MTV's decline in video-playing has nothing to do with ideals and everything to do with the fact Viacom turns everything it owns into sitcom-laden crap.
Uh, no. See other posts where I put forth a different business model that doesn't include advertising or copying CDs
The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.
which I consider to be low ecconomic value activities. The rest of your rant makes no sense given that- separation of ART from COPYING and making sure the ARTIST gets paid for CREATING NEW ART.
You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.
The "outdated business model" response is just as tired and irrelevant as the perennial favorite, "free advertising." Neither has anything to do with the actual topic--the RIAA suing people who are infringing on its members' rights by distributing artistic works so that people don't get paid for them. The group has every right in the world to do this, and the outcry over it is quite bizarre. People always cheer the EFF on when it sues people, but for some reason the RIAA isn't allowed to.
In truth, what's really going on in your post and others is that you're purposely drawing on anti-capitalist stereotypes by portraying the RIAA as some faceless corporate badguy so that you can feel better when you fire up Bittorrent and make sure System of a Down doesn't get paid today. Pirates never, ever mention the artists in their posts. It's always RIAA, RIAA, RIAA. The reason for this is that the idea of there being hard-working artists in this equation has to be swept under the rug or feelings of guilt might surface over ripping them off, and that goes against the true cause of piracy--an unwarranted sense of entitlement and no desire to contribute back to the artistic community.
Even if it were, nobody gives a shit. The PS2 was way less powerful than either Gamecube or Xbox, and everyone bought it anyway, because it was cheaper and first to market.
The PS2 wasn't cheaper. It won because it was an affordable DVD player, and it played all the PS1 games. The Gamecube was more powerful and cheaper but couldn't overcome its limited games lineup (the 360 seems to be having this problem with all its U.S.-centric first-person shooters). The XBox, despite lots of Halo-driven media hype toward the end of its life, tied with Nintendo at 15% marketshare.
Microsoft wants gamers to abandon the PC as a gaming platform and go to the 360.
Not at all, or they wouldn't have started their "Games for Windows" program and introduced DirectX 10 in Vista.
All Microsoft cares about is getting people dependent on the Windows platform, be it on your PC or on your game console (XBox and XBox 360 both run Windows and DirectX). The 360 to me is just more of the same, while the Wii is offering something new. If I want a multimedia powerhouse, I'll go with the PS3 once it drops in price. I also don't like the idea of having to pay Microsoft just to be able to play online games. That's crap to me.
I wouldn't call the 360 a huge success. You knock Sony for pushing a $600 console with production issues, but Microsoft pushed a $500 console that had production issues. The PS2 continues to outsell the 360, and the Wii had a better launch the 360 did and continues to be difficult to find on store shelves. Worst of all, the 360 has almost completely failed in Japan. With Sony's failure, this leaves the whole country to Nintendo.
Personally, I don't like the 360 because it just seems to get a bunch of first-person shooters.
I think the ads are doing a fantastic job. Most people fear their PCs, and they see their machines as the nerdy guy in the suit, and it makes them laugh to see their frustrations personified.
The Vista surgery ad that Apple is running is very, very effective. They should keep running it another month or two. In the face of Microsoft's annoying "wow" campaign, Apple's ad is a quaint, down-to-earth reminder that upgrading to Vista will be a hassle for a lot of people. Upgrading Windows versions in the past really has been like going in for surgery. The very idea is scary and monumental to most folks.
In nearly every single Vista article, there is mention of OS X and how it's had these features for years, which is a refreshing change. It's been extremely frustrating for Mac users the last six years because they had this OS that, despite early flaws, was years ahead of its time, but the tech media continued to ignore it. Maybe this started after OS X Tiger was released, but since last year's Vista delay, the media has been really harsh toward Vista and praiseworthy toward Apple. It's like they're finally giving Apple some long overdue credit for keeping the momentum going on OS X while the "biggest software company in the world" couldn't even squeeze out an update to its aging Win32 codebase.
