I've seen this comment before on/. as well as similar comments about the infant mortality rate being higher in the US than any other country (which means the US healthcare system is teh suck). When these figures are quoted, are you people including the people who live in the ghet-to in large US cities? People who don't see a doctor on a regular basis and use the hospital E.R. when they have a backache? Are you also including all of the children under 18 who are accidentally shot in drive-by shootings? If so, yes, the US healthcare system looks pretty bad. We have a lot of people who don't survive infancy or don't live to see age 21. But that's not due to our healthcare system. It's due to crappy inner-city living conditions and too many gang-bangers who have no respect for other people's lives.
Our healthcare system in the US works quite well if you have a job and insurance (that's one hell of an incentive to get out of bed in the morning and drag your ass to work!). I have personally witnessed "no expense spared" treatments which saved the lives of friends or their children. I work in healthcare and I get to see firsthand the technology the doctors have at their disposal to diagnose and treat health issues. Newsflash: Canada has slums too! In fact little towns called reserves are every bit as bad as any ghetto in the US. The best country to compare the US to is Canada. The reason our slums aren't as large and widespread is partially due to universal health care. Medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy which is a major cause for poverty. Without this sword hanging above your family it's a much more peaceful and healthy place. Ethnically and culturally Canada resembles the US. If you did an analysis the key difference is single payer health care.
And no I haven't watched Micheal Moores propaganda piece, however Canada is an example of how even bureaucratic government wrangling does not obliterate the benefit of universal health care. Of course We lack the sheer incompetences that is the current US admin. Perhaps if it was instituted while enough of the Bush cronies lead the various government agencies, it'd fail as spectacularly as FEMA did during Katrina.
The US problem is they believe free market fixes everything. However this ideology is flawed as very few things exist in an ideal free market. The US health care system isn't a truly free market. Canada's system is probably closer to an ideal free market then the US system. We have a single payer, pay as you go system. Right now it's crunching under a worse case scenario but that will fade soon. All tax payers pay a set amount, and most services are private. From hospital supply companies, drug companies, the MRI scanning company, to the GP. All private businesses to negotiated with a central body for payment. It gives the people a better deal and actually reduces bureaucracy vs the US system. Where there are dozens of insurance companies all doing essentially the same jobs all working off the same actuary tables, in Canada we just have a central body to regulate our finances for health. The goal of the organization is singular "to make people better" while the US system has mixed goals of "produce most profit" and "to make people better". The lack of a profit margin at every level also helps. Canada health does not aim to make 60% profit off your treatment before factoring the profit of all private companies involved. This alone would negate any and all efficiencies the US systems may have. State of the art treatments are invented and used here as well. Likely similar to the ratio of our populations.
I noticed that the 'nerds' tag has made its appearance. I believe that there is some irony in that, but I have not worked it out yet. Nerd scale
Normal Person -> Music nerd -> Movie nerd -> Trivia Nerd -> Star wars nerd -> LOTR nerd -> Anime nerd -> computer nerd (mac/windows) -> Real computer nerd (linux) -> Table top RPG nerd (D&D) -> LARP nerd -> Anime Cosplayer -> Trekkie
In case of multiple nerdiness you are the nerdiest option. Everything farther down the list from your nerdiest option will will appear "nerdier" to you. Thus to a normal person we're all nerds. To a Larpers, Trekkies are still nerdier. To a LOTR nerds, Linux nerds are more nerdcore. We are all pretty much computer nerds at least, so we can still label D&D nerd because it's nerdier.
To similarly eliminate HIV we would either need a similar vaccine, or to force every single HIV patient in the world (estimated 33-46 million) to adhere to a complicated anti-retroviral therapy for the remainder of their lives. Disease is not a all or nothing proposition. It's a biological system with it's own local maximums, minimums, and equilibriums. Reducing the transmission rates in some places will help greatly. Although it's an anti-viral and that class of drugs isn't known to be pleasant and cheap.
Really? So, explain to me what happened to the the test to check for Chicken Pox that seemed to disappear between the time that one doctor told my wife that there was no test to see if a child had chicken pox, and the time that a second doctor schedule the test at the lab. Given that I have had many people express that they have had the same kinds of experience with doctors telling them things that are incorrect, your qualifier of 'competent' must only apply to a small percentage of them. Confirmation bias. When he's right, it means nothing. When he was wrong it meant somethign so you remember it. The ratio could be 99:1 and your group of friends will still feel doctors know nothing because of their fickle memory. A Doctor has to discern a problem given a small set of data. They don't have perfect knowledge and if you know something point it out. I'm a web programmer but I don't know all the tools out there. You may be a mechanic but have no idea how to fix a rotary engine.
