[sarcasm]But if you'll take a look, neither Photoshop Filter or Final Cut Pro benchmarks are even obtainable... obviously it pales in comparison to a Dual G4-800![/sarcasm]
Let's consider something for the time being here: Most of slashdot is people in computing-related fields. We know computing. Most of us don't know much beyond the few college-level bio courses... this isn't our area of expertise.
For a moment, let's just replace the words, 'publishing bubonic plague genome information' with "releasing source code for the 2.4 Kernel". Are we all of a sudden afraid that the script kiddies are going to root our box, or do we realize that the release of such information will allow the many skilled programmers of the Linux world to make fine adjustments to the security features of Linux?
I'm talking out of my ass for this last bit here, but I'd have to figure that it takes a significantly skilled person to engineer a more dangerous strain of a given bacteria. I would also have to figure that the thousands of other people with roughly the same skill level could probably come up with a vaccine in a shorter time period. If I wanted something super-destructive, I'd probably stick with a nuke. They're a lot cheaper, and no one's come up with a personal nuke/radiation proof shield that can be injected into a toddler.
One of the ways console manufacturers manage to keep their prices down is by passing the buck. I've spoken to several console developers, and they usually seem to hint at $20K to $50K for the complete development kit. The Metrowerks PS2 Codewarrior is only one small part of the equation. You also need the development PS2 console that allows play of CD-Rs, as well as debugging features that you won't find on the $300 PS2 at the store. I'm sure there's also extensive documentation included with these packages.
An alternate route would be to track down a Yaroze PS1. Sony released a special $750 PS1 package a few years back that included a simple development kit, a special PS1, and an RS-232 link for uploading the information. The catch was that the Yaroze system couldn't create CDs... any game you wrote had to fit in the 2MB of main memory.
Someone else has mentioned Dreamcast... this would probably be the best way to approach the situation. There are several websites that will show you how to burn a CD that will boot on the Dreamcast and run using Windows CE. The catch with this "hack" is that I don't think it can call the 3D hardware.
Of course, Linux has been ported to PS2 and Dreamcast, so you could write a linux game for either of those consoles. The cost is minimal (Dreamcast's linux is burned to a CD-R, and PS2's linux is bundled with a NIC and Hard Drive for $160 or so in Japan).
That's how I see your options, assuming you really want to make a console game.
It said in the article that the doctor was pulling a 200ms ping, and that the maximum acceptable latency was 330ms.
Now I'm not trying to troll or be funny here, but that's a pretty lousy ping, especially for a direct fiber link.
I don't know about anyone else, but Quake is damned near unplayable with a 330 ping. We're talking about life and death situations here... If I can't accurately rail someone with that kind of latency, I certainly wouldn't want to be trying to move my scalpel without knicking the femoral artery.
Well, I'm about to kiss some Karma goodbye, but...
"Informative"?!?!?!? This is a freaking Goatse.cx link for crying out loud!
Please, please, at least follow a link before modding. Ordinarily I wouldn''t give an IP link the time of day, but the "informative" tag made me somehow think all was safe.
Okay,
So it's probably safe to assume that a good amount of people in the WTC towers were wealthy investment banker-ish types. Many of these guys were probably the only source of income their families had (since they would probably make enough that their wives didn't have to work). They probably had 1 million+ dollar houses mortgaged, nice cars, etc. So it would probably be safe to assume that their life insurance policies were for several million dollars. Of course, we can't discount that there were also plenty of secretaries/sys admins/janitorial staff/deli proprietors etc. in thee towers as well. Most of them also probably had life insurance policies.
And of course we have the World Trade Center towers themselves, who are probably insured for billions.
Well, watching CNN and various other news channels, I keep seeing that many politicians and journalists are calling this "an act of war"
Folks, what is the one thing that almost no life or property insurance policies cover? You guessed it: WAR!
We're going to have possibly tens of thousands of families who depended upon a primary wage-earner to survive. These families could potentially be told by insurance companies, "Sorry, but we don't have to provide coverage for your loved ones. It was war...".
