Why do all these "game machine" and "media center" how-to guides build such expensive computers? The day where the average gamer or home computer user spends $2000-2500 on a computer is a decade ago.
Agreed. I built an all out gaming machine a few months ago where money was not a big concern and I only spent about $1500. If money were an issue, I could have brought it closer to $1000.
what anybody says, last-ditch or whatever, the Dreamcast is still comparable with almost anything on the market today, purely from a technological (read: graphics quality) standpoint.
Reminds me of the Amiga. Technically superior in almost every way to it's peers, but poorly handled by the owning company.
I wasted nearly 10 years of my life being an Amiga bigot. Then I realized the thing that matters more is availability and cost of software. I jumped to the Wintel platform in '97 and haven't looked back. I would rather suffer the weaknesses of the most popular platform than suffer the isolation of a minority platform. Oh, and all you Apple bigots that want to reply - I'm not listening. La la la la la.
Interestingly, I learned this lesson at my day job. I was working for the HP Unix Workstation division (previously Apollo Computer). We had a huge launch where we blew away the competition in raw CPU performance. In the end, it had little effect on market share. Sun learned early on to woo the developers with cheap workstations that drove sales of big iron to support the software they built.
It is this same logic the compells me to drive GM cars/trucks. Parts and repairs are cheaper.
Half-life 1 was great...until you got to the alien world. Fighting against the marines was the only fun that game had. When you ended up in the alien world, the whole thing became a damn platform game. Half-life 2 was good but i don't get the hype around it.
Agreed about the alien world. Half-Life wins as the first game that made me scream like a girl. Head crab anyone? Doom3 is a worthy contender in that regard.
Half-Life 2 was just so realistic with an incredibly compelling storyline. The vehicles and gravity gun also made the game, IMHO.
In any case, it wasn't trivial to build Pong, whether your were Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, or Al Alcorn. Pong doesn't even have a CPU, it's just a state machine, and it's not something that was obvious or easy to do with the available (non-military) hardware of the early 70s.
If my Dad's stories are true, Baer had plenty of military hardware. The project started out as an experiment for some military application (HUD, maybe?). When the game was discovered, I think that is when it went to Magnavox. My Dad was working at Sanders when all this went down.
What many folks don't know is that Baer was working on a military project when he invented Pong. My Dad was working at Sanders (now part of Lock..., er BAE) and got to see the prototype before it became the game. At the time, my Dad didn't know what he was looking at. Later though, he bought us an Odyssey.
For me, it is ironic that I was born the same year. Now, I am a 39 year old video game junkie. Coincidence? I don't think so.
I gave up listening to him when I read his conspiracy theory for S.M.A.R.T. hard drives. Gee, so S.M.A.R.T. makes his software obsolete? Sounds like a marketing tactic.
There's a reason Taco's the guy people go after over stuff like this. Bluntly, it's because he's not that competent and he comes across as a dick about it.
We'd all accept a certain "raw"-ness. Taco, as an editor, is long since past "raw" and into the area of sleepwalking. He doesn't give a rip about whether he's posting a dupe, putting stories that are basically trolls on the home page, or posting stuff he hasn't re-read. He's defensive about not being able (or willing) to get those things right for whatever reasons, and he puts up the typical "Geeks are cool because they're SO about the content" screen to cover his ego. That's what this home page story was about, and it's just dripping with dismissive arrogance.
All's I'm saying is, try doing your job well before you get all dismissive with your critics. Taco's not making that effort.
Fair enough. I guess I don't know Taco that well.:-)
In any case, I've gotten over the whole spelling / grammar thing. There are just too many bad spellers out there.
I have found that the whole battle of spelling and grammar is futile. I have had the fortune of being involved in computers for 20+ years, and having been using internet email, newsgroups, etc. for nearly as long.
I too using to be spelling nazi. At some point, after a particularly heated flamewar, I realized I was not going to change the world. Fixing everyone's spelling and grammar really requires getting to every grade school and high school and fixing people before they get out into the real world.
Reaching this point is a form of enlightenment - it frees you from the petty issues and lets you focus on the real issue at hand. That is what this whole editorial is about.
There's a middle ground, but the effort to clean up language would be so very, very beneath him. Apparently he wouldn't care how the picture quality was on his cable access station, and it's so very cool and informal of him not to give a rip, because he's really a content man.