Part of the problem is that often the patient DOES know better than the doctor. I can honestly say that I have not had a doctor do, or say anything to me that I did not already know since I was about 10 years old. I have on the other hand had doctors tell me things that were simply wrong. I'm sure there are some good doctors out there, but the nature of our medical industry leaves most of us diagnosing our own illness. Not out of hubris, but out of necessity. I usually dictate my own treatment etc... but the doctor is there when I'm really wrong or have no idea. Doctors are just people with some experience. Just as anyone can fix a computer or car sometimes you need someone with more then do it yourself experience to get certain things done. To contrast, in Canada were access to doctors is free people live longer then in the US where it is not free. So for the majority of humanity it seems your experience is not helpful.
I have a 60 gig PS3, and I ran Folding @home consistently for 3 weeks (as a burn in test) whenever I wasn't trying Demo's or playing Motorstorm (the only game I felt worth buying when I picked it up), and it never overheated.
I wouldn't call the system fan "silent" though (as some have). "Quiet" yes, but in the times I wasn't running anything else I could hear the PS3 before I entered the room; in fact it was louder than my 360 (with the DVD going full tilt), but still "quiet enough" that it isn't an issue. My baseline is the projector in my set up. Currently it is the noisiest thing in the room (~28 decibels) and if that remains the noisiest component (with sound muted) then I'm happy. The fan speed adjusts with the CPU load. I can't hear my PS3 at all over the ventilation in my den. I live in Canada so the central heating is going almost 1/2 the time. It may also be that it's in a glass cabinet 6 ft away from me.
Hmm...you almost seem to imply that there are no black racists? If as you say the black voters would be voting for me ONLY because of the color of his skin, would they not be being racists too? I think you mixed up the implication. He's implying all Black people are racists.
OTOH every black voter will vote for him if he's on the ballot, like white racists voting against him, simply because of the color of his skin. For all black people, votes Obama if on ticket, because color of skin. For all white racist, votes against obama if on ticket, because color of skin.
I think it's a little more heterogeneous among the black community. I'm sure at least some will not vote Obama.
C) - McCain, frontrunner to be, won South Carolina with what 36% of the vote which means that 64% voted against him. To be Pedantic, 36% support does not mean the other 64% are against you. they simply do not favor you as much. It may in fact be that all 64% hate you but it's not implied by the statistic.
1. Ron's belief in creationism has nothing to do with how Paul would run education in the United States. Education is best left to the towns, and the school boards, not the States and for sure not the Federal government. Paul's idea to abolish the inefficient and pandering Department of Education is the first step to returning the education power, and responsibility, to the parents. Paul's not against "public" education, he's against inefficient Federal regulation of it. I agree that the feds ought not interfere with education. I disagree that Towns and local non academic school board should decide curriculum. Curriculum ought to be decided by teachers and academics. Not nosy political bodies. Having a creationist president can be really bad for science and education as the last 7 years have shown but if we had one who did not interfere with education or science, that would be best.
2. Paul hasn't taken a Presidential position on abortion, other than it shouldn't be a Federal issue. I am also against Roe v. Wade, even though I am not anti-abortion (I am not pro-abortion, either). I am against Roe v. Wade because it usurps State powers. In terms of abortion, I have one opinion: if you are against the idea of abortion, the best way to change the tide is to adopt unwanted children, and support the ability to adopt by financially supporting adopting couples. I would never condemn abortion as murder or as a crime, because the crime for a Christian is to not offer an opportunity to a pregnant woman in need. I like your stance of providing support rather then condemning people. If there were 100 mil more of you and 100% less of the religious zealots we would be far better off and there would be far fewer abortions. The primary motivation for abortion is sheer panic, the lack of social support and the social stigma of being a young mother (single or otherwise). If this pressure didn't exist, if parents could be upset but provide support for these girls/women we'd have far far less abortions. I don't think anyone is truly "pro-abortion" but "pro-choice". I doubt any sane member of the pro-choice groups thinks there should be more abortions.