Additionally, we will have whatever group of investors counts on rental income from the WTC go completely to pot, because their property insurance on the buildings will echo the same sentiment.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't an act of war, it's an act of terrorism. The "war" clause in insurance policies is there as a last resort... it's meant to protect the insurance companies if half the major cities in the US get nuked to the ground. But I have no doubt that many of these companies will try to use this clause to their advantage.
I'm going to be sending a letter to my Senators and Representatives in a few days (obviously they have more important things on their minds right now) urging them to pass a temporary law that prevents insurance companies from pulling these sorts of sh>
igans. I urge everyone else to do the same.
I recall having seen a documentary (really, it was a documentary) on the evolution of the pornography business in the 70's and 80's. One of the laws that this documentary said saved the industry was the ruling that actors couldn't be tried in different states simultaneously for breaking decency laws. Essentially, the court ruled that doing so would make the ruling of the courts in the decency cases a moot point, since it would bankrupt the stars and studios being sued.
I wonder if this ruling would apply to to MS. Obviously, they'd have no problem defending themselves simultaneously in all 50 states, but I think it might set a dangerous precedent if every single state is allowed to impose different "sanctions" on a company.
Everyone knows about "California Emissions" vehicles, but can you imagine what would happen if every single state had a different emissions standard for vehicles sold in their state? Now picture that with a software vendor. MS can't bundle explorer in Texas, Michigan, New York, and Florida. They can't allow VB scripting by default in Wyoming, Delaware, or Oregon. Washington would, of course, make no sanctions;-). But can you imagine the implications a separate vendor (like, say, Adobe) would have if they had to concern themselves with 30 or 50 different versions of their software based on the different "sanctions" adopted by each state?
I'm certainly not saying that I condone MS' practice, or that the world is better off with their dominance. I just think that it opens the floodgates for problems when individual states can make different claims.
Hopefully the Europeans will have some sense and pull a GE/Honeywell on MS.
HP took the hit a while ago with the high color screens that really only did 4096 colors.
From what I understand, the new Jornadas have 16-bit color, while the iPaq (like the older Jornadas) has 12-bit (4096 colors).
Web Comics and MPEGs look fine on my iPaq, but photos have a decidedly nasty look to them.
My understanding of the iPaq's success stemmed mostly from the power of the machine (it was equipped with the fastest processor of the bunch), and the exapndability. I haven't heavily researched the Jornada, but the iPaq has a PCMCIA expansion jacket available. WLAN sold a lot of people on these units.
Sounds a lot like that episode of Junkyard Wars where they laid siege to the castles with turnips.
It was interesting to see how they had to fiddle with the weight and fulcrum adjustments. Makes one wonder how it was all done before Calculus or calculators.
People related to each other could be issued numbers ending in a similar series of digits. We could easily tell relationships by looking at these numbers. We could then take an internet style approach and run "DNS"-style systems, where a unique series of digits would correspond to a word. Since this word would relate to the last series of numbers in an identification string, we could refer to this string as a "last word" or "last name".
In order to retain a certain sense of relation and creativity, parents would be able to specify a word, or "name" that would correspond to the series of digits that preceeded the "last name".
Now we all know that people aren't computers, so they won't be able to just magically connect to a "DNS"-type server. In order to make it easy on the less technically inclined among us, we'll publish a large book containing the corresponding relationships between the "number" and the "name" of a person. Since the "last name" would be far more unique, we'll organize this listing according to those "names", and list the unique contact number next to those "names".
Ultimately, all of these numbers can be tracked by a central office, which will store the information relating to these unique numbers and their corresponding "names". This office will be responsible for this massive "social" program, and will also maintain the "security" of the program. Of course, they will issue cards containing this number, so that people can prove who they are when requesting important documents.
But then again, who am I to suggest a radical change in the system?
