"The Atari 2600 was originalyl marketed this way."
I suspect ever console released was marketed this way to one degree or another. However, in the ~30 years since the 2600 was released, the only fundamental (non-gimmick) change in the way players interact with the games is that the controller now rumbles.
"The French backed down from sane free-market reforms in order to improve their high unemployment rate. They backed down due to the protests. No backbone there either."
ZOMG, an elected government listened to unhappy voters!
The UK still has it better; the French have to cross water to get to the UK, but you can walk here from Quebec. They're building the fence along the wrong border.
"What you seem to have missed out on is that in 1776, the guns the populace had and the guns the government had were the same, so the side that won was pretty much based on how many people you had, influenced by your ability to pay them, and their emotional/economic investment in the fight."
And that's why the British lost the Anglo-Zulu war. Oh, wait...
Yes, the rebels had similar weapons to the British regulars; in some cases, we actually had better weapons (American rifles vs. British muskets). However, the British regulars were British regulars, trained to be soldiers and drilled to fight as a unit. Ball for ball, the British kicked our asses on the field, even in those instances where the US could muster a numerical superiority. The only thing we had going for us was guerilla warfare, at least until Washington dug in for a year or so and actually trained his army. Ultimately, it wasn't until 1812 that the US could meet the British as peers.
The British loss had very little to do with the numbers of weapons or the motivation of those involved. As you yourself try to point out in your post, motivation doesn't keep you from getting shot (often, motivation is more likely to get you shot).
"In modern day resistence, guns are so useless that they're only used against extremely poor governments."
ObHeinlein:
If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence.
If your "ZOMG smartbombs beat guns!" idea were carried to its logical conclusion, Baghdad would be a glow-in-the-dark parking lot by now (along with Mogadishu, and Saigon would still be Saigon).
Yes, a bomb can kill a lone Islamist out in the middle of the desert, but why would he be in the middle of the desert? No, he's going to be on some real estate that's actually worth something: a population center. Tanks, helicopters and airplanes all suck at urban fighting (and one of these days the Pentagon is going to figure that out), and unless your intent is to wipe the city from the face of the planet, the only way to win (or lose) that city is with door-to-door fighting by infantry armed with rifles, the proverbial "boots on the ground."
Can a rifle kill a tank? No, but tanks really don't like the confined environment of city streets, where they're more a big, lumbering target than anything else (a little bit of fertilizer can kill a tank in such an environment). Can an airplane demolish the building you're in? Yes, but only if your enemy doesn't want that building themselves (and even if they don't, they might like rubble-free streets to be able to get to the buildings they do want).
"Iraqi insurgents have guns. IRA had guns. Hamas has guns. What do these groups do with guns? They try to AVOID using them, because when they make use guns they are visible, and when they are visible people can drop a bomb on them."
No, they don't use those guns partly because they don't know how to use them (it's far easier for the average person to build a car bomb than it is to hit a target with a rifle from long range) and partly because they're more interested in a body count than in an effective use of force. Car bombs won't force an occupying force out of a city, all it might do is piss them off; by their nature they just kinda sit there in parked cars. The insurgent plan isn't to retake their homes from the occupyers directly, however, but to increase the US body count on the nightly news in the hopes of demoralizing the US popul
"Terrorists did a HUGE amount of damage to the UK government and over a LONG period of time."
Except Ulster is still part of the UK and the IRA seems to spend more time killing other Irish than agents of the Crown. And regardless of what "damage" may have been done to the UK, it's kinda hard to have a popular uprising when you lose the "hearts and minds" of the people, or did you not notice the warm reception Gerry Adams has been getting in the US recently?
Long term, terrorism accomplishes little but tarnishing your own cause as you establish for yourself little more than warlords with a reputation for thuggey (you don't see many Westerners asking for Chechen independence any more, do you?). If you want a successful revolution, you get yourselves uniforms and follow the laws of war, otherwise there's no reason for anybody (friend or foe) to believe that the people building suitcase bombs to support "independence" today won't be building them to support their own personal cause tomorrow.
"One would think that as cell phones evolve into cameras, e-mail readers, Web browser and music players, mobile users would be happy with the device that fulfills their digital needs,"
You're planning on buying a PlayStation 3, aren't you?
You check your facts. The combo cart was released with the "Action Set" that included the NES and a Zapper. The "Control Set" came with the standalone Super Mario Bros. cartridge while the folks who bought the "Deluxe Set" had to buy it separately.
Better yet, maybe we'll finally add that 51st star to the flag. "Oh no, they're not incorporated territories like New Mexico and Oklahoma, they're special (ed) territories, unincorporated!"
