction. Plays movies in a proprietary format in letterbox. If you can rip to and burn these disks, great. If you can't, then you are just buying another movie on the same old format. Remember, the market has never loved the better format, the market has only loved the cheaper and more universal format. *Cough* Betamax *cough*
Sony, of all people, you should know this!
3. Plays awesome video games.
Making Metal Gear into a card battle game? That is the one they keep showing? Aw, Cmon! Card battle? Has any American bought a card battle video game besides the PA guys? I admit I haven't researched them all, but if you just show Solid Snake and you can't control him directly (an amazing NES feature), you just lost me. Why did they do that? Is there a limitation that allows you to not control him directly? Is the Wifi/processor too slow to go head to head? Does the disc not hold enough image space for a full experience? Is there a RAM issue? Look, it just doesn't make any sense why it is card battle. I think that it is a card battle game because there is a limitation somewhere. They shortchanged something in the machine, and they said "we can't do Solid Snake like we should, make it card battle so it doesn't have to cache so much!" If it was Konami's idea to try something different? Then they need to stop sniffing glue, and remember that interactivity is not what card battle is about.
4. It will revolutionize the way that people carrry around data and information.
Uh, not without a hard drive. Hard drives are where it's at these days. Not much more to say.
Look, it's a toy. It is not a personal video player. If you purchase movies in that format with no video out, then you are just totally messed in the head. I'll be sitting next to you on the plane with a only slightly larger flip-top DVD player with a slightly crappier screen, AND A BAG FULL OF DVDs. When I get to my hotel room, I'll plug it in the back of the TV, and watch them all night. Why? Because I bought something that is agreeable with the rest of the world, and I bought it cheaper at Sam's Club or Costco. If I lose it, or somene rips it off, I'm not crying.
(Walking on the plane with the new PSP)
"Hey, I have two movies that I payed $30 for! Let's see, we have FF:Spirits within or Akira! I sure won't get tired of these titles! Nah, let's card battle with Solid Snake, YEAH!"
Conclusion? It is a game machine. If you buy it for any other reason than the games, you're fooling yourself. You certainly don't want to get into yet another proprietary format that you cannot mess with without outrageous expense, when everyone is just getting to the phase where they now start burning their own home movies on DVD.
At least Nintendo knows what they make are toys. Nintendo is out to maximize the toy experience, not add crap on top and charge you for it. I do believe I will be buying the PSP2 if I buy one, when all of the features make sense. Sony needs to get a grip on the idea that they go and bust out a new format every two years, and then surprise, no one buys it. Can you get a PSP disc recorder? Can you even buy blank media?
Not that it would matter......ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the NEW minidisc player.
As a sort of related aside I think that the guys making KOTOR2 have really found the balance. They release a few details but nothing that will give the story away or stop any of the 'drama' from being played out once the game is available.
Yeah, but can they make a game that can be "played out" on the PC? I would just like for them to have a game that runs.
I have a Athlon XP 1700, 512 RAM, and a new 128 MB Nvidia card, and the damn thing can't run it? It is practically a turn based strategy game! There is nothing worse than seeing your machine slow when someone whips out a lightsaber. "Alright, let me get this jedi and kick some, whaaaa??? why the hell is this thing going so slow there? three characters in a box room! THREE CHARACTERS IN A BOX ROOM! aw cmon! CMON! CMON! DAMMIT!"
I was not apparently alone on this one. I never got past the doors of the water planet, because, well, you know, there was water there, and my computer apparently can't handle water effects. After all, it only handles water effects incredibly on UT2004 with 32 people on the server.
That was the first and last time I will ever buy anythign by Bioware.
This is just like Deus Ex 2. If it came out first on the Xbox and was built primarily for it, then I will not purchase it, because IT WON'T RUN.
One thing you have to hand to Nintendo, they flourished the home console industry and has still survived when the market is being flooded by Sony and Microsoft money. I am not saying that Nintendo is in the poorhouse, but who can compete with Microcash when they spend billions (yes, billions with a B) to break the back of the video game market? Nintendo survives because they are clearly superior. They are the ones that have come up with darn near every innovation in the home console systems, and if they had put a disk drive on their machines like they intended to before they gave it up, we wouldn't even know who Sony or Microsoft is.
Quickly, think of all of the developers that were stolen out from under Nintendo by Microsoft's checkbook. Five? Ten? A lot for sure. All of those developers. That would have killed everyone but Sony and Microsoft, who took losses on their machines for a long, long time. How many killer titles can you hand over to another company and still be alive in a competetive, hype-driven marketplace? Face it people, Nintendo is as healthy as they come when you have people throwing billions at you to topple you. Most of you wouldn't judge the quality of the car by the size of the manufacturer, so why do it with games?
