Except for MKV files, and except for certain codecs in AVI files, and except for OGM files, and except for certain subtitling schemes, and except for...
Sorry dude, the [native PS3 OS/XMB] doesn't play anywhere near "all the stuff" XBMC does:|
Re:I want a NASA virtual mission control!
on
PS3 Root Key Found
·
· Score: 1
What's ironic here is that an account at the bank, if only to be used as a clearing account in a situation like this, would actually *help*. Banks are beginning to offer accounts with virtually no fees so long as you keep a minimum amount of cash on deposit with them, usually $1,000 or so. I presume this is because most people these days go paycheque to paycheque and leave virtually nothing in their accounts in the meantime.
I can sympathize with the poster's situation, since I deal almost exclusively in cash myself. However, you know what I do when someone asks for payment in a form other than cash? I go to my bank, and they draft up a money order free of charge out of my savings account. I have yet to pay a single service fee to my bank for anything.
So, there's really no excuse for not having a bank account. Go open a savings account at your local bank or credit union, and use it as a clearing account for christ's sake. It's not like the hundred or thousand dollar deposit that you'll have to declare on your tax return will really make a difference, will it?
Yes, to elaborate further in the comment in the story, the best way to establish this kind of 'identity' scheme is to make use of a set of services. Andy Church makes a very good IRC Services package which is available at http://www.ircservices.za.net
which is more than capable for performing the task at hand.
You'll need an IRC daemon which is also able to be tightly integrated with services, and for that task, I recommend using Bahamut (available at http://bahamut.dal.net.
As the URL implies, it's the same IRCd that DALnet uses. In particular, you're looking for a channel mode which restricts channel access to registered clients only. In Bahamut, this is the +R channel mode (which is different from +r.)
Services has a channel option known as 'RESTRICTED' which will only allow people who are on that channel's access list into the channel. Everyone else will be kicked and banned automatically by services. Thus, you can have reasonable assurance that everyone who's in the channel has A) identified to their registered nick with services, and B) is supposed to be in the channel, since they're on that channel's access list. Furthermore, the status of someone's identity can be checked by doing '/MSG NickServ STATUS ', where is the nickname you want to know the status of. NickServ will then tell you if the nickname is identified to properly (i.e. via a password.)
Some of the more advanced IRC options include replacing the ancient 'ident' system with something more modern. On IRC, anyone who isn't 'identified' has a tilde (~) prefixed to their username. However, since almost anyone can put anything in the ident reply these days, this has become practically useless (it used to be that you could tell, with reasonable assurance, what user was coming from what Unix box with ident -- not so anymore.) Instead, it's possible to setup an authorization scheme that makes use of IRC's 'PASS' command to also 'identify' to a unique username.
My Synchronet IRCd (http://www.synchro.net/docs/ircd.txt)
makes use of this scheme by letting users be 'identified' whenever they provide the correct password and username that corresponds to the local BBS account (Synchronet is a very nice piece of BBS software for Linux/Win32/BSD/etc.) That way, a user coming online from a certain BBS without a tilde in their username is an indicator that they've identified correctly to their local BBS account. That's just one of the ways ident can be replaced to provide something more useful.
Synchronet is still a very popular piece of BBS software that's used by a great number of BBS's worldwide even today. It's still being actively developed, and is 100% open source, running on
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and a handful of others (including Win32.) Its features are beginning to rival even those of WorldGroup, with all its built-in services. It can even run old-school DOS doors under Linux by using DOSEMU. When you compare this to other BBS packages out there (such as Falken BBS, which has all but stopped development since changing owners,) it's nice to see BBS software that's still being actively developed with daily CVS commits.
In related news, Fidonet is still alive and well, and when you compare it against today's spam-infested usenet, Fidonet is actually quite the attractive alternative. BBS's may be outdated and more a novelty these days than anything, but it's still the only thing out there that has that nice, close-knit 'family-like' atmosphere.
The unit that the article author is speaking of is known as a "Fixed Subscriber Unit", which is rapidly becoming the choice method to replace the old Autotel and Mobitel systems. If you think it's bad now, just imagine what it was like trying to get *any* data at all over the old method of doing things. These new FSU's are quite an improvement over what was used in the past. No, Motorola isn't the only company which manufacturs FSU's, however, they are among the best. Furthermore, any other FSU by any other company will yield around the same (if not worse) results.
