How are you posting on an Internet site without a PC? WebTV?
Re:XBOX advertisement blitz
on
XBox Released
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· Score: 5, Informative
All of Halo's graphics are done in-engine. As are Project Gotham: Racing. And Dead or Alive 3. Only Munch's Oddysee showed pre-rendered CG in the commercial.
Um, and the XBox won't. The crashing thing is an urban myth supplemented with pre-launch stories of bad demo CD's crashing (which MS completely reissued).
But if you like FUD, let it flow...
Sad, sad commentary
on
XBox Released
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I personally sent a few stories Slashdot's way (including numerous discussions on hacking the Box) and apparently noone thought them worthy.
The problem here is that people instantly lambash the box without thinking of the ramifications. Basically:
- It's a strong PC with great graphics. In the living room. The centerpiece of the family community. - It is a console to actually push competition and strengthen games. Other consoles from here on out are going to have to consider putting an ethernet card on board. Or a hard drive. Competition is always good (even non-franchise reliant Sony is getting stale at this point). - It's just another system. It's not the antichrist. Bill Gates personally doesn't take a cut on each box (in fact, cuts are probably taken out of HIM).
Let's think about that first one a good deal. A real PC. In the living room of thousands of people -- people, additionally, who wouldn't have thought of putting a PC in their living room. Why doesn't this get more people excited? It does for me. Naysayers like to tout X-Filish conspiracy theories about MS owning the world. It's not going to happen. Other companies are going to expand, reject, and strengthen parts of the box with 3rd party peripherals and software. The dream of having some kind of decent server in everyone's house will finally be realized.
Even if you completely reject the box and all it's strong points, you've got to admit THE CONVERSATION IS GOOD. Unfortunately, even with a thousand comments, Slashdot editors won't learn that this is one of the things we want to talk about. And quite frankly, I still like to follow the average Slashdotter's opinion over hype.
I have installed Hotfixes and Service Packs for years, and have never had any problems with any of them. A recent consulting job of mine entailed creating scripts to install 8 Hotfixes back to back (pre Service Pack 3 for Windows 2000, which was not released yet) and not a single one wrecked the system.
This flies in stark contridiction with my experiences playing with the kernel in Linux, where a simple errant pointer can wreck an entire Make. There is some benefit to having the source code available; but in this particular instance, less may actually be more for those who, like myself, don't want to have to check hundreds of lines of codes to fix an LPR vulnerability.
That's not to say NT's Hotfixes are foolproof, but there is a reason Microsoft has finally put the automatic update feature into place with Windows XP. They are confident enough that people won't be turning on their systems one day and having them crash due to an update being installed overnight. And from my experience, this hasn't yet occured in Windows XP.
"Insightful, but for the fact that Nintendo have always had a relaxed policy to release dates."
They should, considering they have a worse record than even Microsoft for shipping things on time. The N64 was close to 2 years delayed. Don't believe me? Check out the original Killer Instinct arcade game, which adverstises the "Ultra 64" as coming out 2 full years prior to when it really came out.
And after all that wait, what a bitter disappointment.
One of the problems with the original Airport was its lack of out-of-the-box range. For those of us who don't want to play with mounting antennae, the Airport had below average range of around 100 feet (although, to be fair, my experiences with 3Com's expensive AirConnect hub were even worse). My best experiences, so far, have been with the relatively inexpensive Orinoco access point which, while it didn't include a built-in hub or firewall, had range close to 450 feet.
I've heard that the relatively quiet company SMC produces some good 802.11 range products. Any thoughts or experiences -- on any product -- with good range out-of-the-box
"I have been testing out a lot of !cough!nvidia!cough! proprietary drivers and bleeding edge software lately, and subsequently crashing. W/ ext3, I can get back to the crashing very quickly."
Um, I was once told to (and subsequently did) install Linux on my main machine in 1996, when I was told that regardless of a bad video driver, the drivers themselves never enter protected memory space and shouldn't bring down the system. (I argued that the display drawer itself may crash, but no one seemed to agree with me).
