Why is it "illegal". Either it's legal or it's not.
If it's morally questionable then say that. If it's yet to be tested in the courts then say that.
But if it's illegal but you don't think it should be then don't muddy the issue by putting the world in speech marks and calling it "illegal" because that does nothing to move the discussion forward.
Say it's illegal but an example of a bad law (and one that's perhaps yet to be tested) and move on.
Yes, it would be nice if the DCMA, draconian licensing agreements and EULAs that leave you scratching your head didn't exist but they do.
Yes, For most people, clicking through one of these dialog boxes presents no major moral dilemmas. But for some, perhaps individuals and businesses who want or need to be whiter than white, they do, and that's where TFA has a point.
Long term, the ideal solution is to use 100 percent open formats all of the time. But, right now, that's a pipe dream because formats such as MP3 aren't going to disappear any time soon, so the most practical legal solution is to lobby for the right to use these formats, both with the parties that hold the relevant rights and legislators.
To hell with the rootkits on their CDs. That was a screw-up, but it's not the reason why the PS3 gets such bad press.
The reason the PS3 gets such bad press, here and elsewhere, is that Sony has managed to screw up every way possible whilst pretending that everything is hunky-dory.
If Sony had been less boneheaded, or at least more honest about things, then it wouldn't have received half as much bad publicity. But as it's made one stupid move after another, and compounded that stupidity with an unswerving inability to tell the truth, Sony is simply getting what it deserves.
You reap what you sew, and Sony hasn't realised this yet. It still hasn't understood that its strategy is harming the PlayStation brand so much, not just for this generation but perhaps for the next one, too.
Nintendo, on the other hand, hasn't made anywhere close to the multitude of mistakes that its rivals have. It's released an inexpensive system, introduced some innovation, produced some decent games and focused on doing what it's good at. If it's made mistakes they've been minor ones, and they certainly haven't been driving customers away.
Microsoft has made mistakes, but unlike Sony it's at least tried to put right some of its wrongs. Its strategy has been far from perfect, but it had the advantage of being first to the marketplace, so managed to establish a user base that Sony would currently give its eye teeth for.
In terms of technical performance and capabilities, of the three, Nintendo has released the least impressive console, but it's also produced the best marketing strategy by far. And, just as VHS vs. Betamax showed us, you don't always have to be technically superior to win the battle.
Nintendo has produced a competent console and marketed it brilliantly. Sony has produced a more powerful machine but has marketed it terribly.
Any non-casual observer can see that. That is why Sony is getting creamed all over the press, as well as in the market.
I'm pointing out the hypocrisy in making one set of civilians legitimate targets and those that targetted them heroes whilst making those that targetted a different set of civilians as inhuman monsters.
That you're so easily offended by the comparison speaks volumes.
In fact, my husband and I have started avoiding trailers for much-anticipated movies, because even that spoils our enjoyment some. There are some movies or books that are better if you "know what to expect," but most of my favorite media experiences have been when I went in cold, knowing nothing about what to expect or what would happen.
Hear, hear.
The worst example, in cinematic terms, of a film that was spoilt before you saw a single second of it must have been Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
The idiots at the studio, and Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, just couldn't keep the plot twist regarding his character quiet. If they had done that, then the scene where the his character first encounters John Connor, etc would have been such a different experience.
Instead of becoming a "WOW!" moment that blew your head off it became a "meh..." one that barely had your interest, because you, your neighbour and everybody in the cinema who didn't live in a cave knew every detail of the twist before they sat down.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie, but it would have been an even better one if they could have just kept that bit to themselves.
Similarly, it's why it's essential to watch the Star Wars movies in the order of their original cinematic release, ie, episodes IV, V and VI before I, II and III. The Skywalker family revelations in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are rendered meaningless moments if you watch them in strict chronological order.
Re:Uh, I think the summary misses the point of OSS
on
openMosix Is Shutting Down
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· Score: 4, Informative
I agree, there's a degree of optimism in my argument but the summary is plain flawed.
Its message and tone is that openMosix = dead, openMosix = OSS, therefore openMosix dying = OSS solutions are bad.