Your only other alternative would be to build your own network out there (either by a microwave or 802.11 longshot, or by running some of your own copper over the distance from the nearest telephone CO.) Sattelite Internet service may also be an option, although possibly expensive. At least with a FSU your only initial cost is in the capital expense, the recurring expense is just as if you had a regular cellular telephone (i.e. inexpensive.)
Speeds can't get much better over a cellular network because of all the latency involved. Just be thankful that you've got a CDMA FSU as opposed to one that uses the old-school analog AMPS. The signal's gotta go up to the shack, over the air (a great distance by the sound of it), into the cell tower, then trunk it all the way back to your ISP, where the signal gets converted. That's a lot of delay, not withstanding the sound quality factors, you're not going to get much better.
Naturally, I'm speaking of carrying an actual modem carrier over CDMA (as opposed to something like 1x, which is raw data.) Personally, I'd try to get some 802.11 longshot going, perhaps with the co-operation of your local amateur radio group, especially since you have the facilities atop the mountain already.
This is just the problem with MMORPG's, no matter how hard you try, and unless you have absolutely no life, no job, and don't mind going a few days without a shower, there's absolutely no way you can expect to complete any MMORPG in any satisfying amount of time. In fact, they'll usually take years to complete even if you *do* spend obscene amounts of time working on it.
Then, in about ten years from now, it'll be gone. Unlike the other games on your shelf, which you can play for nostalgic purposes whenever you like, the MMORPG won't be available for you to play. At least now I can still check out my old Final Fantasy IV games, or play through again in a matter of 30 hours or so. MMORPG's don't offer that, and nobody will be saying "hey, let's check out Everquest" 10 or 20 years from now.
This is all notwithstanding that most MMORPG's are boring click-a-thons, of course. Click, watch your character go *hrf* over and over, and then watch as you gain a fraction of a percentage to advance to the next level. Yay.
Strangely, MUDs still retain their appeal for me even after these MMORPG's have emerged. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I need to fork out nothing as opposed to a bill for an MMORPG that rivals my power bill? Who knows.
This is exactly the same sort of problem I had recently when moving from the world of CD-R's to the world of DVD-R. Granted, I wouldn't *sue* over it, but it's pretty frustrating sometimes.
For example, a 700MB CD-R (advertised as a "700MB CD-R") is actually 734,003,200 bytes. However, a 4.7GB DVD-R (advertised as a "4.7GB DVD-R") is really only just above 4,690,000,000 bytes or so. When you do the division upwards, it becomes a much-reduced 4.4GB.
This caused me to bang my head against my desk for about an hour as I tried to figure out why the software was telling me that the ISO was too large. "But it's only a 4.6GB ISO!"
I just wanted to note, as someone who used to work for Nextel, that there's a common misconception that Nextel's 'Direct Connect' service is a real radio or walkie-talkie. Naturally, all cell phones are just complex radios, but DC doesn't magically turn your cell phone into a traditional simplex radio.
The difference is that the iDEN protocol was built from the ground up for DC, so Nextel's DC service will always be faster. You should still consider a 'Nextel DC' to be the same as a 'Verizon DC' insofar that they're both still cell phone calls, but with a little higher priority in navigating through the network.
I'd agree that Final Fantasy XI is in fact a *good* MMORPG, but unfortunately it has very little to offer in the way of being a 'traditional' Final Fantasy. I, too, am in the beta, and I'd encourage everyone to read my journal entry about it at http://slashdot.org/~cyan/journal if they'd like to see my detailed thoughts about it. But, in short:
While the music makes us feel at home, the gameplay seems to follow the traditional "Everquest" style of MMORPG. SquareSoft could've gone for something very unique and different for "Final Fantasy Online", but instead we've got a game that looks like they hired most of the Everquest development team. Instead of experience tables being 'serial' or 'linear' (where you gain levels at relatively the same pace over the course of the game), you're forced to suffer through the 'exponential' system where the experience required to gain a level next is double what it was previously, and experience offered up by monsters is typically half. This, of course, is designed in such a way that you're forced to play longer to actually get to those high levels -- which means more money bucked up to PlayOnline.
