"Sorry xbox fanboy/MS PR astroturfer, the PS3 has been in development longer than the Dreamcast 360,"
Who's calling who a fanboy?
If there was any similarity between the Xbox and the Dreamcast beyond the controller layout, don't you think we'd have seen a semi-stable Dreamcast emulator for the Xbox by now? Especially in light of the illegal devkit floating around?
Really, those two words right there pretty much invalidate anything you have to say in the rest of your post, but I'll go on for the heck of it.
"it's development started directly after the PS2 hardware design was finalized."
Where "starting development" means "changed some guy's official title, moved someone to a different office, and/or juggled some money around between departments." Personally, I'd wager that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all really started at around the same time, which is when they started talking CPU specs with IBM.
"The Dreamcast 360 unveiling has now set the standard for console PR disasters to such a level that it is unlikely any company will ever come close in our lifetimes."
How is that to be measured when neither the Xbox 360 or PS3 are for sale yet (beyond silly fanboys such as yourself putting money down for a "pre-order" at your local EBGameWhore)? The only way a PR campaign can be said to have lost is if it lost money, and you can't lose money if you aren't selling anything yet.
"Plus all the paid for hype/fake blogs/planted stories are actively generating hatred to the console before it has even hit the shelves."
Oh, so your whole success/failure metric is based on blogging?
Excuse me, I have Coke to clean up off my keyboard. Carbonation through the nose is real murder on your sinuses...
"The second being the wimpy hardware."
Both systems have better hardware than any console currently for sale, and we seem to be approaching a brick wall, where it's getting harder and harder to convince non-audiophiles to shell out bucks for better-than-modern hardware. Sure, better hardware mattered back when it was important to know how many sprites the box could handle simultaneously, but who cares about real-time rendering of forearm hair?
"The (Xbox) 360 was"
Wrong verb tense for an unreleased console.
"360 games are going to be at best on par with your average home pc game, "
The "average home pc game" invariably looks and sounds better than the average console game. Even I, a rabid console fanboy, will admit this. The trade-off is in ease-of-use and (dare I say it) TCO. However, if the Xbox 360 can remain on par with PC hardware, that's pretty damned good news for audiophiles.
"The Dreamcast 360 has been written off by us in the console dev world. "
Back to my first point, if you were really in the "console dev world," you wouldn't be referring to it as the "Dreamcast 360." When last I checked, being a rabid fanboy or even some console advocacy blogger doesn't put you in the "in."
"It's really not much more than some ugly and retarded sideshow."
Am I the only one who, upon seeing first pictures of both the PS3 and Xbox 360, couldn't tell the difference?
"with our eyes open for more info on the Revo."
Then you, with your focus on hardware capabilities, will be disappointed. All signs (including statements from the folks at NCL and NOA) point to the Revolution being deliberately underpowered compared to the other two, at least as far as raw, market-ese numbers are concerned. Nintendo has learned its lesson, producing a box that is tenicially superior in most ways to the PS2 and still selling less. They're focusing on their strengths (innovative gameplay, personality, etc.) and leaving the other two to fight over the audiophile market.
"Right now the 360 is hovering precariously between the support level of the first xbox(portbox)
Ever notice how in "major video game retail stores," the shelf space dedicated to Game Boy, easily the most popular and numerous video game platform today, is typically smaller than the GameCube shelves and nowhere near as big as the PS2 section?
Combine this bias against Nintendo handhelds (goes along with your general anti-Nintendo bias, but peculiar when you consider the GBA is where Nintendo makes most of its money) with the currently small library of the DS, and I'm really not surprised by your personal experience in a "major video game retail store."
Also, if you're working for EB, us DS customers might still be pissed by your "You have to buy our 'protection plan' if you want to get your pre-ordered DS on launch day" policy. I know I am.
"just as the XBOX outsells the GameCube by quite a lot in NA."
"Until the legislation and tax rules are changed to make it un-economic to run a massive SUV."
Most Slashdotters get up in arms about various attempts by governments to "legislate morality," so why are attitudes around here so different when it comes to this? Why is it OK to have the government try some social engineering to dissuade people from doing any legal thing?
"The fact is though, that depicting sex should also educate about the possible dangers."
What about education about the possible dangers of killing someone? "Remember kids, don't smash your friend's temple in with a tire iron, somebody might get hurt!"
Seriously, if I wanted education, I'd be playing Donkey Kong Jr. Math. The game is rated for "mature" people, as in people who should already know about such consequences. If the game was intended to be sex ed, I'm sure they'd have aimed for a lower rating.