Oh, and by the way, Halo is just not THAT great. Sorry. I know for many of you this is the first time you have ever played against someone online, and you're a newlywed with the game, but others have been doing it for decades. I'm not saying that Halo sucks, it doesn't. I am saying that many of us can trace our online lineage back to Quake 2 and until you've swung away from your enemies with grappling hooks, or Tribes bombers, or whateever, you realize you've done this Halo stuff before. It is not original. It should not be hyped as original.
It's only original to the ones that have never seen it before.
Rock on, Nintendo. You give me games my wife would like to play.
Everyone votes for their candidate and then after the polls close, they add them up, and the candidate with the most votes nationwide wins the election.
Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ? Betch it ain't Americans. It'll be the poor bloody Indians or Africans. And "Green" America will do what then?
America will actually have farms grow food.
Currently we pay them to not grow food, to keep prices higher so we can import it for cheaper wages... thus screwing the farmers in a slow death.
Also, people might get a bag of chips instead of the BIG GRAB of chips and save about seventy pounds off of themselves.
Small independent American farmers will actually be able to feed their children when the price that has been deflated below survival wages actually climbs to the point of a sustainable economy, instead of the global predatory farming practices that have happened today.
Just look at the Thunderdome wasteland Europe has become for going against genetically modified foods... those poor bastards are starving to death!
If I rememeber correctly, it's suspected that someone whose job was to remove ineligible voters from the lists removed everyone with the same or similar name or alias to the person to be removed. Accounting for last names like Johnson, Smith, Thompson, and other particularly common ones that's a lot of people.
Actually, the real crime in it was that the job of purging the rolls was subcontracted out to a private company with obvious ties to the political party that won in Florida. Also, Katherine Harris, the head of the Florida Election Commission, who is a big time Republican once stated out loud that, "Gore should have been nice to me and he would have won the election."
Anything here smell fishy about this who debacle?
The US system needs an overhaul. It needs no electoral college. It needs overall popular vote. The surprisingly terrible turnout mostly comes from a system where if you were a democrat in Indiana (a state that has been Republican for 40 years) like me, why vote? It doesn't matter.
That is why there is crappy turnout.
I live in a state where my vote won't matter for president... but I am still hitting the polls anyway, so I can clown people when he sends us into Iran or another nation, and people are shocked.
Sure, there is some censorship out on the Chinese google links, but overall, people in China are getting more connected to the outside world and seeing more of it than they ever possibly could because of google.
So there are some democracy sites and stuff being shut down, the truth is, the Chinese know that many, many places outside of China are democracies and their happiness and prosperity is evident through the picturas, text, and sophistication that they have despite the "inflammatory" websites.
In summary, China can't keep out the way they observe us. The Chinese people aren't so stupid that they cannot put two and two together. The more we communicate, the less barriers we have, and the more likely the Chinese Government will see communication as less of a threat and more of a friendly conversation with those weird people a world away.
1. Claim that the internet, with the advent of widespread broadband, is going to crash. Cause the herd to panic. Bypass your IT manager. Put it right in Forbes and Fortune 500. Make them demand it from the top down.
2. Speak of adding a new functionality (like a new and improved clippy) and then slide in DRM to prevent "hackers" from getting into your machine. This of course, will never prevent hackers. All it will do is make the hackers get into the BIOS level of your computer when you allow a shell at that level.
3. Roll out "trusted computing." Pretty soon, your computer won't trust you to let you do what you want on it. You will feel a sudden twinge as millions of Joe Users will cry out in agony, and then suddenly, silence.
4. Geeks will find and work with corporations that are not on trusted computing. They will be fine. They will know where to get the useful mobos and processors. Their side of the internet will not change at all, ever.
5. One generation of "Joe User" will find that all of the interesting things that made owning a computer are now blocked and will become frustrated. They will blame the computer instead of the architecture. "My Dell won't let me do what I want!" Gateway, Dell, and other Windows syncophants will start going belly up in the slimmest of markets after they drove all of the profit out of the business. IBM will be fine with Linux for the business market. Comcast will hemmorage profits when people can't get to what they really want, and then suddenly turn on all of the other companies. AT&T will suck it up, those losing more traction in the real world as usual.
6. The industry will dump DRM and trusted computing while it is still hot, because basically, there won't be any purchases, and people have to sell computers to pay the bills. Word will get out to the common person, quickly, and they will sit on the shelves and rot.
Why do I think it will happen just like this?
