Funny, nobody modded me down as such, and you were the one that acted like a small child for two posts before making a coherent response. I'm glad you can at least have a semi-civilized disupte now, at least.
Apple has made a very clear effort to make machines suitable for gaming. It's clear in the marketing Apple does of games for Mac, and in the tech specs for the machines.
What do you want? 128MB DDR AGP 8X video cards? Got 'em. High-speed drives? Got 'em. Digital audio? Done. Audio out, USB and FW ports on the front of the computer? OK. Apple has often mentioned video gaming as part of the reason they make some of these features (some of them as options, like the 128MB video card).
Read my post to the AC on this thread, that pretty much sums up what I was trying to say on the hardware issues.
As for the marketing, you seem to be quite taken by Apple's hype. Take a look at price lists for ATI and NVIDIA cards...128 MB has already been standard on anything but budget cards for quite a while now, and even then, it's getting close- you can get a Radeon 9200 AGP w/128 MB of RAM for $99, for example. Apple's not being visionary on that point, they're playing catch-up.
What more do you want? John Carmack himself, on stage at Macworld saying, "Apple is making all the right moves on both the hardware and software sides to make the Macintosh a great platform for games."?
The guy's talented, to be sure, but Doom and Quake can only give him so much credibility, and i'm not impressed. Just because he says something like that, it won't magically change the amount of gaming support the Mac gets. I notice also that the page you link to is from Macworld in 1999...You couldn't find anything more recent?
This is perhaps the dumbest argument I have heard this month (although it is relatively early in the month).
First, is presumes that "the PC was made for gaming", which it wasn't, because the PC, based on, ultimately, the 8088 and PC BIOS started its incarnation as an accountants computer.
Okay...I was not trying to argue in literal terms of hardware. By saying that the Mac was not made for gaming, I meant that the role of a Macintosh has not traditionally been a gaming machine- they are much more widely used as the computer of choice for artists/video editors/advertising work/etc.
In contrast, Wintel PCs are used much more widely as pure gaming boxes, and game development for that platform is the rule- rather than the Mac exception that comes out weeks, months, or years later.
Whatever else you're trying to read into it simply wasn't on my mind.
Second, the argument that a computer is a "specialty" computer is absurd. A Macintosh is as "Turing-complete" as any PC, meaning that given a programming language and compiler, anything that can be programmed on a Mac can be programmed on a PC. I mean how exactly have PC's been "made for gaming"? If you truly want something "made for gaming" then you'd be talking about a PS2 or XBox.
Read my above statement again, and then compare the amount of game software available for PC to that available for Macintosh systems. Again, that is what I meant.
Fourth, if you actually compare, component for component, your average vendor-based computer (say a Dell or an IBM or a Compaq) to a PowerMac of equivalent price, you can not point to any absolute rule across these computers that one is better or worse for gaming.
Yet again, Macintosh hardware is not supported by many pieces of game software. That is enough to make it worse for gaming to a vast majority of the population that uses such software.
Fifth, I think your argument would hold a lot more water if you argued from an economic point that the incremental cost to develop a Mac game may not be worth the incremental revenue gained from Mac gamers.
Been there, done that. I'm already getting enough abuse as is, it seems, thank you.
As all evidence suggests, and as shown through Apple's marketing campaigns, Macintosh systems are clearly meant for purposes other than gaming.
Specifically- desktop publishing, art & design work, video editing, and lab stations in elementary/high schools. Regardless of how pissed off the original poster may be about not having Mac versions available, gaming is not a priority for Apple or their primary customers.
If you can provide contradictory evidence, please do, but don't be an ass.
All the CDs I have bought in the last 8 years or so have been soundtrack CDs produced by DigiCube- DigiCube being a wholly established and financed subsidiary of Squaresoft.
According to the RIAA's member company list, neither Squaresoft (or Enix or EA) or DigiCube seem to be members. The same seems to be true for just about every distributor of game/anime music I can find, except for Victor, Pioneer, and possibly a few others I missed.