It's like the press finally realized how behind Windows is and how it never really came to dominate the market based on its merits. Microsoft just got lucky with a braindead IBM contract in the 80s and rode the commodity PC wave. Everybody has realized that Microsoft isn't that big and scary at all, and now that they're being forced to compete with Google, Apple, and others, we see just how floundering they are. The tactics they used to use in the 90s (announcing vaporware to freeze the market, releasing buggy 1.0 versions and getting OEMs to bundle them over competitors, etc.) don't work anymore.
Vista is a headache to use. The interface, the extra dialogs, the multiple menu styles, the redundant buttons...it's a schizophrenic OS, and it even runs your games slower. Apps like Windows DVD Maker are a pathetic joke compared to iLife. I bet we didn't see an iLife '07 announcement at MacWorld because it's going to be bundled right into Leopard as part of the OS, just to stick it to Microsoft even further.
Seeing Bill's reaction is just funny. This isn't the first interview he's been asked about OS X--there's a clip on YouTube where a CNN guy asks him about it as well, and Bill just pauses and reacts. It's funny. The press is finally waking up.
Bill's claim about the File-Edit-View-Window-Help menu is even weirder. Bill Atkinson did that at Apple. What is Bill Gates smoking? Apple even invented the phrase "cut and paste." And before the "Apple stole from Xerox" comments start, they actually hired a bunch of the Xerox folks who then went to work on the Mac.
I haven't seen Gates make comments like this in a long time. I'm glad the public finally gets to see what an asshole he is. Seriously, he's known for cussing and swearing in meetings, and he even once said he'd rather "piss on" OpenStep back in the 90s. In the early 90s, he told his wife he had more power than the President (she kicked him in the leg for it). A very arrogant guy.
Jobs is arrogant and defensive too, but at least you can understand why given what happened between Apple and Microsoft in the 80s.
It should be noted in the interest of full disclosure (since the media doesn't report these things when it's an issue they're on board with) that the Union for Concerned Scientists is known as a left-leaning group and is funded by various liberal organizations.
A quick note: This was not a "All bloggers need to be registered as lobbists" like the FUD headline states.
Not all bloggers, but bloggers who attempt to encourage grassroots support of something. Why should they have to register with the government? They have a free speech right.
This was a "Paid fake bloggers need to register as corporate shills" bill.
No, because corporate lobbying shills are exempted in the bill since they don't predominately use public communications. Since there is no minimum payment defined, nor is payment itself defined, political bloggers with readers of over 500 would have been affected.
All kidding aside, it's clearly an embedded, stripped-down version of OS X with a mobile AppKit, Cocoa, Objective-C run-time, and so forth. It is OS X. I'm not sure what the problem is here. The NextStep-derived technologies were designed to be able to run on multiple operating systems, including Windows at one point. I'd guess it's simply running a stripped-down Darwin, but even if it wasn't, it's still OS X if it's got AppKit, Core Animation, apps like Safari, and so on.
It's weird watching the string of people trying to tear down everything about the iPhone in the last few days. Sorry, guys. I'm still as excited as ever and will be buying it on day one!
That means it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense (Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like).
How does it mean it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense? I'd say having Cocoa/AppKit (and therefore an Objective-C runtime), Core Animation, and other OS X technologies constitutes being OS X.
So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way)
Again, what is with this "meaningful" crap? Objective-C, Cocoa, AppKit, and the like are OS X. OS X is the NextStep-derived stuff running on top of Darwin. It can most certainly be OS X without Darwin. In fact, it might be Apple's first steps toward moving off of Mach sometime in the future.
But again, that goes back to subjective interpretations of freedom. How is it free to have the GNU telling you what you can and can't do with source code? In that sense, the BSD license is more free. What the GNU enforces is source code openness, not "freedom." Stallman's self-righteous ideologies have convinced some folks that it's about freedom, however, which is neo-hippie crap, with all due respect.
Actually, I think the implication was that Apple's digital media hub steps around these "next-gen" DVD formats entirely by playing files from your computer's iTunes library.
