Telengard, by Avalon Hill, had a load time of about 15 minutes... so I feel your pain:)
Longest tape load time I can recall was "Manic Miner" on my c64 - took about 25 minutes to load. The best games were the ones with Invadaload on them - a really neat, light space-invaders clone you could play while the tape was spooling.
Heh. Maybe you didn't have the Optional 16K RAM expansion pack for your Vic20.:) I did, and used it to write my first programs.
We had several games for it, some of them on tape, but the best ones were the cartridge-based games that plugged into the back. We had a clone of Q*bert that was quite fun.
Yes, yes indeed. You are preaching to the choir, for I am an expat in the US.:) But don't forget that gas is expensive in the UK because it's taxed very heavily. That's a social policy decision made by successive British governments, and accepted by the voters. Take away the tax burden, and UK gas would cost about the same as it does over here.
High gas tax wouldn't work here now - since the infrastructure was built on the assumption of cheap fuel (and cheap land, which let you build lots of sprawl). You can't undo several decades of urban/suburban/rural design decisions by raising gas taxes, unfortunately. Ironically (or perhaps tellingly) the cities with the best public transit (New York, Boston, DC) are also the places with the most expensive land. Where land is cheap, you get sprawl and no public transportation. I'm not sure that'd stand up in Urban Design Court, but it seems pretty interesting to me.
your economic arguments has a lot of holes in it, in that their disposal income package is smaller.
Well, you can also look at tax burden (stayed roughly the same over the last 20 years, and still low compared to Europe) but the whole point of *MEDIAN* wages is that it's the point of which half the people earn more, half the people earn less. It's a good measure of overall wealth, and how wealth has changed over time for average people. Honestly! You're probably thinking of a mean average, which is distorted by the wealth disparity between the very rich and the very poor.
You're right in that it doesn't take into account where the money goes. I don't have any data on that, but I suspect that less of it is going to savings, more of it is going to service debt. Which is obviously not a very healthy thing.
Median wages mean nothing if they don't take into account where the money goes, the relative debt levels and how much of those wages go to finance the debt, and the relative savings rates.
That is so true! I'm especially worried about folks who have used 'creative' financing to get a mortgage. There's folks out there who are paying 40 - 50% of their *net* pay for an interest-only mortgage. That ain't right! Not only does it mean they have no spare money for other things (like gas, or savings) but once that interest-only converts to a regular mortgage, quite possibly at a higher interest rate than today's mortgages, then they'll be looking at foreclosure or premature sale.
I've yet to find any comprehensive study on consumer expenditures, though, and how they've changed over time. It'd be interesting to see how the food / shelter / luxuries / debt servicing / saving ratio has changed over time.
This isn't a criticism of your post; more of a follow-on that you may find interesting.
The highest gas price here in the south bay is $2.95 for regular. Although the premium mixes are well north of $3. San Jose Gas Prices is a great site to watch price changes over time. And find cheap gas.:)
But yea, prices are approaching 1983 levels. But one thing to note is that median incomes are much higher now than they were back in '83 - so while gas peaked at $3.03 in 2005 dollars, the median wage in '83 was $28,400 in 2003 dollars. Which compares to a 2003 median wage of $32,200. Figure the 2005 median wage would be a few points above that, but we'll stick with the '03 figures for simplicity.
Bottom line; people are richer now than they were back in '83. so in relative terms even the $3.03 peak price is below what it *actually* cost to buy gas back in '83. You'd need to boost it up by, what, about 15% (around $3.45-ish, as the average national pump price for regular) to get the *real* peak-peak.
In those term while gas is expensive right now, it's still got a ways to go before we get to historic highs. And given that the gas crisis caused a massive recession back in the early 80s, this is probably a good thing.:)
The Dev team got told today that they are being moved back to boston after having been in california for a year or less.
Heh. Let me translate that for you.
The Suits have decided that the LA Office was a failure. So they're "moving Live back to Boston". What that really means is they've decided to move the *office* back to Boston. They could care less if any of the LA crew move. If they don't, it just means they wrap AC1 up a few months earlier, or hire a bunch of wetback coders from Brown at half the price for a few months. But make no mistake - AC1 is on the block in the next 12 months. The 'move' is just a way to trim expenses and let the Suits move back to the Mothership with some decorum prior to the axe falling on AC1.