What it completely fails to address is that the situation would be no better, and in fact would be a lot worse, if this was a CSS tool. Indeed, the ray of light for openMosix users comes from the fact that it is OSS.
Bashing OSS solutions because one is dead/dying/in limbo/whichever way you want to look at it is patently ridiculous because it's not the openness of the code that's at fault here, or even the open source development model.
To put it bluntly, CSS projects that lose their core development teams don't exactly fair any better do they?
I was just starting to enjoy this Beatles biography but you've ruined it for me now...
Uh, I think the summary misses the point of OSS...
on
openMosix Is Shutting Down
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· Score: 4, Insightful
From the summary it seems that the people who've contributed most to the openMosix code have moved on to other things.
Well, that happens. People's lives don't stand still, they change: they take on other commitments at work, have relationships, travel the world, etc.
But that doesn't mean that openMosix is dead.
On the contrary. This is open source software.
The code isn't lost. Others can pick up the slack and join the effort as they see fit. openMosix can still move forward, perhaps not at the same pace as before, but forward nevertheless.
It seems to me that the summary misses the point of OSS. If this was a closed source project and the lead developers had walked away then, yes, openMosix would almost certainly be dead and buried.
But, unless I'm missing something huge this isn't the end of the line for openMosix, precisely because it is open source.
It hardly seems appropriate to look at this as a failing of OSS development. On the contrary, it's arguably an example of one of its strengths.
This a baton change not a retirement. At best, the new holder(s) of the baton will soon hit the same stride as the previous holder(s). At worst, the baton has fallen to the ground and it simply needs to be picked up.
What's wrong with waiting a whole four days and then buying the book yourself?
Or, waiting a few days longer and borrowing a used copy from a friend?
Or, waiting a few days longer and buying a used copy via eBay?
Or, borrowing a copy from your local library when they have it?
If you're that desperate to read the book that you'd go through the hassle of downloading a torrent and then running all the pages through an OCR package, and then putting all that together, and then having to wonder what happened in the parts that weren't clear enough to OCR as well as deal with the hassle of incorrectly recognised characters then you should be a man and just buy for the damn book.
I'd really love to know your justification for doing anything but that.
Ya anyone can turn this into a fanboy bash contest, but let's leave that for the kiddies where it belongs ok?
I don't own, and have never owned, a console made by either Microsoft or Nintendo. I do, however, own both an orignal PlayStation and a PS2.
Please tell me again how I'm just a Microsoft or Nintendo fanboy simply because I'm pointing out the flaws in Sony's poor excuse for a marketing campaign?
If you really believe that the military doesn't look after its own when it comes to friendly fire, neutral and civilian deaths then prepared to have your eyes opened.
Do you really think that the US military cares about abuses of power and civilian casualties, or even friendly fire deaths, if they come to light and negatively portray the services?
The US doesn't even keep a track of the number of civilians accidentally killed by its forces. Why do you think that is?
The US routinely covers up evidence and hampers investigations into actions such as media and friendly fire deaths. Want examples?
Nine British service personnel were killed in the 1991 Gulf War by A-10 pilots in a single incident, as many as died to enemy fire in the whole war, and yet the US Army refused for over 16 years to hand over footage from the aircraft of the incident, which it had claimed from day one didn't exist. Even now, it refuses to name the pilots concerned and admits that they haven't been disciplined. Read this and tell me that you still have faith in the US Army's ability to fairly investigate and discipline its personnel.
Then once you've read that, go google for Terry Lloyd and find out how he died.
Then consider the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. What did the US Army do there? Tell the truth or cover it up? Perhaps the most prominent US soldier to ever die in action and they lied through their teeth.
And those are just a few of the many examples of the code of silence that surrounds US forces when they kill (or should I say murder?) their own, their allies or neutrals.
I find it incredible that you are naive enough to believe that such abuses would stop just because the guys doing the firing were away from the combat zone.
When it comes to criminal actions, unless it needs a convenient scapegoat, the military looks after its own. Always has, always will.
The games that you're talking about are all about hitting the right target and the right target only. They reward you for doing that, that's how you build a better score, progress through the game, etc, but in real life there are no such incentives.