To sum up... a rifle is the way to kill a tiger. To have any real guarantee of stopping the animal with a shotgun, you'd have to be far too close for comfort. I wouldn't want to get within 30 feet of a raging tiger if my intent was to kill the animal. I'd rather be 300 feet away with a rifle in my hands. And police *do* use rifles. The RCMP training in Canada, for example, includes proficiency with the 9mm pistol, the shotgun, and the.22cal rifle. (and before you say that a.22 isn't enough, know that the standard military rifle, an M16 in the US and a C7A2 in Canada, shoots 5.56mm rounds, which is about.223 calibre) They're trained to know when a rifle is appropriate, and when a shotgun is appropriate. And in a situation like this one, a rifle is the appropriate weapon. Umm.. what if your round goes cleanly through the animal? Depending on crowd conditions it may be more prudent to go with a lower caliber rifle or a shotgun... but in such a odd emergency situation any weapon you have on hand is liable to be better then letting 2 more people die.
You must have gotten that Motorola Q from someone other than Verizon. If you plug a regular USB cable into a Verizon phone(my old RAZR), you get an "Unauthorized Charger" message. They may have changed since then, but you can't be certain that just because the plug is standard the charger is too. I have a completely unlocked but branded Q from my local telco. TELUS. I used to work for them and it was a employee incentive gift.
Personally, I think that's one of the iPhone's "sleeper" features that hasn't really been touted. There are by now tens of millions of iPod docking ports, docking cables, adapters, etc., around. IMHO, all phones should just pay Apple some minimal sum and standardize on the iPod port for their recharge/data cables. In the meantime, the iPhone is the only phone you can take virtually anywhere on the planet and borrow a cable from someone to recharge it. (of course, it would be nice if it could get service anywhere on the planet for reasonable money, but that's another story.) I think my mini-USB on my motorola Q does that job just fine. Charging, docking, syncing etc... Why not standardize that (most smart phones use that anyway). I think it's less a sleeper feature and more "Apple going it's own way" or "monolithic megalomaniac corporation attempting to force new standards down our throats a la Sony".
PS1 was met with intense competition from Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. It was good effort to let others know that Sony can be a serious player in the console market even though it's only Sony's first attempt. But it was the PS2 that solidified Sony's reputation as, not only a market player, but a market leader, of the console industry. XBox and Gamecube had their followers, but PS2 played well into mass-market. But whatever fame and reputation and good-will that Sony has built-up has been squabbled by the over-powered over-priced under-selling monster that PS3 is.
My votes for all-time consoles will be SNES and PS2. But then, I was born late, so I might have been missing out on all the Commodore and Atari craziness too =) The PS3 had popular opinion against it in 2007. It seems to have reversed recently with a more neutral position from most. Most of the "price" effect has been negated. Most of it's cause was a huge drop in the US dollar in the last couple of years. The Ps3 actually did Okay in the rest of the world.
You obviously don't remember the Playstation's worst days then.
Rayman Rush? Bubsy 3D? Spawn: The Eternal? KISS Pinball? Mortal Kombat: Special Forces? Ugh.
NES games usually had some sort of redeeming qualities. Even the horrendous Action 52 is remembered in the way one might remember a B-Movie. The Playstation library? It seems so good because most of it was forgotten. Again, obvious nostalgia. A bad NES game is a campy B movie but a similiarly bad PSX game was worse? Bad games are bad games. Both had a multitude.
And despite that, they have a strong reverence for the NES generation. Whether they were directly introduced to it or not, the concepts like "Power Glove", the original Super Mario Bros., Zelda, the Zapper, the 2 button gamepad, and other Nintendo-isms are etched into our cultural memory.
Your mistaking Gen X for Gen Y. Gen Y (the gamer generation) has vague memories of the SNES, no memory of the NES. Just as I have fond vague memories of the Atari and no memories of pong. You are making the mistake that what you and your peers think is the same for the succeeding generation or all gamers. Reverence to the NES and SNES are directed mostly from the generation ahead of me. The Gen X'rs and The peer group ahead of them along with the boomers who were the early adopters of gaming. My brother is in the big bump of the Gen Y people has never laid a finger on a NES and is throughly puzzled why I'd play a piece of crap like FFI or DQI or even Zelda. don't overestimate your sample size.
The sales argument is irrelevant, I'm afraid. If you chart the size of the video game market as a whole it has grown at a rather fast clip with each generation of console. Because the market grows with each successive generation, the sales numbers alone cannot tell the entire story.
Then name another metric besides your opinion.
If you chart the size of the video game market as a whole it has grown at a rather fast clip with each generation of console.