Also, Turbine really went to the shitter after the founders bailed. Not that I blame them, but Turbine's been a very toxic place for a few years now.
I thought it was so self-evident that it required no further elaboration. But since you asked:
Atari VCS launched in 1977 for $249.99 $811.21 in 2005 Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1985 for $199.99 $354.91 in 2005 SEGA Genesis launched in 1989 for $249.99 $389.67 in 2005 NeoGeo launched in 1990 for $699.99
$1041.12 in 2005 Super Nintendo launched in 1991 for $199.99
$282.21 in 2005 Jaguar launched in 1993 for $249.99
$328.69 in 2005 3DO Interactive Multiplayer launched in 1993 for $699.95 $920.30 in 2005 SEGA Saturn launched in 1995 for $399.99 $497.66 in 2005 Nintendo 64 launched in 1996 for $199.99
$242.75 in 2005 SEGA Dreamcast launches in 1999 for $199.99 $228.09 in 2005 PlayStation launched in 1995 for $299.99 $372.01 in 2005 PlayStation 2 launched in 2000 for $299.99 $333.15 in 2005 Xbox Launched in 2001 for $299.99
$325.34 in 2005 GameCube launched in 2001 for $199.99
$216.89 in 2005
There's a very interesting discussion of this all over at IGN.
What this does *not* take into account, though, is the massive drops in price of PCs. Here the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that a mainstream PC in 1993 cost $2,200 in 1993 dollars - around $3,000 in 2005 (actually $2,945 in 2004 dollars using a.747 conversion factor):
Computers have consistently exhibited rapid technological change that must be taken into account to avoid biased estimates of inflation.2 For example, a mainstream desktop computer that sold for $2,200 in 1993 may have included a 33 megahertz (MHz) central processing unit (CPU), 8 megabytes (MB) of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), a 210MB hard drive, a 15-inch monitor, as well as many other defining technological characteristics. In 1998, however, a desktop computer that sold for $2,200 could easily have been configured with a 450MHz CPU, 128MB of SDRAM, an 8,000MB hard drive, a 17-inch monitor, and included other advanced features unavailable in 1993, such as a DVD player and 3D-graphics capabilities. In this example the observed prices for the 1993 and 1998 computers are identical. However, technological change over this 5-year period has been remarkable: CPU speed (MHz) jumped 1,263 percent (this actually understates the change in CPU performance3), system memory increased 1,500 percent, hard drive capacity increased 3,700 percent, and monitor size increased 13 percent.
So yes, to conclude: One of the advantages of consoles over PCs was price. that advantage has eroded significantly. A 1993 Jaguar cost $249 ($330 in 2005 dollars) vs a $2,200 ($3,000 in 2005 prices) average PC.
A ten to one price difference.
Depending on how you define 'average' PC (The Wall Street Journal says it's around $600 in 2005, but what do they know?), that price differential between the 360 ($300) and an 'average' PC ($600 - $1200) is down to 2 to 4 to one.
I repeat: One of the advantages of consoles over PCs was price. that advantage has eroded significantly.
I was in the beta from very early on, and it was obvious to me back then that AC2 wasn't going to be a success. It just didn't stand out from the other MMORPGs (and compared to DAOC, it didn't shine at all, except on graphics).
What's really been key, though, is that for it's entire life, AC2 has been dwarfed by AC1: itself not a very big game, but it says volumes about the game when you can't even convert a majority of your AC1 players over to AC2.
I think it'd be a pain to code.:-) And that's just the items. Many abilities are chosen at various levels, and they'd need to be rolled back to their (pre-high-level) choices. So if the game doesn't track level picks, they'd have to add that functionality.
Anyway, I'd categorise it as a 'non-trivial' fix. Blizzard runs localized servers already so they could apply this patch to just the China servers, but it forks the code even more, which places an additional burden on the core dev and QA teams.