I'm not a paying subscriber. Paying for a service entails certain expectations that Slashdot isn't meeting at the moment. The glaringly apparent laziness of the editors is the biggest mark against the site.
Personally, I like the "raw" content of/. If you don't like it, then go to informationweek.com and revel in your grammatically correct, old news.
If you really want to stretch your math skills in construction, try building a roof.
I've built two sheds in my lifetime, which really equates to toy construction projects. Armed with a BSMA, I attempted to build my first shed roof and failed miserably. It all looked good on paper, but the end result was close to a disaster. I managed to fudge things and basically had to throw all my calculations out the window.
For my second shed, I decided to do my homework. I bought a book that focused solely on roof construction. What I learned is that all my math skills were useful, but in construction, you need to be very aware of material thickness and such. In the classroom, all points and lines have no thickness. Armed with my real-world knowledge, the second shed roof was a resounding success.
The book pointed out how most construction workers rely on pre-calculated tables and whatnot. The author carefully took that basic knowhow, and expanded it to use the mathematics that we all know and love. The most interesting concept I learned is that roof construction is easy - it is the "cutting" that is hard. Indeed!
We just have different definitions of privacy. The fact that the music program I loaded my CD collection into uses that information in the store is not disturbing to me. For crying out loud, I already volunteered my address and credit card to the store. What more can they know about me?
It would be interesting to re-phrase the question and replace "iTunes" with "Windows Media Player" and see what kinds of responses are generated by the Slashdot crowd.
"Burn the witch!" "But, she's not a witch." "Burn her anyway!"
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 1
And I've always suspected my local grocery store of profiling me. Afterall, I hand them a little tag on my keychain for my discount, they scan it and suddenly my name is on the reciept. I'd be naive to think they aren't generating statistics about me and secretly making note that I buy far more long grain wild rice than the average consumer.
Yes, you would be very naive. That is one of the primary reasons these stores have the "discount card".
A few years ago I took a data mining class at CMU. It was a 1-week crash course for engineers working in the data mining world. Nearly half the class was comprised of grocery store people.
I'm all for privacy, but this doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. Nobody bitches about Amazon customizing their storefront based on past purchases. Well, maybe they do, but I don't hang around with tinfoil-hat-types.
My point is that every time I go to the iTunes music store, I think, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if the store knew about my collection and taylored the site to my tastes. I really don't care to see the latest offering from Kelly Clarkson.
I guess the ideal thing would be if I were given a choice. I didn't see any mention of that in the article. To me, that would be one way to satisfy both crowds. I guess I'll have to fire up iTunes and see if I'm being "watched".
I am trying to figure out if there are technical difficulties with the website, or if the article really ends the way it does. So much for English 101.
This comment has me really scratching my head...
Next up are the buttons themselves... Creative say that this is a 'whole hand' mouse and where you might find a fourth button as one of a pair under your thumb on the left side or perhaps even over on the right (as with the Razer Copperhead), the Fatal1ty mouse has this button mounted on top next to the right mouse button meaning all four fingers have something to do. How this would work in non-games apps with right clicking wasn't tested by us as we were too busy taking the mouse apart to see the final feature.
Agreed. My DVDs look awesome on my HDTV. I get 480p viewing which suits me fine. The thing that really gets my goat is that this new technology will only benefit recent movies that were actually recorded in a format equivalent or better in resolution to the HD-DVD spec. Or blew-ray. Whatever. My point is. Ok I don't have a point. Well, let's just say I don't give an fsck about either choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do all these "game machine" and "media center" how-to guides build such expensive computers? The day where the average gamer or home computer user spends $2000-2500 on a computer is a decade ago.
Agreed. I built an all out gaming machine a few months ago where money was not a big concern and I only spent about $1500. If money were an issue, I could have brought it closer to $1000.
what anybody says, last-ditch or whatever, the Dreamcast is still comparable with almost anything on the market today, purely from a technological (read: graphics quality) standpoint.
Reminds me of the Amiga. Technically superior in almost every way to it's peers, but poorly handled by the owning company.