The whole "trusted drinking" thing worked so well during prohibition. A group of Holy rollers thought that banning things or preventing them would stop bad activity. All prohibition did was make "bad" activity more expensive... and much more aggressive and organized. These "trusted computing" twits are insane. If they think that it is going to work, they're nuts. Go ahead and delay Longhorn or whatever. Simply put, it ain't going to work. Look, if geeks need to get their chips from Burma, or Morrocco, or wherever, rest assured that they will find a way.
MORE NUCLEAR MATERIALS ARE RELEASED BY COAL BURNING THAN ANY NUCLEAR PLANT HAS EVER RELEASED. That's a VERY important thing to know, because COAL KILLS PEOPLE.
"This message brought to you by the Nuclear Energy Consortium (TM). Nuclear Power... safer than skydiving."
It's imperative for people to realize that Nuclear Power is not devil incarnate. By stopping Nuclear development, you are slowly killing yourselves with Coal and Oil plants. The number of people killed by nuclear power rate in the dozens (most at Chernobyl). The number of people killed by coal plants rate in the hundreds of thousands. Think about it.
I am not arguing the fact that most of our current energy production is not good for us. However, Andrew Gregorovich and a entire load of people would disagree with your assessment of what the costs of Chernobyl was.
From Gregorovich's article: THE LIQUIDATORS are those people who were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup or the "liquidation" of the consequences of the accident. As a totalitarian government the Soviet Union forced many young soldiers to assist in the cleanup of the Chornobyl accident, apparently without sufficient protective clothing and insufficient explanation of the danger involved. Over 650,000 liquidators helped in the cleanup of the Chornobyl disaster in the first year. Many of those who worked as LIQUIDATORS became ill and according to some estimates about 8,000 to 10,000 have died from the radioactive dose they received at the Chornobyl Power Plant. This group apparently includes those who built the containment building over the destroyed reactor No. 4 which is called the SARCOPHAGUS.
Don't worry. Sometime in the next ten thousand years Chernobyl will be safe to walk near. Then everything will be just back to normal.
She looks down on you? Funny, as a windows user I always see her as the ex-girlfriend skank that everyone knows and has passed around at one time or another.
When I am cleaning my friend's computers, I always see her in the tray and say to my friend, "You've been @#$%ing that? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND?"
I hear a lot of you talking like living in poverty is a terrible thing, and that the poor die a lot quicker... the reason for this is that they are making terrible decisions. Here are some handy tips:
Don't get knocked up at fifteen and you won't have to worry about feeding a child at sixteen.
You can fill out a job application if you can read.
Hanging out with drug dealers will get you shot, either by the drug dealer or the other drug dealer.
No one will hire you if you have an attitude that you don't need to work, or if you can't be bothered to show up for work, or if you can't speak the King's English.
Life is rough. There is no doubt. But you have to be competent to be hired. That is how the whole of civilization works.
Poverty and government assistance are there to get you back on your feet... they are not there to feed you for a lifetime. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people that think that living in the projects and not worrying about an education is an acceptable LIFETIME proposition.
Free education. What do you do with it? Nothing. Free food. Housing is $30 a month. Yes, you have nothing of your own. Yes, the place you live in stinks, and is full of drug dealers... but let I remind you that drug dealers don't work for a living either. They just threaten people and stand around. If everyone is bored and in each other's business, and no one can read or find a way to find a job, then you just have idiots stealing from each other.
Look, if you can't be forced to get your butt to work and get a job like the other 90% of humanity, then you only get JUST ENOUGH TO SURVIVE. You don't get to thrive for failing.
In Nation(s) such as the USA where the Citizen has the rights and they are leased to the State by a Constitution, the authorities must have "Probable Cause" to bring a warrant.
Except that recently, all of your rights went out the window. It is only a matter of time before bad things creep into your criminal and civil case files.
If an attorney will subpeona it, and your car is in a tow lot or in a police impound lot, there is a judge somewhere that will allow it. At that point, just getting it into the courts will set a precedent. It will happen. Pretty soon they will be passing laws that say that you cannot tamper with the device and when you get emissions tested you have to download and check that it works.
At that point... the attorneys will all eat us alive.
You forget that an election is supposed to be 100% anonymous. While ideally we would have voting systems that were reliable, a paper trail identifying who voted for what candidate would fundamentally damage the concept of anonymous voting.
I'd rather take the chance that my vote may not be counted due to machine/process flaws than potentially letting politicians, corporations, and political activist groups knowing who I voted for.
Stealing and using an anonymous public voting record for personal gain? Sounds like you are paranoid. If someone did that? Well, I am sure that there are plenty of rooms at the federal prison in Terre Haute, IN.