"Maybe he should come down with an STD if he fucks every skank in the neighborhood."
That exact situation happens in the first Liesure Suit Larry game if you have unprotected sex with a prostitute (day-glow crotch and everything). But I bet it would be a cold day in hell before, if that game were presented to the ESRB, it'd get anything but an Ao.
The game is already rated M because of its violence, but sex in said game has the California legislature up in arms? Of all the "bad things" in the game it's the sex that's supposed to have pushed up to Ao?
" And if you're fighting a war of occupation as many Iraqis are right now, such a notion would be monumentally stupid."
Whether or not it's stupid is a matter of opinion, but one of the main points of the Geneva Conventions is to protect civillians from being involved in a war. You're not allowed to deliberately target civillians, and you're also not allowed to goad the enemy into doing it by hiding among them. If it's not obvious to someone looking at you that you are a soldier, you are outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions, forsaking any benefits of humane treatment accorded to soldiers if you're captured alive.
It doesn't matter what your reasoning or how just you feel your cause is, you are not allowed to involve those who choose not to fight.
"If that's the definition you could also lump in the French resistance and other underground groups as terrorists during WWII."
Many of the resistance movements you mention did cary their weapons openly and did wear enough of a uniform to qualify as soldiers under the Genva Conventions. Usually it was a colored armband.
Ultimately it depends on whether or not you want to get shot at yourself. "OK to shoot" simply means you won't be found guilty of war crimes for targeting that soldier, but of course you'd also be "OK to shoot."
"They tried to knock over the World Trade Center in 1993 when Bill Clinton was president. Why?"
He'd been in office for a year and still hadn't pulled troops out of Saudi Arabia.
"They bombed the USS Cole during Clinton's term. Why?"
He'd ordered cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan. I'm surprised you don't remember this, since it was assumed by some that it was meant to distract the public from his pending impeachment.
"If there's no connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, why in the world would these terrorists be so upset about Iraq?"
It was convenient. You don't have to have a history of being close to the Ba'ath Party to be able to point at a bunch of convenient Arabs whose country has been overrun and paint them as victims of Western imperialism.
Were we close to the Cuban people in the 1890's, or did they simply make convenient victims of "Spanish oppression" in order to justify our invasion?
"Why destroy this? It's paradise compared to the disease-infested cess pools they came from."
Because we're seen as the reason why their homes are so miserable.
"Yes, they do, because they're irrational people."
Reasoning irrationally and behaving irrationally are two different things.
"Rational people do not blow themselves up."
Actually, they do, depending on circumstances. They don't do it for fun, but may otherwise rational people have a point where they would consider trading their own life in an effort to take the life of another.
"Yes, they are. Stupid, and brainwashed."
Brainwashed, fanatical supporters can easily become brainwashed, fanatical enemies. You don't send such people to do important and intricate missions.
I was trying to equate "rabid" with "terrorist." I'm sure if I had actually used the t-word there'd be somebody else chiming in to tell me that they're really "freedom fighters" bombing random English civillians for the sake of Ulster independence. So long as some people continue to insist that the line between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is a matter of opinion, the only way to communicate the idea clearly is to try to describe them in a way that includes both definitions.
I cold have said "rabidly Irish republican," but that's not entirely true, especially since many of them seem to point at Dublin and say "we want a republic, just not that republic." Republicanism seems to be used as a means to an end, something to contrast with the British crown.
I could have said "rabidly Irish nationalist," but it seems they're more interested in a nation that only exists in their mind. The UK is the more immediate enemy in their mind, but some of them also oppose the government in Dublin as a puppet state.
Really, the only thing they seem to fall back on to support their argument of "I'm right, you're wrong" is that they were born on Island A instead of Island B. They blow people up because they're Irish and the victims aren't (if only in the minds of the bombers). They're Irish and they're being hydrophobic about it.
"That would be perfectly true....IF WE WERE AT WAR WITH SOMEBODY AT THE TIME."
We weren't aware we were at war with Japan when they attacked Pearl Harbor, either.
A formal declaration of war is a courtesy, not a requirement. Even the US Constitution allows states to wage a war without bothering with a Congressional declaration if it's "in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
"Furthermore, we were attacked not by a country, but by a terrorist group bent on Islamic world goverment."
No flag no warfare?
How does your requirement for a country fit into domestic conflicts? Does everything ever done by the Confederacy automatically become "terrorist" because nobody else recognized them as a country?
