When can I place an order for a real life Cabbit (half-cat, half-rabbit)? I mean, with one of those overly-cute things, any geek would be an instant hit with the ladies, right?;) Woops, I'm sorry, I mean... ^_^
This article is only a few minutes old and everyone is flaming poor Liciq for saying KB instead of MB. C'mon now, let's grant him a full Slashdot pardon. I mean, it's not like his mixing of MB and KB crashed a Mars lander or something, like NASA's mixing of metric/US measurements did.;)
The problem with this is that people are already paying for the content; they pay for net access, and most people feel that should be all they need to pay.
It's like television, which survives off ads. The only problem is we've learned that advertising on the net doesn't work very well. I think with clever, amusing, and less annoying ads, that could change. Also, I think most people base the success of an ad on the number of click-throughs; this is not logical, especially if you have an ad similar in nature to a print ad, where a click-through is not necessary to gain your interest in the product/service.
The Internet is still pretty young, and the Web is even younger. In time, hopefully, things will flesh out and new business models will emerge. I think for now, though, the industry is still trying to recover from the burst tech bubble.
OK, this really irks me... I'm sure some informed person here answer this...
Why do they constantly tout the number of times kazaa has been downloaded (as they do in this article) when the number of connected users is what matters?
If it's been downloaded 240 million times, why the hell aren't there 240 million users on when I connect? Now, granted, due to times zones, jobs, and what-not everyone would not be on at once, but still, shouldn't there be more than ~3 million people connected at once?
Either one of these figures is wrong, or I'm missing something. Or perhaps this is a sign that a lot of people that download kazaa have trouble getting it to work...
What would you expect from a Web site aimed at the tech savvy? Granted, they could have stayed away from any bias at all, but they know that most of their viewers would agree with the image they depicted, just as most people here would.
Had they gone the other way and depicted kazaa as an illegal and immoral tool, they would have been flooded with irate emails, etc.
Really, I see your point about bias, but hell, hardly anyone writes without bias anymore, and if you've watched cable news lately, it's almost scary.
Besides, you read Slashdot... and you're complaining about bias on TechTV? Now that's ironic...;)
Big deal. If 3D animation still looks like animation... then what's the big hullabaloo about? It's still animation, just using new technology.
I think computer generated images still need to go a long away to be truly photorealistic, which is where they would be the most useful. Even in recent big budget movies, Terminator 3 for example, you can clearly spot some of the CGI. Granted, it looks great; shiny and flawless... maybe a little too much so. Perhaps that is why it stands out so much. I'm sure I didn't notice every time they used CGI, because some of the effects were likely very subtle.
Still, I'd like to see CGI advance to the point where it is totally impossible to see an visual difference from reality... where they could show a computer generated metal robot and have it look identical to a life-sized model.
No, he voiced Hadriel... two different archangels.;) Hadriel is right before the entrance to the Chaos Sancturary. Kind of a minor role; he never leaves that spot..
I forgot to mention, though, guess who else Bill Roper voiced?
Bill Roper was indeed not only one of the figure heads at Blizzard, but he voiced Hadriel in Diablo II. (Hadriel is the archangel that tells you to go smash the soulstone before heading into the Chaos Sanctuary.)
On the subject of these employees leaving... Well, I'll just quote Cain.... "This does not bode well..."
Heh... at least, not for Blizzard... But I'm sure their talents will be put to just as much use wherever they end up.
It supports pretty much every compression format in existence, and its own ACE compressor can really crunch files. It also allows you span across media (like CD-Rs, and you can specify the size, just in case you have some of those rare 90 minute discs).
It works great for making, erhm⦠âoebackup copiesâ of PC games that Iâ(TM)ve âoelostâ the disc for but still have installed⦠Heh.
And in an effort to remain at least somewhat on topic, Iâ(TM)d like to throw in my two bits here: Isnâ(TM)t this a good thing? I mean, if there are two different, competing standards, wonâ(TM)t that drive the development forward more than if things stayed the same? Look at what competition between ATI and nVidia did for end users. Now graphics cards are so insanely overpowered that they can double as leaf blowers. Look at what competition between Intel and AMD did for the end user. Now we have CPUs that are faster than a speeding bullet, and just about as hot as the sun. Heh⦠I guess my examples are showing the bad side of competitionâ¦. Woopsâ¦
I would just like to say I totally agree with you, but I had to add in the flakey linux support thing, because the last time I didn't I was flamed to hell.;)
Last time all I heard was "blah blah the driver is closed blah blah it crashed my linux box" so I am careful now, hehe.
I'm not surprised; reading about a game isn't going to make you want to fork over the change for a new PC. You really need to experience a demo at the very least to make that kind of investment.
If you find MMORPGs interesting, you should check out Blizzard's currently in development project, World of WarCraft. When it is released, I think I'll have to put eating on hold for a month so that I can upgrade.;)
You're right about Nintendo... The GC rocks, and I would get one for Metroid Prime alone... If only I had money to burn, hehe.
One of these rovers discovers an advanced, humanoid civilization on Mars that has been previously overlooked.