Can't you come up with anything better than that? Face it: the country is not on your side anymore. Everyone hates Bush, everyone hates this war. You lost, give it up. Snide, idiotic comments like this just prove you are a sore loser with too much hate in your heart.
Huh? No, "everyone" does not hate bush, and people don't hate the war and aren't opposed to it on moral grounds--just performance grounds. I'm not a sore loser with hate in my heart. Did you see liberals after the 2004 election entering rehab? Those were sore losers.
Liberals under-reacted. Based on what has actually happened, they should have reacted much more. If you think we aren't torturing people, would you mind if I cam over and waterboarded you?
Not at all. That's not "torture."
Are you really equating Clinton's fuck-ups with Bush's?
Absolutely, because it illustrates the double-standard Democrats employ. You know, like how it's totally okay for Sandy Berger to violate national security and steal documents, but then it's a huge fiasco when Valerie Plame is outed.
Not that Clinton did the right thing, but they are orders of magnitude apart. Plus, Clinton admitted he did the wrong thing and apologized, which Bush is incapable of doing.
Clinton never admitted he was wrong and apologized.
The majority of Democrats were LIED TO BY BUSH! Finally, the last statement reveals the true depths of your ignorance and bigotry. ROFLMAO! Here comes the standard Democrat talking point about how Bush held a gun to their head and made them vote to go to war. He "lied" to them! It's all Bush's fault the Democrats voted to go to war! It'll never fly.
Who attacked us? Shiite or Sunni? Do you even know the difference? What country were they from? Do you even care? Or is it all just evil brown heathens to you?
Of course not, but in your foaming-at-the-mouth, overly emotional liberal reaction, you decide to throw in an arbitrary accusation of racism for absolutely no reason because it's all you've got left. You can't argue on intellectually sound fact or reason, you have to use emotion and negative connotation (which is why liberals call everyone racists, Nazis, Hitlers, fascists, etc.).
Does it burn knowing you are in the minority? Does it burn knowing the world does not share in your hate-fest?
Who am I in the minority of? I voted for libertarians. Who am I hating in my "hate-fest?" Have you read your post to me? You clearly HATE conservatives and Bush. Liberals are the most hateful people I've ever met; their hearts are full of hatred, bitterness, and condescension toward people they disagree with. I thought liberals were supposed to be full of tolerance and compassion, but instead you just hate, hate, hate. Again, read this virulent post you've written to me when all I did was post a joke.
I certainly hope so, people like you are one of the root causes of suffering in the world. We would all be better off without you. FOAD.
For those who don't know, "FOAD" means Fuck Off And Die. A liberal is asking me to fuck off and die because I posted a WarGames joke. And on Slashdot, that got them modded up to +4 Insightful. Telling someone to fuck off and die is insightful on Slashdot.
I plan to link to your post in various libertarian messageboards as proof of the liberal insanity that has gripped the Democratic party and torn it to shreds. You guys voted to go to war, you guys did just as many criminal things as the Republicans did, and Clinton was just as much of a liar as Bush. Go on insulting me and everyone you HATE; it won't change anything, and your attitude will just push people further away from your viewpoint because it comes off as so extremist and irrational. You can pretend conservatives are in the minority in this coun
Wow, I strongly disagree about Aqua falling apart. In my experience, it works better when you have a lot of documents open. On Linux and Windows, for instance, each open documents creates a new button on the taskbar, but on OS X, the Dock is application-centric, so clicking the icon brings forward all document windows opened by that application, and you can normally never have more than one instance of an application running--only more document windows.
There are other things, like the menubar being fixed on the top of the screen, which makes it faster to slam the mouse to the top and hit a menu item. After using it for a long time, going to Windows makes you realize how much you slow your hand down to pinpoint the floating menu, or else you'll overshoot and miss it. I also find that keyboard shortcuts are more universally consistent, as is the interface, despite the current transition to the refined look that Leopard will sport (where splitter bars are 1-pixel wide and scrollbars no longer look like plastic gels).
And there are, of course, things like Expose which I couldn't live without. Wait until you hit the Expose hotkey and then the Spaces hotkey. You'll get a tiled view of all your windows, and dragging them to new spaces auto-tiles them in the new screen.