Walking around from place to place takes *way* too long (sometimes five minutes or more, just to get across the other side of the city), and combat has become a boring chore instead of exciting like the previous Final Fantasies. Nobody likes to just sit there while your character goes "hrrf!" over and over again as he auto-attacks. Half the fun was managing things via the combat menu system. Then, it took me four levels to obtain another spell.
Of course, this is all notwithstanding the fact that there sqeems to be no solid story at all.. just a bunch of subquests (like in all other MMORPG's) that hint here or there at certain things. And *then* there was a huge problem of nobody wanting to team up with you at all to go out on party adventures, while this may be a symptom of the beta (not enough people), it was rather frustrating and seemed counter-productive to the spirit of the game.
In all honesty, Square has made the same mistake with FFXI as they did with "The Spirits Within", they should've simply called the game "Vana'diel" and left Final Fantasy out of it -- then at least people could've enjoyed it for what it is -- a nice MMORPG but ultimately not a Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy means "Completable in about forty hours, with rapid level progression, lots of treasure and goodies, a well-rounded storyline, and complete control over your party characters." As you can imagine, this isn't it.
Again, it's good as far as MMORPG's go, but bad as far as a Final Fantasy is concerned. I've been playing since Final Fantasy IV was released, and have since had the pleasure of playing all of them (that means I through XI now,) and they've all been relatively the same (which is a good thing!) until FFXI. FFXI broke things pretty badly. Besides, why pay for FFXI when you can just play something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights for free? Sorry Square, my dollars will be better spent somewhere else.
As for those of you complaining about Final Fantasy X, I thought it was actually one of the better ones. It took me the same amount of time to complete as any other Final Fantasy, offered that same amount of satisfying hack-and-slash (perhaps even more -- that monster arena will keep you busy for many, many hours), and the sphere grid system is an insanely great idea. Especially when you get into the late stages of the game where 'customization' of the grid is possible.
But isn't it funny that when there was an initial backlash against FFXI, Square quickly backpedaled and said, "Wait! We've got FFXII and FFX-2 in the works, too! Don't go away:("?
Two games that *have* been remade recently are Final Fantasy I and II, released here as 'Final Fantasy Origins.' I actually just finished playing both remakes myself, and they are *fantastic*. I think if there's a stellar example of how a remake should be done, everyone should look at FFO, as it takes all the good features of both games, and keeps them exactly the same. Furthermore, they even changed some of the 'annoying' things of both games. Such as the inability to auto-target if an enemy dies -- previously if you tried to target an enemy and then it died, you'd 'miss.' Of course, they put in an option to retain this behavior if that's what you'd like.
The remake brings both games up to approximately Final Fantasy VI standards, although the music far exceeds those standards. For me, the music is an important part of any game, and I was really impressed with how FFI and FFII's music was remixed. For those completionists out there, such as myself, FFO has some extra features that lets you keep track of how many enemies you've killed, what items you've picked up from the dungeons, and allows you to bring these stats along with you once you complete the game and start anew.
I was actually impressed that they released it for the PS1 as opposed for the PS2, because now it can be played on both systems (and, *cough*on some emulators too*cough*), and there's no reason graphically to have made it a PS2 exclusive. If you're a die-hard Final Fantasy fan like myself, this is definitely a 'must-have', it's great. It's even better for those of us who have a hard time tolerating the old NES graphics and analog music;)
And I agree with some of those posts above: M.U.L.E. *must* be remade eventually, it continues to be one of the best games ever. I still play it over and over on my various C64 emulators. It's great fun having three other friends over to play M.U.L.E. as silly as that sounds, the game is still great and has tons of life left in it:)
Here at work, we recently (two weeks ago) implemented a four-block wireless shot direct from our main office, and it works like a charm. We used two Linux machines as the routers, with the PCMCIA-cs modules loaded along with the "wlan2" module which is available from Lucent here. The WaveLAN "silver" 2.4mbit cards were used on an ISA-PCMCIA bridge.
We got a professional communications company to run up antennas on towers on both sides of the shot, and it's great, no problems at all. We commonly get 5ms roundtrip times, and can push well over 1.6mbit (200Kb/sec), 0% packet loss, and the weather makes no difference from what we can see (and we've been through some heavy snowfall and rain already). As for the technical setup, in all honesty, any competent sysadmin should be able to set up such a connection in a snap -- it's that easy.