I take issue with listing this as a "terrorist attack." The USS Cole is a US-flagged vessel of war, and if that's not a valid military target then I don't know what is.
It was a surprise attack, it was a suicide attack, but it was a perfectly legal and valid attack by just about any standard.
"As soon as there is even a remote hope for peace, a bomb goes off somewhere."
That's how warfare works even when you're not talking terrorism. Wars are generally at their worst after the announcement of a future cease-fire. Everybody wants to make a land/resource-grab before the fighting is scheduled the end since posession is 9/10 of the law/diplomacy/warfare/etc.
I made a point of using the word "rabid" very liberally in the first paragraph. Either this wasn't enough for you or you flat-out didn't read that paragraph.
There is no "IRA" any more. There are a gajillion of organizations that all claim to be its successors, and they all hate each other almost as much as they hate the English ("Judean People's Front... HAH!"). About the only thing they have in common is that they're rabidly Irish (hence the use of the word "rabid," bringing me back to the previous point)
The recent example of Spain seems to blow holes in both of those theories. I doubt anybody in Washington or London would want to do anything that might push the UK public against the war enough to force a pull-out.
"In any case, we should bomb Mecca every time something like this happens."
The capital of Saudi Arabia is Riyadh. All you're proposing is the random killing of random Muslism, who may or may not be Saudi (or even Arab), considering Mecca's status as a pilgrimage destination. Way to take the high road there.
Alright, it's fairly obvious that we're talking about terrorist attacks here, but what kind of terrorists? Rabid Islamists against the war in Iraq? Rabid anarchists against the G8 summit? Rabid Irish against anything English?
I realize that blaming the Irish may be like Spain blaming the ETA, but the timing suggests it could be aimed more at the G8 than the UK in specific.
Slashdot Mirror
"Sorry xbox fanboy/MS PR astroturfer, the PS3 has been in development longer than the Dreamcast 360,"
Who's calling who a fanboy?
If there was any similarity between the Xbox and the Dreamcast beyond the controller layout, don't you think we'd have seen a semi-stable Dreamcast emulator for the Xbox by now? Especially in light of the illegal devkit floating around?
Really, those two words right there pretty much invalidate anything you have to say in the rest of your post, but I'll go on for the heck of it.
"it's development started directly after the PS2 hardware design was finalized."
Where "starting development" means "changed some guy's official title, moved someone to a different office, and/or juggled some money around between departments." Personally, I'd wager that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all really started at around the same time, which is when they started talking CPU specs with IBM.
"The Dreamcast 360 unveiling has now set the standard for console PR disasters to such a level that it is unlikely any company will ever come close in our lifetimes."
How is that to be measured when neither the Xbox 360 or PS3 are for sale yet (beyond silly fanboys such as yourself putting money down for a "pre-order" at your local EBGameWhore)? The only way a PR campaign can be said to have lost is if it lost money, and you can't lose money if you aren't selling anything yet.
"Plus all the paid for hype/fake blogs/planted stories are actively generating hatred to the console before it has even hit the shelves."
Oh, so your whole success/failure metric is based on blogging?
Excuse me, I have Coke to clean up off my keyboard. Carbonation through the nose is real murder on your sinuses...
"The second being the wimpy hardware."
Both systems have better hardware than any console currently for sale, and we seem to be approaching a brick wall, where it's getting harder and harder to convince non-audiophiles to shell out bucks for better-than-modern hardware. Sure, better hardware mattered back when it was important to know how many sprites the box could handle simultaneously, but who cares about real-time rendering of forearm hair?
"The (Xbox) 360 was"
Wrong verb tense for an unreleased console.
"360 games are going to be at best on par with your average home pc game, "
The "average home pc game" invariably looks and sounds better than the average console game. Even I, a rabid console fanboy, will admit this. The trade-off is in ease-of-use and (dare I say it) TCO. However, if the Xbox 360 can remain on par with PC hardware, that's pretty damned good news for audiophiles.
"The Dreamcast 360 has been written off by us in the console dev world. "
Back to my first point, if you were really in the "console dev world," you wouldn't be referring to it as the "Dreamcast 360." When last I checked, being a rabid fanboy or even some console advocacy blogger doesn't put you in the "in."
"It's really not much more than some ugly and retarded sideshow."
Am I the only one who, upon seeing first pictures of both the PS3 and Xbox 360, couldn't tell the difference?
"with our eyes open for more info on the Revo."