I wasted nearly 10 years of my life being an Amiga bigot. Then I realized the thing that matters more is availability and cost of software. I jumped to the Wintel platform in '97 and haven't looked back. I would rather suffer the weaknesses of the most popular platform than suffer the isolation of a minority platform. Oh, and all you Apple bigots that want to reply - I'm not listening. La la la la la.
Interestingly, I learned this lesson at my day job. I was working for the HP Unix Workstation division (previously Apollo Computer). We had a huge launch where we blew away the competition in raw CPU performance. In the end, it had little effect on market share. Sun learned early on to woo the developers with cheap workstations that drove sales of big iron to support the software they built.
It is this same logic the compells me to drive GM cars/trucks. Parts and repairs are cheaper.
Well said.
I shall shed a tear. While nothing they did recently was very interesting, their legacy of the arcade will live in my heart forever.
Besides the current company is a shadow of it's former self.
How many times did Atari die anyway?
Anandtech is quite large, so I'm sure they can take the Slashdot load just fine.
/.ed
Apparently not.
anandtech is
Well said.
Do you consider that an "oldie" ? It almost even requires hardware acceleration :P :)
Half-Life, that's like... yesterday, not "good old times"
Well, it recommended oldies, but didn't say the discussion HAD to be about oldies.
Since you asked:
Zork (and it's precursors)
{King | Space | *} Quest
Early LucasArts games - Monkey Island; (Something) and the Alien Mindbenders
And from the arcade:
Asteroids
Missile Command
Defender
Galaxian
Half-life 1 was great...until you got to the alien world.
Fighting against the marines was the only fun that game had. When you ended up in the alien world, the whole thing became a damn platform game.
Half-life 2 was good but i don't get the hype around it.
Agreed about the alien world. Half-Life wins as the first game that made me scream like a girl. Head crab anyone? Doom3 is a worthy contender in that regard.
Half-Life 2 was just so realistic with an incredibly compelling storyline. The vehicles and gravity gun also made the game, IMHO.
Half-Life blew me away
Half-Life 2 blew me away again
Other worthy mentions
M.U.L.E.
Diablo
Quake 1/2/3/4
In any case, it wasn't trivial to build Pong, whether your were Ralph Baer, Nolan Bushnell, or Al Alcorn. Pong doesn't even have a CPU, it's just a state machine, and it's not something that was obvious or easy to do with the available (non-military) hardware of the early 70s.
If my Dad's stories are true, Baer had plenty of military hardware. The project started out as an experiment for some military application (HUD, maybe?). When the game was discovered, I think that is when it went to Magnavox. My Dad was working at Sanders when all this went down.
What many folks don't know is that Baer was working on a military project when he invented Pong. My Dad was working at Sanders (now part of Lock..., er BAE) and got to see the prototype before it became the game. At the time, my Dad didn't know what he was looking at. Later though, he bought us an Odyssey.
For me, it is ironic that I was born the same year. Now, I am a 39 year old video game junkie. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Well I guess you must be right then.
Just read some of the modded up responses below parent. The math is not over my head, it just doesn't make sense. FWIW, I have a BSMA.
Mod parent overrated.
That's not insightful. Their knowledge of math is sketchy at best.
Wasn't there a space comedy in the 70's/80's that was based on a Space Garbage Ship?
Gibson is a crackpot.
I gave up listening to him when I read his conspiracy theory for S.M.A.R.T. hard drives. Gee, so S.M.A.R.T. makes his software obsolete? Sounds like a marketing tactic.
There's a reason Taco's the guy people go after over stuff like this. Bluntly, it's because he's not that competent and he comes across as a dick about it.
:-)
We'd all accept a certain "raw"-ness. Taco, as an editor, is long since past "raw" and into the area of sleepwalking. He doesn't give a rip about whether he's posting a dupe, putting stories that are basically trolls on the home page, or posting stuff he hasn't re-read. He's defensive about not being able (or willing) to get those things right for whatever reasons, and he puts up the typical "Geeks are cool because they're SO about the content" screen to cover his ego. That's what this home page story was about, and it's just dripping with dismissive arrogance.
All's I'm saying is, try doing your job well before you get all dismissive with your critics. Taco's not making that effort.
Fair enough. I guess I don't know Taco that well.
In any case, I've gotten over the whole spelling / grammar thing. There are just too many bad spellers out there.