If it's a long outdoor wireless shot (as opposed to wireless for an indoors network only), you might be able to go out and climb onto a tower and do it on your own, but there are companies which exist to do that (antenna installation, pointing, etc) already. Then again, if you're trying to save cash, and want to hook up your friend a block or two away into your cable (or *DSL) connection via masq or whatever, then I suppose you could do that:)
However, it's not like this stuff is cheap, the cards are commonly $200cdn or so, with the antennas being just as much. Low-loss cable for the antenna is expensive, too. There are a lot of things to factor in, but all in all, it's all pretty cool stuff:)
It's great to see more and more companies supporting wireless on Linux, though, as it means not only will we get more robust drivers, but installation will be easier, and support will be broader. Of course, it should be obvious that anyone using wireless for the same thing we did (i.e. linking up two networks across a few blocks, or even kilometers away), they'll be using anything but Win* to do the routing work for the greatest amount of stability.
I agree that Geeks in Space should probably make it to the front page somehow -- I mean, this episode was great; I'm passing it around among friends as I type this, yet, they didn't know about it at all since it wasn't on the "front page". (And they're enjoying it a lot).
Geeks in Space is great, I think we can all agree with that.
Would it not be best, then, to have a seperate "topic" for the 'radio' section of slashdot? That way, people could filter it out if they don't care, and the people who want to grab it right away can.
I think it's pretty clear that most people just don't know about it so far -- this is the third post, and if I'm reading the date and time right, almost a day has gone by. Realistically, this thing should've had 100+ comments by now or something.
At any rate, keep up the great work, Rob + co. Maybe a positive side to this is that The Sync doesn't suffer from the slashdot effect whenever a new episode is posted;)
Slashdot Mirror
lol wut?
There's a 7-11 at practically every street corner in Vancouver.
The PS3 ALREADY PLAYS all the stuff XMBC does.
Except for MKV files, and except for certain codecs in AVI files, and except for OGM files, and except for certain subtitling schemes, and except for...
Sorry dude, the [native PS3 OS/XMB] doesn't play anywhere near "all the stuff" XBMC does :|
lol, wut?
To answer your question: http://www.textfiles.com/underconstruction/
Already done. http://geociti.es/
What's ironic here is that an account at the bank, if only to be used as a clearing account in a situation like this, would actually *help*. Banks are beginning to offer accounts with virtually no fees so long as you keep a minimum amount of cash on deposit with them, usually $1,000 or so. I presume this is because most people these days go paycheque to paycheque and leave virtually nothing in their accounts in the meantime.
I can sympathize with the poster's situation, since I deal almost exclusively in cash myself. However, you know what I do when someone asks for payment in a form other than cash? I go to my bank, and they draft up a money order free of charge out of my savings account. I have yet to pay a single service fee to my bank for anything.
So, there's really no excuse for not having a bank account. Go open a savings account at your local bank or credit union, and use it as a clearing account for christ's sake. It's not like the hundred or thousand dollar deposit that you'll have to declare on your tax return will really make a difference, will it?
Yes, to elaborate further in the comment in the story, the best way to establish this kind of 'identity' scheme is to make use of a set of services. Andy Church makes a very good IRC Services package which is available at http://www.ircservices.za.net which is more than capable for performing the task at hand.
You'll need an IRC daemon which is also able to be tightly integrated with services, and for that task, I recommend using Bahamut (available at http://bahamut.dal.net. As the URL implies, it's the same IRCd that DALnet uses. In particular, you're looking for a channel mode which restricts channel access to registered clients only. In Bahamut, this is the +R channel mode (which is different from +r.)
Services has a channel option known as 'RESTRICTED' which will only allow people who are on that channel's access list into the channel. Everyone else will be kicked and banned automatically by services. Thus, you can have reasonable assurance that everyone who's in the channel has A) identified to their registered nick with services, and B) is supposed to be in the channel, since they're on that channel's access list. Furthermore, the status of someone's identity can be checked by doing '/MSG NickServ STATUS ', where is the nickname you want to know the status of. NickServ will then tell you if the nickname is identified to properly (i.e. via a password.)
