Appropriate that this discussion on the increasing supplantation of one medium by another (if only currently to some small extent within certain audiences) comes the day after a story on Orson Welles' legendary radio production of War of the Worlds. Look, it's a new medium captivating America's imagination! Nope, wait, there it went.
1) Cockroaches fail to find evidence of WMDs. 2) Government asserts non-cooperation on part of regime under inspection with cockroaches conducting said inspections. 3) ??? 4) Democracy!
Now if we can just give P2P software the equivalent of Canadian cigarette warning labels everyone will understand what a terrible thing copyright infringement is.
I get the impression all the doo-hickey digital cameras out there right now really are the polaroids of the modern world. It looks like this one doesn't even have a flash. Convenient, but...in the end, we want our memories stored in a format that doesn't look like crap. Plus, with the tiny ultra-compacts Minolta and Canon have available, you're certainly not sacrificing much space or weight to have a real camera with you.
There are CF Cameras available to PDA users currently, but the reception to them that I have observed is generally luke warm. Neat idea in theory. But in the long run, when a year-before-year-before-last 2MP pixel can be purchased for practically nothing these days, using a 1.1MP or 1.3MP camera just doesn't make much sense.
Just because you CAN integrate it doesn't mean it's a worthwhlie idea.
Re:This is really missing the point
on
Death of the PDA?
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· Score: 1
In case I didn't make that explicitly clear, they already do. A modern phone is a PDA + connectivity - the dead wood of trying to cram a PC in people's pockets
Ah, then you're just completely wrong.
Where is this mythical cell phone that has, just as I said, both SDIO and CF Type II, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g and an extensive list of expansion peripherals like full size keyboards?
Re:This is really missing the point
on
Death of the PDA?
·
· Score: 1
"When smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure."
I love the 'when' part.
I would have said "when monkeys fly out of my butt," but "when smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure" seemed more eloquent.
1) the way VOIP is moving forward 2) the increasing expansion of wifi coverage in cities 3) the inclusion of wifi capabilities in recent PDAs 4) the popularity among non-wifi PDA users of cheap CF (or slightly more expensive SDIO) wifi cards (Tigerdirect had D-Link DCF660W 802.11b cards going for $30 after rebate at one point, last I checked) 5) the availability of voice lines to many ISPs, some of which are already providing commercial wifi hotspots
and with VOIP phone functionality already possible with no additional hardware needed in PDAs, who knows where PDAs will go as far as phone functionality is concerned. Maybe it'll just be a matter of the merger of the platforms. Who knows. It's anybody's guess. But I'm certainly not a person in a position to know what will happen to these technologies. I can hope someone else here will know better where these technologies are going.
This is really missing the point
on
Death of the PDA?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The laptops of today do all the things a desktop is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the desktop computer!
The PDAs of today do all the things a laptop is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the laptop computer and, indirectly, the desktop computer!
The phones of today do all the things a PDA is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the PDA computer and, indirectly, the laptop computer and, indirectly, the desktop computer!
We've been told that sub-notebooks are about to replace the notebook and "desktop replacements" are about to replace the desktop for years now. It hasn't happened yet.
Will smartphones replace PDAs?
When smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure.
Maybe "laptop" and "desktop" and "PDA" describe nothing but a form factor. But that's probably the best argument there is for their mutual survival. There's no reason the PDA form factor with PDA size screen will just magically disappear leaving a gap between laptop and phone.
That price you're linking to is refurb. Whoops. Thank you, come again.
Toshiba has given its customers the finger and told them if they want a PPC 2003 supporting device, they can go buy an e750, as they're not going to bother with new firmware for the e740. Shoddy construction and a high percentage of dead units are other good reasons not to get an e740. The unit's dead in the water at this point. I can't fathom someone wanting to pay $400 (yes, that's what the E740 actually costs, if you want to bother looking at your own link) for a unit that's already got out of date firmware with a guarantee from the manufacturer that whereas you would with other OEMs, you won't be getting an update from them.
So again, what's so great about the e740's real world price?