Third generation: 60 mil NES : 13 mil Sega MS: 1 mil Atari 81% NES Forth generation: 49 mil SNES : 29 mil Genesis : 10 mil TG16 56% SNES Fifth Generation: 102.49 mil PSX : 32 mil N64 : 9.5 mil Saturn : 2 mil 3DO 70% PSX Sixth Generation: 120 mil Ps2 : 24 mil Xbox : 21 mil GC : 10 mil DC 68% PS2
Not that huge a discrepancy. A large part of it is because owning more then one console in a generation became more common during the PSX and PS2 era.
In comparison, the lasting culture of the Playstation is elusive at best. The players that don't remember the NES associate Final Fantasy with the Playstation. Same with Metal Gear. And that's about it. The console itself is not viewed as iconic, people do not do remixes of the music from Crash Bandicoot, no one remembers the controller prior to the Dual Shock, and no one has bothered to create PSX clones of the console as has been done with the NES.
Don't believe me? Check it out:
You still see a lot of the music from FFVII and various PSx and PS2 games remixed as well. I can relate somewhat. I thought FF6 was the pinnacle of the series but most of my friends and all of my brothers friends either like FF7 or FFX. To me FF was linked to the NES. To most of my friends it's linked to the PSX, to my brother to the PS2. Again you mistake your opinion and your peer group to represent all. You don't see the natural progression of opinion based on age.
The links you provided show some nostalgia related products. I'm uncertain what you meant to convey.
Take it from an amateur video game historian. The impact of the NES has been felt by the market since the day it was introduced. Its relevance is just as strong today as it was then. The PSX made no lasting contribution to the market or our culture, and was all but forgotten when the next generation rolled around.
I'm asserting you have no evidence of this. If you want to make Best ever based on relative impact you'd have to award it to pong as there was no industry before then. I am not stating the NES wasn't important or that I am not fond of it but only that you wrote off the more recent consoles too flippantly. The PSX had a lot of gems, the PS2 even more. They redefined gaming in their era and the PSX expanded the market greatly. The Wii may do this again. Castlevania: SOTN inspired just much music remixes, bad cosplay, and forum aliases as Zelda or Ninja gaiden. FFVII is remember as much as FFVI. You wr
It's not nostalgia. I'm an avid collector of classic consoles and I can tell you from both history and the consoles sitting in my living room that the Playstation's impact was nowhere near that of the NES. The majority of the games for the PSX were, in fact, quite poor. The achievement of the Playstation was that it succeeded where the 3DO and the CD-i failed. It brought a standard multimedia computer platform* to the market in the form of a console, and succeeded in providing a "standard" base for developers to work from.
From a market perspective, it built heavily on the market that Nintendo and Sega had already built. Had the Playstation been introduced in the wake of the market crash it would have never succeeded. Instead, the market was already excited about the possibility of a multimedia console that catered to all ages. The Playstation was the first to deliver the right mixture of technology to meet demand, ergo it won by default.
* A multimedia computer platform at the time was considered a computer with a sound card, high resolution graphics, mpeg decoding, and a CD-ROM drive. Bit of a misnomer in modern terms, but it was high-tech stuff back then. What is your metric for "impact"? You present only a single argument that NES is the greatest of all time because it followed the collapse. Objectively the PS2 sold the most with the DS coming close soon. Had the playstation been introduced in 1983 at the same price that it started at along side the NES it would have revitalized and monopolized the market because, plainly at $199 nothing in 1983 could even approach it's power for that price. Of course that didn't happen and it's such huge speculation on your part. The same argument you used could say the NES wasn't special and any company that simple restricted who could release games and demanded higher quality would have won that generation. It's irrelevant. You enjoy the NES, great. But the majority of gamers now were introduced to gaming via the PSX, and PS2. The Wii or DS may overtake that title soon. Impact is such a subjective term. Writing off the two highly successful playstation consoles is so subjective on your part that I cannot make any other conclusion except your opinion is tainted by a lot of nostalgia. The next generation is almost all gamers and it's thanks to the PS2. Subjective impactwise, the PS2 has a generation, NES SNES had fragments of a smaller one. You can't write that off with some blithe statement of "well right place right time."
The Playstation was definitely not the greatest console of all time. Its philosophy was, "Let's throw a bunch of crud against the wall and see what sticks." As a standardized platform for home entertainment it was highly successful. (In part, due to the low cost of its CD media.) However, if you want to actually look at a system that captured the hearts and minds of the market, the NES is probably IT. Are you certain that is not nostalgia speaking? I started with the intellivision and grew up a gamer. If you look at penetration the PS2 is the "greatest of all time" by number of games, number of great games, number of consoles out there etc... The NES revived the industry after Atari killed it through mis management, the SNEs wa sgreat as well, but you write off the PSX and PS2's contributions which were significant as well. I'm not sure if you remember but 99% of the NES library would be unplayable to gamers now. And there was a ton of dreck for NES, SNES, PSX, PS2, etc.. but there always is.