Then you, with your focus on hardware capabilities, will be disappointed. All signs (including statements from the folks at NCL and NOA) point to the Revolution being deliberately underpowered compared to the other two, at least as far as raw, market-ese numbers are concerned. Nintendo has learned its lesson, producing a box that is tenicially superior in most ways to the PS2 and still selling less. They're focusing on their strengths (innovative gameplay, personality, etc.) and leaving the other two to fight over the audiophile market.
"Right now the 360 is hovering precariously between the support level of the first xbox(portbox)
"As an employee of a major video games retailer,"
Ever notice how in "major video game retail stores," the shelf space dedicated to Game Boy, easily the most popular and numerous video game platform today, is typically smaller than the GameCube shelves and nowhere near as big as the PS2 section?
Combine this bias against Nintendo handhelds (goes along with your general anti-Nintendo bias, but peculiar when you consider the GBA is where Nintendo makes most of its money) with the currently small library of the DS, and I'm really not surprised by your personal experience in a "major video game retail store."
Also, if you're working for EB, us DS customers might still be pissed by your "You have to buy our 'protection plan' if you want to get your pre-ordered DS on launch day" policy. I know I am.
"just as the XBOX outsells the GameCube by quite a lot in NA."
Define "quite a lot."
Does Nintendo still qualify as "giving up ground" if the person who buys a PSP already owns a GBA?
" it takes a tremendous knowledge base "
Like an internet connection.
Of course, if we're talking fission or fusion weapons, your local library should suffice (just beware the USA PATRIOT Act).
"Until the legislation and tax rules are changed to make it un-economic to run a massive SUV."
Most Slashdotters get up in arms about various attempts by governments to "legislate morality," so why are attitudes around here so different when it comes to this? Why is it OK to have the government try some social engineering to dissuade people from doing any legal thing?
"Wait a minute ... Yee's a D-California??? And he's worried about indecency?"
Either Hollywood isn't in his district, or Hollywood wants to have these crazies target some other industry for a while.
"The fact is though, that depicting sex should also educate about the possible dangers."
What about education about the possible dangers of killing someone? "Remember kids, don't smash your friend's temple in with a tire iron, somebody might get hurt!"
Seriously, if I wanted education, I'd be playing Donkey Kong Jr. Math. The game is rated for "mature" people, as in people who should already know about such consequences. If the game was intended to be sex ed, I'm sure they'd have aimed for a lower rating.
"Maybe he should come down with an STD if he fucks every skank in the neighborhood."
That exact situation happens in the first Liesure Suit Larry game if you have unprotected sex with a prostitute (day-glow crotch and everything). But I bet it would be a cold day in hell before, if that game were presented to the ESRB, it'd get anything but an Ao.
"The people in government were there for the '60's and '70's during the sexual revolution. "
:)
By "were there," do you mean they experienced the revolution, or that they were there in the California state house even back then?
Oh, and especially in this case, "the revolution will not be televised!"
The game is already rated M because of its violence, but sex in said game has the California legislature up in arms? Of all the "bad things" in the game it's the sex that's supposed to have pushed up to Ao?
" And if you're fighting a war of occupation as many Iraqis are right now, such a notion would be monumentally stupid."
Whether or not it's stupid is a matter of opinion, but one of the main points of the Geneva Conventions is to protect civillians from being involved in a war. You're not allowed to deliberately target civillians, and you're also not allowed to goad the enemy into doing it by hiding among them. If it's not obvious to someone looking at you that you are a soldier, you are outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions, forsaking any benefits of humane treatment accorded to soldiers if you're captured alive.
It doesn't matter what your reasoning or how just you feel your cause is, you are not allowed to involve those who choose not to fight.
"If that's the definition you could also lump in the French resistance and other underground groups as terrorists during WWII."
Many of the resistance movements you mention did cary their weapons openly and did wear enough of a uniform to qualify as soldiers under the Genva Conventions. Usually it was a colored armband.
Ultimately it depends on whether or not you want to get shot at yourself. "OK to shoot" simply means you won't be found guilty of war crimes for targeting that soldier, but of course you'd also be "OK to shoot."
"I dothink the political maneuvering from both sides within minutes of the report is callous and shameful."
And you're using it to tell us we should all pray more.
"They tried to knock over the World Trade Center in 1993 when Bill Clinton was president. Why?"
He'd been in office for a year and still hadn't pulled troops out of Saudi Arabia.
"They bombed the USS Cole during Clinton's term. Why?"
He'd ordered cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan. I'm surprised you don't remember this, since it was assumed by some that it was meant to distract the public from his pending impeachment.
"If there's no connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, why in the world would these terrorists be so upset about Iraq?"