To each his own, but I think you outta give Apple more credit rather than calling it a toy interface (although, toys are fun, and OS X is fun...so maybe that's a compliment). There's a lot in Windows XP and Vista that's just plain goofy, and Linux sometimes gives me headaches!
BEGIN OVERBLOWN LIBERAL REACTION EQUATE LISTENING TO RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS TO "torture" IGNORE THAT CLINTON EXECUTED MILITARY CAMPAIGNS WITHOUT UN APPROVAL PRETEND MAJORITY OF DEMOCRATS DIDN'T VOTE TO GO TO WAR PRETEND "insurgents" DIDN'T ATTACK FIRST ON 9/11 IN THE NAME OF ISLAM
I always liked WarGames for being reasonably more realistic than any other computer films I've seen. It takes enough creative liberties to allow itself room for its plot, but otherwise, the world of geeky 80s computer technology it portrays gives the appearance of plausible realism and is pretty cool.
I miss the days when Slashdot was a little more technical in its articles. There was some nice science and math coverage along with the programming stuff. It's a bit more sensationalist now, and the stories seem a little more "mainstream," though they are still geek-centric.
Such a transformation happened to Digg this year, which used to post a lot of programming articles and technical news and became a more mainstream, sensationalist link site. And the same happened to Kuro5hin before that, which used to draw me because of its fine science news until it became a political mouthpiece for liberals (No offense, liberals. I just wanted science news).
Wow, I think you really have it backwards. With the Wii's price so affordable and its attractive input scheme, it is the overly expensive competitors with their bland game lineup that will have the smaller potential markets. The XBox 360 is nothing but shooters, and the PS3 doesn't really have anything beyond tech demos. As for the Wii flopping due to lack of titles, you must not have been following Wii news this year, as the Wii is launching with more games than the PS3 and has a surprisingly high level of developer support. Not to mention the personal preferences of developers as mentioned in this very Slashdot article!
Nearly every criticism you just leveled at the Wii was leveled at the Nintendo DS on its launch (your criticisms are also slightly irrelevant given that you can use a standard Gamecube controller with the Wii, as the next Mortal Kombat will likely require). Its two screens and stylus were called gimmicky and "alternative," and even I thought it was weird and wouldn't do as well as it has. It is now the best-selling portable. It actually outsold the Playstation 3 this week in Japan, which is interesting.
The XBox 360 has no presence in Japan, and the Playstation 3 is looking like a very expensive, high-end flop based on both game lineup, price, and availabily, so if the Wii dominates the home console market in Japan like it dominates the portable market, it will get most of the developers.
Keep in mind that the NES and the Gameboy faced technically superior competitors throughout their lifetimes, but it didn't matter. It's bizarre, but it looks like Nintendo is slipping right back into that market dominating position with the Wii because it will offer the best games, the best controller, and a social factor and market targeting that the competitors lack despite greater technical specs.
Don't you remember how social the NES was? Inviting people over to play games? Remember running around on the Track Pad or taking turns shooting at the dog in Duck Hunt? Nintendo is just trying to put things back to where they already were in the golden age of gaming. Gamers have gotten so used to living in this echo chamber of gaming websites that glorify graphics and sound that they haven't even noticed that they've marginalized themselves into an elite, high-end minority, the kind of people who bought the Neo-Geo or the 3DO back in the day.
These "hardcore" shooting games are actually only played by a minority, yet they've now taken over the focus of the market. Suffice to say, I think you're greatly underestimating the impact the Wii will have. Cross-platform ports that you claim will have Wii controller support tacked on as a joke isn't true so far with launch titles like Madden and Call of Duty 3. I think you should try out the Wii before knocking it. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Careful, you dared to question the religion of environmentalism. Like Christianity, environmentalism preaches the following:
1.) The Earth was in a pristine state at some point in the past. 2.) Humans came along and mucked it all up with their sins. 3.) You must appease nature (god) through ritual prayer and sacrifice (like recycling). 4.) If you don't believe these, you are an infidel and will be judged on Judgement Day (natural disaster).