So, please, how exactly am I lining the RIAA's pockets when I buy from companies that aren't even members or owned by members?
And the serious programmer then ends up fixing all his own problems, when his attitude makes the support staff decide that he's not worth their time anymore.
You underestimate both the time needed to put a system together well and how easy it is to run Linux.
I'd think you'd understand from the article- Linux isn't just for uberGeeks that can do speed-assembling anymore.
Good thing I didn't have to go by your guideline...I managed to install Linux on my own system, but it's a rather outdated Gateway that I didn't even assemble myself. How crazy is that, eh?
I've lived in dorms for the past 2 years, and now I'm in an apartment. My school has a very high female/male ratio, and females generally don't play a lot of games. The ones I knew were always downloading shit from Kazaa. They wouldn't have a clue what to do with a game ISO that they downloaded. Neither would most of the guys I knew
Well, considering both situations, i'm not sure we can either claim to know the real picture, but i'm still pretty convinced that there's more than you think. The student bodies of most schools are more balanced, if they're not heavily biased towards males in some cases- your school sounds like a rarity.
I'm curious, though, have you actually lived on a college campus in the last 5 years or so? Students game constantly, even the liberal arts kids. Yes, people use Kaaza, but more often than not, they're using it to get more games that they then play. I can't remember a time when I could walk down a dorm hallway and not hear some form of game going on.
Also, many schools are starting to throttle down services like Kaaza, forcing students to turn to other forms of entertainment....Not much use for getting mass quantities of music and movies when it only goes 1-10K/sec, is it?
I go to a rather large school myself, and there's organized tournaments pretty regularly- the Electronic Gaming Society chapter here is even planning on throwing a LAN party for the incoming freshmen.
Try a policy like that anywhere but a completely liberal-arts college, and you would be roasted....College students in technical programs can be and are extremely possesive about using their personal systems.
I'm curious, which university is this that you work at?
I know of at least one school in my area taking a tighter approach- no machines have their access to the network turned on until they've been personally looked at by a support tech. Long delays, obviously, but at least nothing should get by.
Riiight...Let's not let personal bias get in the way of answering the guy's question, shall we?
As things stand today, the school's administrators would have to be certifiably insane to try something like that...Maybe in a controlled work environment you could get away with it, but not at a college- it'd be a toss-up between the tech support guys or angry students getting to kill you first.
Can't say i've read any of William Gibson's stuff....From just a quick glance, though, I don't think the government's put any deadly countermeasures on their firewalls (yet).
From all appearances, I wouldn't trust the man to secure a piece of swiss cheese, let alone government systems. Read his site or visit this other site to get an idea why.
No, you've helped to obfuscate things more, though. Is there a reason you couldn't just say what you wanted in English instead of coding shorthand? You're not l33t or cool or whatever effect you're hoping for, just annoying.
From what I can gather, though, you're trying to classify spammers as "criminal scum", and saying that classification would be a valid reason for people to change their ISP.
To that, I paraphrase Morpheus- you're living in a dream world, Pete.
Just because agressive anti-spam zealots believe all spamming should be crimnalized, that doesn't make it so for the vast majority of "normal" people using the net. Such people see spam as an annoyance, to which they ignore, click "delete", or update a filter, and go on their way.
Oh, and also: $comment =~ s/can't/won't/;
I say again, can't. You try explaining to someone that in order to keep communicating to important contacts, they must switch to an ISP that doesn't offer essential services or one that costs twice as much, simply because there's a few stubborn spammers on the network somewhere.
And what about people who are already on the only ISP that serves their area? Are you going to tell them they're just being stubborn when they can't move their homes or entire buisnesses to get a blocklist-approved provider?
If you're going to support draconian policies, at least try to have a sense of where they can actually be applied.
I'm sure I could, if I tried taking your side of this argument. "I paid a lot for my T1, so I'll demand that people take my traffic!"