Some of the more advanced IRC options include replacing the ancient 'ident' system with something more modern. On IRC, anyone who isn't 'identified' has a tilde (~) prefixed to their username. However, since almost anyone can put anything in the ident reply these days, this has become practically useless (it used to be that you could tell, with reasonable assurance, what user was coming from what Unix box with ident -- not so anymore.) Instead, it's possible to setup an authorization scheme that makes use of IRC's 'PASS' command to also 'identify' to a unique username.
My Synchronet IRCd (http://www.synchro.net/docs/ircd.txt) makes use of this scheme by letting users be 'identified' whenever they provide the correct password and username that corresponds to the local BBS account (Synchronet is a very nice piece of BBS software for Linux/Win32/BSD/etc.) That way, a user coming online from a certain BBS without a tilde in their username is an indicator that they've identified correctly to their local BBS account. That's just one of the ways ident can be replaced to provide something more useful.
Synchronet is still a very popular piece of BBS software that's used by a great number of BBS's worldwide even today. It's still being actively developed, and is 100% open source, running on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and a handful of others (including Win32.) Its features are beginning to rival even those of WorldGroup, with all its built-in services. It can even run old-school DOS doors under Linux by using DOSEMU. When you compare this to other BBS packages out there (such as Falken BBS, which has all but stopped development since changing owners,) it's nice to see BBS software that's still being actively developed with daily CVS commits.
You can check out a list of BBS's running Synchronet (many of them with friendly, active sysops) at http://www.synchro.net/sbbslist.html, or a bigger list of BBS's (all checked to be active on at least a monthly basis) at http://www.dmine.com/telnet/. You can, of course, find out more of Synchronet at http://www.synchro.net.
In related news, Fidonet is still alive and well, and when you compare it against today's spam-infested usenet, Fidonet is actually quite the attractive alternative. BBS's may be outdated and more a novelty these days than anything, but it's still the only thing out there that has that nice, close-knit 'family-like' atmosphere.
The unit that the article author is speaking of is known as a "Fixed Subscriber Unit", which is rapidly becoming the choice method to replace the old Autotel and Mobitel systems. If you think it's bad now, just imagine what it was like trying to get *any* data at all over the old method of doing things. These new FSU's are quite an improvement over what was used in the past. No, Motorola isn't the only company which manufacturs FSU's, however, they are among the best. Furthermore, any other FSU by any other company will yield around the same (if not worse) results.
Your only other alternative would be to build your own network out there (either by a microwave or 802.11 longshot, or by running some of your own copper over the distance from the nearest telephone CO.) Sattelite Internet service may also be an option, although possibly expensive. At least with a FSU your only initial cost is in the capital expense, the recurring expense is just as if you had a regular cellular telephone (i.e. inexpensive.)
Speeds can't get much better over a cellular network because of all the latency involved. Just be thankful that you've got a CDMA FSU as opposed to one that uses the old-school analog AMPS. The signal's gotta go up to the shack, over the air (a great distance by the sound of it), into the cell tower, then trunk it all the way back to your ISP, where the signal gets converted. That's a lot of delay, not withstanding the sound quality factors, you're not going to get much better.
Naturally, I'm speaking of carrying an actual modem carrier over CDMA (as opposed to something like 1x, which is raw data.) Personally, I'd try to get some 802.11 longshot going, perhaps with the co-operation of your local amateur radio group, especially since you have the facilities atop the mountain already.
This is just the problem with MMORPG's, no matter how hard you try, and unless you have absolutely no life, no job, and don't mind going a few days without a shower, there's absolutely no way you can expect to complete any MMORPG in any satisfying amount of time. In fact, they'll usually take years to complete even if you *do* spend obscene amounts of time working on it.
Then, in about ten years from now, it'll be gone. Unlike the other games on your shelf, which you can play for nostalgic purposes whenever you like, the MMORPG won't be available for you to play. At least now I can still check out my old Final Fantasy IV games, or play through again in a matter of 30 hours or so. MMORPG's don't offer that, and nobody will be saying "hey, let's check out Everquest" 10 or 20 years from now.