Are you kidding? You see this as a step down the road to reducing civilian casualties?
Uh, think again, buddy. When the people doing the firing are far away from the consequences of their actions, and when the people that they're targetting are little different from sprites in a computer game then, as research has proven, those people are more not less likely to be indiscriminate with their use of force.
One of things you learn from being in the field is that actions have unintended consequences, and it's often those unintended consequences that give veterans an appreciation of the true horrors of war and the real value of peace.
Do you think that the UAV pilot sitting in his comfy chair somewhere in Arizona will have the same insight into the war that these guys have had?
I love Jack Tretton's little quote there...
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E3 - So, How Did It Go?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"From a personal standpoint I think we need to figure out why we're doing E3."
Yeah, Jack, I think you do. Could you also figure out what you're doing with the PS3 while you're at it, please? Because, to the rest of us, it looks like you guys don't have a clue.
Lies (that $1,200 bounty), deceptions (compatibility), misinformation (price cuts that aren't price cuts). Is there a Sony strategy in the pipeline that doesn't involve being dishonest with its customers?
I ask because your rant-filled post is so thin on actual factual information, it's incredible.
For example, the US wouldn't be depending on a system that could be shut down anytime someone else wanted, because the existing, US-built and US-controlled network would be part of the alliance and would remain US-controlled. So, control that paranoia, boy.
As others have pointed out, Airbus is alive and well, and one of the world's two major civilian aircraft manufacturers.
And Concorde, for your information, stopped flying mainly because of the rise in fuel post-September 11th, which together with the Air France crash in 2000, made keeping the fleet in the air uneconomical. Even then, Virgin Atlantic offered to buy the fleet and keep it in the air, which British Airways declined to do.
By the way, even before Concorde went into commercial service, it was the US Congress that was putting up roadblocks by banning Concorde from flying over the US. Somehow, if it had been a US venture I doubt that they'd have done that.
So, before your next rant about how Europeans just can't get anything done, etc, perhaps you might want to check the facts.
That instinctive reaction you have to move your head when, out of the corner of your eye, it looks like a large object is coming right at you at high speed?
That's fear, and that's fear doing its job. Making the decision to move your head out of the way before you're even aware that it's happening.
The reaction and super-human strength that you're capable of when your car jack collapses whilst your kid is under the car?
That's fear, and that's fear doing its job. Providing you with the impetus and the huge adrenaline rush that would make an otherwise impossible feat possible.
Imagine if you removed that and instinctive movement and ability were reduced. You'd be calmer but not necessarily more effective in a crisis. The imperative to act quickly would be removed, and that could easily be the difference between life and death.
Granted, modern lifestyles are mostly sedentary in comparison to lifestyles of 100 or 500 years ago but there are still everyday dangers to be faced. Instead of worrying about deadly wild animals, etc we worry about deadly traffic, etc.
No, as far as I'm aware, Microsoft haven't got a Linux player yet.
They've said that they'll develop the Windows and MacOS players first and then, at some time in the future, they'll eventually release a Linux player. Call me a cynic but I think that Linux player will either A) never see the light of day; or B) be very poorly coded and virtually unsupported.
But, to be honest, do you want browsers (and web developers) bogged down by even more stuff? Yet another file format that adds nothing to the party doesn't exactly rock my boat.
Even though my primary computer has Linux installed I find myself hoping that the new Windows Silverlight will give Flash a lot of healthy competition.
You're hoping that Flash will be displaced by Silverlight, a Microsoft offering? Seriously?
Say what you want about Adobe but at least Flash is available for more than Windows and OSX, which are the only two OSes that Silverlight will be available on.
Not only do Adobe produce Linux players, they also produce a Solaris player. Good luck trying to get either of those out of Microsoft this side of armageddon.
Oh, and I do appreciate that some people consider Flash to be an evil tool but at least you have the choice whether or not to install it. You just know that with Silverlight, as with MSIE, installation will be compulsory somewhere down the line, via a critical update or service pack.
Trust me, if you're worried about monopolies then the last company that you want involved in building a Flash killer is Microsoft.
Let's not forget that the guy got pissed at the money earmarked for this project was going out of state and, in debate on the floor of the senate, publicly threatened to quit his job if that happened.