I'm not sure you understood my statement (blunt as it was) correctly. You may have a perfectly valid point, but deliver it in that fashion, and you'll cause many people to reject it simply as a knee-jerk reaction.
Oh, I'm sure *most* people care how much they pay for their net connection. That's not any reason why *I* should care what they paid for it.
So when someone's forced to spend time and money to switch providers due to an overreaching blocklist entry and/or your use of that entry...It's not your problem because it's not directly affecting you? Sounds pretty selfish and self-centered to me.
Sorry, whatever you paid for your connection STILL has no bearing on whether I should take your packets.
If SPEWS says there are spammers on your class B, (or even your class A, for that matter), I'm not going to listen to you.
Wow. Just...wow. I think this is more than a sufficent example of that attitude that makes people hate blocklist supporters so vehemently.
Go ahead and start blocking class A's with spammers...You sound anti-social enough that you probably didn't ever want to talk to those people anyway. And Heaven forbid that a SPEWS listing might be...wrong, too.
If SPEWS says there are spammers on your class B, (or even your class A, for that matter), I'm not going to listen to you.
If you need to talk to me that bad, then it's up to YOU, not ME, to try another route. If that means you change ISPs, then maybe your former ISP will learn that the net is *voluntary*, and that they'd better shape up if they want other people to listen to their traffic.
Again, this is not a viable solution for the general populace. People cannot simply change ISP's on a whim...Oftentimes, they're already on the only decent ISP in their area, or even the only one that exists in that area. More likely, they'll just start ignoring you, if you can't be reached by phone or at another email or something.
I don't give a damn what you pay for your net connection. I care whether my mailbox gets filled up with spam. If I have to take spam to get mail from you, then I'll forego the great privilege of reading your messages.
Damn, man, do you think you could sound like any more like an asshole?
Maybe it's a new concept for you, but some people do care how much they pay for their net connection, and they can't change providers on a whim just because someone running SPEWS or another blocklist is a careless zealot.
Let me guess, you think i'm completely wrong, but...what's that? You haven't done a formal poll either? Okay then.
Anyway, I guess it would be an aggregate opinion, based on what i've read while surfing Slashdot, Fark, SomethingAwful, some public mailing lists for government installations, various smaller sites around the web, and reading NANAE itself.
The reputation that list has did not come out of nowhere- pretending it did won't help much.
Remember, the Internet is a cooperative enviroment. In the older days, if one node was screwing up the rest of the network, it got pulled, and be damned if you were using it.
Gee, maybe most people have figured out that it's not a good idea to throw the baby out with the bathwater these days?
Sorry, but not everyone shares the attitude of the holier-than-thou asses on NANAE.
I agree with most of your post, but this part bears some discussion:
There was an informal poll held in NANAE (network.admin.net-abuse.email) on how mail server admins block all of 200.0.0.0/8. And dozens if not hundreds of people replied they do block all of it. How long before it becomes thousands of networks block your country for spam abuse?
From all appearances, those on NANAE are seen as grouchy, stubborn, drunk-with-power, vindictive nerds by most of those outside the list. Don't go thinking you're going to impress anybody with informal polls or whatever done by them.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, I thought YOU were the troll.
Funny, nobody modded me down as such, and you were the one that acted like a small child for two posts before making a coherent response. I'm glad you can at least have a semi-civilized disupte now, at least.
Apple has made a very clear effort to make machines suitable for gaming. It's clear in the marketing Apple does of games for Mac, and in the tech specs for the machines.
What do you want? 128MB DDR AGP 8X video cards? Got 'em. High-speed drives? Got 'em. Digital audio? Done. Audio out, USB and FW ports on the front of the computer? OK. Apple has often mentioned video gaming as part of the reason they make some of these features (some of them as options, like the 128MB video card).
Read my post to the AC on this thread, that pretty much sums up what I was trying to say on the hardware issues.