Look, I understand this argument, but this is currently an issue that needs to be ratified with the times. That is why we have a congress. To make new laws and remove those of little relevance anymore. We need verified voting now. With all of the crap going on, and the inconsistencies, it is now a necessity. With all of the legal hijinks that our founding fathers never saw coming, and all of the current and OBVIOUS corruption that is going on, and let's not forget the slim margins and high population that this country has, it has to be done to maintain any integrity in the system. How many more votes have to be lost before you all realize that our democratic process is being hijacked by individuals? How many more scandals are going to come out in this November before we all wake up?
Come November, when all of these votes get jacked, it is going to blow this country out of the water.
If we can have bank transactions in the multiple billions per day, then what is the problem with this? No one gets my bank statement but me, and I can check it... without anyone knowing it. How are my bank records not anonymous? Why on earth would a person say to me that a system with no failsafe is the best for democracy, when obviously the system failed before?
If your voting record enters a courtroom, then I will believe you. Then it is active revolt time. And by active, I mean, no paying taxes, and IT IS ON. If there is someone that steals it and sends me literature every day to join a different party or whatever? Then I CALL THE FBI. If someone demands to see my voting record receipt and threatens me? I CALL THE FBI. Just that simple.
The last time I checked, it is a federal crime to get someone's bank records illegally. Why can't we have verifiable voting and the laws that says that if you use this information against an individual it is a FEDERAL CRIME. Anonymous is not what you think it is... and you can still verify something and be anonymous. These kinds of protocols are so common now that we are using them on the net as we type right now.
There are absolutely a million ways to make a system where I can cast a vote, get an anonymous key number specific to my vote, and go home and verify it over the net. HELL, it isn't even expensive. How many server farms do you need to make it 'net accessible? We are talking 270 million hits. Yes that is quite a bit. But when you talk about the federal gov't, that ain't squat.
Don't even tell me that the receipt is the problem. It doesn't even need to tell you on the receipt WHO YOU VOTED FOR. It only needs to tell you the way to access your vote to verify it.
Not to mention something along the lines of "Vote for Bush and get a free Taco! Just bring your reciept at any of our chain of restaurants and..."...and go to the Federal Court System for election tampering. The laws are exceedingly specific about things like this.
You can't do it now, you won't be able to do it in the future.
-OR HOW ABOUT THIS ONE_
"Show your Republican Party card and get a twenty percent discount!"
Once again, that is just like inviting the DOJ and the FBI to your business.
Exceedingly dumb. You'd hate to get imprisoned, or best case scenario, a federal suit filed to you from the Department of Justice. Trust me, I read these things all the time, they will hound you forever.
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This will be the death of the television industry in the USA.
People won't want to go back on features.
It's like selling me a BMW without power windows. The dumbest idea ever.
Tell these nimrods will watch more of their precious shows and commercials when they can GET WHAT THEY WANT WHEN THEY WANT IT.
People will just go to the 'net when the TV was designed not to work. Once again, I would just like to reiterate what happens when people ban things, the resistance just becomes more organized and stronger.
If you think banning something the public wants, let me point to a little time in American history called prohibition. Americans are hooked on television. There will be riots in the streets when the television industry realized they fucked up, and everyone leaves them en masse.
When they stare at the numbers and realize that they just alienated a good 30% of their audience that uses videotape and PVRs all the time just to catch TV in their busy lives, they are going to backpedal on this stuff so fast it is insane when they realize that no one in their target demographic of rich and motivated people will sit down and watch their TV on their schedule. Just be patient. It will blow up in their face.
Currently, HD is burning. The public has not adopted it. Sure, they are buying a lot of them at Circuit City, when they hit the switch to go to HD only, the public is going to walk away from TV, and they are going to burn alive when everyone decides that playing outside with the kids is more fun.
"The tighter you squeeze, the more video signals will slip through your fingers."
"Where are these cards manufactured?"
"Somewhere in Europe, maybe in Algeria, someplace like that."
"See, I told you they could be reasonable."
"Continue targeting the Korean card manufacturers."
"No. You cannot! They are peaceful, they have no malice.. they only want to record television to see it later! You cannot disrupt their..."
"We are onto their little KaZaA games."
"You cannot!"
"Then tell me another target, a military target!"
"Sealand. They make the cards on, Sealand."
"Thank you. Continue targeting the Korean card manufacturers."
"I just, wait!"
"Sealand is too sparsely populated to manufacture cards of that sophistication.You may target when ready."
"Nooooooo!"
I noticed in the commercial, that the enemy is attacking Earth and blowing up a city bus in the attack. So here is my question:
Why the hell is there a city bus that looks like it should have Keanu Reeves in it in a future where the Master Chief's ship can fly light years away into space?
Just a *&%$ question.
I mean, cmon people, you can fly from planet to planet, but you are attacking people in a Toyota Tacoma with a WW2 macninegun on the back.
Anyone? ANYONE?!?