Why was that money going to go elsewhere? Hurricane Katrina. It was going to go to be used in the disaster recovery effort and play a part in helping the millions of people affected.
Imagine that you were a parent and you promised Timmy, one of your kids, a toy. While you're looking around the store, Molly, your other kid breaks her nose whilst running around, so you tell Timmy that the present will have to wait while you take care of Molly, but Timmy doesn't give a shit and practically screams the store down because you're more concerned about Molly bleeding all over the place than you are about his new toy. Well, Timmy in this story is Senator Stevens, Molly is all the Katrina victims.
Also, I think you need to double-check your math. The proposed bridge, which has not been built, is to cost about $350 million.
Oh, it's only $350 million instead of $500 million? That's OK then!
$350 million for a bridge that will service an island, Gravina, that only has 50 or so residents. That's only, what, $7 million per resident who'll use it? A veritable bargain!
Yep, one heck of a good deal, especially when you consider the incredible inconvenience of a seven minute ferry ride that the residents currently have to endure.
I wonder how much of that $350 million would find its way back to the Senator and his friends in terms of campaign donations and other kickbacks?
Here's an idea. Take that $350 million, give the 50 Gravina residents $100,000 each to put a smile as big as the Joker's on their faces and then spend the other $345 million on something more worthwhile.
It's people like this guy who'll hammer the poor and the infirm for every possible penny, denounce their political opponents for wasteful spending plans and then spend 9-figure sums on white elephants like this bridge.
I'm well aware. Which is why I said "ambiguous if not misleading...". It's unclear which meaning of "questionable" is meant here, hence it's ambiguous. A clearer, unambiguous headline would have been preferable.
By the way, I think you mangled the quoted section in your post a bit.
(WIAK's Law: The longer a Star Wars discussion goes on, especially on Slashdot, the greater the likelyhood that someone mentions either Han shooting first or George Lucas raping their childhood.)
Over a quarter of games aren't going to run. Many of the rest are going to have some problems. What are the odds that all your favourite games won't be among them.
When a company sells a product as being backward compatible then it should be backward compatible. For all titles, not just some. I don't care if they acheive that through hardware emulation or software emulation (there's no reason why Sony shouldn't be able to make a 100 percent effective software emulator, they do have unlimited access to all the hardware, source code, etc) but if they make a promise to their end-users then they should stick to it.
In Sony's case, that promise was broken from day one in Europe and South Korea. Units for those markets never had in-built Emotion Engine chips, so not even early adopters in those markets had the chance to buy a totally compatible unit.
Notice how Sony didn't pull that stunt out of the gate in either Japan or the US? Why do you think that might have been? Perhaps because it felt that it couldn't pull that kind of shit in either of those markets? Or perhaps it thought that if European and Korean gamers were crazy enough to pay its inflated prices (£425 in the UK, which is $850!) then it could shaft them further by removing hardware to cut costs.
Now it seems, by stealth (because they sure aren't trumpeting the fact), Sony have done the same in the US. And, somehow, me pointing it out is offensive to you?
I've owned more consoles/gaming PCs than most in my time. I have (or have had) an Atari 2600, a Commodore 128, an Atari ST-FM, an Atari STE, two Sega Megadrives (Genesis to you), two Atari Lynx (one of each model), a PC Engine, a PlayStation, a Dreamcast, and a PlayStation 2. I've also lived with friends that owned other consoles. There are few major console titles that I haven't played.
Yet so far, I've yet to buy either a PS3, an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii. Why? Because, so far, none of them has really engaged me in any way. I'm trying so hard to want to buy another Sony console but Sony itself seems to be coming up with more and more reasons why I shouldn't ever do that.
It's a shame. All Sony had to do to earn my money was to not try to rip me off with a less than compatible unit (why didn't a single European PS3 have hardware emulation) and a price tag that was, even after accounting for taxes, 45 percent more than US gamers were paying for the same system.
Thanks for the fanboi Sony vs Microsoft rant though. The all-caps "SONY"s were a nice touch.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it "illegal". Either it's legal or it's not.