As for the marketing, you seem to be quite taken by Apple's hype. Take a look at price lists for ATI and NVIDIA cards...128 MB has already been standard on anything but budget cards for quite a while now, and even then, it's getting close- you can get a Radeon 9200 AGP w/128 MB of RAM for $99, for example. Apple's not being visionary on that point, they're playing catch-up.
What more do you want? John Carmack himself, on stage at Macworld saying, "Apple is making all the right moves on both the hardware and software sides to make the Macintosh a great platform for games."?
The guy's talented, to be sure, but Doom and Quake can only give him so much credibility, and i'm not impressed. Just because he says something like that, it won't magically change the amount of gaming support the Mac gets. I notice also that the page you link to is from Macworld in 1999...You couldn't find anything more recent?
This is perhaps the dumbest argument I have heard this month (although it is relatively early in the month).
First, is presumes that "the PC was made for gaming", which it wasn't, because the PC, based on, ultimately, the 8088 and PC BIOS started its incarnation as an accountants computer.
Okay...I was not trying to argue in literal terms of hardware. By saying that the Mac was not made for gaming, I meant that the role of a Macintosh has not traditionally been a gaming machine- they are much more widely used as the computer of choice for artists/video editors/advertising work/etc.
In contrast, Wintel PCs are used much more widely as pure gaming boxes, and game development for that platform is the rule- rather than the Mac exception that comes out weeks, months, or years later.
Whatever else you're trying to read into it simply wasn't on my mind.
Second, the argument that a computer is a "specialty" computer is absurd. A Macintosh is as "Turing-complete" as any PC, meaning that given a programming language and compiler, anything that can be programmed on a Mac can be programmed on a PC. I mean how exactly have PC's been "made for gaming"? If you truly want something "made for gaming" then you'd be talking about a PS2 or XBox.
Read my above statement again, and then compare the amount of game software available for PC to that available for Macintosh systems. Again, that is what I meant.
Fourth, if you actually compare, component for component, your average vendor-based computer (say a Dell or an IBM or a Compaq) to a PowerMac of equivalent price, you can not point to any absolute rule across these computers that one is better or worse for gaming.
Yet again, Macintosh hardware is not supported by many pieces of game software. That is enough to make it worse for gaming to a vast majority of the population that uses such software.
Fifth, I think your argument would hold a lot more water if you argued from an economic point that the incremental cost to develop a Mac game may not be worth the incremental revenue gained from Mac gamers.
Been there, done that. I'm already getting enough abuse as is, it seems, thank you.
I have a distinct feeling i'm feeding a troll now, but what the hell, eh?
I don't think you understand. I am honestly asking- if you have evidence that the Mac was made for gaming, i'd be more than happy to hear it.
Otherwise you're making yourself look like more of a retard than i'll ever be with these replies of yours.
Wow, such an amazing rebuttal.
As all evidence suggests, and as shown through Apple's marketing campaigns, Macintosh systems are clearly meant for purposes other than gaming.
Specifically- desktop publishing, art & design work, video editing, and lab stations in elementary/high schools. Regardless of how pissed off the original poster may be about not having Mac versions available, gaming is not a priority for Apple or their primary customers.
If you can provide contradictory evidence, please do, but don't be an ass.
And I should care?
I couldn't say. I don't really see why they should care about you, though, especially if your reaction to not having support is "fuck you".
As someone said after me below, Macs are not made with gaming in mind, and you should have known that when you bought one.
Wow, that attitude 'll get you more support. Yes sir.
I imagine Ubisoft would say the same thing to you.
And why would you be worked up over, of all series, Myst? Unless they've made serious improvements, all the games have been mediocre at best.
Uh, no, I doubt it.
All the CDs I have bought in the last 8 years or so have been soundtrack CDs produced by DigiCube- DigiCube being a wholly established and financed subsidiary of Squaresoft.