Michael Crichton brought this up, pointing out that in nearly every ideology on Earth, these fundamental tenets are followed--pristine state in the past mucked up by humans, with noisy followers trying to convince everyone to believe what they believe or face disaster. It's so inherent in every ideology that it may well be natural to the human brain to adopt a belief system that attempts to reclaim some imaginary state of the past.
Why does Slashdot always seem to take a position on this? The fact remains that there is not a scientific consensus on global warming or its causes, there is plenty of contradictory evidence, and scientists were claiming in the 1970s that we'd be entering a new ice age--it never happened. I suspect in 40 years, we'll be looking back on the alarmism of today and laughing the same way we laugh at the scientists of 40 years ago.
Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain.
Ha! Free and open Internet? Clinton signed the DMCA.
Slashdot Mirror
MTV's decline in video-playing has nothing to do with ideals and everything to do with the fact Viacom turns everything it owns into sitcom-laden crap.
The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.
You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.
The "outdated business model" response is just as tired and irrelevant as the perennial favorite, "free advertising." Neither has anything to do with the actual topic--the RIAA suing people who are infringing on its members' rights by distributing artistic works so that people don't get paid for them. The group has every right in the world to do this, and the outcry over it is quite bizarre. People always cheer the EFF on when it sues people, but for some reason the RIAA isn't allowed to.
In truth, what's really going on in your post and others is that you're purposely drawing on anti-capitalist stereotypes by portraying the RIAA as some faceless corporate badguy so that you can feel better when you fire up Bittorrent and make sure System of a Down doesn't get paid today. Pirates never, ever mention the artists in their posts. It's always RIAA, RIAA, RIAA. The reason for this is that the idea of there being hard-working artists in this equation has to be swept under the rug or feelings of guilt might surface over ripping them off, and that goes against the true cause of piracy-- an unwarranted sense of entitlement and no desire to contribute back to the artistic community.
Expect to see this post modded down.
All Microsoft cares about is getting people dependent on the Windows platform, be it on your PC or on your game console (XBox and XBox 360 both run Windows and DirectX). The 360 to me is just more of the same, while the Wii is offering something new. If I want a multimedia powerhouse, I'll go with the PS3 once it drops in price. I also don't like the idea of having to pay Microsoft just to be able to play online games. That's crap to me.
I wouldn't call the 360 a huge success. You knock Sony for pushing a $600 console with production issues, but Microsoft pushed a $500 console that had production issues. The PS2 continues to outsell the 360, and the Wii had a better launch the 360 did and continues to be difficult to find on store shelves. Worst of all, the 360 has almost completely failed in Japan. With Sony's failure, this leaves the whole country to Nintendo.
Personally, I don't like the 360 because it just seems to get a bunch of first-person shooters.
I think the ads are doing a fantastic job. Most people fear their PCs, and they see their machines as the nerdy guy in the suit, and it makes them laugh to see their frustrations personified.
The Vista surgery ad that Apple is running is very, very effective. They should keep running it another month or two. In the face of Microsoft's annoying "wow" campaign, Apple's ad is a quaint, down-to-earth reminder that upgrading to Vista will be a hassle for a lot of people. Upgrading Windows versions in the past really has been like going in for surgery. The very idea is scary and monumental to most folks.
In nearly every single Vista article, there is mention of OS X and how it's had these features for years, which is a refreshing change. It's been extremely frustrating for Mac users the last six years because they had this OS that, despite early flaws, was years ahead of its time, but the tech media continued to ignore it. Maybe this started after OS X Tiger was released, but since last year's Vista delay, the media has been really harsh toward Vista and praiseworthy toward Apple. It's like they're finally giving Apple some long overdue credit for keeping the momentum going on OS X while the "biggest software company in the world" couldn't even squeeze out an update to its aging Win32 codebase.