Dude, it's DIANE LANE! A hottie! I admit I didn't watch her in that "Dog" thing, but there are limits, But a cybercrime thriller with DIANE LANE?! Beauty is always in the in the eye of the beholder. I do not think she is hot, not even attractive. She's sort of just. well plain.
Uh, no. HD-DVD mandates Managed Copy, completely cutting your argument to shreds.
HD-DVD was a format that mediated between the needs of consumers and media companies. Blu-ray is designed entirely and only for media companies (what do you know - Sony also has a significant media arm...can't see any problem with that?) My original assertion still stands. He has never ripped a copy of HD DVD. Your article was from 2005, stating they wanted to support managed copy. As of yet nothing exists to do this.
basically it does not yet exist but both camps proclaim it will happen someday. I'm sure it will because the day hackers breech the protection schemes in a complete and easy to use way managed copy will be right there. Until theyn it'll be "out later this year", "soon", "out key feature we intent to implement".
So basically you're just full of shit, but decided to add you "wisdom" regardless. Umm.. hmmm... I think someone needs to do some more research.
I can sum up all your responses I've read thus far into this: "I have an irrational attachment to a consumer electronics product, I was told that if I stuck with long enough Toshiba may give me a free penis extension operation." Sale for HD media have grown faster then DVD media did at the same point in it's lifespan. Internationally it's been 4:1 in the UK BD to HD DVD and 9:1 in japan. For a year. The only market under any type of contention was the US. The US market was decimated during the week NPD released sales for. NPD just wanted to clarify that a week doesn't mean that much and to wait for more info. Which is a reasonable request. However HD DVD now resides in more nails then coffin if you know what i mean. Having 1 clear winner will go a lon ways to ensure media sales continue to grow and is good for the market and consumers in general while poor for HD DVD enthusiasts.
Not much bravery required. It's not like the player stops working if some studio stops supporting it. True, but most people don't think that way. Happy with your purchase? great. The rest of the market has moved one. Apparently from internstional sales figures the war has been over for some time.
People like to complain that Warner stabbed HDDVD folks in the back, but this is a true stab in the back.
These guys know it's over and are trying to squeeze the last few bucks out of this things before it's all over, so they put out crap like this to get a few suckers.
It's bad for the industry, for their partners (except Microsoft), for the consumer, to let this format war last any longer, and it's over, so let's move on.
These folks are starting to embarrass themselves. I agree that HD DVD is dead. However NPD is just a market research firm. They just want to clarify that 1 week of data is nto enought o draw conclusions from. Which is a fair comment.
US 2 BD : 1 HD DVD (peaking for hd dvd at about 5:3) JP 9 BD : 1 HD DVD UK 4 BD : 1 HD DVD
Unfortunately for your rant, It does not seem that the support for bluray is engineered hype. There was never a close race except sort of in the US. The gambit for the next format was decided very early and all the rest was just the elaborate death throes of one format.
No but a couple folks I know do wedding videos and graduation videos in high def. You would not believe how cheap people are. And a plant running 100 copies is not cheap. To keep the average person from buying a copy and ripping it for every one in their family is nice. At least so the camera man can make his money back for his equipment and skill.
I see people ripping $8 dvd's of graduations. What a contrived scenario. I believe the best solution is to make DVD's because HD DVD is still not widely available nor is blank media overly cheap.
Again , if I gotta buy something imported , I choose the lesser of the 2 evils. At least it looks like I may have , in the future , a way to back up my hd dvd's if i choose to buy them. Blu-ray has the bd mark which will not let players play encrypted content with out it. Actually both disallow backups via DRM. Thus I believe you have never backup a HD DVD disk and it's pure FUD coming out of your mouth. backing up a HD DVD is an ordeal. Similar to how backing up a DVD was at first. Ditto with Blu-ray although the crackers are slightly slower with that. As well almost everything you can buy either is imported from somewhere or has imported parts. Even American made cars often have imported parts.
So let's say I create a video and want to sell it but not let folks copy it. I can't encrypt the disc and have it played in another player unless I pay to have the discs pressed. With hd-dvd I can change the encryption key to my own and make it at least semi difficult for some one to rip a copy of. A non technical person can't just rip a copy of it yet , like they can with a normal dvd.