I mean, the game was okay and everything, but I'm still not sure what all the hype is about.
The hype was that a whole new generation of people who never played a competetive FPS online got the chance. Anyone that screams Halo is the best game ever just hasn't been around the block, and used to be a non-gamer or a very casual gamer.
Face it, the guys that scream "HALO!" at the top of their lungs are just not PC players. If they were, their buffet plate would be very full.
"Halo, seriously dude, the best ever."
"Ever played Starcraft?"
"No."
"Ever played Tribes?"
"No."
"Quake?"
"No."
"Pong?"
"No."
"Goldeneye?"
"Had a friend that had it, it rocked. Played it once."
"How about Uneal Tournament?"
"Never heard of it."
It's nothing bad.
These people are the same ones that buy The Day After Tommorrow and Van Helsing on DVD the day it comes out.
I don't care about Kerry's record. I have seen too many atrocities on television now for me to worry about the freaking paperwork.
What is worse, passing a bill about medicare that someone doesn't like, or carpet bombing two city blocks because they think that a bad guy is there?
Yeah, show me all the paperwork you want.
It could be embarassing seeing him saying how great Canada's
burritos and Corona are after he conquers Mexico.
Would that be more or less embarrassing than when Dan Quayle was heading for Latin America and mentioned that he needed to brush up on his Latin?
These Republicans need to learn the ways of these other countries and have a little respect for their cultures before they bomb them to oblivion.
Some of the claims of this are ridiculous.
...ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the NEW minidisc player.
1. Four to six hour battery life.
I would guess that it would be less than that. Playstation 2 processor and a beautiful screen? It will eat those batteries alive. Those screens don't just bust out all of those colors so efficiently.
2. Plays movies in letterbox format.
Correction. Plays movies in a proprietary format in letterbox. If you can rip to and burn these disks, great. If you can't, then you are just buying another movie on the same old format. Remember, the market has never loved the better format, the market has only loved the cheaper and more universal format. *Cough* Betamax *cough*
Sony, of all people, you should know this!
3. Plays awesome video games.
Making Metal Gear into a card battle game? That is the one they keep showing? Aw, Cmon! Card battle? Has any American bought a card battle video game besides the PA guys? I admit I haven't researched them all, but if you just show Solid Snake and you can't control him directly (an amazing NES feature), you just lost me. Why did they do that? Is there a limitation that allows you to not control him directly? Is the Wifi/processor too slow to go head to head? Does the disc not hold enough image space for a full experience? Is there a RAM issue? Look, it just doesn't make any sense why it is card battle. I think that it is a card battle game because there is a limitation somewhere. They shortchanged something in the machine, and they said "we can't do Solid Snake like we should, make it card battle so it doesn't have to cache so much!" If it was Konami's idea to try something different? Then they need to stop sniffing glue, and remember that interactivity is not what card battle is about.
4. It will revolutionize the way that people carrry around data and information.
Uh, not without a hard drive. Hard drives are where it's at these days. Not much more to say.
Look, it's a toy. It is not a personal video player. If you purchase movies in that format with no video out, then you are just totally messed in the head. I'll be sitting next to you on the plane with a only slightly larger flip-top DVD player with a slightly crappier screen, AND A BAG FULL OF DVDs. When I get to my hotel room, I'll plug it in the back of the TV, and watch them all night. Why? Because I bought something that is agreeable with the rest of the world, and I bought it cheaper at Sam's Club or Costco. If I lose it, or somene rips it off, I'm not crying.
(Walking on the plane with the new PSP)
"Hey, I have two movies that I payed $30 for! Let's see, we have FF:Spirits within or Akira! I sure won't get tired of these titles! Nah, let's card battle with Solid Snake, YEAH!"
Conclusion? It is a game machine. If you buy it for any other reason than the games, you're fooling yourself. You certainly don't want to get into yet another proprietary format that you cannot mess with without outrageous expense, when everyone is just getting to the phase where they now start burning their own home movies on DVD.
At least Nintendo knows what they make are toys. Nintendo is out to maximize the toy experience, not add crap on top and charge you for it. I do believe I will be buying the PSP2 if I buy one, when all of the features make sense. Sony needs to get a grip on the idea that they go and bust out a new format every two years, and then surprise, no one buys it. Can you get a PSP disc recorder? Can you even buy blank media?
Not that it would matter...
As a sort of related aside I think that the guys making KOTOR2 have really found the balance. They release a few details but nothing that will give the story away or stop any of the 'drama' from being played out once the game is available.
Yeah, but can they make a game that can be "played out" on the PC? I would just like for them to have a game that runs.