It's like the press finally realized how behind Windows is and how it never really came to dominate the market based on its merits. Microsoft just got lucky with a braindead IBM contract in the 80s and rode the commodity PC wave. Everybody has realized that Microsoft isn't that big and scary at all, and now that they're being forced to compete with Google, Apple, and others, we see just how floundering they are. The tactics they used to use in the 90s (announcing vaporware to freeze the market, releasing buggy 1.0 versions and getting OEMs to bundle them over competitors, etc.) don't work anymore.
Vista is a headache to use. The interface, the extra dialogs, the multiple menu styles, the redundant buttons...it's a schizophrenic OS, and it even runs your games slower. Apps like Windows DVD Maker are a pathetic joke compared to iLife. I bet we didn't see an iLife '07 announcement at MacWorld because it's going to be bundled right into Leopard as part of the OS, just to stick it to Microsoft even further.
Seeing Bill's reaction is just funny. This isn't the first interview he's been asked about OS X--there's a clip on YouTube where a CNN guy asks him about it as well, and Bill just pauses and reacts. It's funny. The press is finally waking up.
Bill's claim about the File-Edit-View-Window-Help menu is even weirder. Bill Atkinson did that at Apple. What is Bill Gates smoking? Apple even invented the phrase "cut and paste." And before the "Apple stole from Xerox" comments start, they actually hired a bunch of the Xerox folks who then went to work on the Mac.
I haven't seen Gates make comments like this in a long time. I'm glad the public finally gets to see what an asshole he is. Seriously, he's known for cussing and swearing in meetings, and he even once said he'd rather "piss on" OpenStep back in the 90s. In the early 90s, he told his wife he had more power than the President (she kicked him in the leg for it). A very arrogant guy.
Jobs is arrogant and defensive too, but at least you can understand why given what happened between Apple and Microsoft in the 80s.
It should be noted in the interest of full disclosure (since the media doesn't report these things when it's an issue they're on board with) that the Union for Concerned Scientists is known as a left-leaning group and is funded by various liberal organizations.
Not all bloggers, but bloggers who attempt to encourage grassroots support of something. Why should they have to register with the government? They have a free speech right.
No, because corporate lobbying shills are exempted in the bill since they don't predominately use public communications. Since there is no minimum payment defined, nor is payment itself defined, political bloggers with readers of over 500 would have been affected.
B-but not a port in "a meaningful sense!" ;)
All kidding aside, it's clearly an embedded, stripped-down version of OS X with a mobile AppKit, Cocoa, Objective-C run-time, and so forth. It is OS X. I'm not sure what the problem is here. The NextStep-derived technologies were designed to be able to run on multiple operating systems, including Windows at one point. I'd guess it's simply running a stripped-down Darwin, but even if it wasn't, it's still OS X if it's got AppKit, Core Animation, apps like Safari, and so on.
It's weird watching the string of people trying to tear down everything about the iPhone in the last few days. Sorry, guys. I'm still as excited as ever and will be buying it on day one!
How does it mean it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense? I'd say having Cocoa/AppKit (and therefore an Objective-C runtime), Core Animation, and other OS X technologies constitutes being OS X.
Again, what is with this "meaningful" crap? Objective-C, Cocoa, AppKit, and the like are OS X. OS X is the NextStep-derived stuff running on top of Darwin. It can most certainly be OS X without Darwin. In fact, it might be Apple's first steps toward moving off of Mach sometime in the future.
But again, that goes back to subjective interpretations of freedom. How is it free to have the GNU telling you what you can and can't do with source code? In that sense, the BSD license is more free. What the GNU enforces is source code openness, not "freedom." Stallman's self-righteous ideologies have convinced some folks that it's about freedom, however, which is neo-hippie crap, with all due respect.
Actually, I think the implication was that Apple's digital media hub steps around these "next-gen" DVD formats entirely by playing files from your computer's iTunes library.
Ballmer is all out of chairs.
Huh? No, "everyone" does not hate bush, and people don't hate the war and aren't opposed to it on moral grounds--just performance grounds. I'm not a sore loser with hate in my heart. Did you see liberals after the 2004 election entering rehab? Those were sore losers.