According to the RIAA's member company list, neither Squaresoft (or Enix or EA) or DigiCube seem to be members. The same seems to be true for just about every distributor of game/anime music I can find, except for Victor, Pioneer, and possibly a few others I missed.
So, please, how exactly am I lining the RIAA's pockets when I buy from companies that aren't even members or owned by members?
Have you ever even taken a history course in an American school, Mr. Canadian Troll?
That's not what is taught, not by a long shot.
And the serious programmer then ends up fixing all his own problems, when his attitude makes the support staff decide that he's not worth their time anymore.
Get over yourself, please.
And if you're eating free range organic meat, you don't have to worry about your brain disintigrating 15 years from now.
Nonsense! I've been eating non-free-range-organic meat for 15 years now, aNd mY BRAin iS figsdjkfhjklsadhfjkllasdfhkj
You underestimate both the time needed to put a system together well and how easy it is to run Linux.
I'd think you'd understand from the article- Linux isn't just for uberGeeks that can do speed-assembling anymore.
Good thing I didn't have to go by your guideline...I managed to install Linux on my own system, but it's a rather outdated Gateway that I didn't even assemble myself. How crazy is that, eh?
I've lived in dorms for the past 2 years, and now I'm in an apartment. My school has a very high female/male ratio, and females generally don't play a lot of games. The ones I knew were always downloading shit from Kazaa. They wouldn't have a clue what to do with a game ISO that they downloaded. Neither would most of the guys I knew
Well, considering both situations, i'm not sure we can either claim to know the real picture, but i'm still pretty convinced that there's more than you think. The student bodies of most schools are more balanced, if they're not heavily biased towards males in some cases- your school sounds like a rarity.
You work for the RIAA/MPAA, don't you? ;)
I'm curious, though, have you actually lived on a college campus in the last 5 years or so? Students game constantly, even the liberal arts kids. Yes, people use Kaaza, but more often than not, they're using it to get more games that they then play. I can't remember a time when I could walk down a dorm hallway and not hear some form of game going on.
Also, many schools are starting to throttle down services like Kaaza, forcing students to turn to other forms of entertainment....Not much use for getting mass quantities of music and movies when it only goes 1-10K/sec, is it?
I go to a rather large school myself, and there's organized tournaments pretty regularly- the Electronic Gaming Society chapter here is even planning on throwing a LAN party for the incoming freshmen.
Try a policy like that anywhere but a completely liberal-arts college, and you would be roasted....College students in technical programs can be and are extremely possesive about using their personal systems.
I'm curious, which university is this that you work at?
I know of at least one school in my area taking a tighter approach- no machines have their access to the network turned on until they've been personally looked at by a support tech. Long delays, obviously, but at least nothing should get by.
Riiight...Let's not let personal bias get in the way of answering the guy's question, shall we?
As things stand today, the school's administrators would have to be certifiably insane to try something like that...Maybe in a controlled work environment you could get away with it, but not at a college- it'd be a toss-up between the tech support guys or angry students getting to kill you first.
Can't say i've read any of William Gibson's stuff....From just a quick glance, though, I don't think the government's put any deadly countermeasures on their firewalls (yet).
Gibson's "Black Ice",
Yes, i'm a nit-picking bastard, but Steve Gibson did not make BlackIce.
From all appearances, I wouldn't trust the man to secure a piece of swiss cheese, let alone government systems. Read his site or visit this other site to get an idea why.
You're only reinforcing the stereotype, you know...
:):P
And besides, he was obviously just joking around
No, you've helped to obfuscate things more, though. Is there a reason you couldn't just say what you wanted in English instead of coding shorthand? You're not l33t or cool or whatever effect you're hoping for, just annoying.
From what I can gather, though, you're trying to classify spammers as "criminal scum", and saying that classification would be a valid reason for people to change their ISP.
To that, I paraphrase Morpheus- you're living in a dream world, Pete.