The aliens are advanced enough to contact us via "primitive" radio signals and learn several of our languages in a few days.
Then we decide to meet. This would be the conversation:
Earthlings: So yeah, you should come here! That would be so cool.
Martians:...right. So, how about you just come here instead?
Earthlings: Well, uhh... could we meet on the moon perhaps? About 30 years ago if possible?
Martians: No, we'd rather have you come here, it is much nicer than the moon or earth. How can you stand earth with all that oxygen?
Earthlings: Yeah, well, that's part of our problem with going there...
Martians: What?! You mean you can't even get here, and you can't genetically alter your bodies so they are suitable on other worlds? God, no *wonder* we've been ignoring you hicks for so long...
As some people on this thread have pointed out, if you're the type of person that'll plunk a few hundred on a video card based on its 3dmark scores, you have more to worry about that being out a few hundred dollars. Heheh...
Most major vendors have been "optimizing" for Quake III ever since it became the informal benchmarking standard... I think Futuremark has blown the issue up a little since they weren't on really good terms with nVidia before this started.
But really, 3dmark has always been a "gee-whiz" pretty demo of current graphic card abilities, but never a reliable benchmark. In fact, no one program/game can be a reliable benchmark, since performance must be judged on a variety of applications. Only then do you get some kind of idea of where the "real world" performance lays.
The competition between ATI and nVidia is good for us customers; they both have excellent cards now. ATI has the fastest, while nVidia's drivers (yeah linux support is flakey I know) seem a bit more stable than ATIâ(TM)s.
Really, between the two companies, it is hard to make a really "wrong" choice.
So yeah, everyone, these aren't the droids you are looking for, you can go about your business...
Well, I'm a gamer. I'm not too modern though because my computer is ancient by PC Gaming standards:
P3 850 MHz, 256 MB of RAM, GeForce3
I once reviewed PC games for gaminghorizon.com. It was easily the most fun I ever had writing, mainly because it was the first time more than a couple people would be reading something I wrote.
Due to my shocking talent of being able to post on slashdot quite regularly but not being able to meet deadlines for GHZ, I am no longer part of their staff.
It's probably for the best, since I doubt I could review modern PC games for much longer with this humble system, and with my current financial status an upgrade isn't likely. PC gaming is not really a cheap hobby, but because of that it is always on the bleeding edge, unlike consoles which are supposed to have a life span of about 5 years.
As for console fans out there, I recommend Blizzard's PC games (yeah I know bnetd dmca blah) but their games are always designed with very straightforward interfaces, and could help to convert console gamers to PC. I've had some success with this method.;)
that's actually pretty impressive, since it is rather sluggish on my p3 850 with a geforce3 and 256 MB of ram
The last Night Elf mission is really slow for me.
How do the game menus perform for you? Before I got the GF3, they were far less smooth. But that's about all the GF3 did to help the performance over the TNT2. What it really wants is a new CPU.
Slashdot Mirror
When can I place an order for a real life Cabbit (half-cat, half-rabbit)? I mean, with one of those overly-cute things, any geek would be an instant hit with the ladies, right? ;) Woops, I'm sorry, I mean... ^_^
This article is only a few minutes old and everyone is flaming poor Liciq for saying KB instead of MB. C'mon now, let's grant him a full Slashdot pardon. I mean, it's not like his mixing of MB and KB crashed a Mars lander or something, like NASA's mixing of metric/US measurements did. ;)
AOL kiddie speak on the frontpage? OMG... WTF is /. coming to! I mean, uhh... wait... nevermind.
It's like television, which survives off ads. The only problem is we've learned that advertising on the net doesn't work very well. I think with clever, amusing, and less annoying ads, that could change. Also, I think most people base the success of an ad on the number of click-throughs; this is not logical, especially if you have an ad similar in nature to a print ad, where a click-through is not necessary to gain your interest in the product/service.
The Internet is still pretty young, and the Web is even younger. In time, hopefully, things will flesh out and new business models will emerge. I think for now, though, the industry is still trying to recover from the burst tech bubble.
Why do they constantly tout the number of times kazaa has been downloaded (as they do in this article) when the number of connected users is what matters?
If it's been downloaded 240 million times, why the hell aren't there 240 million users on when I connect? Now, granted, due to times zones, jobs, and what-not everyone would not be on at once, but still, shouldn't there be more than ~3 million people connected at once?
Either one of these figures is wrong, or I'm missing something. Or perhaps this is a sign that a lot of people that download kazaa have trouble getting it to work...
Had they gone the other way and depicted kazaa as an illegal and immoral tool, they would have been flooded with irate emails, etc.
Really, I see your point about bias, but hell, hardly anyone writes without bias anymore, and if you've watched cable news lately, it's almost scary.
Besides, you read Slashdot... and you're complaining about bias on TechTV? Now that's ironic... ;)
(ducks)
Ever find yourself looking at reflections or sunsets and going "Damn, nice graphics... Oh, wait..."