Not at all. That's not "torture."
Absolutely, because it illustrates the double-standard Democrats employ. You know, like how it's totally okay for Sandy Berger to violate national security and steal documents, but then it's a huge fiasco when Valerie Plame is outed.
Clinton never admitted he was wrong and apologized.
The majority of Democrats were LIED TO BY BUSH! Finally, the last statement reveals the true depths of your ignorance and bigotry.
ROFLMAO! Here comes the standard Democrat talking point about how Bush held a gun to their head and made them vote to go to war. He "lied" to them! It's all Bush's fault the Democrats voted to go to war! It'll never fly.
Of course not, but in your foaming-at-the-mouth, overly emotional liberal reaction, you decide to throw in an arbitrary accusation of racism for absolutely no reason because it's all you've got left. You can't argue on intellectually sound fact or reason, you have to use emotion and negative connotation (which is why liberals call everyone racists, Nazis, Hitlers, fascists, etc.).
Who am I in the minority of? I voted for libertarians. Who am I hating in my "hate-fest?" Have you read your post to me? You clearly HATE conservatives and Bush. Liberals are the most hateful people I've ever met; their hearts are full of hatred, bitterness, and condescension toward people they disagree with. I thought liberals were supposed to be full of tolerance and compassion, but instead you just hate, hate, hate. Again, read this virulent post you've written to me when all I did was post a joke.
For those who don't know, "FOAD" means Fuck Off And Die. A liberal is asking me to fuck off and die because I posted a WarGames joke. And on Slashdot, that got them modded up to +4 Insightful. Telling someone to fuck off and die is insightful on Slashdot.
I plan to link to your post in various libertarian messageboards as proof of the liberal insanity that has gripped the Democratic party and torn it to shreds. You guys voted to go to war, you guys did just as many criminal things as the Republicans did, and Clinton was just as much of a liar as Bush. Go on insulting me and everyone you HATE; it won't change anything, and your attitude will just push people further away from your viewpoint because it comes off as so extremist and irrational. You can pretend conservatives are in the minority in this coun
Wow, I strongly disagree about Aqua falling apart. In my experience, it works better when you have a lot of documents open. On Linux and Windows, for instance, each open documents creates a new button on the taskbar, but on OS X, the Dock is application-centric, so clicking the icon brings forward all document windows opened by that application, and you can normally never have more than one instance of an application running--only more document windows.
There are other things, like the menubar being fixed on the top of the screen, which makes it faster to slam the mouse to the top and hit a menu item. After using it for a long time, going to Windows makes you realize how much you slow your hand down to pinpoint the floating menu, or else you'll overshoot and miss it. I also find that keyboard shortcuts are more universally consistent, as is the interface, despite the current transition to the refined look that Leopard will sport (where splitter bars are 1-pixel wide and scrollbars no longer look like plastic gels).
And there are, of course, things like Expose which I couldn't live without. Wait until you hit the Expose hotkey and then the Spaces hotkey. You'll get a tiled view of all your windows, and dragging them to new spaces auto-tiles them in the new screen.
To each his own, but I think you outta give Apple more credit rather than calling it a toy interface (although, toys are fun, and OS X is fun...so maybe that's a compliment). There's a lot in Windows XP and Vista that's just plain goofy, and Linux sometimes gives me headaches!
Would you like to play a game?
> HYPOCRISY
BEGIN OVERBLOWN LIBERAL REACTION
EQUATE LISTENING TO RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS TO "torture"
IGNORE THAT CLINTON EXECUTED MILITARY CAMPAIGNS WITHOUT UN APPROVAL
PRETEND MAJORITY OF DEMOCRATS DIDN'T VOTE TO GO TO WAR
PRETEND "insurgents" DIDN'T ATTACK FIRST ON 9/11 IN THE NAME OF ISLAM
Yeah.
I always liked WarGames for being reasonably more realistic than any other computer films I've seen. It takes enough creative liberties to allow itself room for its plot, but otherwise, the world of geeky 80s computer technology it portrays gives the appearance of plausible realism and is pretty cool.