Subsequently, I haven't had Linux crash due to video problems (I've always been able to hit a virtual console to try to correct things), so I believed it. It's possible to bring down Linux with an errant display driver? And, if that's the case, how much different is this from Windows (NT-style)?
Do find being on Fox to be a potential downfall? It seems like a lot of semi-decent shows ("Family Guy") get killed and resurrected fairly often on the network.
"Apple is offering users who lost data using the initial version of the iTunes 2.0 for OS X installer both reimbursement for purchase of Norton Utilities and/or data recovery services."
As they should. Although, they shouldn't have erased my files to begin with.
"What do you do when it isn't fun any more, but you'd like it to be?"
I felt the same way recently (I graduated in May). The job market is absolutely awful: it's nearly impossible to get an entry-level job at any good technology companies.
However, what gave me some fun was to hack again. I used to do it when I was a teenager. I bought a Dell laptop in my junior year of college, and recently took it apart from top to bottom. There was something like 100 screws in the end (20 of which didn't go back into the machine -- oops), but I was able to rebuild it "from scratch".
That gave me joy. It's an ability that very few people have, and I share with only those people. Friends were like "what are you doing?" when they saw the $3000 laptop in a million pieces, but I was able to get it back together in one night, in the process beefing up the speakers and rerouting some wires to decrease EMI (so I wouldn't hear the touchpad buzzing everytime I touched it).
When you actually enjoy what you're doing, everything else becomes secondary.
Re:A kernel hacker's first language...
on
Kernel 2.4.14 is out
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· Score: 0, Troll
Most coders that I know of are exceptional typers/spellers. Kind of makes you wonder about the quality of the Linux code...
Re:Monopolizing the set-top market
on
Gamecube Guts
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· Score: 2
"The long term goal is the monopolization of information into the home. Then they get a cut of EVERYTHING: games, music, video, time-shifting, etc."
Yes, it's easy to derive this from their "past strategies". Moron.
Re:Gamecube control is a cheap piece o' crap
on
Gamecube Guts
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· Score: 2
I thought the placement of the D-pad (for quick menu hunting) below the left analog was very intelligent.
I agree, though, some of the buttons are a bit of a stretch. Rogue Squadron was an exercise in thumb-strengthening. Not much better than the XBox controllers, though (*sigh* -- seems like a better system for "adults").
"You could spend the money on upgrading your home PC, which has the capability to do so much more than an XBox."
Microsoft is losing about $100 on every XBox they sell. Thus, you're getting PC hardware at a discount price, WHILE screwing Microsoft if you don't purchase any games (The console industry relies on game sales, not hardware, to drive the market. All royality sales are made off software).
If you really wanted to get Microsoft, you'd purchase the XBox hardware (which has an excellent motherboard) and not buy any games. Fool.
Slashdot Mirror
How are you posting on an Internet site without a PC? WebTV?
Kindly get your facts straight.
I know the graphics sure are purty.
But if you like FUD, let it flow...
The problem here is that people instantly lambash the box without thinking of the ramifications. Basically:
- It's a strong PC with great graphics. In the living room. The centerpiece of the family community.
- It is a console to actually push competition and strengthen games. Other consoles from here on out are going to have to consider putting an ethernet card on board. Or a hard drive. Competition is always good (even non-franchise reliant Sony is getting stale at this point).
- It's just another system. It's not the antichrist. Bill Gates personally doesn't take a cut on each box (in fact, cuts are probably taken out of HIM).
Let's think about that first one a good deal. A real PC. In the living room of thousands of people -- people, additionally, who wouldn't have thought of putting a PC in their living room. Why doesn't this get more people excited? It does for me. Naysayers like to tout X-Filish conspiracy theories about MS owning the world. It's not going to happen. Other companies are going to expand, reject, and strengthen parts of the box with 3rd party peripherals and software. The dream of having some kind of decent server in everyone's house will finally be realized.
Even if you completely reject the box and all it's strong points, you've got to admit THE CONVERSATION IS GOOD. Unfortunately, even with a thousand comments, Slashdot editors won't learn that this is one of the things we want to talk about. And quite frankly, I still like to follow the average Slashdotter's opinion over hype.
You know what they say about men wearing kilts...