I have a Athlon XP 1700, 512 RAM, and a new 128 MB Nvidia card, and the damn thing can't run it? It is practically a turn based strategy game! There is nothing worse than seeing your machine slow when someone whips out a lightsaber. "Alright, let me get this jedi and kick some, whaaaa??? why the hell is this thing going so slow there? three characters in a box room! THREE CHARACTERS IN A BOX ROOM! aw cmon! CMON! CMON! DAMMIT!"
I was not apparently alone on this one. I never got past the doors of the water planet, because, well, you know, there was water there, and my computer apparently can't handle water effects. After all, it only handles water effects incredibly on UT2004 with 32 people on the server.
That was the first and last time I will ever buy anythign by Bioware.
This is just like Deus Ex 2. If it came out first on the Xbox and was built primarily for it, then I will not purchase it, because IT WON'T RUN.
One thing you have to hand to Nintendo, they flourished the home console industry and has still survived when the market is being flooded by Sony and Microsoft money. I am not saying that Nintendo is in the poorhouse, but who can compete with Microcash when they spend billions (yes, billions with a B) to break the back of the video game market? Nintendo survives because they are clearly superior. They are the ones that have come up with darn near every innovation in the home console systems, and if they had put a disk drive on their machines like they intended to before they gave it up, we wouldn't even know who Sony or Microsoft is.
Quickly, think of all of the developers that were stolen out from under Nintendo by Microsoft's checkbook. Five? Ten? A lot for sure. All of those developers. That would have killed everyone but Sony and Microsoft, who took losses on their machines for a long, long time. How many killer titles can you hand over to another company and still be alive in a competetive, hype-driven marketplace? Face it people, Nintendo is as healthy as they come when you have people throwing billions at you to topple you. Most of you wouldn't judge the quality of the car by the size of the manufacturer, so why do it with games?
Oh, and by the way, Halo is just not THAT great. Sorry. I know for many of you this is the first time you have ever played against someone online, and you're a newlywed with the game, but others have been doing it for decades. I'm not saying that Halo sucks, it doesn't. I am saying that many of us can trace our online lineage back to Quake 2 and until you've swung away from your enemies with grappling hooks, or Tribes bombers, or whateever, you realize you've done this Halo stuff before. It is not original. It should not be hyped as original.
It's only original to the ones that have never seen it before.
Rock on, Nintendo. You give me games my wife would like to play.
Everyone votes for their candidate and then after the polls close, they add them up, and the candidate with the most votes nationwide wins the election.
Damn that was difficult.
Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ? Betch it ain't Americans. It'll be the poor bloody Indians or Africans. And "Green" America will do what then?
America will actually have farms grow food.
Currently we pay them to not grow food, to keep prices higher so we can import it for cheaper wages... thus screwing the farmers in a slow death.
Also, people might get a bag of chips instead of the BIG GRAB of chips and save about seventy pounds off of themselves.
Small independent American farmers will actually be able to feed their children when the price that has been deflated below survival wages actually climbs to the point of a sustainable economy, instead of the global predatory farming practices that have happened today.
Just look at the Thunderdome wasteland Europe has become for going against genetically modified foods... those poor bastards are starving to death!
If I rememeber correctly, it's suspected that someone whose job was to remove ineligible voters from the lists removed everyone with the same or similar name or alias to the person to be removed. Accounting for last names like Johnson, Smith, Thompson, and other particularly common ones that's a lot of people.
Actually, the real crime in it was that the job of purging the rolls was subcontracted out to a private company with obvious ties to the political party that won in Florida. Also, Katherine Harris, the head of the Florida Election Commission, who is a big time Republican once stated out loud that, "Gore should have been nice to me and he would have won the election."
Anything here smell fishy about this who debacle?
The US system needs an overhaul. It needs no electoral college. It needs overall popular vote. The surprisingly terrible turnout mostly comes from a system where if you were a democrat in Indiana (a state that has been Republican for 40 years) like me, why vote? It doesn't matter.
That is why there is crappy turnout.
I live in a state where my vote won't matter for president... but I am still hitting the polls anyway, so I can clown people when he sends us into Iran or another nation, and people are shocked.
I didn't say that.
Real social change comes from the ground up.
The Chinese govt cannot hold it all back forever... especially when there are easily seen and obvious working alternatives out there.
Stop being so negative.
Sure, there is some censorship out on the Chinese google links, but overall, people in China are getting more connected to the outside world and seeing more of it than they ever possibly could because of google.
So there are some democracy sites and stuff being shut down, the truth is, the Chinese know that many, many places outside of China are democracies and their happiness and prosperity is evident through the picturas, text, and sophistication that they have despite the "inflammatory" websites.