This appears to be one of two things. Either it is an overpriced gameboy with low-end PDA specs, or an Ipaq for people who think themselves too stupid to figure out how to download native games, or currently available NES, SNES, Gensis and MAME emulators onto their own Ipaq. Its only advantage over the current batch of XScale PDAs, it seems, will be developer support, unless you believe that Compaq's and Palm's engineering and battery life advancements at the time of this device's release will be found inferior to this one's, which seems unlikely. Maybe they'll forgo a modern screen to save power, but then why not just get a gameboy? Will developer support for a gaming platform manufacturer not a major name in the industry, who is furthermore in COMPETITION with major names in the industry, be, itself, competitive? I find it hard to answer that with a yes.
And let's be clear on this: this device is not out NOW. It is not, at least as far as specs go, competing with presently available devices like the 200MHz Ipaq 1910, say, selling for $250 or 400MHz Ipaq 2215 selling for $370. It is not, at least as far as available titles go, in any place to come close to competing with existing platforms like the Gameboy. This device, the existence of which at all is purely speculative, is priced at $299 for a release at best several months to come.
If you want a handheld computer and want to play games on it, buy an Ipaq 1910, also with SDIO, currently available for under $250 depending on where you shop and play Age of Empires, Everquest, PocketQuake, PocketDoom, SNES, NES, Genesis, SMS, MAME and the upcoming titles now.
If you want a handheld gaming system with titles available NOW, go with the Gameboy.
If you want to wait several months to pay a PDA price for your next Gameboy without any certainty as to whether titles will in FACT be available at all, then this is the system for you. Hmm.
I think this will remind a lot of people of the last time a player had a truly drastic and unpredictable effect on an MMORPG gameworld, when Rainz, an Ultima Online Player, killed Lord British, character of Richard Garriott, when this was supposed to be impossible.
Rainz threw a firewall scroll at Lord British. Seemingly, Lord British's invulnverability flag was not on, and Rainz killed him.
If we ever figure out exactly who did this, he'll be in the running with Rainz for most notorious MMORPGer of all time.
Presumably, most people here have a fair familiarity with the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) phenomenon, but here's a rundown of the major products out there from my bookmarks, for anyone who's interested but not wholly informed. Feel free to correct any of this if my understanding of any of these games is in any way flawed:
Once bitboys invent the fastest GPU ever to grace the earth and Daikatana blows the whole concept of an immersive reality out of the water, future consequent advances will be so drastic as to be unpredictable as of this date.
In the socio- and anthropological fields it is pretty much accepted that the United States is a Third World country that basically won the lottery. I won't provide statistics...
I will. For one statistic at least. Take a look at the figures in this 1995 Government of Canada Study on homicide and firearms homicide by nation.
We have Firearms Homicide rates / 100,000 pop of
Japan: 0.06 Britain: 0.14 United States: 6.4
A 107 time higher chance of dying to a gun is a good reason, if you're a Japanese citizen, to abstain from moving to the United States, I should think.
While I don't myself overtly and decisively oppose either "conservatives" or "liberals," I do emphatically oppose the use of those terms. And I realise it's absolutely rife.
The use of these categories, liberal and conservative, in American politics has always confounded me. As a Canadian, I just don't know what they are supposed to mean, although I understand their rhetorical purpose. I don't think they mean much, really. We've got a Liberal Party and a Conservative Party in Canada, but those are just names for parties. They don't mean anything literal. Interestingly, I've virtually never heard the words "liberal" and "conservative" used in that way by political scientists. I think that's due, frankly, to their inherent uselessness. The idea of throwing everyone in the country into one of only two categories seems ludicrous. The number of Canadians who will consistently vote for only one party is minute. There's an old law of Canadian politics that goes that the province of Ontario will only elect a provincial Liberal Party government if the national Conservative Party is in power and will only elect a provincial Conservative Party government if the national Liberal Party is in power. And this has held true for government after government. People aren't one of two things. And they don't stay as such from one government to the next. And I don't see why it should be asserted that Americans do. Even if they DO vote for one party consistently, the suggestion that all voters for that party have one way of thinking is one to which I object.
My point is, the enmity between "conservatives" and "liberals" here is silly, most of the time. There are more than two ways of thinking. If I were discussing American politics, I might refer to Republicans and Democrats, but Christian Conservatives, Christian Progressives, Social Libertarians, Anti-Federalists and whatever other categories you want to add absolutely do not fit into two categories.