Dude, they were pimping Vicodin. That pretty much defines the street when it comes to 'legal' abused painkillers. First day in the ED, my wife is hit up by some crusty girl saying "Doc, I need my Vics...":-)
So yeah, this doc should have been putting his DEA # on those scrips, or they wouldn't (shouldn't?) have been filled.
Yeah, it won't be bleeding edge, but it'll play most current games just fine. I usually use the Ars Technica Buyer's Guide, and they currently have a pretty sweet gaming box for $1,226, including an LCD monitor, 250GB hard drive and DVD-RW. Not too shabby.
Oh, wow. Crawl out of the wrong side of bed today, did we? Or did your mom pitch you out so she could get at the washing machine?
Well, now we've got the petty insults out of the way, let's turn to the real meat. My point, suitably embellished for the internet, was thus: "As price of PC hardware declines, price of consoles increases".
Remember PS1? Remember how much that cost relative to the cost of a decent gaming PC of the time?
Now look at 360 (let's take the $400 one, since it comes with the hard drive). Now compare that to the price of a semi-decent gaming rig. I'm betting (and my point being) that the ratio between these two values has decreased over time, eroding one of the big selling points of consoles.
It used to be that consoles outsold PCs because PCs were so expensive that their cost outweighed their upgradability.
Well, the 360 is both more expensive *and* isn't as upgradable. I can get a pretty sweet gaming rig (that I can use for other things, too) for less than $1,000.
And the corrolary from that is that how on *earth* did the doctor think he'd get away with that? The DEA has systems that track that kind of thing, and they're *very* public in letting doctors know about it. Supposedly the DEA monitors annual prescription rates of proscribed medications (pain meds, mostly) . I guess they saw the massive uptick in prescriptions by this doctor and called the goon squad.
But again, how on *earth* did the doctor think he could get away with that?
but if they've done their jobs right it should accommodate such conditions very naturally and flawlessly.
Yes. It would also be the first time it's ever happened in an Enterprise-level network application.:)
For example, items that require a certain level are merely unequipped, or skills could be unlearned. Simple, really.
But what if the character's bags are full? Send them to a special 'de-leveled' Vault account? Or trash them? And that's just one example. So you may well be a programmer, but I don't think it's quite as simple as you think it is. Especially not when we're talking about MMORPG code which is *never* neat and easy to manipulate.
Finally, if you're level 40 but still wearing level 30 junk, you need an upgrade badly.
example. Not everyone plays WoW and knows it intimately. I simplified so that people with only a general idea of how WoW works would grasp the key concept. But that eluded you, apparently.
Second, the original article, (which you clearly did not read)specifically said that was how the system was going to work. I just didn't think I needed to quote the entire article to make the point.
So, in conclusion, you've admirably demonstrated your low socialisation and intellect. Perhaps you would benefit from the Chinese MMORPG time limiter?
Development of the system is scheduled for completion at the end of September 2005. Internal testing is scheduled to begin in October of 2005. After internal testing, trial operations of the system will be held using the games "The Legend of Mir II" and "The World of Legend" operated by Shanda, "Westward Journey Online" and "Fantasy Westward Journey Online" operated by NetEase, "World of Warcraft" and "MU" operated by The9, "JX Online" and "First Myth Online" operated by Kingsoft, "The Legend of Mir 3G" operated by Optisp, "Lineage II" operated by SINA, and "Blade Online" operated by Sohu.
Compulsory deployment of the new system is expected to begin for all massive multiplayer online role-playing games and casual games in China in late 2005 or early 2006.
So they're forcing Blizzard et al, to add code to their games to a) tell if someone's playing in China b) de-level their character if they play for more then 3 hours straight. Sure, Blizzard runs China-only servers, but this kind of code monkeying (esp. if China wants to make it universe-aware, so you can't just skip between games once your 3 hours on WoW is up) could have a significant impact on game stability.
Example: in WoW, you de-level from 40 to 20. What happens to all your kit that requires level 30 to equip? Conditions like that could make the China WoW code quite a pain in the ass to maintain.
You will start as a Star Fleet Cadet (Year 1). You will be tasked with cleaning out an Infestation of Tribbles from the Jefferies tube on the USS Treadmill. You will be given a bent pipe (poor quality) and sent on your way.