This is all notwithstanding that most MMORPG's are boring click-a-thons, of course. Click, watch your character go *hrf* over and over, and then watch as you gain a fraction of a percentage to advance to the next level. Yay.
Strangely, MUDs still retain their appeal for me even after these MMORPG's have emerged. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I need to fork out nothing as opposed to a bill for an MMORPG that rivals my power bill? Who knows.
This is exactly the same sort of problem I had recently when moving from the world of CD-R's to the world of DVD-R. Granted, I wouldn't *sue* over it, but it's pretty frustrating sometimes.
For example, a 700MB CD-R (advertised as a "700MB CD-R") is actually 734,003,200 bytes. However, a 4.7GB DVD-R (advertised as a "4.7GB DVD-R") is really only just above 4,690,000,000 bytes or so. When you do the division upwards, it becomes a much-reduced 4.4GB.
This caused me to bang my head against my desk for about an hour as I tried to figure out why the software was telling me that the ISO was too large. "But it's only a 4.6GB ISO!"
Agh.
I just wanted to note, as someone who used to work for Nextel, that there's a common misconception that Nextel's 'Direct Connect' service is a real radio or walkie-talkie. Naturally, all cell phones are just complex radios, but DC doesn't magically turn your cell phone into a traditional simplex radio.
The difference is that the iDEN protocol was built from the ground up for DC, so Nextel's DC service will always be faster. You should still consider a 'Nextel DC' to be the same as a 'Verizon DC' insofar that they're both still cell phone calls, but with a little higher priority in navigating through the network.
I'd agree that Final Fantasy XI is in fact a *good* MMORPG, but unfortunately it has very little to offer in the way of being a 'traditional' Final Fantasy. I, too, am in the beta, and I'd encourage everyone to read my journal entry about it at http://slashdot.org/~cyan/journal if they'd like to see my detailed thoughts about it. But, in short:
While the music makes us feel at home, the gameplay seems to follow the traditional "Everquest" style of MMORPG. SquareSoft could've gone for something very unique and different for "Final Fantasy Online", but instead we've got a game that looks like they hired most of the Everquest development team. Instead of experience tables being 'serial' or 'linear' (where you gain levels at relatively the same pace over the course of the game), you're forced to suffer through the 'exponential' system where the experience required to gain a level next is double what it was previously, and experience offered up by monsters is typically half. This, of course, is designed in such a way that you're forced to play longer to actually get to those high levels -- which means more money bucked up to PlayOnline.
Walking around from place to place takes *way* too long (sometimes five minutes or more, just to get across the other side of the city), and combat has become a boring chore instead of exciting like the previous Final Fantasies. Nobody likes to just sit there while your character goes "hrrf!" over and over again as he auto-attacks. Half the fun was managing things via the combat menu system. Then, it took me four levels to obtain another spell.
Of course, this is all notwithstanding the fact that there sqeems to be no solid story at all.. just a bunch of subquests (like in all other MMORPG's) that hint here or there at certain things. And *then* there was a huge problem of nobody wanting to team up with you at all to go out on party adventures, while this may be a symptom of the beta (not enough people), it was rather frustrating and seemed counter-productive to the spirit of the game.
In all honesty, Square has made the same mistake with FFXI as they did with "The Spirits Within", they should've simply called the game "Vana'diel" and left Final Fantasy out of it -- then at least people could've enjoyed it for what it is -- a nice MMORPG but ultimately not a Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy means "Completable in about forty hours, with rapid level progression, lots of treasure and goodies, a well-rounded storyline, and complete control over your party characters." As you can imagine, this isn't it.
Again, it's good as far as MMORPG's go, but bad as far as a Final Fantasy is concerned. I've been playing since Final Fantasy IV was released, and have since had the pleasure of playing all of them (that means I through XI now,) and they've all been relatively the same (which is a good thing!) until FFXI. FFXI broke things pretty badly. Besides, why pay for FFXI when you can just play something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights for free? Sorry Square, my dollars will be better spent somewhere else.
As for those of you complaining about Final Fantasy X, I thought it was actually one of the better ones. It took me the same amount of time to complete as any other Final Fantasy, offered that same amount of satisfying hack-and-slash (perhaps even more -- that monster arena will keep you busy for many, many hours), and the sphere grid system is an insanely great idea. Especially when you get into the late stages of the game where 'customization' of the grid is possible.