I found the University of Texas' solution to be the best. They simply stated a few simple facts (plug in CAT5, set computer to DHCP), published the POP server info online, and let the students help each other. In the dorms, every student had their major posted on the doors (along with hometown, etc.), and those of us with CS and EE majors posted made a whole lot of friends those first few days.
As stated earlier, it is a wonderful way to meet people, especially for the geeks. I also think it is a wonderful way to begin to promote self-sufficience among the students. After all, if a university expects students to teach themselves (and each other) how to study/take notes/learn bus schedules etc., they can sure as heck expect them to teach each other computing.
Of course the admins were still swamped. But I think UT's approach to the situation was a very good way to encourage "togetherness" by solving a problem. In a way, it was what all those cheesy corporate teamwork retreats want to be... only with a lot more frustrated cursing.
The Gravity Advocates Association (GAA) has announced plans to file suit against the "repulsor beam", claiming it "circumvents established gravitational force technology"
In other news, Podkletnov has been arrested by the FBI and is being held without bail on charges of "violating basic scientific laws"
The Digital Out on the back of PC CD-ROMs does not feed the pure 1s and 0s from the CD-ROM. The physical decoding and translation of the Redbook standard is handled inside the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. The information output to the Soundcard is interpreted sound information, not the actual bits from the CD. It is this reason that you are able to hook up headphones to the front of most CD-ROM drives and completely bypass the soundcard.
My conclusion on this issue has always been to use coax digital out on a CD deck, and either
a) hook it up to a home theater CD Burner, which should be able to handle it, then rip the burned CD. or...
b) hook it into the 5.1 input on the higher end soundcards.
Either way, it's still a pain compared to plain old ripping, but it should work.
The reason everyone seems to be down on this game is because it isn't really all that revolutionary. To elaborate, I will attempt to draw both PC and console parallels here.
Everyone who remembers playing Wolfenstein 3D, try to remember the first time you saw it. You probably said to yourself "holy shit, this is 3D! This is so cool!". The game was totally new and different, and thus, it attracted an enormous crowd. Then came Doom, where it was incredibly cool to see people deathmatch over a network or modem connection. Again, it totally wowed people that you were competing against eachother. Of course, following that, we all dropped our jaws when we saw GLQuake running with a 3D accelerator. It was a fundamental change to the nature of the game. It was now rendered in full 3D, and thus took advantage of 360 degrees of space. It fundamentally changed how the game was played.
Now try to remember how it was the first time you saw Quake 3. It was impressive, yes. The curved surfaces were nice to look at, the game had been made a little more fast paced, but nothing had fundamentally changed. Thus, while Quake 3 was very succesful it is not really a truly incredible game. Doom 3 will likely have something that fundamentally changes the game, even if it isn't graphics.
Final Fantasy 7 (the one everyone seems to love) is much like the original Quake. Until FF7 had been released, RPG gamers knew nothing but dumpy sprites and text boxes. All of a sudden, here comes an RPG with 3D characters. The choice of weapons is reflected in the graphic representation of what your character wields onscreen. The spells throw out bursts of light and the like, where the older games' spells simply shook the screen. And, of course, the movies came. For a lot of people, this was what made the difference. No longer did gamers read a text box to find out what happened, they saw it in a beautifully rendered movie sequence. Many people can argue that the FMV detracts from the gameplay, but there is no doubt that the combination of movie sequences with the complete graphical updates fundamentally changed the way we experienced the games.
Now, if we flash forward by about 4 years, we'll start to see why Final Fantasy 10 isn't as awe inspiring to most gamers. The jump to more polygons per character is definitely not as important as the jump from sprites to polygons was. More pretty lights don't really impress most of us. Square needs to get their act together and release that truly next generation game. Maybe it's going to be their planned MMORPG (FFXI)... I for one think that until that next fundamental step is reached, that one thing that separated DOOM from Quake, people will probably continue to complain that square is releasing nothing but 50-hour long virtual soap operas.
You didn't ask your employer's permission to use your employer's computer for non-work-related activities.
I would agree with you in the literal sense. Yes, of course he was using resources that he didn't have permission to use. However, stop and consider this from the perspective of your average Joe on the job.