Says the overzealous UNIX nut who wore a dress to his own wedding. I'll pass on your judgment calls, thanks.
This flies in stark contridiction with my experiences playing with the kernel in Linux, where a simple errant pointer can wreck an entire Make. There is some benefit to having the source code available; but in this particular instance, less may actually be more for those who, like myself, don't want to have to check hundreds of lines of codes to fix an LPR vulnerability.
That's not to say NT's Hotfixes are foolproof, but there is a reason Microsoft has finally put the automatic update feature into place with Windows XP. They are confident enough that people won't be turning on their systems one day and having them crash due to an update being installed overnight. And from my experience, this hasn't yet occured in Windows XP.
They should, considering they have a worse record than even Microsoft for shipping things on time. The N64 was close to 2 years delayed. Don't believe me? Check out the original Killer Instinct arcade game, which adverstises the "Ultra 64" as coming out 2 full years prior to when it really came out.
And after all that wait, what a bitter disappointment.
I've heard that the relatively quiet company SMC produces some good 802.11 range products. Any thoughts or experiences -- on any product -- with good range out-of-the-box
Um, I was once told to (and subsequently did) install Linux on my main machine in 1996, when I was told that regardless of a bad video driver, the drivers themselves never enter protected memory space and shouldn't bring down the system. (I argued that the display drawer itself may crash, but no one seemed to agree with me).
Subsequently, I haven't had Linux crash due to video problems (I've always been able to hit a virtual console to try to correct things), so I believed it. It's possible to bring down Linux with an errant display driver? And, if that's the case, how much different is this from Windows (NT-style)?
Do find being on Fox to be a potential downfall? It seems like a lot of semi-decent shows ("Family Guy") get killed and resurrected fairly often on the network.
Except Bungie itself announced recently that it will, indeed, be a PC and Mac title next year.
Get your facts straight before you FUD.
I think most people would have given a chuckle after reading that. "$40,000! God, the humanity!"
I guess the words "starving artist" are just for show.
Something that Linux advocates, ahem ahem, seem to put off to the side.
If this was Microsoft, Slashdot would be wiping the floor with this story. 2000 comments...
It's kind of like that stuff "retsin" which is in cough drops (to shamelessly rip off Seinfeld). What the heck is retsin?
As they should. Although, they shouldn't have erased my files to begin with.
Now, how do I start my broken Mac again?
I felt the same way recently (I graduated in May). The job market is absolutely awful: it's nearly impossible to get an entry-level job at any good technology companies.
However, what gave me some fun was to hack again. I used to do it when I was a teenager. I bought a Dell laptop in my junior year of college, and recently took it apart from top to bottom. There was something like 100 screws in the end (20 of which didn't go back into the machine -- oops), but I was able to rebuild it "from scratch".
That gave me joy. It's an ability that very few people have, and I share with only those people. Friends were like "what are you doing?" when they saw the $3000 laptop in a million pieces, but I was able to get it back together in one night, in the process beefing up the speakers and rerouting some wires to decrease EMI (so I wouldn't hear the touchpad buzzing everytime I touched it).
When you actually enjoy what you're doing, everything else becomes secondary.
Most coders that I know of are exceptional typers/spellers. Kind of makes you wonder about the quality of the Linux code...
I didn't know Linus's wife posted on Slashdot... :) "Good defense, honey!"
English speak first language, yes?
Honestly, anyone have an idea what he's saying?
Yes, it's easy to derive this from their "past strategies". Moron.
I agree, though, some of the buttons are a bit of a stretch. Rogue Squadron was an exercise in thumb-strengthening. Not much better than the XBox controllers, though (*sigh* -- seems like a better system for "adults").
Assumption: you are against Microsoft.
"You could spend the money on upgrading your home PC, which has the capability to do so much more than an XBox."
Microsoft is losing about $100 on every XBox they sell. Thus, you're getting PC hardware at a discount price, WHILE screwing Microsoft if you don't purchase any games (The console industry relies on game sales, not hardware, to drive the market. All royality sales are made off software).
If you really wanted to get Microsoft, you'd purchase the XBox hardware (which has an excellent motherboard) and not buy any games. Fool.