I miss the days when Slashdot was a little more technical in its articles. There was some nice science and math coverage along with the programming stuff. It's a bit more sensationalist now, and the stories seem a little more "mainstream," though they are still geek-centric.
Such a transformation happened to Digg this year, which used to post a lot of programming articles and technical news and became a more mainstream, sensationalist link site. And the same happened to Kuro5hin before that, which used to draw me because of its fine science news until it became a political mouthpiece for liberals (No offense, liberals. I just wanted science news).
Wow, I think you really have it backwards. With the Wii's price so affordable and its attractive input scheme, it is the overly expensive competitors with their bland game lineup that will have the smaller potential markets. The XBox 360 is nothing but shooters, and the PS3 doesn't really have anything beyond tech demos. As for the Wii flopping due to lack of titles, you must not have been following Wii news this year, as the Wii is launching with more games than the PS3 and has a surprisingly high level of developer support. Not to mention the personal preferences of developers as mentioned in this very Slashdot article!
Nearly every criticism you just leveled at the Wii was leveled at the Nintendo DS on its launch (your criticisms are also slightly irrelevant given that you can use a standard Gamecube controller with the Wii, as the next Mortal Kombat will likely require). Its two screens and stylus were called gimmicky and "alternative," and even I thought it was weird and wouldn't do as well as it has. It is now the best-selling portable. It actually outsold the Playstation 3 this week in Japan, which is interesting.
The XBox 360 has no presence in Japan, and the Playstation 3 is looking like a very expensive, high-end flop based on both game lineup, price, and availabily, so if the Wii dominates the home console market in Japan like it dominates the portable market, it will get most of the developers.
Keep in mind that the NES and the Gameboy faced technically superior competitors throughout their lifetimes, but it didn't matter. It's bizarre, but it looks like Nintendo is slipping right back into that market dominating position with the Wii because it will offer the best games, the best controller, and a social factor and market targeting that the competitors lack despite greater technical specs.
Don't you remember how social the NES was? Inviting people over to play games? Remember running around on the Track Pad or taking turns shooting at the dog in Duck Hunt? Nintendo is just trying to put things back to where they already were in the golden age of gaming. Gamers have gotten so used to living in this echo chamber of gaming websites that glorify graphics and sound that they haven't even noticed that they've marginalized themselves into an elite, high-end minority, the kind of people who bought the Neo-Geo or the 3DO back in the day.
These "hardcore" shooting games are actually only played by a minority, yet they've now taken over the focus of the market. Suffice to say, I think you're greatly underestimating the impact the Wii will have. Cross-platform ports that you claim will have Wii controller support tacked on as a joke isn't true so far with launch titles like Madden and Call of Duty 3. I think you should try out the Wii before knocking it. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Hmm. What's wrong with Clear Channel being Christian, assuming you're correct? Isn't that their right?
Careful, you dared to question the religion of environmentalism. Like Christianity, environmentalism preaches the following:
1.) The Earth was in a pristine state at some point in the past.
2.) Humans came along and mucked it all up with their sins.
3.) You must appease nature (god) through ritual prayer and sacrifice (like recycling).
4.) If you don't believe these, you are an infidel and will be judged on Judgement Day (natural disaster).
Michael Crichton brought this up, pointing out that in nearly every ideology on Earth, these fundamental tenets are followed--pristine state in the past mucked up by humans, with noisy followers trying to convince everyone to believe what they believe or face disaster. It's so inherent in every ideology that it may well be natural to the human brain to adopt a belief system that attempts to reclaim some imaginary state of the past.
Why does Slashdot always seem to take a position on this? The fact remains that there is not a scientific consensus on global warming or its causes, there is plenty of contradictory evidence, and scientists were claiming in the 1970s that we'd be entering a new ice age--it never happened. I suspect in 40 years, we'll be looking back on the alarmism of today and laughing the same way we laugh at the scientists of 40 years ago.
Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain.
Ha! Free and open Internet? Clinton signed the DMCA.