So we got a decade or two of bloody insurrection in the Philippines, a pool of people we made citizens out of solely to draft them for WWI, and the prison camps we went to war over in Cuba are now under new management. Meanwhile, Madrid doesn't have to pay for a three-ocean navy any more.
"Now, either NOA's been running without a CEO for a while or somebody retired/got axed."
I don't know what happened in the meantime, but Yamauchi retired relatively recently and Iwata, former chief in the US, got bumped up to overall big-shot.
"That the US as a whole doesn't seem to give a shit about this."
Well, as others have pointed out, there may be some mitigating factors here, such as people more concerned about privacy being more unwilling to participate in these polls.
"Look at T's stock price. Huh, normally a company with such an incriminating lawsuit wielded against it would take at least somewhat of a hit in price (though the markets ARE very wierd right now)."
On the other hand, a company that makes $$$ from the NSA to do the agency's dirty work seems like a good investment in this day and age. Think of it as profiteering.
"We're not talking warrantless tracking, we're talking completely random warrantless tracking."
With any luck, Congress may reevaluate civil liberties now that Bill Jefferson's office has been raided.
(Of course, knowing Congress, the only change we'll see is the introduction of the words "except us" in new laws)
"Under your logic, the officials at Columbine High School shouldn't have done anything unless the kids were drawing up the plans to stage a full-scale assault while they were in art class."
I'll bite that bullet. The school board has one purpose and one purpose only: to provide an education. At the very least, if the school board is to have expanded powers, it is for the Illinois General Assembly to decide what those new powers are (as opposed to the school board acting unilaterally), and only if those new powers fall within the bounds of Article X of the Illinois Constitution. Otherwise, law enforcement is for law enforcement bodies.
In a republic, the school board doesn't get to decide what are and are not its powers and responsibilities.
"is talking about plans to take out a group of students, or running drugs onto campus to sell during lunch, then I think the district not only has a duty, but an obligation, to try and make sure neither happens."
Outside of enforcing school rules on campus, they have no more "duties" or "obligations" than any other normal citizen. And even then, if the school board spends state money on these extracurricular surveilance programs, then they are misappropriating state funds; if the General Assembly wanted that money to go to law enforcement, then it would have been sent to law enforcement.
Again, it's not for them to decide.
"If they didn't, and tragedy struck we'd all be in here tsk, tsking about the obvious warning signs that were missed."
Would we even have these problems if the Department of Education didn't so resemble the Department of Corrections to begin with?
More interestingly, if they've become a law enforcement body, does that mean they have to start paying for public defenders for the students to contest disciplinary action? Shouldn't the students also be entitled to a jury trial?
If they want to monitor for "illegal" activity (ignoring the "inappropriate" bit), then they have to deal with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
"After taking in account various factors, the conversion to other currencies comes down to a launch price of: 225 dollars, 225 euros, and 150 pounds."
This is not official. This is mere speculation on the part of the article.
I, too, can pull numbers out of my ass. For example, because the launch price of 25,000 JPY is exactly the same number they used for the GameCube, they'll release the Wii in the US for 199 USD (like they did with the GameCube).
Until we get official numbers, though, this is all speculation.
"Actually, public schools are generally local government institutions - and so should be completely unaffected by the constitutional ban on federal laws restricting the freedom of speach."
Reaching for federalism in instances like this is a double-edged sword at best. State constitutions are generally much more liberal in protecting personal rights than the federal constitution. For example, being a New Jersey school, it's subject to:
Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.
Assuming there's anything actually worth watching on BluRay. And assuming that HD-DVD doesn't win (otherwise your BluRay makes for a rather expensive paperweight, much like your Betamax player). And, finally, assuming the movie studios remain so magnanimous between now and launch to not put the ICT in.
"1080p games out of the box - about 1/3 to 1/4 of the current crop of PS3 games are running at 1080p"
But are they worth playing? If 1080p is all you need to sell games, I have a 1080p version of Pong you might be interested in.
And if they are worth playing, are they worth owning at $60+?
"There's a reason why Sony has sold over 200 million console and destroyed everyone else in the market"
Because they launched their previous two consoles at literally half the price and didn't focus almost exclusively on the consoles' non-gaming functions?
"Oh, and I'd be much more interrested by the potential price point of the games,"
$50, same as now.
The excuse for $60 games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is the higher resolution they display at. Since the Wii "only" does 480p, like the GameCube and the Xbox, the prices will be the same.
We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of the NES in 1987 and the SNES in 1991 that the first five million are going to buy the Nintendo 64, whatever it is, even if it didn't have games.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Atari 2600 was originalyl marketed this way."
I suspect ever console released was marketed this way to one degree or another. However, in the ~30 years since the 2600 was released, the only fundamental (non-gimmick) change in the way players interact with the games is that the controller now rumbles.
"Don't worry, for us, the US is hell, so you yankees don't need to worry about us crossing into the US."