If it's morally questionable then say that. If it's yet to be tested in the courts then say that.
But if it's illegal but you don't think it should be then don't muddy the issue by putting the world in speech marks and calling it "illegal" because that does nothing to move the discussion forward.
Say it's illegal but an example of a bad law (and one that's perhaps yet to be tested) and move on.
Yes, it would be nice if the DCMA, draconian licensing agreements and EULAs that leave you scratching your head didn't exist but they do.
Yes, For most people, clicking through one of these dialog boxes presents no major moral dilemmas. But for some, perhaps individuals and businesses who want or need to be whiter than white, they do, and that's where TFA has a point.
Long term, the ideal solution is to use 100 percent open formats all of the time. But, right now, that's a pipe dream because formats such as MP3 aren't going to disappear any time soon, so the most practical legal solution is to lobby for the right to use these formats, both with the parties that hold the relevant rights and legislators.
To hell with the rootkits on their CDs. That was a screw-up, but it's not the reason why the PS3 gets such bad press.
The reason the PS3 gets such bad press, here and elsewhere, is that Sony has managed to screw up every way possible whilst pretending that everything is hunky-dory.
If Sony had been less boneheaded, or at least more honest about things, then it wouldn't have received half as much bad publicity. But as it's made one stupid move after another, and compounded that stupidity with an unswerving inability to tell the truth, Sony is simply getting what it deserves.
You reap what you sew, and Sony hasn't realised this yet. It still hasn't understood that its strategy is harming the PlayStation brand so much, not just for this generation but perhaps for the next one, too.
Nintendo, on the other hand, hasn't made anywhere close to the multitude of mistakes that its rivals have. It's released an inexpensive system, introduced some innovation, produced some decent games and focused on doing what it's good at. If it's made mistakes they've been minor ones, and they certainly haven't been driving customers away.
Microsoft has made mistakes, but unlike Sony it's at least tried to put right some of its wrongs. Its strategy has been far from perfect, but it had the advantage of being first to the marketplace, so managed to establish a user base that Sony would currently give its eye teeth for.
In terms of technical performance and capabilities, of the three, Nintendo has released the least impressive console, but it's also produced the best marketing strategy by far. And, just as VHS vs. Betamax showed us, you don't always have to be technically superior to win the battle.
Nintendo has produced a competent console and marketed it brilliantly. Sony has produced a more powerful machine but has marketed it terribly.
Any non-casual observer can see that. That is why Sony is getting creamed all over the press, as well as in the market.
So the 50 veterans interviewed and quoted are all lying now?
Keep burying your head in the sand, pal.
I'm pointing out the hypocrisy in making one set of civilians legitimate targets and those that targetted them heroes whilst making those that targetted a different set of civilians as inhuman monsters.
That you're so easily offended by the comparison speaks volumes.
In fact, my husband and I have started avoiding trailers for much-anticipated movies, because even that spoils our enjoyment some. There are some movies or books that are better if you "know what to expect," but most of my favorite media experiences have been when I went in cold, knowing nothing about what to expect or what would happen.
Hear, hear.
The worst example, in cinematic terms, of a film that was spoilt before you saw a single second of it must have been Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
The idiots at the studio, and Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, just couldn't keep the plot twist regarding his character quiet. If they had done that, then the scene where the his character first encounters John Connor, etc would have been such a different experience.
Instead of becoming a "WOW!" moment that blew your head off it became a "meh..." one that barely had your interest, because you, your neighbour and everybody in the cinema who didn't live in a cave knew every detail of the twist before they sat down.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie, but it would have been an even better one if they could have just kept that bit to themselves.
Similarly, it's why it's essential to watch the Star Wars movies in the order of their original cinematic release, ie, episodes IV, V and VI before I, II and III. The Skywalker family revelations in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are rendered meaningless moments if you watch them in strict chronological order.
I agree, there's a degree of optimism in my argument but the summary is plain flawed.
Its message and tone is that openMosix = dead, openMosix = OSS, therefore openMosix dying = OSS solutions are bad.
What it completely fails to address is that the situation would be no better, and in fact would be a lot worse, if this was a CSS tool. Indeed, the ray of light for openMosix users comes from the fact that it is OSS.