You will then spend the next 10 hours beating Tribbles with this pipe to make it to Cadet (Year 2).
Perhaps by the time you graduate the Academy you will actually get to use ranged weapons. Which you will then use to shoot that annoying Ferengi kid from DS9.
Here in Palo Alto, the publicly owned (and turning a profit) utility that buys power from the same sources as PG&E charges us around 8c/KW for the first 400 KW, and charges peak below 12c/KW.
They have reports that cover this sort of thing. It costs money, but they get the data straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.
Of course, if you're just a podunk little outfit that they think will redistribute this stuff at a drop of a hat, they may refuse to sell it to you. But it can't hurt to ask.
Slashdot Mirror
Telengard, by Avalon Hill, had a load time of about 15 minutes... so I feel your pain :)
Longest tape load time I can recall was "Manic Miner" on my c64 - took about 25 minutes to load. The best games were the ones with Invadaload on them - a really neat, light space-invaders clone you could play while the tape was spooling.
Ah, memories!
Heh. Maybe you didn't have the Optional 16K RAM expansion pack for your Vic20. :) I did, and used it to write my first programs.
We had several games for it, some of them on tape, but the best ones were the cartridge-based games that plugged into the back. We had a clone of Q*bert that was quite fun.
Yes, yes indeed. You are preaching to the choir, for I am an expat in the US. :) But don't forget that gas is expensive in the UK because it's taxed very heavily. That's a social policy decision made by successive British governments, and accepted by the voters. Take away the tax burden, and UK gas would cost about the same as it does over here.
High gas tax wouldn't work here now - since the infrastructure was built on the assumption of cheap fuel (and cheap land, which let you build lots of sprawl). You can't undo several decades of urban/suburban/rural design decisions by raising gas taxes, unfortunately. Ironically (or perhaps tellingly) the cities with the best public transit (New York, Boston, DC) are also the places with the most expensive land. Where land is cheap, you get sprawl and no public transportation. I'm not sure that'd stand up in Urban Design Court, but it seems pretty interesting to me.
your economic arguments has a lot of holes in it, in that their disposal income package is smaller.
Well, you can also look at tax burden (stayed roughly the same over the last 20 years, and still low compared to Europe) but the whole point of *MEDIAN* wages is that it's the point of which half the people earn more, half the people earn less. It's a good measure of overall wealth, and how wealth has changed over time for average people. Honestly! You're probably thinking of a mean average, which is distorted by the wealth disparity between the very rich and the very poor.
You're right in that it doesn't take into account where the money goes. I don't have any data on that, but I suspect that less of it is going to savings, more of it is going to service debt. Which is obviously not a very healthy thing.
Median wages mean nothing if they don't take into account where the money goes, the relative debt levels and how much of those wages go to finance the debt, and the relative savings rates.
That is so true! I'm especially worried about folks who have used 'creative' financing to get a mortgage. There's folks out there who are paying 40 - 50% of their *net* pay for an interest-only mortgage. That ain't right! Not only does it mean they have no spare money for other things (like gas, or savings) but once that interest-only converts to a regular mortgage, quite possibly at a higher interest rate than today's mortgages, then they'll be looking at foreclosure or premature sale.
I've yet to find any comprehensive study on consumer expenditures, though, and how they've changed over time. It'd be interesting to see how the food / shelter / luxuries / debt servicing / saving ratio has changed over time.
This isn't a criticism of your post; more of a follow-on that you may find interesting.
:)
:)
The highest gas price here in the south bay is $2.95 for regular. Although the premium mixes are well north of $3. San Jose Gas Prices is a great site to watch price changes over time. And find cheap gas.
But yea, prices are approaching 1983 levels. But one thing to note is that median incomes are much higher now than they were back in '83 - so while gas peaked at $3.03 in 2005 dollars, the median wage in '83 was $28,400 in 2003 dollars. Which compares to a 2003 median wage of $32,200. Figure the 2005 median wage would be a few points above that, but we'll stick with the '03 figures for simplicity.
Bottom line; people are richer now than they were back in '83. so in relative terms even the $3.03 peak price is below what it *actually* cost to buy gas back in '83. You'd need to boost it up by, what, about 15% (around $3.45-ish, as the average national pump price for regular) to get the *real* peak-peak.