I think computer generated images still need to go a long away to be truly photorealistic, which is where they would be the most useful. Even in recent big budget movies, Terminator 3 for example, you can clearly spot some of the CGI. Granted, it looks great; shiny and flawless... maybe a little too much so. Perhaps that is why it stands out so much. I'm sure I didn't notice every time they used CGI, because some of the effects were likely very subtle.
Still, I'd like to see CGI advance to the point where it is totally impossible to see an visual difference from reality... where they could show a computer generated metal robot and have it look identical to a life-sized model.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/28DaysLater-112323 6/
126 good reviews, 18 bad. That doesn't seem too mixed to me.
Nelson: Ha, Ha!
Excellent!
An obsolete design.
It's not a mission priority.
I am unable to comply.
CowboyNeal will be back.
I forgot to mention, though, guess who else Bill Roper voiced?
DIABLO HIMSELF!
On the subject of these employees leaving... Well, I'll just quote Cain.... "This does not bode well..."
Heh... at least, not for Blizzard... But I'm sure their talents will be put to just as much use wherever they end up.
Pretty fair trade, I think. So there! heh.
For Windows compression, I highly recommend WinACE: http://www.winace.com.
It supports pretty much every compression format in existence, and its own ACE compressor can really crunch files. It also allows you span across media (like CD-Rs, and you can specify the size, just in case you have some of those rare 90 minute discs). It works great for making, erhm⦠âoebackup copiesâ of PC games that Iâ(TM)ve âoelostâ the disc for but still have installed⦠Heh.
And in an effort to remain at least somewhat on topic, Iâ(TM)d like to throw in my two bits here: Isnâ(TM)t this a good thing? I mean, if there are two different, competing standards, wonâ(TM)t that drive the development forward more than if things stayed the same? Look at what competition between ATI and nVidia did for end users. Now graphics cards are so insanely overpowered that they can double as leaf blowers. Look at what competition between Intel and AMD did for the end user. Now we have CPUs that are faster than a speeding bullet, and just about as hot as the sun. Heh⦠I guess my examples are showing the bad side of competitionâ¦. Woopsâ¦
Last time all I heard was "blah blah the driver is closed blah blah it crashed my linux box" so I am careful now, hehe.
If you find MMORPGs interesting, you should check out Blizzard's currently in development project, World of WarCraft. When it is released, I think I'll have to put eating on hold for a month so that I can upgrade. ;)
You're right about Nintendo... The GC rocks, and I would get one for Metroid Prime alone... If only I had money to burn, hehe.
One of these rovers discovers an advanced, humanoid civilization on Mars that has been previously overlooked.
The aliens are advanced enough to contact us via "primitive" radio signals and learn several of our languages in a few days.
Then we decide to meet. This would be the conversation:
Earthlings: So yeah, you should come here! That would be so cool. ...right. So, how about you just come here instead?
Martians:
Earthlings: Well, uhh... could we meet on the moon perhaps? About 30 years ago if possible?
Martians: No, we'd rather have you come here, it is much nicer than the moon or earth. How can you stand earth with all that oxygen?
Earthlings: Yeah, well, that's part of our problem with going there...
Martians: What?! You mean you can't even get here, and you can't genetically alter your bodies so they are suitable on other worlds? God, no *wonder* we've been ignoring you hicks for so long...
OK, sorry I have too much free time. ;)
Most major vendors have been "optimizing" for Quake III ever since it became the informal benchmarking standard... I think Futuremark has blown the issue up a little since they weren't on really good terms with nVidia before this started.
But really, 3dmark has always been a "gee-whiz" pretty demo of current graphic card abilities, but never a reliable benchmark. In fact, no one program/game can be a reliable benchmark, since performance must be judged on a variety of applications. Only then do you get some kind of idea of where the "real world" performance lays.
The competition between ATI and nVidia is good for us customers; they both have excellent cards now. ATI has the fastest, while nVidia's drivers (yeah linux support is flakey I know) seem a bit more stable than ATIâ(TM)s.
Really, between the two companies, it is hard to make a really "wrong" choice.
So yeah, everyone, these aren't the droids you are looking for, you can go about your business...
P3 850 MHz, 256 MB of RAM, GeForce3
I once reviewed PC games for gaminghorizon.com. It was easily the most fun I ever had writing, mainly because it was the first time more than a couple people would be reading something I wrote. Due to my shocking talent of being able to post on slashdot quite regularly but not being able to meet deadlines for GHZ, I am no longer part of their staff.
It's probably for the best, since I doubt I could review modern PC games for much longer with this humble system, and with my current financial status an upgrade isn't likely. PC gaming is not really a cheap hobby, but because of that it is always on the bleeding edge, unlike consoles which are supposed to have a life span of about 5 years.
As for console fans out there, I recommend Blizzard's PC games (yeah I know bnetd dmca blah) but their games are always designed with very straightforward interfaces, and could help to convert console gamers to PC. I've had some success with this method. ;)
The last Night Elf mission is really slow for me. How do the game menus perform for you? Before I got the GF3, they were far less smooth. But that's about all the GF3 did to help the performance over the TNT2. What it really wants is a new CPU.