How many of us don't use our computers for non work related activities? Take/. for instance. Everyone who has their bosses' explicit permission to read and post to/. please raise their hands. I thought so. Or how about checking personal e-mail on your lunch break? Or checking out the (non geek) news sites during down-time?
Fact of the matter is, this man is guilty, in a technical sense. But, if cases like this start to gain momentum, who knows how many companies we'll have suing their workers for non-work related internet usage.
"These rumours come round every couple of months. It's idle gossip."
I whole-heartedly agree. It seems like the rumor mill around series that have a big popularity with us geeks seems to churn out a new one every other week.
Surely everyone remembers the rumor that Lucas was going to spin-off the Indy series with Natalie Portman as a daughter or relative of Indy.
Or how about the myriad of rumors surrounding the Terminator sequel? Chyna as a female terminator? A movie set entirely in the future?
Of course, none of these compare to the stream of "insider information" regarding the Star Wars movies.
That said, the fact that this story seems to reference Ford, Connery, Lucas and Spielberg does inspire a bit more confidence than the usual " an inside source tells us...".
An individual developing a piece of software in his free time for free distribution is encroaching on Adobe's naming system, but Jasc can sell a piece of software with the words paint! and shop! in the name for a profit!, and no one at adobe cares?
Slashdot Mirror
if the ad campaign here is as funny as the japanese one .
Pittsburgh Super Computing previously sold one of their old cray units on e-bay.
So, hey, maybe we'll be bidding on this bad boy in a couple of years...
Was when the HP-powered cluster started assimilating some of the Compaq multi-Alpha machines as it's own.
Does it have "Clippy"? Otherwise I'm not interested.
[sarcasm]But if you'll take a look, neither Photoshop Filter or Final Cut Pro benchmarks are even obtainable... obviously it pales in comparison to a Dual G4-800![/sarcasm]
Let's consider something for the time being here: Most of slashdot is people in computing-related fields. We know computing. Most of us don't know much beyond the few college-level bio courses... this isn't our area of expertise.
For a moment, let's just replace the words, 'publishing bubonic plague genome information' with "releasing source code for the 2.4 Kernel". Are we all of a sudden afraid that the script kiddies are going to root our box, or do we realize that the release of such information will allow the many skilled programmers of the Linux world to make fine adjustments to the security features of Linux?
I'm talking out of my ass for this last bit here, but I'd have to figure that it takes a significantly skilled person to engineer a more dangerous strain of a given bacteria. I would also have to figure that the thousands of other people with roughly the same skill level could probably come up with a vaccine in a shorter time period. If I wanted something super-destructive, I'd probably stick with a nuke. They're a lot cheaper, and no one's come up with a personal nuke/radiation proof shield that can be injected into a toddler.
Unfortunately, I can't read the actual article, because securityfocus is /.ed, so I'll have to go by the summary.
/me breaks out my copy of the US constitution...
abolish the statute of limitations for computer crime, retroactively...
From Article I, section 9, paragraph 3:
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed".
Ex Post Facto refers to laws having a retroactive effect, for those of you wondering.
So, as always, IANAL, but this sure doesn't sound constitutional to me.
One of the ways console manufacturers manage to keep their prices down is by passing the buck. I've spoken to several console developers, and they usually seem to hint at $20K to $50K for the complete development kit. The Metrowerks PS2 Codewarrior is only one small part of the equation. You also need the development PS2 console that allows play of CD-Rs, as well as debugging features that you won't find on the $300 PS2 at the store. I'm sure there's also extensive documentation included with these packages.
An alternate route would be to track down a Yaroze PS1. Sony released a special $750 PS1 package a few years back that included a simple development kit, a special PS1, and an RS-232 link for uploading the information. The catch was that the Yaroze system couldn't create CDs... any game you wrote had to fit in the 2MB of main memory.