Here's what I thought was an interesting dissenting review of the movie. It's a little ridiculous that three out of four stars constitutes a dissenting review, but I'm sure some watchers will consider it that. And Roger Ebert, who was critical of the first movie, approves of the second, but also has some interesting criticisms to make.
Mariner : What are the markings on her back? Helen: Some say it's the way to dry land. Mariner: : Dry land is a myth. Helen: No, you said it yourself, that you've seen it. Mariner: You're a fool to believe in something you've never seen. Helen: But the things on your boat!... Mariner: The things on my boat, what!? Helen: There are things on your boat that no one has ever seen. These shells, the music box and the reflecting glass. Well, if not from dry land, then where? Where!? Mariner: You wanna see dry land. You really wanna see it? I'll take you there.
This isn't a criticism. It's an honest question. What kind of purpose necessitates this type of drive over, say, a big SCSI RAID? Assuming the performance of solid state storage will always be inherently superior to traditional mass storage, what purposes best make use of relatively small amounts of extremely fast storage?
News forum Slashdot.org, this evening, in a reader-submitted story, revealed shocking allegations and supporting evidence substantiating the claim that someone actually reads the city of ottawa's website.
Slashdot Mirror
Appropriate that this discussion on the increasing supplantation of one medium by another (if only currently to some small extent within certain audiences) comes the day after a story on Orson Welles' legendary radio production of War of the Worlds. Look, it's a new medium captivating America's imagination! Nope, wait, there it went.
All I read was this part: ...it might confuse the viewers into thinking.
And Fox wouldn't want that.
1) Cockroaches fail to find evidence of WMDs.
2) Government asserts non-cooperation on part of regime under inspection with cockroaches conducting said inspections.
3) ???
4) Democracy!
Now if we can just give P2P software the equivalent of Canadian cigarette warning labels everyone will understand what a terrible thing copyright infringement is.
Okay, admit it. Which of you just checked to see if fatanalhos.com or myphatcock.com actually existed? That's right. It's okay to cry.
I get the impression all the doo-hickey digital cameras out there right now really are the polaroids of the modern world. It looks like this one doesn't even have a flash. Convenient, but...in the end, we want our memories stored in a format that doesn't look like crap. Plus, with the tiny ultra-compacts Minolta and Canon have available, you're certainly not sacrificing much space or weight to have a real camera with you.
There are CF Cameras available to PDA users currently, but the reception to them that I have observed is generally luke warm. Neat idea in theory. But in the long run, when a year-before-year-before-last 2MP pixel can be purchased for practically nothing these days, using a 1.1MP or 1.3MP camera just doesn't make much sense.
Just because you CAN integrate it doesn't mean it's a worthwhlie idea.
In case I didn't make that explicitly clear, they already do. A modern phone is a PDA + connectivity - the dead wood of trying to cram a PC in people's pockets
Ah, then you're just completely wrong.
Where is this mythical cell phone that has, just as I said, both SDIO and CF Type II, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g and an extensive list of expansion peripherals like full size keyboards?
"When smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure."
I love the 'when' part.
I would have said "when monkeys fly out of my butt," but "when smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure" seemed more eloquent.
PDA can = cellphone already with
1) the way VOIP is moving forward
2) the increasing expansion of wifi coverage in cities
3) the inclusion of wifi capabilities in recent PDAs
4) the popularity among non-wifi PDA users of cheap CF (or slightly more expensive SDIO) wifi cards (Tigerdirect had D-Link DCF660W 802.11b cards going for $30 after rebate at one point, last I checked)
5) the availability of voice lines to many ISPs, some of which are already providing commercial wifi hotspots
and with VOIP phone functionality already possible with no additional hardware needed in PDAs, who knows where PDAs will go as far as phone functionality is concerned. Maybe it'll just be a matter of the merger of the platforms. Who knows. It's anybody's guess. But I'm certainly not a person in a position to know what will happen to these technologies. I can hope someone else here will know better where these technologies are going.
The laptops of today do all the things a desktop is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the desktop computer!