But isn't it funny that when there was an initial backlash against FFXI, Square quickly backpedaled and said, "Wait! We've got FFXII and FFX-2 in the works, too! Don't go away :("?
Two games that *have* been remade recently are Final Fantasy I and II, released here as 'Final Fantasy Origins.' I actually just finished playing both remakes myself, and they are *fantastic*. I think if there's a stellar example of how a remake should be done, everyone should look at FFO, as it takes all the good features of both games, and keeps them exactly the same. Furthermore, they even changed some of the 'annoying' things of both games. Such as the inability to auto-target if an enemy dies -- previously if you tried to target an enemy and then it died, you'd 'miss.' Of course, they put in an option to retain this behavior if that's what you'd like.
;)
:)
The remake brings both games up to approximately Final Fantasy VI standards, although the music far exceeds those standards. For me, the music is an important part of any game, and I was really impressed with how FFI and FFII's music was remixed. For those completionists out there, such as myself, FFO has some extra features that lets you keep track of how many enemies you've killed, what items you've picked up from the dungeons, and allows you to bring these stats along with you once you complete the game and start anew.
I was actually impressed that they released it for the PS1 as opposed for the PS2, because now it can be played on both systems (and, *cough*on some emulators too*cough*), and there's no reason graphically to have made it a PS2 exclusive. If you're a die-hard Final Fantasy fan like myself, this is definitely a 'must-have', it's great. It's even better for those of us who have a hard time tolerating the old NES graphics and analog music
And I agree with some of those posts above: M.U.L.E. *must* be remade eventually, it continues to be one of the best games ever. I still play it over and over on my various C64 emulators. It's great fun having three other friends over to play M.U.L.E. as silly as that sounds, the game is still great and has tons of life left in it
Here at work, we recently (two weeks ago) implemented a four-block wireless shot direct from our main office, and it works like a charm. We used two Linux machines as the routers, with the PCMCIA-cs modules loaded along with the "wlan2" module which is available from Lucent here. The WaveLAN "silver" 2.4mbit cards were used on an ISA-PCMCIA bridge.
We got a professional communications company to run up antennas on towers on both sides of the shot, and it's great, no problems at all. We commonly get 5ms roundtrip times, and can push well over 1.6mbit (200Kb/sec), 0% packet loss, and the weather makes no difference from what we can see (and we've been through some heavy snowfall and rain already). As for the technical setup, in all honesty, any competent sysadmin should be able to set up such a connection in a snap -- it's that easy.
If it's a long outdoor wireless shot (as opposed to wireless for an indoors network only), you might be able to go out and climb onto a tower and do it on your own, but there are companies which exist to do that (antenna installation, pointing, etc) already. Then again, if you're trying to save cash, and want to hook up your friend a block or two away into your cable (or *DSL) connection via masq or whatever, then I suppose you could do that :)
However, it's not like this stuff is cheap, the cards are commonly $200cdn or so, with the antennas being just as much. Low-loss cable for the antenna is expensive, too. There are a lot of things to factor in, but all in all, it's all pretty cool stuff :)
It's great to see more and more companies supporting wireless on Linux, though, as it means not only will we get more robust drivers, but installation will be easier, and support will be broader. Of course, it should be obvious that anyone using wireless for the same thing we did (i.e. linking up two networks across a few blocks, or even kilometers away), they'll be using anything but Win* to do the routing work for the greatest amount of stability.
I agree that Geeks in Space should probably make it to the front page somehow -- I mean, this episode was great; I'm passing it around among friends as I type this, yet, they didn't know about it at all since it wasn't on the "front page". (And they're enjoying it a lot).
Geeks in Space is great, I think we can all agree with that.
Would it not be best, then, to have a seperate "topic" for the 'radio' section of slashdot? That way, people could filter it out if they don't care, and the people who want to grab it right away can.
I think it's pretty clear that most people just don't know about it so far -- this is the third post, and if I'm reading the date and time right, almost a day has gone by. Realistically, this thing should've had 100+ comments by now or something.
At any rate, keep up the great work, Rob + co. Maybe a positive side to this is that The Sync doesn't suffer from the slashdot effect whenever a new episode is posted ;)