I do have to say the drm sucks on the blu-ray system. It's made strictly for the big boys who have much to lose and not even remotely possible for the little guy to use. Effectively both have DRM that deters casually ripping. Your arguments are asinine. Both of them are meant to be unfriendly to people who aren't major content distributors. If you just wanted a way to encrypt your mpegs, you can just use standard methods to encrypt it and use either a hd dvd or blu ray disc to store it. Your example is overly complicated and nonsensical. If you have videos how often do you encrypt them? If your a content producer the cost of pressing it often cheaper per unit for batches of hundreds then the individual media. At the low end you'd just press DVDs, on the high end the cost to have HD DVD or Blu ray disks pressed is not that significant. What a retarded set of arguments.
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Our healthcare system in the US works quite well if you have a job and insurance (that's one hell of an incentive to get out of bed in the morning and drag your ass to work!). I have personally witnessed "no expense spared" treatments which saved the lives of friends or their children. I work in healthcare and I get to see firsthand the technology the doctors have at their disposal to diagnose and treat health issues. Newsflash: Canada has slums too! In fact little towns called reserves are every bit as bad as any ghetto in the US. The best country to compare the US to is Canada. The reason our slums aren't as large and widespread is partially due to universal health care. Medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy which is a major cause for poverty. Without this sword hanging above your family it's a much more peaceful and healthy place. Ethnically and culturally Canada resembles the US. If you did an analysis the key difference is single payer health care.
And no I haven't watched Micheal Moores propaganda piece, however Canada is an example of how even bureaucratic government wrangling does not obliterate the benefit of universal health care. Of course We lack the sheer incompetences that is the current US admin. Perhaps if it was instituted while enough of the Bush cronies lead the various government agencies, it'd fail as spectacularly as FEMA did during Katrina.
The US problem is they believe free market fixes everything. However this ideology is flawed as very few things exist in an ideal free market. The US health care system isn't a truly free market. Canada's system is probably closer to an ideal free market then the US system. We have a single payer, pay as you go system. Right now it's crunching under a worse case scenario but that will fade soon. All tax payers pay a set amount, and most services are private. From hospital supply companies, drug companies, the MRI scanning company, to the GP. All private businesses to negotiated with a central body for payment. It gives the people a better deal and actually reduces bureaucracy vs the US system. Where there are dozens of insurance companies all doing essentially the same jobs all working off the same actuary tables, in Canada we just have a central body to regulate our finances for health. The goal of the organization is singular "to make people better" while the US system has mixed goals of "produce most profit" and "to make people better". The lack of a profit margin at every level also helps. Canada health does not aim to make 60% profit off your treatment before factoring the profit of all private companies involved. This alone would negate any and all efficiencies the US systems may have. State of the art treatments are invented and used here as well. Likely similar to the ratio of our populations.
Normal Person -> Music nerd -> Movie nerd -> Trivia Nerd -> Star wars nerd -> LOTR nerd -> Anime nerd -> computer nerd (mac/windows) -> Real computer nerd (linux) -> Table top RPG nerd (D&D) -> LARP nerd -> Anime Cosplayer -> Trekkie
In case of multiple nerdiness you are the nerdiest option. Everything farther down the list from your nerdiest option will will appear "nerdier" to you. Thus to a normal person we're all nerds. To a Larpers, Trekkies are still nerdier. To a LOTR nerds, Linux nerds are more nerdcore. We are all pretty much computer nerds at least, so we can still label D&D nerd because it's nerdier.
I wouldn't call the system fan "silent" though (as some have). "Quiet" yes, but in the times I wasn't running anything else I could hear the PS3 before I entered the room; in fact it was louder than my 360 (with the DVD going full tilt), but still "quiet enough" that it isn't an issue. My baseline is the projector in my set up. Currently it is the noisiest thing in the room (~28 decibels) and if that remains the noisiest component (with sound muted) then I'm happy. The fan speed adjusts with the CPU load. I can't hear my PS3 at all over the ventilation in my den. I live in Canada so the central heating is going almost 1/2 the time. It may also be that it's in a glass cabinet 6 ft away from me.
OTOH every black voter will vote for him if he's on the ballot, like white racists voting against him, simply because of the color of his skin.
For all black people, votes Obama if on ticket, because color of skin. For all white racist, votes against obama if on ticket, because color of skin.
I think it's a little more heterogeneous among the black community. I'm sure at least some will not vote Obama.