Someone else has mentioned Dreamcast... this would probably be the best way to approach the situation. There are several websites that will show you how to burn a CD that will boot on the Dreamcast and run using Windows CE. The catch with this "hack" is that I don't think it can call the 3D hardware.
Of course, Linux has been ported to PS2 and Dreamcast, so you could write a linux game for either of those consoles. The cost is minimal (Dreamcast's linux is burned to a CD-R, and PS2's linux is bundled with a NIC and Hard Drive for $160 or so in Japan).
That's how I see your options, assuming you really want to make a console game.
It said in the article that the doctor was pulling a 200ms ping, and that the maximum acceptable latency was 330ms.
Now I'm not trying to troll or be funny here, but that's a pretty lousy ping, especially for a direct fiber link.
I don't know about anyone else, but Quake is damned near unplayable with a 330 ping. We're talking about life and death situations here... If I can't accurately rail someone with that kind of latency, I certainly wouldn't want to be trying to move my scalpel without knicking the femoral artery.
Well, I'm about to kiss some Karma goodbye, but...
"Informative"?!?!?!? This is a freaking Goatse.cx link for crying out loud!
Please, please, at least follow a link before modding. Ordinarily I wouldn''t give an IP link the time of day, but the "informative" tag made me somehow think all was safe.
Okay, So it's probably safe to assume that a good amount of people in the WTC towers were wealthy investment banker-ish types. Many of these guys were probably the only source of income their families had (since they would probably make enough that their wives didn't have to work). They probably had 1 million+ dollar houses mortgaged, nice cars, etc. So it would probably be safe to assume that their life insurance policies were for several million dollars. Of course, we can't discount that there were also plenty of secretaries/sys admins/janitorial staff/deli proprietors etc. in thee towers as well. Most of them also probably had life insurance policies.
And of course we have the World Trade Center towers themselves, who are probably insured for billions.
Well, watching CNN and various other news channels, I keep seeing that many politicians and journalists are calling this "an act of war"
Folks, what is the one thing that almost no life or property insurance policies cover? You guessed it: WAR!
We're going to have possibly tens of thousands of families who depended upon a primary wage-earner to survive. These families could potentially be told by insurance companies, "Sorry, but we don't have to provide coverage for your loved ones. It was war...".
Additionally, we will have whatever group of investors counts on rental income from the WTC go completely to pot, because their property insurance on the buildings will echo the same sentiment.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't an act of war, it's an act of terrorism. The "war" clause in insurance policies is there as a last resort... it's meant to protect the insurance companies if half the major cities in the US get nuked to the ground. But I have no doubt that many of these companies will try to use this clause to their advantage.
I'm going to be sending a letter to my Senators and Representatives in a few days (obviously they have more important things on their minds right now) urging them to pass a temporary law that prevents insurance companies from pulling these sorts of sh> igans. I urge everyone else to do the same.
Now, IANAL, but...
;-). But can you imagine the implications a separate vendor (like, say, Adobe) would have if they had to concern themselves with 30 or 50 different versions of their software based on the different "sanctions" adopted by each state?
I recall having seen a documentary (really, it was a documentary) on the evolution of the pornography business in the 70's and 80's. One of the laws that this documentary said saved the industry was the ruling that actors couldn't be tried in different states simultaneously for breaking decency laws. Essentially, the court ruled that doing so would make the ruling of the courts in the decency cases a moot point, since it would bankrupt the stars and studios being sued.
I wonder if this ruling would apply to to MS. Obviously, they'd have no problem defending themselves simultaneously in all 50 states, but I think it might set a dangerous precedent if every single state is allowed to impose different "sanctions" on a company.
Everyone knows about "California Emissions" vehicles, but can you imagine what would happen if every single state had a different emissions standard for vehicles sold in their state? Now picture that with a software vendor. MS can't bundle explorer in Texas, Michigan, New York, and Florida. They can't allow VB scripting by default in Wyoming, Delaware, or Oregon. Washington would, of course, make no sanctions
I'm certainly not saying that I condone MS' practice, or that the world is better off with their dominance. I just think that it opens the floodgates for problems when individual states can make different claims.