It was convenient. You don't have to have a history of being close to the Ba'ath Party to be able to point at a bunch of convenient Arabs whose country has been overrun and paint them as victims of Western imperialism.
Were we close to the Cuban people in the 1890's, or did they simply make convenient victims of "Spanish oppression" in order to justify our invasion?
"Why destroy this? It's paradise compared to the disease-infested cess pools they came from."
Because we're seen as the reason why their homes are so miserable.
"Yes, they do, because they're irrational people."
Reasoning irrationally and behaving irrationally are two different things.
"Rational people do not blow themselves up."
Actually, they do, depending on circumstances. They don't do it for fun, but may otherwise rational people have a point where they would consider trading their own life in an effort to take the life of another.
"Yes, they are. Stupid, and brainwashed."
Brainwashed, fanatical supporters can easily become brainwashed, fanatical enemies. You don't send such people to do important and intricate missions.
At what point does Microsoft open itself up to libel suits for calling it an anti-spyware application?
Actually, he's got a point. You're still expected to wear a uniform and to carry your weapon openly.
I was trying to equate "rabid" with "terrorist." I'm sure if I had actually used the t-word there'd be somebody else chiming in to tell me that they're really "freedom fighters" bombing random English civillians for the sake of Ulster independence. So long as some people continue to insist that the line between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is a matter of opinion, the only way to communicate the idea clearly is to try to describe them in a way that includes both definitions.
I cold have said "rabidly Irish republican," but that's not entirely true, especially since many of them seem to point at Dublin and say "we want a republic, just not that republic." Republicanism seems to be used as a means to an end, something to contrast with the British crown.
I could have said "rabidly Irish nationalist," but it seems they're more interested in a nation that only exists in their mind. The UK is the more immediate enemy in their mind, but some of them also oppose the government in Dublin as a puppet state.
Really, the only thing they seem to fall back on to support their argument of "I'm right, you're wrong" is that they were born on Island A instead of Island B. They blow people up because they're Irish and the victims aren't (if only in the minds of the bombers). They're Irish and they're being hydrophobic about it.
"That would be perfectly true....IF WE WERE AT WAR WITH SOMEBODY AT THE TIME."
We weren't aware we were at war with Japan when they attacked Pearl Harbor, either.
A formal declaration of war is a courtesy, not a requirement. Even the US Constitution allows states to wage a war without bothering with a Congressional declaration if it's "in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
"Furthermore, we were attacked not by a country, but by a terrorist group bent on Islamic world goverment."
No flag no warfare?
How does your requirement for a country fit into domestic conflicts? Does everything ever done by the Confederacy automatically become "terrorist" because nobody else recognized them as a country?
"What about the attack on the USS Cole"
I take issue with listing this as a "terrorist attack." The USS Cole is a US-flagged vessel of war, and if that's not a valid military target then I don't know what is.
It was a surprise attack, it was a suicide attack, but it was a perfectly legal and valid attack by just about any standard.
"As soon as there is even a remote hope for peace, a bomb goes off somewhere."
That's how warfare works even when you're not talking terrorism. Wars are generally at their worst after the announcement of a future cease-fire. Everybody wants to make a land/resource-grab before the fighting is scheduled the end since posession is 9/10 of the law/diplomacy/warfare/etc.
" The upshot however has been to create more panic as people cannot get hold of friends and family."
The UK government probably decided it was better to scare 10 people than to allow 1 to die.
On the other hand, the terrorists would probably want to scare 10 people rather than kill 1 (though accomplishing both is icing on the cake).
The recent example of Spain seems to blow holes in both of those theories. I doubt anybody in Washington or London would want to do anything that might push the UK public against the war enough to force a pull-out.
"In any case, we should bomb Mecca every time something like this happens."
The capital of Saudi Arabia is Riyadh. All you're proposing is the random killing of random Muslism, who may or may not be Saudi (or even Arab), considering Mecca's status as a pilgrimage destination. Way to take the high road there.
Alright, it's fairly obvious that we're talking about terrorist attacks here, but what kind of terrorists? Rabid Islamists against the war in Iraq? Rabid anarchists against the G8 summit? Rabid Irish against anything English?
I realize that blaming the Irish may be like Spain blaming the ETA, but the timing suggests it could be aimed more at the G8 than the UK in specific.
"according to my grandson who posts there."
:)
I hope I am not alone among Slashdotters when I say "your what?"
No, he meant the disabling apps like the "Best W!nd0ws CD EVAR!!!1!111" advertised in all the finest spam and eBay listings.