Bashing OSS solutions because one is dead/dying/in limbo/whichever way you want to look at it is patently ridiculous because it's not the openness of the code that's at fault here, or even the open source development model.
To put it bluntly, CSS projects that lose their core development teams don't exactly fair any better do they?
Someone shot John Lennon? Gee, thanks.
I was just starting to enjoy this Beatles biography but you've ruined it for me now...
From the summary it seems that the people who've contributed most to the openMosix code have moved on to other things.
Well, that happens. People's lives don't stand still, they change: they take on other commitments at work, have relationships, travel the world, etc.
But that doesn't mean that openMosix is dead.
On the contrary. This is open source software.
The code isn't lost. Others can pick up the slack and join the effort as they see fit. openMosix can still move forward, perhaps not at the same pace as before, but forward nevertheless.
It seems to me that the summary misses the point of OSS. If this was a closed source project and the lead developers had walked away then, yes, openMosix would almost certainly be dead and buried.
But, unless I'm missing something huge this isn't the end of the line for openMosix, precisely because it is open source.
It hardly seems appropriate to look at this as a failing of OSS development. On the contrary, it's arguably an example of one of its strengths.
This a baton change not a retirement. At best, the new holder(s) of the baton will soon hit the same stride as the previous holder(s). At worst, the baton has fallen to the ground and it simply needs to be picked up.
Are you a complete cheapskate?
What's wrong with waiting a whole four days and then buying the book yourself?
Or, waiting a few days longer and borrowing a used copy from a friend?
Or, waiting a few days longer and buying a used copy via eBay?
Or, borrowing a copy from your local library when they have it?
If you're that desperate to read the book that you'd go through the hassle of downloading a torrent and then running all the pages through an OCR package, and then putting all that together, and then having to wonder what happened in the parts that weren't clear enough to OCR as well as deal with the hassle of incorrectly recognised characters then you should be a man and just buy for the damn book.
I'd really love to know your justification for doing anything but that.
Staying in the airplane may not be cowardly, guiding it to hit a bunch of unsuspecting and innocent civilians certainly is.
Any more cowardly than, say, dropping two nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Ya anyone can turn this into a fanboy bash contest, but let's leave that for the kiddies where it belongs ok?
I don't own, and have never owned, a console made by either Microsoft or Nintendo. I do, however, own both an orignal PlayStation and a PS2.
Please tell me again how I'm just a Microsoft or Nintendo fanboy simply because I'm pointing out the flaws in Sony's poor excuse for a marketing campaign?
Read my reply to the other guy.
If you really believe that the military doesn't look after its own when it comes to friendly fire, neutral and civilian deaths then prepared to have your eyes opened.
Do you really think that the US military cares about abuses of power and civilian casualties, or even friendly fire deaths, if they come to light and negatively portray the services?
The US doesn't even keep a track of the number of civilians accidentally killed by its forces. Why do you think that is?
The US routinely covers up evidence and hampers investigations into actions such as media and friendly fire deaths. Want examples?
Nine British service personnel were killed in the 1991 Gulf War by A-10 pilots in a single incident, as many as died to enemy fire in the whole war, and yet the US Army refused for over 16 years to hand over footage from the aircraft of the incident, which it had claimed from day one didn't exist. Even now, it refuses to name the pilots concerned and admits that they haven't been disciplined. Read this and tell me that you still have faith in the US Army's ability to fairly investigate and discipline its personnel.
Then once you've read that, go google for Terry Lloyd and find out how he died.
Then consider the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. What did the US Army do there? Tell the truth or cover it up? Perhaps the most prominent US soldier to ever die in action and they lied through their teeth.
And those are just a few of the many examples of the code of silence that surrounds US forces when they kill (or should I say murder?) their own, their allies or neutrals.
I find it incredible that you are naive enough to believe that such abuses would stop just because the guys doing the firing were away from the combat zone.
When it comes to criminal actions, unless it needs a convenient scapegoat, the military looks after its own. Always has, always will.
The games that you're talking about are all about hitting the right target and the right target only. They reward you for doing that, that's how you build a better score, progress through the game, etc, but in real life there are no such incentives.