Hopefully the Europeans will have some sense and pull a GE/Honeywell on MS.
HP took the hit a while ago with the high color screens that really only did 4096 colors.
From what I understand, the new Jornadas have 16-bit color, while the iPaq (like the older Jornadas) has 12-bit (4096 colors).
Web Comics and MPEGs look fine on my iPaq, but photos have a decidedly nasty look to them.
My understanding of the iPaq's success stemmed mostly from the power of the machine (it was equipped with the fastest processor of the bunch), and the exapndability. I haven't heavily researched the Jornada, but the iPaq has a PCMCIA expansion jacket available. WLAN sold a lot of people on these units.
Sounds a lot like that episode of Junkyard Wars where they laid siege to the castles with turnips. It was interesting to see how they had to fiddle with the weight and fulcrum adjustments. Makes one wonder how it was all done before Calculus or calculators.
We could move to a more logical system.
People related to each other could be issued numbers ending in a similar series of digits. We could easily tell relationships by looking at these numbers. We could then take an internet style approach and run "DNS"-style systems, where a unique series of digits would correspond to a word. Since this word would relate to the last series of numbers in an identification string, we could refer to this string as a "last word" or "last name".
In order to retain a certain sense of relation and creativity, parents would be able to specify a word, or "name" that would correspond to the series of digits that preceeded the "last name".
Now we all know that people aren't computers, so they won't be able to just magically connect to a "DNS"-type server. In order to make it easy on the less technically inclined among us, we'll publish a large book containing the corresponding relationships between the "number" and the "name" of a person. Since the "last name" would be far more unique, we'll organize this listing according to those "names", and list the unique contact number next to those "names".
Ultimately, all of these numbers can be tracked by a central office, which will store the information relating to these unique numbers and their corresponding "names". This office will be responsible for this massive "social" program, and will also maintain the "security" of the program. Of course, they will issue cards containing this number, so that people can prove who they are when requesting important documents.
But then again, who am I to suggest a radical change in the system?
My guess is that it's similar to Sprint's wireless Broadband offering
Sprint has similar "line of sight" requirements, and a range of (last I checked) 35-40 miles from the broadcast point.
Death
Taxes
a Blizzard or 3D realms game that's "Just around the corner!"
I found the University of Texas' solution to be the best. They simply stated a few simple facts (plug in CAT5, set computer to DHCP), published the POP server info online, and let the students help each other. In the dorms, every student had their major posted on the doors (along with hometown, etc.), and those of us with CS and EE majors posted made a whole lot of friends those first few days.
As stated earlier, it is a wonderful way to meet people, especially for the geeks. I also think it is a wonderful way to begin to promote self-sufficience among the students. After all, if a university expects students to teach themselves (and each other) how to study/take notes/learn bus schedules etc., they can sure as heck expect them to teach each other computing.
Of course the admins were still swamped. But I think UT's approach to the situation was a very good way to encourage "togetherness" by solving a problem. In a way, it was what all those cheesy corporate teamwork retreats want to be... only with a lot more frustrated cursing.
Newsflash!
The Gravity Advocates Association (GAA) has announced plans to file suit against the "repulsor beam", claiming it "circumvents established gravitational force technology"
In other news, Podkletnov has been arrested by the FBI and is being held without bail on charges of "violating basic scientific laws"
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster ...
Yeah, but you'd better get those IR ports lined up just right...
Sorry, I couldn't resist...
Now, I'm not quite positive about this, but...
The Digital Out on the back of PC CD-ROMs does not feed the pure 1s and 0s from the CD-ROM. The physical decoding and translation of the Redbook standard is handled inside the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. The information output to the Soundcard is interpreted sound information, not the actual bits from the CD. It is this reason that you are able to hook up headphones to the front of most CD-ROM drives and completely bypass the soundcard.
My conclusion on this issue has always been to use coax digital out on a CD deck, and either
a) hook it up to a home theater CD Burner, which should be able to handle it, then rip the burned CD. or...
b) hook it into the 5.1 input on the higher end soundcards.