In summary, China can't keep out the way they observe us. The Chinese people aren't so stupid that they cannot put two and two together. The more we communicate, the less barriers we have, and the more likely the Chinese Government will see communication as less of a threat and more of a friendly conversation with those weird people a world away.
Here is how the "trusted internet" will fail:
1. Claim that the internet, with the advent of widespread broadband, is going to crash. Cause the herd to panic. Bypass your IT manager. Put it right in Forbes and Fortune 500. Make them demand it from the top down.
2. Speak of adding a new functionality (like a new and improved clippy) and then slide in DRM to prevent "hackers" from getting into your machine. This of course, will never prevent hackers. All it will do is make the hackers get into the BIOS level of your computer when you allow a shell at that level.
3. Roll out "trusted computing." Pretty soon, your computer won't trust you to let you do what you want on it. You will feel a sudden twinge as millions of Joe Users will cry out in agony, and then suddenly, silence.
4. Geeks will find and work with corporations that are not on trusted computing. They will be fine. They will know where to get the useful mobos and processors. Their side of the internet will not change at all, ever.
5. One generation of "Joe User" will find that all of the interesting things that made owning a computer are now blocked and will become frustrated. They will blame the computer instead of the architecture. "My Dell won't let me do what I want!" Gateway, Dell, and other Windows syncophants will start going belly up in the slimmest of markets after they drove all of the profit out of the business. IBM will be fine with Linux for the business market. Comcast will hemmorage profits when people can't get to what they really want, and then suddenly turn on all of the other companies. AT&T will suck it up, those losing more traction in the real world as usual.
6. The industry will dump DRM and trusted computing while it is still hot, because basically, there won't be any purchases, and people have to sell computers to pay the bills. Word will get out to the common person, quickly, and they will sit on the shelves and rot.
Why do I think it will happen just like this?
The whole "trusted drinking" thing worked so well during prohibition. A group of Holy rollers thought that banning things or preventing them would stop bad activity. All prohibition did was make "bad" activity more expensive... and much more aggressive and organized. These "trusted computing" twits are insane. If they think that it is going to work, they're nuts. Go ahead and delay Longhorn or whatever. Simply put, it ain't going to work. Look, if geeks need to get their chips from Burma, or Morrocco, or wherever, rest assured that they will find a way.
You make your own soap?
I think we need to swap recipes. I've got some other things you might be interested in.
E-mail me a tylerdurden@aol.com
Hope to hear from you soon.
MORE NUCLEAR MATERIALS ARE RELEASED BY COAL BURNING THAN ANY NUCLEAR PLANT HAS EVER RELEASED. That's a VERY important thing to know, because COAL KILLS PEOPLE.
"This message brought to you by the Nuclear Energy Consortium (TM). Nuclear Power... safer than skydiving."
It's imperative for people to realize that Nuclear Power is not devil incarnate. By stopping Nuclear development, you are slowly killing yourselves with Coal and Oil plants. The number of people killed by nuclear power rate in the dozens (most at Chernobyl). The number of people killed by coal plants rate in the hundreds of thousands. Think about it.
I am not arguing the fact that most of our current energy production is not good for us. However, Andrew Gregorovich and a entire load of people would disagree with your assessment of what the costs of Chernobyl was.
From Gregorovich's article:
THE LIQUIDATORS are those people who were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup or the "liquidation" of the consequences of the accident. As a totalitarian government the Soviet Union forced many young soldiers to assist in the cleanup of the Chornobyl accident, apparently without sufficient protective clothing and insufficient explanation of the danger involved. Over 650,000 liquidators helped in the cleanup of the Chornobyl disaster in the first year. Many of those who worked as LIQUIDATORS became ill and according to some estimates about 8,000 to 10,000 have died from the radioactive dose they received at the Chornobyl Power Plant. This group apparently includes those who built the containment building over the destroyed reactor No. 4 which is called the SARCOPHAGUS.
Don't worry. Sometime in the next ten thousand years Chernobyl will be safe to walk near. Then everything will be just back to normal.
Real has always treated the Mac has second class.
She looks down on you? Funny, as a windows user I always see her as the ex-girlfriend skank that everyone knows and has passed around at one time or another.
When I am cleaning my friend's computers, I always see her in the tray and say to my friend, "You've been @#$%ing that? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND?"
I hear a lot of you talking like living in poverty is a terrible thing, and that the poor die a lot quicker... the reason for this is that they are making terrible decisions. Here are some handy tips:
Don't get knocked up at fifteen and you won't have to worry about feeding a child at sixteen.
You can fill out a job application if you can read.
Hanging out with drug dealers will get you shot, either by the drug dealer or the other drug dealer.
No one will hire you if you have an attitude that you don't need to work, or if you can't be bothered to show up for work, or if you can't speak the King's English.