Are you kidding? You see this as a step down the road to reducing civilian casualties?
Uh, think again, buddy. When the people doing the firing are far away from the consequences of their actions, and when the people that they're targetting are little different from sprites in a computer game then, as research has proven, those people are more not less likely to be indiscriminate with their use of force.
One of things you learn from being in the field is that actions have unintended consequences, and it's often those unintended consequences that give veterans an appreciation of the true horrors of war and the real value of peace.
Do you think that the UAV pilot sitting in his comfy chair somewhere in Arizona will have the same insight into the war that these guys have had?
"From a personal standpoint I think we need to figure out why we're doing E3."
Yeah, Jack, I think you do. Could you also figure out what you're doing with the PS3 while you're at it, please? Because, to the rest of us, it looks like you guys don't have a clue.
Lies (that $1,200 bounty), deceptions (compatibility), misinformation (price cuts that aren't price cuts). Is there a Sony strategy in the pipeline that doesn't involve being dishonest with its customers?
Are you on crack?
I ask because your rant-filled post is so thin on actual factual information, it's incredible.
For example, the US wouldn't be depending on a system that could be shut down anytime someone else wanted, because the existing, US-built and US-controlled network would be part of the alliance and would remain US-controlled. So, control that paranoia, boy.
As others have pointed out, Airbus is alive and well, and one of the world's two major civilian aircraft manufacturers.
And Concorde, for your information, stopped flying mainly because of the rise in fuel post-September 11th, which together with the Air France crash in 2000, made keeping the fleet in the air uneconomical. Even then, Virgin Atlantic offered to buy the fleet and keep it in the air, which British Airways declined to do.
By the way, even before Concorde went into commercial service, it was the US Congress that was putting up roadblocks by banning Concorde from flying over the US. Somehow, if it had been a US venture I doubt that they'd have done that.
So, before your next rant about how Europeans just can't get anything done, etc, perhaps you might want to check the facts.
That instinctive reaction you have to move your head when, out of the corner of your eye, it looks like a large object is coming right at you at high speed?
That's fear, and that's fear doing its job. Making the decision to move your head out of the way before you're even aware that it's happening.
The reaction and super-human strength that you're capable of when your car jack collapses whilst your kid is under the car?
That's fear, and that's fear doing its job. Providing you with the impetus and the huge adrenaline rush that would make an otherwise impossible feat possible.
Imagine if you removed that and instinctive movement and ability were reduced. You'd be calmer but not necessarily more effective in a crisis. The imperative to act quickly would be removed, and that could easily be the difference between life and death.
Granted, modern lifestyles are mostly sedentary in comparison to lifestyles of 100 or 500 years ago but there are still everyday dangers to be faced. Instead of worrying about deadly wild animals, etc we worry about deadly traffic, etc.
No, as far as I'm aware, Microsoft haven't got a Linux player yet.
They've said that they'll develop the Windows and MacOS players first and then, at some time in the future, they'll eventually release a Linux player. Call me a cynic but I think that Linux player will either A) never see the light of day; or B) be very poorly coded and virtually unsupported.
But, to be honest, do you want browsers (and web developers) bogged down by even more stuff? Yet another file format that adds nothing to the party doesn't exactly rock my boat.
Even though my primary computer has Linux installed I find myself hoping that the new Windows Silverlight will give Flash a lot of healthy competition.
You're hoping that Flash will be displaced by Silverlight, a Microsoft offering? Seriously?
Say what you want about Adobe but at least Flash is available for more than Windows and OSX, which are the only two OSes that Silverlight will be available on.
Not only do Adobe produce Linux players, they also produce a Solaris player. Good luck trying to get either of those out of Microsoft this side of armageddon.
Oh, and I do appreciate that some people consider Flash to be an evil tool but at least you have the choice whether or not to install it. You just know that with Silverlight, as with MSIE, installation will be compulsory somewhere down the line, via a critical update or service pack.
Trust me, if you're worried about monopolies then the last company that you want involved in building a Flash killer is Microsoft.
Let's not forget that the guy got pissed at the money earmarked for this project was going out of state and, in debate on the floor of the senate, publicly threatened to quit his job if that happened.