Just because agressive anti-spam zealots believe all spamming should be crimnalized, that doesn't make it so for the vast majority of "normal" people using the net. Such people see spam as an annoyance, to which they ignore, click "delete", or update a filter, and go on their way.
Oh, and also: $comment =~ s/can't/won't/;
I say again, can't. You try explaining to someone that in order to keep communicating to important contacts, they must switch to an ISP that doesn't offer essential services or one that costs twice as much, simply because there's a few stubborn spammers on the network somewhere.
And what about people who are already on the only ISP that serves their area? Are you going to tell them they're just being stubborn when they can't move their homes or entire buisnesses to get a blocklist-approved provider?
If you're going to support draconian policies, at least try to have a sense of where they can actually be applied.
I'm sure I could, if I tried taking your side of this argument. "I paid a lot for my T1, so I'll demand that people take my traffic!"
I'm not sure you understood my statement (blunt as it was) correctly. You may have a perfectly valid point, but deliver it in that fashion, and you'll cause many people to reject it simply as a knee-jerk reaction.
Oh, I'm sure *most* people care how much they pay for their net connection. That's not any reason why *I* should care what they paid for it.
So when someone's forced to spend time and money to switch providers due to an overreaching blocklist entry and/or your use of that entry...It's not your problem because it's not directly affecting you? Sounds pretty selfish and self-centered to me.
Sorry, whatever you paid for your connection STILL has no bearing on whether I should take your packets.
If SPEWS says there are spammers on your class B, (or even your class A, for that matter), I'm not going to listen to you.
Wow. Just...wow. I think this is more than a sufficent example of that attitude that makes people hate blocklist supporters so vehemently.
Go ahead and start blocking class A's with spammers...You sound anti-social enough that you probably didn't ever want to talk to those people anyway. And Heaven forbid that a SPEWS listing might be...wrong, too.
If SPEWS says there are spammers on your class B, (or even your class A, for that matter), I'm not going to listen to you.
If you need to talk to me that bad, then it's up to YOU, not ME, to try another route. If that means you change ISPs, then maybe your former ISP will learn that the net is *voluntary*, and that they'd better shape up if they want other people to listen to their traffic.
Again, this is not a viable solution for the general populace. People cannot simply change ISP's on a whim...Oftentimes, they're already on the only decent ISP in their area, or even the only one that exists in that area. More likely, they'll just start ignoring you, if you can't be reached by phone or at another email or something.
I don't give a damn what you pay for your net connection. I care whether my mailbox gets filled up with spam. If I have to take spam to get mail from you, then I'll forego the great privilege of reading your messages.
Damn, man, do you think you could sound like any more like an asshole?
Maybe it's a new concept for you, but some people do care how much they pay for their net connection, and they can't change providers on a whim just because someone running SPEWS or another blocklist is a careless zealot.
Let me guess, you think i'm completely wrong, but...what's that? You haven't done a formal poll either? Okay then.
Anyway, I guess it would be an aggregate opinion, based on what i've read while surfing Slashdot, Fark, SomethingAwful, some public mailing lists for government installations, various smaller sites around the web, and reading NANAE itself.
The reputation that list has did not come out of nowhere- pretending it did won't help much.
Remember, the Internet is a cooperative enviroment. In the older days, if one node was screwing up the rest of the network, it got pulled, and be damned if you were using it.
Gee, maybe most people have figured out that it's not a good idea to throw the baby out with the bathwater these days?
Sorry, but not everyone shares the attitude of the holier-than-thou asses on NANAE.
I agree with most of your post, but this part bears some discussion:
There was an informal poll held in NANAE (network.admin.net-abuse.email) on how mail server admins block all of 200.0.0.0/8. And dozens if not hundreds of people replied they do block all of it. How long before it becomes thousands of networks block your country for spam abuse?
From all appearances, those on NANAE are seen as grouchy, stubborn, drunk-with-power, vindictive nerds by most of those outside the list. Don't go thinking you're going to impress anybody with informal polls or whatever done by them.