Life is rough. There is no doubt. But you have to be competent to be hired. That is how the whole of civilization works.
Poverty and government assistance are there to get you back on your feet... they are not there to feed you for a lifetime. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people that think that living in the projects and not worrying about an education is an acceptable LIFETIME proposition.
Free education. What do you do with it? Nothing. Free food. Housing is $30 a month. Yes, you have nothing of your own. Yes, the place you live in stinks, and is full of drug dealers... but let I remind you that drug dealers don't work for a living either. They just threaten people and stand around. If everyone is bored and in each other's business, and no one can read or find a way to find a job, then you just have idiots stealing from each other.
Look, if you can't be forced to get your butt to work and get a job like the other 90% of humanity, then you only get JUST ENOUGH TO SURVIVE. You don't get to thrive for failing.
Sorry about the breaks.
In Nation(s) such as the USA where the Citizen has the rights and they are leased to the State by a Constitution, the authorities must have "Probable Cause" to bring a warrant.
Except that recently, all of your rights went out the window. It is only a matter of time before bad things creep into your criminal and civil case files.
If an attorney will subpeona it, and your car is in a tow lot or in a police impound lot, there is a judge somewhere that will allow it. At that point, just getting it into the courts will set a precedent. It will happen. Pretty soon they will be passing laws that say that you cannot tamper with the device and when you get emissions tested you have to download and check that it works.
At that point... the attorneys will all eat us alive.
Liam is a jedi, AGAIN.
Look at his costume on the website. If I was him I'd call my agent.
J-beda talks about comic books like Carmack talks about video drivers.
Someone tell him that Corky over here can't handle that.
You forget that an election is supposed to be 100% anonymous. While ideally we would have voting systems that were reliable, a paper trail identifying who voted for what candidate would fundamentally damage the concept of anonymous voting.
I'd rather take the chance that my vote may not be counted due to machine/process flaws than potentially letting politicians, corporations, and political activist groups knowing who I voted for.
Stealing and using an anonymous public voting record for personal gain? Sounds like you are paranoid. If someone did that? Well, I am sure that there are plenty of rooms at the federal prison in Terre Haute, IN.
Look, I understand this argument, but this is currently an issue that needs to be ratified with the times. That is why we have a congress. To make new laws and remove those of little relevance anymore. We need verified voting now. With all of the crap going on, and the inconsistencies, it is now a necessity. With all of the legal hijinks that our founding fathers never saw coming, and all of the current and OBVIOUS corruption that is going on, and let's not forget the slim margins and high population that this country has, it has to be done to maintain any integrity in the system. How many more votes have to be lost before you all realize that our democratic process is being hijacked by individuals? How many more scandals are going to come out in this November before we all wake up?
Come November, when all of these votes get jacked, it is going to blow this country out of the water.
If we can have bank transactions in the multiple billions per day, then what is the problem with this? No one gets my bank statement but me, and I can check it... without anyone knowing it. How are my bank records not anonymous? Why on earth would a person say to me that a system with no failsafe is the best for democracy, when obviously the system failed before?
If your voting record enters a courtroom, then I will believe you. Then it is active revolt time. And by active, I mean, no paying taxes, and IT IS ON. If there is someone that steals it and sends me literature every day to join a different party or whatever? Then I CALL THE FBI. If someone demands to see my voting record receipt and threatens me? I CALL THE FBI. Just that simple.
The last time I checked, it is a federal crime to get someone's bank records illegally. Why can't we have verifiable voting and the laws that says that if you use this information against an individual it is a FEDERAL CRIME. Anonymous is not what you think it is... and you can still verify something and be anonymous. These kinds of protocols are so common now that we are using them on the net as we type right now.
There are absolutely a million ways to make a system where I can cast a vote, get an anonymous key number specific to my vote, and go home and verify it over the net. HELL, it isn't even expensive. How many server farms do you need to make it 'net accessible? We are talking 270 million hits. Yes that is quite a bit. But when you talk about the federal gov't, that ain't squat.
Don't even tell me that the receipt is the problem. It doesn't even need to tell you on the receipt WHO YOU VOTED FOR. It only needs to tell you the way to access your vote to verify it.
Not to mention something along the lines of "Vote for Bush and get a free Taco! Just bring your reciept at any of our chain of restaurants and..."
You can't do it now, you won't be able to do it in the future.
-OR HOW ABOUT THIS ONE_
"Show your Republican Party card and get a twenty percent discount!"
Once again, that is just like inviting the DOJ and the FBI to your business.
Exceedingly dumb. You'd hate to get imprisoned, or best case scenario, a federal suit filed to you from the Department of Justice. Trust me, I read these things all the time, they will hound you forever.