Either way, it's still a pain compared to plain old ripping, but it should work.
The reason everyone seems to be down on this game is because it isn't really all that revolutionary. To elaborate, I will attempt to draw both PC and console parallels here.
Everyone who remembers playing Wolfenstein 3D, try to remember the first time you saw it. You probably said to yourself "holy shit, this is 3D! This is so cool!". The game was totally new and different, and thus, it attracted an enormous crowd. Then came Doom, where it was incredibly cool to see people deathmatch over a network or modem connection. Again, it totally wowed people that you were competing against eachother. Of course, following that, we all dropped our jaws when we saw GLQuake running with a 3D accelerator. It was a fundamental change to the nature of the game. It was now rendered in full 3D, and thus took advantage of 360 degrees of space. It fundamentally changed how the game was played.
Now try to remember how it was the first time you saw Quake 3. It was impressive, yes. The curved surfaces were nice to look at, the game had been made a little more fast paced, but nothing had fundamentally changed. Thus, while Quake 3 was very succesful it is not really a truly incredible game. Doom 3 will likely have something that fundamentally changes the game, even if it isn't graphics.
Final Fantasy 7 (the one everyone seems to love) is much like the original Quake. Until FF7 had been released, RPG gamers knew nothing but dumpy sprites and text boxes. All of a sudden, here comes an RPG with 3D characters. The choice of weapons is reflected in the graphic representation of what your character wields onscreen. The spells throw out bursts of light and the like, where the older games' spells simply shook the screen. And, of course, the movies came. For a lot of people, this was what made the difference. No longer did gamers read a text box to find out what happened, they saw it in a beautifully rendered movie sequence. Many people can argue that the FMV detracts from the gameplay, but there is no doubt that the combination of movie sequences with the complete graphical updates fundamentally changed the way we experienced the games.
Now, if we flash forward by about 4 years, we'll start to see why Final Fantasy 10 isn't as awe inspiring to most gamers. The jump to more polygons per character is definitely not as important as the jump from sprites to polygons was. More pretty lights don't really impress most of us. Square needs to get their act together and release that truly next generation game. Maybe it's going to be their planned MMORPG (FFXI)... I for one think that until that next fundamental step is reached, that one thing that separated DOOM from Quake, people will probably continue to complain that square is releasing nothing but 50-hour long virtual soap operas.
You didn't ask your employer's permission to use your employer's computer for non-work-related activities.
/. for instance. Everyone who has their bosses' explicit permission to read and post to /. please raise their hands. I thought so. Or how about checking personal e-mail on your lunch break? Or checking out the (non geek) news sites during down-time?
I would agree with you in the literal sense. Yes, of course he was using resources that he didn't have permission to use. However, stop and consider this from the perspective of your average Joe on the job.
How many of us don't use our computers for non work related activities? Take
Fact of the matter is, this man is guilty, in a technical sense. But, if cases like this start to gain momentum, who knows how many companies we'll have suing their workers for non-work related internet usage.
Chris Canter
"These rumours come round every couple of months. It's idle gossip."
I whole-heartedly agree. It seems like the rumor mill around series that have a big popularity with us geeks seems to churn out a new one every other week.
Surely everyone remembers the rumor that Lucas was going to spin-off the Indy series with Natalie Portman as a daughter or relative of Indy.
Or how about the myriad of rumors surrounding the Terminator sequel? Chyna as a female terminator? A movie set entirely in the future?
Of course, none of these compare to the stream of "insider information" regarding the Star Wars movies.
That said, the fact that this story seems to reference Ford, Connery, Lucas and Spielberg does inspire a bit more confidence than the usual " an inside source tells us...".
So, let me get this straight...
An individual developing a piece of software in his free time for free distribution is encroaching on Adobe's naming system, but Jasc can sell a piece of software with the words paint! and shop! in the name for a profit!, and no one at adobe cares?
-Chris Canter