My votes for all-time consoles will be SNES and PS2. But then, I was born late, so I might have been missing out on all the Commodore and Atari craziness too =) The PS3 had popular opinion against it in 2007. It seems to have reversed recently with a more neutral position from most. Most of the "price" effect has been negated. Most of it's cause was a huge drop in the US dollar in the last couple of years. The Ps3 actually did Okay in the rest of the world.
Rayman Rush? Bubsy 3D? Spawn: The Eternal? KISS Pinball? Mortal Kombat: Special Forces? Ugh.
NES games usually had some sort of redeeming qualities. Even the horrendous Action 52 is remembered in the way one might remember a B-Movie. The Playstation library? It seems so good because most of it was forgotten. Again, obvious nostalgia. A bad NES game is a campy B movie but a similiarly bad PSX game was worse? Bad games are bad games. Both had a multitude.
And despite that, they have a strong reverence for the NES generation. Whether they were directly introduced to it or not, the concepts like "Power Glove", the original Super Mario Bros., Zelda, the Zapper, the 2 button gamepad, and other Nintendo-isms are etched into our cultural memory.
Your mistaking Gen X for Gen Y. Gen Y (the gamer generation) has vague memories of the SNES, no memory of the NES. Just as I have fond vague memories of the Atari and no memories of pong. You are making the mistake that what you and your peers think is the same for the succeeding generation or all gamers. Reverence to the NES and SNES are directed mostly from the generation ahead of me. The Gen X'rs and The peer group ahead of them along with the boomers who were the early adopters of gaming. My brother is in the big bump of the Gen Y people has never laid a finger on a NES and is throughly puzzled why I'd play a piece of crap like FFI or DQI or even Zelda. don't overestimate your sample size.
The sales argument is irrelevant, I'm afraid. If you chart the size of the video game market as a whole it has grown at a rather fast clip with each generation of console. Because the market grows with each successive generation, the sales numbers alone cannot tell the entire story.
Then name another metric besides your opinion.
If you chart the size of the video game market as a whole it has grown at a rather fast clip with each generation of console.
Third generation: 60 mil NES : 13 mil Sega MS: 1 mil Atari 81% NES
Forth generation: 49 mil SNES : 29 mil Genesis : 10 mil TG16 56% SNES
Fifth Generation: 102.49 mil PSX : 32 mil N64 : 9.5 mil Saturn : 2 mil 3DO 70% PSX
Sixth Generation: 120 mil Ps2 : 24 mil Xbox : 21 mil GC : 10 mil DC 68% PS2
Not that huge a discrepancy. A large part of it is because owning more then one console in a generation became more common during the PSX and PS2 era.
In comparison, the lasting culture of the Playstation is elusive at best. The players that don't remember the NES associate Final Fantasy with the Playstation. Same with Metal Gear. And that's about it. The console itself is not viewed as iconic, people do not do remixes of the music from Crash Bandicoot, no one remembers the controller prior to the Dual Shock, and no one has bothered to create PSX clones of the console as has been done with the NES.
Don't believe me? Check it out:
You still see a lot of the music from FFVII and various PSx and PS2 games remixed as well. I can relate somewhat. I thought FF6 was the pinnacle of the series but most of my friends and all of my brothers friends either like FF7 or FFX. To me FF was linked to the NES. To most of my friends it's linked to the PSX, to my brother to the PS2. Again you mistake your opinion and your peer group to represent all. You don't see the natural progression of opinion based on age.
The links you provided show some nostalgia related products. I'm uncertain what you meant to convey.
Take it from an amateur video game historian. The impact of the NES has been felt by the market since the day it was introduced. Its relevance is just as strong today as it was then. The PSX made no lasting contribution to the market or our culture, and was all but forgotten when the next generation rolled around.
I'm asserting you have no evidence of this. If you want to make Best ever based on relative impact you'd have to award it to pong as there was no industry before then. I am not stating the NES wasn't important or that I am not fond of it but only that you wrote off the more recent consoles too flippantly. The PSX had a lot of gems, the PS2 even more. They redefined gaming in their era and the PSX expanded the market greatly. The Wii may do this again. Castlevania: SOTN inspired just much music remixes, bad cosplay, and forum aliases as Zelda or Ninja gaiden. FFVII is remember as much as FFVI. You wr
From a market perspective, it built heavily on the market that Nintendo and Sega had already built. Had the Playstation been introduced in the wake of the market crash it would have never succeeded. Instead, the market was already excited about the possibility of a multimedia console that catered to all ages. The Playstation was the first to deliver the right mixture of technology to meet demand, ergo it won by default.