The PDAs of today do all the things a laptop is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the laptop computer and, indirectly, the desktop computer!
The phones of today do all the things a PDA is supposed to do, but occupy less space.
All proclaim the death of the PDA computer and, indirectly, the laptop computer and, indirectly, the desktop computer!
We've been told that sub-notebooks are about to replace the notebook and "desktop replacements" are about to replace the desktop for years now. It hasn't happened yet.
Will smartphones replace PDAs?
When smartphones, like the latest batch of Ipaqs or Toshibas, support bluetooth, wifi, multiple I/O capable expansion options (CFII+SDIO) and an extensive list of peripherals, sure.
Maybe "laptop" and "desktop" and "PDA" describe nothing but a form factor. But that's probably the best argument there is for their mutual survival. There's no reason the PDA form factor with PDA size screen will just magically disappear leaving a gap between laptop and phone.
That price you're linking to is refurb. Whoops. Thank you, come again.
Toshiba has given its customers the finger and told them if they want a PPC 2003 supporting device, they can go buy an e750, as they're not going to bother with new firmware for the e740. Shoddy construction and a high percentage of dead units are other good reasons not to get an e740. The unit's dead in the water at this point. I can't fathom someone wanting to pay $400 (yes, that's what the E740 actually costs, if you want to bother looking at your own link) for a unit that's already got out of date firmware with a guarantee from the manufacturer that whereas you would with other OEMs, you won't be getting an update from them.
So again, what's so great about the e740's real world price?
Let me express my cynicism this way:
This appears to be one of two things. Either it is an overpriced gameboy with low-end PDA specs, or an Ipaq for people who think themselves too stupid to figure out how to download native games, or currently available NES, SNES, Gensis and MAME emulators onto their own Ipaq. Its only advantage over the current batch of XScale PDAs, it seems, will be developer support, unless you believe that Compaq's and Palm's engineering and battery life advancements at the time of this device's release will be found inferior to this one's, which seems unlikely. Maybe they'll forgo a modern screen to save power, but then why not just get a gameboy? Will developer support for a gaming platform manufacturer not a major name in the industry, who is furthermore in COMPETITION with major names in the industry, be, itself, competitive? I find it hard to answer that with a yes.
And let's be clear on this: this device is not out NOW. It is not, at least as far as specs go, competing with presently available devices like the 200MHz Ipaq 1910, say, selling for $250 or 400MHz Ipaq 2215 selling for $370. It is not, at least as far as available titles go, in any place to come close to competing with existing platforms like the Gameboy. This device, the existence of which at all is purely speculative, is priced at $299 for a release at best several months to come.
If you want a handheld computer and want to play games on it, buy an Ipaq 1910, also with SDIO, currently available for under $250 depending on where you shop and play Age of Empires, Everquest, PocketQuake, PocketDoom, SNES, NES, Genesis, SMS, MAME and the upcoming titles now.
If you want a handheld gaming system with titles available NOW, go with the Gameboy.
If you want to wait several months to pay a PDA price for your next Gameboy without any certainty as to whether titles will in FACT be available at all, then this is the system for you. Hmm.
For further information on events as they happen, check The Shadowbane Scorn Server Board and Shadowbane Main Boards on IGN.
I think this will remind a lot of people of the last time a player had a truly drastic and unpredictable effect on an MMORPG gameworld, when Rainz, an Ultima Online Player, killed Lord British, character of Richard Garriott, when this was supposed to be impossible.
Rainz threw a firewall scroll at Lord British. Seemingly, Lord British's invulnverability flag was not on, and Rainz killed him.
If we ever figure out exactly who did this, he'll be in the running with Rainz for most notorious MMORPGer of all time.
He's not the oldest, however.
"Robert Dole"
has a rather telling anagram:
"Elder Robot"
Presumably, most people here have a fair familiarity with the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) phenomenon, but here's a rundown of the major products out there from my bookmarks, for anyone who's interested but not wholly informed. Feel free to correct any of this if my understanding of any of these games is in any way flawed:
Anarchy Online
Asheron's Call
Dark Age of Camelot
Everquest
Shadowbane (just released - very buggy)
A Tale in the Desert
Ultima Online
Horizons
Eve Online (final beta - close to release)
City of Heroes
Dragon Empires (in beta)
Everquest 2 (in development)
Lineage II (in development)
Star Wars Galaxies (closed beta)
Imperator (very early development)
World of Warcraft (very early development)
Most of these games don't release specific subscriber base numbers. However, a series of very good guesses is compiled here.