I have found that the whole battle of spelling and grammar is futile. I have had the fortune of being involved in computers for 20+ years, and having been using internet email, newsgroups, etc. for nearly as long.
I too using to be spelling nazi. At some point, after a particularly heated flamewar, I realized I was not going to change the world. Fixing everyone's spelling and grammar really requires getting to every grade school and high school and fixing people before they get out into the real world.
Reaching this point is a form of enlightenment - it frees you from the petty issues and lets you focus on the real issue at hand. That is what this whole editorial is about.
Keep up the good work Taco!
There's a middle ground, but the effort to clean up language would be so very, very beneath him. Apparently he wouldn't care how the picture quality was on his cable access station, and it's so very cool and informal of him not to give a rip, because he's really a content man.
/. If you don't like it, then go to informationweek.com and revel in your grammatically correct, old news.
/.
I'm not a paying subscriber. Paying for a service entails certain expectations that Slashdot isn't meeting at the moment. The glaringly apparent laziness of the editors is the biggest mark against the site.
Personally, I like the "raw" content of
Your arrogance is in your attempt to change
Good Story.
If you really want to stretch your math skills in construction, try building a roof.
I've built two sheds in my lifetime, which really equates to toy construction projects. Armed with a BSMA, I attempted to build my first shed roof and failed miserably. It all looked good on paper, but the end result was close to a disaster. I managed to fudge things and basically had to throw all my calculations out the window.
For my second shed, I decided to do my homework. I bought a book that focused solely on roof construction. What I learned is that all my math skills were useful, but in construction, you need to be very aware of material thickness and such. In the classroom, all points and lines have no thickness. Armed with my real-world knowledge, the second shed roof was a resounding success.
The book pointed out how most construction workers rely on pre-calculated tables and whatnot. The author carefully took that basic knowhow, and expanded it to use the mathematics that we all know and love. The most interesting concept I learned is that roof construction is easy - it is the "cutting" that is hard. Indeed!
We just have different definitions of privacy. The fact that the music program I loaded my CD collection into uses that information in the store is not disturbing to me. For crying out loud, I already volunteered my address and credit card to the store. What more can they know about me?
It would be interesting to re-phrase the question and replace "iTunes" with "Windows Media Player" and see what kinds of responses are generated by the Slashdot crowd.
"Burn the witch!"
"But, she's not a witch."
"Burn her anyway!"
And I've always suspected my local grocery store of profiling me. Afterall, I hand them a little tag on my keychain for my discount, they scan it and suddenly my name is on the reciept. I'd be naive to think they aren't generating statistics about me and secretly making note that I buy far more long grain wild rice than the average consumer.
Yes, you would be very naive. That is one of the primary reasons these stores have the "discount card".
A few years ago I took a data mining class at CMU. It was a 1-week crash course for engineers working in the data mining world. Nearly half the class was comprised of grocery store people.
I'm all for privacy, but this doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. Nobody bitches about Amazon customizing their storefront based on past purchases. Well, maybe they do, but I don't hang around with tinfoil-hat-types.
My point is that every time I go to the iTunes music store, I think, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if the store knew about my collection and taylored the site to my tastes. I really don't care to see the latest offering from Kelly Clarkson.
I guess the ideal thing would be if I were given a choice. I didn't see any mention of that in the article. To me, that would be one way to satisfy both crowds. I guess I'll have to fire up iTunes and see if I'm being "watched".
I am trying to figure out if there are technical difficulties with the website, or if the article really ends the way it does. So much for English 101.
This comment has me really scratching my head...
Next up are the buttons themselves... Creative say that this is a 'whole hand' mouse and where you might find a fourth button as one of a pair under your thumb on the left side or perhaps even over on the right (as with the Razer Copperhead), the Fatal1ty mouse has this button mounted on top next to the right mouse button meaning all four fingers have something to do. How this would work in non-games apps with right clicking wasn't tested by us as we were too busy taking the mouse apart to see the final feature.
Can someone please translate?
Agreed. My DVDs look awesome on my HDTV. I get 480p viewing which suits me fine. The thing that really gets my goat is that this new technology will only benefit recent movies that were actually recorded in a format equivalent or better in resolution to the HD-DVD spec. Or blew-ray. Whatever. My point is. Ok I don't have a point. Well, let's just say I don't give an fsck about either choice.