I live in Florida, and I have one word for you: bullshit.
"The French backed down from sane free-market reforms in order to improve their high unemployment rate. They backed down due to the protests. No backbone there either."
ZOMG, an elected government listened to unhappy voters!
The UK still has it better; the French have to cross water to get to the UK, but you can walk here from Quebec. They're building the fence along the wrong border.
And that's why the British lost the Anglo-Zulu war. Oh, wait...
Yes, the rebels had similar weapons to the British regulars; in some cases, we actually had better weapons (American rifles vs. British muskets). However, the British regulars were British regulars, trained to be soldiers and drilled to fight as a unit. Ball for ball, the British kicked our asses on the field, even in those instances where the US could muster a numerical superiority. The only thing we had going for us was guerilla warfare, at least until Washington dug in for a year or so and actually trained his army. Ultimately, it wasn't until 1812 that the US could meet the British as peers.
The British loss had very little to do with the numbers of weapons or the motivation of those involved. As you yourself try to point out in your post, motivation doesn't keep you from getting shot (often, motivation is more likely to get you shot).
"In modern day resistence, guns are so useless that they're only used against extremely poor governments."
ObHeinlein:
If your "ZOMG smartbombs beat guns!" idea were carried to its logical conclusion, Baghdad would be a glow-in-the-dark parking lot by now (along with Mogadishu, and Saigon would still be Saigon).
Yes, a bomb can kill a lone Islamist out in the middle of the desert, but why would he be in the middle of the desert? No, he's going to be on some real estate that's actually worth something: a population center. Tanks, helicopters and airplanes all suck at urban fighting (and one of these days the Pentagon is going to figure that out), and unless your intent is to wipe the city from the face of the planet, the only way to win (or lose) that city is with door-to-door fighting by infantry armed with rifles, the proverbial "boots on the ground."
Can a rifle kill a tank? No, but tanks really don't like the confined environment of city streets, where they're more a big, lumbering target than anything else (a little bit of fertilizer can kill a tank in such an environment). Can an airplane demolish the building you're in? Yes, but only if your enemy doesn't want that building themselves (and even if they don't, they might like rubble-free streets to be able to get to the buildings they do want).
"Iraqi insurgents have guns. IRA had guns. Hamas has guns. What do these groups do with guns? They try to AVOID using them, because when they make use guns they are visible, and when they are visible people can drop a bomb on them."
No, they don't use those guns partly because they don't know how to use them (it's far easier for the average person to build a car bomb than it is to hit a target with a rifle from long range) and partly because they're more interested in a body count than in an effective use of force. Car bombs won't force an occupying force out of a city, all it might do is piss them off; by their nature they just kinda sit there in parked cars. The insurgent plan isn't to retake their homes from the occupyers directly, however, but to increase the US body count on the nightly news in the hopes of demoralizing the US popul
You only get to sue the government if they decide that your lawsuit wouldn't harm national security.
Then you need to read more carefully. They need to know:
"Terrorists did a HUGE amount of damage to the UK government and over a LONG period of time."
Except Ulster is still part of the UK and the IRA seems to spend more time killing other Irish than agents of the Crown. And regardless of what "damage" may have been done to the UK, it's kinda hard to have a popular uprising when you lose the "hearts and minds" of the people, or did you not notice the warm reception Gerry Adams has been getting in the US recently?
Long term, terrorism accomplishes little but tarnishing your own cause as you establish for yourself little more than warlords with a reputation for thuggey (you don't see many Westerners asking for Chechen independence any more, do you?). If you want a successful revolution, you get yourselves uniforms and follow the laws of war, otherwise there's no reason for anybody (friend or foe) to believe that the people building suitcase bombs to support "independence" today won't be building them to support their own personal cause tomorrow.
"One would think that as cell phones evolve into cameras, e-mail readers, Web browser and music players, mobile users would be happy with the device that fulfills their digital needs,"
You're planning on buying a PlayStation 3, aren't you?
You check your facts. The combo cart was released with the "Action Set" that included the NES and a Zapper. The "Control Set" came with the standalone Super Mario Bros. cartridge while the folks who bought the "Deluxe Set" had to buy it separately.
Better yet, maybe we'll finally add that 51st star to the flag. "Oh no, they're not incorporated territories like New Mexico and Oklahoma, they're special (ed) territories, unincorporated!"
So we got a decade or two of bloody insurrection in the Philippines, a pool of people we made citizens out of solely to draft them for WWI, and the prison camps we went to war over in Cuba are now under new management. Meanwhile, Madrid doesn't have to pay for a three-ocean navy any more.
Who won that war again?
(I know I know, "Don't forget Pol^WGuam!")
"Now, either NOA's been running without a CEO for a while or somebody retired/got axed."