Once bitboys invent the fastest GPU ever to grace the earth and Daikatana blows the whole concept of an immersive reality out of the water, future consequent advances will be so drastic as to be unpredictable as of this date.
Pardon me.
My spaceshiop needs me.
In the socio- and anthropological fields it is pretty much accepted that the United States is a Third World country that basically won the lottery. I won't provide statistics...
I will. For one statistic at least. Take a look at the figures in this 1995 Government of Canada Study on homicide and firearms homicide by nation.
We have Firearms Homicide rates / 100,000 pop of
Japan: 0.06
Britain: 0.14
United States: 6.4
A 107 time higher chance of dying to a gun is a good reason, if you're a Japanese citizen, to abstain from moving to the United States, I should think.
Is that ICQ running in the background of this screenshot?
While I don't myself overtly and decisively oppose either "conservatives" or "liberals," I do emphatically oppose the use of those terms. And I realise it's absolutely rife.
The use of these categories, liberal and conservative, in American politics has always confounded me. As a Canadian, I just don't know what they are supposed to mean, although I understand their rhetorical purpose. I don't think they mean much, really. We've got a Liberal Party and a Conservative Party in Canada, but those are just names for parties. They don't mean anything literal. Interestingly, I've virtually never heard the words "liberal" and "conservative" used in that way by political scientists. I think that's due, frankly, to their inherent uselessness. The idea of throwing everyone in the country into one of only two categories seems ludicrous. The number of Canadians who will consistently vote for only one party is minute. There's an old law of Canadian politics that goes that the province of Ontario will only elect a provincial Liberal Party government if the national Conservative Party is in power and will only elect a provincial Conservative Party government if the national Liberal Party is in power. And this has held true for government after government. People aren't one of two things. And they don't stay as such from one government to the next. And I don't see why it should be asserted that Americans do. Even if they DO vote for one party consistently, the suggestion that all voters for that party have one way of thinking is one to which I object.
My point is, the enmity between "conservatives" and "liberals" here is silly, most of the time. There are more than two ways of thinking. If I were discussing American politics, I might refer to Republicans and Democrats, but Christian Conservatives, Christian Progressives, Social Libertarians, Anti-Federalists and whatever other categories you want to add absolutely do not fit into two categories.
Here's what I thought was an interesting dissenting review of the movie. It's a little ridiculous that three out of four stars constitutes a dissenting review, but I'm sure some watchers will consider it that. And Roger Ebert, who was critical of the first movie, approves of the second, but also has some interesting criticisms to make.
And let's not forget the stirring romantic and philosophic exploration of the epic Legend of Overfiend series.
*wipes away a tear*
Here's a hint, for when the apocalyptic shit hits the fan, and we find out the northern ice isn't in fact a series of islands: check the marks on the little girl's freaking back!
Mariner : What are the markings on her back?
Helen: Some say it's the way to dry land.
Mariner: : Dry land is a myth.
Helen: No, you said it yourself, that you've seen it.
Mariner: You're a fool to believe in something you've never seen.
Helen: But the things on your boat!...
Mariner: The things on my boat, what!?
Helen: There are things on your boat that no one has ever seen. These shells, the music box and the reflecting glass. Well, if not from dry land, then where? Where!?
Mariner: You wanna see dry land. You really wanna see it? I'll take you there.
This isn't a criticism. It's an honest question. What kind of purpose necessitates this type of drive over, say, a big SCSI RAID? Assuming the performance of solid state storage will always be inherently superior to traditional mass storage, what purposes best make use of relatively small amounts of extremely fast storage?
News forum Slashdot.org, this evening, in a reader-submitted story, revealed shocking allegations and supporting evidence substantiating the claim that someone actually reads the city of ottawa's website.
One Ring to rwho them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to ping them all
And in the darkness ypbind them