* A multimedia computer platform at the time was considered a computer with a sound card, high resolution graphics, mpeg decoding, and a CD-ROM drive. Bit of a misnomer in modern terms, but it was high-tech stuff back then. What is your metric for "impact"? You present only a single argument that NES is the greatest of all time because it followed the collapse. Objectively the PS2 sold the most with the DS coming close soon. Had the playstation been introduced in 1983 at the same price that it started at along side the NES it would have revitalized and monopolized the market because, plainly at $199 nothing in 1983 could even approach it's power for that price. Of course that didn't happen and it's such huge speculation on your part. The same argument you used could say the NES wasn't special and any company that simple restricted who could release games and demanded higher quality would have won that generation. It's irrelevant. You enjoy the NES, great. But the majority of gamers now were introduced to gaming via the PSX, and PS2. The Wii or DS may overtake that title soon. Impact is such a subjective term. Writing off the two highly successful playstation consoles is so subjective on your part that I cannot make any other conclusion except your opinion is tainted by a lot of nostalgia. The next generation is almost all gamers and it's thanks to the PS2. Subjective impactwise, the PS2 has a generation, NES SNES had fragments of a smaller one. You can't write that off with some blithe statement of "well right place right time."
HD-DVD was a format that mediated between the needs of consumers and media companies. Blu-ray is designed entirely and only for media companies (what do you know - Sony also has a significant media arm...can't see any problem with that?) My original assertion still stands. He has never ripped a copy of HD DVD. Your article was from 2005, stating they wanted to support managed copy. As of yet nothing exists to do this.
Managed Copy?
No Managed copy now?
Both may get Managed Copy?
Still not here
Managed copy? Not right now.
basically it does not yet exist but both camps proclaim it will happen someday. I'm sure it will because the day hackers breech the protection schemes in a complete and easy to use way managed copy will be right there. Until theyn it'll be "out later this year", "soon", "out key feature we intent to implement". So basically you're just full of shit, but decided to add you "wisdom" regardless. Umm.. hmmm... I think someone needs to do some more research.
I can sum up all your responses I've read thus far into this: "I have an irrational attachment to a consumer electronics product, I was told that if I stuck with long enough Toshiba may give me a free penis extension operation." Sale for HD media have grown faster then DVD media did at the same point in it's lifespan. Internationally it's been 4:1 in the UK BD to HD DVD and 9:1 in japan. For a year. The only market under any type of contention was the US. The US market was decimated during the week NPD released sales for. NPD just wanted to clarify that a week doesn't mean that much and to wait for more info. Which is a reasonable request. However HD DVD now resides in more nails then coffin if you know what i mean. Having 1 clear winner will go a lon ways to ensure media sales continue to grow and is good for the market and consumers in general while poor for HD DVD enthusiasts.
These guys know it's over and are trying to squeeze the last few bucks out of this things before it's all over, so they put out crap like this to get a few suckers.
It's bad for the industry, for their partners (except Microsoft), for the consumer, to let this format war last any longer, and it's over, so let's move on.
These folks are starting to embarrass themselves. I agree that HD DVD is dead. However NPD is just a market research firm. They just want to clarify that 1 week of data is nto enought o draw conclusions from. Which is a fair comment.
HD DVD and Blu ray are media formats:
2007 Overall MEdia Sales Ratio
US 2 BD : 1 HD DVD (peaking for hd dvd at about 5:3)
JP 9 BD : 1 HD DVD
UK 4 BD : 1 HD DVD
Unfortunately for your rant, It does not seem that the support for bluray is engineered hype. There was never a close race except sort of in the US. The gambit for the next format was decided very early and all the rest was just the elaborate death throes of one format.
I see people ripping $8 dvd's of graduations. What a contrived scenario. I believe the best solution is to make DVD's because HD DVD is still not widely available nor is blank media overly cheap.
I do have to say the drm sucks on the blu-ray system. It's made strictly for the big boys who have much to lose and not even remotely possible for the little guy to use. Effectively both have DRM that deters casually ripping. Your arguments are asinine. Both of them are meant to be unfriendly to people who aren't major content distributors. If you just wanted a way to encrypt your mpegs, you can just use standard methods to encrypt it and use either a hd dvd or blu ray disc to store it. Your example is overly complicated and nonsensical. If you have videos how often do you encrypt them? If your a content producer the cost of pressing it often cheaper per unit for batches of hundreds then the individual media. At the low end you'd just press DVDs, on the high end the cost to have HD DVD or Blu ray disks pressed is not that significant. What a retarded set of arguments.