In those term while gas is expensive right now, it's still got a ways to go before we get to historic highs. And given that the gas crisis caused a massive recession back in the early 80s, this is probably a good thing.
The Dev team got told today that they are being moved back to boston after having been in california for a year or less.
Heh.
Let me translate that for you.
The Suits have decided that the LA Office was a failure. So they're "moving Live back to Boston". What that really means is they've decided to move the *office* back to Boston. They could care less if any of the LA crew move. If they don't, it just means they wrap AC1 up a few months earlier, or hire a bunch of wetback coders from Brown at half the price for a few months. But make no mistake - AC1 is on the block in the next 12 months. The 'move' is just a way to trim expenses and let the Suits move back to the Mothership with some decorum prior to the axe falling on AC1.
Also, Turbine really went to the shitter after the founders bailed. Not that I blame them, but Turbine's been a very toxic place for a few years now.
Atari VCS launched in 1977 for $249.99 $811.21 in 2005
Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1985 for $199.99 $354.91 in 2005
SEGA Genesis launched in 1989 for $249.99 $389.67 in 2005
NeoGeo launched in 1990 for $699.99
$1041.12 in 2005
Super Nintendo launched in 1991 for $199.99
$282.21 in 2005
Jaguar launched in 1993 for $249.99
$328.69 in 2005
3DO Interactive Multiplayer launched in 1993 for $699.95 $920.30 in 2005
SEGA Saturn launched in 1995 for $399.99 $497.66 in 2005
Nintendo 64 launched in 1996 for $199.99
$242.75 in 2005
SEGA Dreamcast launches in 1999 for $199.99 $228.09 in 2005
PlayStation launched in 1995 for $299.99 $372.01 in 2005
PlayStation 2 launched in 2000 for $299.99 $333.15 in 2005
Xbox Launched in 2001 for $299.99
$325.34 in 2005
GameCube launched in 2001 for $199.99
$216.89 in 2005
There's a very interesting discussion of this all over at IGN.
What this does *not* take into account, though, is the massive drops in price of PCs. Here the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that a mainstream PC in 1993 cost $2,200 in 1993 dollars - around $3,000 in 2005 (actually $2,945 in 2004 dollars using a
So yes, to conclude: One of the advantages of consoles over PCs was price. that advantage has eroded significantly. A 1993 Jaguar cost $249 ($330 in 2005 dollars) vs a $2,200 ($3,000 in 2005 prices) average PC.
A ten to one price difference.
Depending on how you define 'average' PC (The Wall Street Journal says it's around $600 in 2005, but what do they know?), that price differential between the 360 ($300) and an 'average' PC ($600 - $1200) is down to 2 to 4 to one.
I repeat: One of the advantages of consoles over PCs was price. that advantage has eroded significantly.
Comments, questions, thoughts?
I was in the beta from very early on, and it was obvious to me back then that AC2 wasn't going to be a success. It just didn't stand out from the other MMORPGs (and compared to DAOC, it didn't shine at all, except on graphics).
What's really been key, though, is that for it's entire life, AC2 has been dwarfed by AC1: itself not a very big game, but it says volumes about the game when you can't even convert a majority of your AC1 players over to AC2.
memcached is another option - livejournal and Wikipedia use that, it's light, easy to set up, and works very well on mostly-read MySQL sites.
Those are just ideas! What do you think?
:-) And that's just the items. Many abilities are chosen at various levels, and they'd need to be rolled back to their (pre-high-level) choices. So if the game doesn't track level picks, they'd have to add that functionality.
I think it'd be a pain to code.
Anyway, I'd categorise it as a 'non-trivial' fix. Blizzard runs localized servers already so they could apply this patch to just the China servers, but it forks the code even more, which places an additional burden on the core dev and QA teams.
Yeah, I meant proscribed, and I wrote what I meant. Sometimes I use long words in their correct context just to impress myself. :-)
Dude, they were pimping Vicodin. That pretty much defines the street when it comes to 'legal' abused painkillers. First day in the ED, my wife is hit up by some crusty girl saying "Doc, I need my Vics..." :-)
So yeah, this doc should have been putting his DEA # on those scrips, or they wouldn't (shouldn't?) have been filled.