Why was that money going to go elsewhere? Hurricane Katrina. It was going to go to be used in the disaster recovery effort and play a part in helping the millions of people affected.
Imagine that you were a parent and you promised Timmy, one of your kids, a toy. While you're looking around the store, Molly, your other kid breaks her nose whilst running around, so you tell Timmy that the present will have to wait while you take care of Molly, but Timmy doesn't give a shit and practically screams the store down because you're more concerned about Molly bleeding all over the place than you are about his new toy. Well, Timmy in this story is Senator Stevens, Molly is all the Katrina victims.
What a wonderful guy.
Also, I think you need to double-check your math. The proposed bridge, which has not been built, is to cost about $350 million.
Oh, it's only $350 million instead of $500 million? That's OK then!
$350 million for a bridge that will service an island, Gravina, that only has 50 or so residents. That's only, what, $7 million per resident who'll use it? A veritable bargain!
Yep, one heck of a good deal, especially when you consider the incredible inconvenience of a seven minute ferry ride that the residents currently have to endure.
I wonder how much of that $350 million would find its way back to the Senator and his friends in terms of campaign donations and other kickbacks?
Here's an idea. Take that $350 million, give the 50 Gravina residents $100,000 each to put a smile as big as the Joker's on their faces and then spend the other $345 million on something more worthwhile.
It's people like this guy who'll hammer the poor and the infirm for every possible penny, denounce their political opponents for wasteful spending plans and then spend 9-figure sums on white elephants like this bridge.
I'm well aware. Which is why I said "ambiguous if not misleading...". It's unclear which meaning of "questionable" is meant here, hence it's ambiguous. A clearer, unambiguous headline would have been preferable.
By the way, I think you mangled the quoted section in your post a bit.
...Midi-chlorians.
Next article, please!
(WIAK's Law: The longer a Star Wars discussion goes on, especially on Slashdot, the greater the likelyhood that someone mentions either Han shooting first or George Lucas raping their childhood.)
Over a quarter of games aren't going to run. Many of the rest are going to have some problems. What are the odds that all your favourite games won't be among them.
When a company sells a product as being backward compatible then it should be backward compatible. For all titles, not just some. I don't care if they acheive that through hardware emulation or software emulation (there's no reason why Sony shouldn't be able to make a 100 percent effective software emulator, they do have unlimited access to all the hardware, source code, etc) but if they make a promise to their end-users then they should stick to it.
In Sony's case, that promise was broken from day one in Europe and South Korea. Units for those markets never had in-built Emotion Engine chips, so not even early adopters in those markets had the chance to buy a totally compatible unit.
Notice how Sony didn't pull that stunt out of the gate in either Japan or the US? Why do you think that might have been? Perhaps because it felt that it couldn't pull that kind of shit in either of those markets? Or perhaps it thought that if European and Korean gamers were crazy enough to pay its inflated prices (£425 in the UK, which is $850!) then it could shaft them further by removing hardware to cut costs.
Now it seems, by stealth (because they sure aren't trumpeting the fact), Sony have done the same in the US. And, somehow, me pointing it out is offensive to you?
I've owned more consoles/gaming PCs than most in my time. I have (or have had) an Atari 2600, a Commodore 128, an Atari ST-FM, an Atari STE, two Sega Megadrives (Genesis to you), two Atari Lynx (one of each model), a PC Engine, a PlayStation, a Dreamcast, and a PlayStation 2. I've also lived with friends that owned other consoles. There are few major console titles that I haven't played.
Yet so far, I've yet to buy either a PS3, an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii. Why? Because, so far, none of them has really engaged me in any way. I'm trying so hard to want to buy another Sony console but Sony itself seems to be coming up with more and more reasons why I shouldn't ever do that.
It's a shame. All Sony had to do to earn my money was to not try to rip me off with a less than compatible unit (why didn't a single European PS3 have hardware emulation) and a price tag that was, even after accounting for taxes, 45 percent more than US gamers were paying for the same system.
Thanks for the fanboi Sony vs Microsoft rant though. The all-caps "SONY"s were a nice touch.