I don't know what happened in the meantime, but Yamauchi retired relatively recently and Iwata, former chief in the US, got bumped up to overall big-shot.
"That the US as a whole doesn't seem to give a shit about this."
Well, as others have pointed out, there may be some mitigating factors here, such as people more concerned about privacy being more unwilling to participate in these polls.
"Look at T's stock price. Huh, normally a company with such an incriminating lawsuit wielded against it would take at least somewhat of a hit in price (though the markets ARE very wierd right now)."
On the other hand, a company that makes $$$ from the NSA to do the agency's dirty work seems like a good investment in this day and age. Think of it as profiteering.
"We're not talking warrantless tracking, we're talking completely random warrantless tracking."
With any luck, Congress may reevaluate civil liberties now that Bill Jefferson's office has been raided.
(Of course, knowing Congress, the only change we'll see is the introduction of the words "except us" in new laws)
"Under your logic, the officials at Columbine High School shouldn't have done anything unless the kids were drawing up the plans to stage a full-scale assault while they were in art class."
I'll bite that bullet. The school board has one purpose and one purpose only: to provide an education. At the very least, if the school board is to have expanded powers, it is for the Illinois General Assembly to decide what those new powers are (as opposed to the school board acting unilaterally), and only if those new powers fall within the bounds of Article X of the Illinois Constitution. Otherwise, law enforcement is for law enforcement bodies.
In a republic, the school board doesn't get to decide what are and are not its powers and responsibilities.
"is talking about plans to take out a group of students, or running drugs onto campus to sell during lunch, then I think the district not only has a duty, but an obligation, to try and make sure neither happens."
Outside of enforcing school rules on campus, they have no more "duties" or "obligations" than any other normal citizen. And even then, if the school board spends state money on these extracurricular surveilance programs, then they are misappropriating state funds; if the General Assembly wanted that money to go to law enforcement, then it would have been sent to law enforcement.
Again, it's not for them to decide.
"If they didn't, and tragedy struck we'd all be in here tsk, tsking about the obvious warning signs that were missed."
Would we even have these problems if the Department of Education didn't so resemble the Department of Corrections to begin with?
More interestingly, if they've become a law enforcement body, does that mean they have to start paying for public defenders for the students to contest disciplinary action? Shouldn't the students also be entitled to a jury trial?
If they want to monitor for "illegal" activity (ignoring the "inappropriate" bit), then they have to deal with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
"Yes, I believe the original article said that."
The summary didn't.
"After taking in account various factors, the conversion to other currencies comes down to a launch price of: 225 dollars, 225 euros, and 150 pounds."
This is not official. This is mere speculation on the part of the article.
I, too, can pull numbers out of my ass. For example, because the launch price of 25,000 JPY is exactly the same number they used for the GameCube, they'll release the Wii in the US for 199 USD (like they did with the GameCube).
Until we get official numbers, though, this is all speculation.
Reaching for federalism in instances like this is a double-edged sword at best. State constitutions are generally much more liberal in protecting personal rights than the federal constitution. For example, being a New Jersey school, it's subject to:
What they're not letting on is that Mario and Peach get off on the whole damsel-in-distress role playing bit.
"Dreamcast/Xbox Fans Commiting Suicide"
Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf has a Slashdot account?
"$499 PS3
1080p BluRay movies out of the box"
Assuming there's anything actually worth watching on BluRay. And assuming that HD-DVD doesn't win (otherwise your BluRay makes for a rather expensive paperweight, much like your Betamax player). And, finally, assuming the movie studios remain so magnanimous between now and launch to not put the ICT in.
"1080p games out of the box - about 1/3 to 1/4 of the current crop of PS3 games are running at 1080p"
But are they worth playing? If 1080p is all you need to sell games, I have a 1080p version of Pong you might be interested in.
And if they are worth playing, are they worth owning at $60+?
"There's a reason why Sony has sold over 200 million console and destroyed everyone else in the market"
Because they launched their previous two consoles at literally half the price and didn't focus almost exclusively on the consoles' non-gaming functions?
"I'll bet 90% of people of buy DVDs dont know what DRM is or what it does to them."
Every European who buys a region 1 or region-free DVD player knows a bit about DRM.
"Oh, and I'd be much more interrested by the potential price point of the games,"
$50, same as now.
The excuse for $60 games for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is the higher resolution they display at. Since the Wii "only" does 480p, like the GameCube and the Xbox, the prices will be the same.
We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of the NES in 1987 and the SNES in 1991 that the first five million are going to buy the Nintendo 64, whatever it is, even if it didn't have games.
If people loved you, you wouldn't be a Slashdotter.
I'm sure at least 25% of it is people downloading the DOAXBV2 trailer from E3.
BOOBIES!