Depends on your definition of 'sweet'. :)
Yeah, it won't be bleeding edge, but it'll play most current games just fine. I usually use the Ars Technica Buyer's Guide, and they currently have a pretty sweet gaming box for $1,226, including an LCD monitor, 250GB hard drive and DVD-RW. Not too shabby.
Oh, wow.
Crawl out of the wrong side of bed today, did we? Or did your mom pitch you out so she could get at the washing machine?
Well, now we've got the petty insults out of the way, let's turn to the real meat. My point, suitably embellished for the internet, was thus: "As price of PC hardware declines, price of consoles increases".
Remember PS1? Remember how much that cost relative to the cost of a decent gaming PC of the time?
Now look at 360 (let's take the $400 one, since it comes with the hard drive). Now compare that to the price of a semi-decent gaming rig. I'm betting (and my point being) that the ratio between these two values has decreased over time, eroding one of the big selling points of consoles.
In conclusion, you are a moron. Also, you smell.
It used to be that consoles outsold PCs because PCs were so expensive that their cost outweighed their upgradability.
Well, the 360 is both more expensive *and* isn't as upgradable. I can get a pretty sweet gaming rig (that I can use for other things, too) for less than $1,000.
And the corrolary from that is that how on *earth* did the doctor think he'd get away with that? The DEA has systems that track that kind of thing, and they're *very* public in letting doctors know about it. Supposedly the DEA monitors annual prescription rates of proscribed medications (pain meds, mostly) . I guess they saw the massive uptick in prescriptions by this doctor and called the goon squad.
But again, how on *earth* did the doctor think he could get away with that?
but if they've done their jobs right it should accommodate such conditions very naturally and flawlessly.
:)
Yes. It would also be the first time it's ever happened in an Enterprise-level network application.
For example, items that require a certain level are merely unequipped, or skills could be unlearned. Simple, really.
But what if the character's bags are full? Send them to a special 'de-leveled' Vault account? Or trash them? And that's just one example. So you may well be a programmer, but I don't think it's quite as simple as you think it is. Especially not when we're talking about MMORPG code which is *never* neat and easy to manipulate.
First, it was an example.
Finally, if you're level 40 but still wearing level 30 junk, you need an upgrade badly.
example. Not everyone plays WoW and knows it intimately. I simplified so that people with only a general idea of how WoW works would grasp the key concept. But that eluded you, apparently.
Second, the original article, (which you clearly did not read)specifically said that was how the system was going to work. I just didn't think I needed to quote the entire article to make the point.
So, in conclusion, you've admirably demonstrated your low socialisation and intellect. Perhaps you would benefit from the Chinese MMORPG time limiter?
Example: in WoW, you de-level from 40 to 20. What happens to all your kit that requires level 30 to equip? Conditions like that could make the China WoW code quite a pain in the ass to maintain.
You will start as a Star Fleet Cadet (Year 1). You will be tasked with cleaning out an Infestation of Tribbles from the Jefferies tube on the USS Treadmill. You will be given a bent pipe (poor quality) and sent on your way.
You will then spend the next 10 hours beating Tribbles with this pipe to make it to Cadet (Year 2).
Perhaps by the time you graduate the Academy you will actually get to use ranged weapons. Which you will then use to shoot that annoying Ferengi kid from DS9.
Screw that. I don't have time for community friendly posts! I'm too busy trolling slashdot and insulting n00bs. ;-)
, the search term 'GSM Picocell' turns up these guys who appear to sell a GSM-to-IP product exactly like that.
For the commercial providers, yes.
Here in Palo Alto, the publicly owned (and turning a profit) utility that buys power from the same sources as PG&E charges us around 8c/KW for the first 400 KW, and charges peak below 12c/KW.
They have reports that cover this sort of thing. It costs money, but they get the data straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.
Of course, if you're just a podunk little outfit that they think will redistribute this stuff at a drop of a hat, they may refuse to sell it to you. But it can't hurt to ask.