" Everyone I talk to has this conception that computers are inherently unreliable machines that will always break. But when they say computers, they really mean Windows."
That conception existed well before Windows. Take a machine that requires proper hardware setup, build it upon a computing paradigm that is entirely too literal, and throw less than human-friendly software on it, and you'll get generalizations that computers are unreliable.
Don't get me wrong, Windows is a major contributer to this line of thinking, but no other OS is exempt from this feeling. Heck, I've known Mac users that felt they needed to reboot their machines because things went weird. It's amazing to me that these machines are actually mass-market items.
" wonder sometimes, is slashdot/the editors thereof, having something of a joke about it's users?"
Given that most of the comments for this story would have orbitted just around that part of the summary, I'd say your suspicion is true. "Apple? Google?! Deal?!? Well, my mind's made up!"
"Tivo could easily start buying up cheap movies and old series for cheap and start offering them. By doing that and buying discontinued tv series they could start to build an on-demand catalogue that would justify non-cable people shelling out for a cheap tivo. I think once they had a sustainable group doing that they could start getting more current content."
When I lived in Portland, I got a chance to use Comcast's On-Demand service. That kicked ass. They had entire seasons of TV shows ready to watch. On top of that, it also had DVR-esque pause/fast forward/rewind features. Sadly, I moved into a small town where that service isn't available.
Err no real point to my post here, just thought you'd be interested to know that a rather large company has already made strides in this area.
That's sort of like saying "I moved across the street from where I work, therefore nobody actually needs to own a car."
There are a LOT of things not on that list of yours that a lot of people are quite happily watching on their TiVo's right now. It's a pity you can't edit your post to say "Here's an alternative to TiVo, it's up to you if it's good enough."
Eh, I think the patches argument is overrated. Okay, it sucks that you've gotta get patches. On the flip side, it also sucks that your 'game machine' bears little resemblance to anybody else's game machine. Couple that with the fact that people are always inventing new ways to cheat on-line.
So they show posters of real products, whoop-de-fuck. Either the game's worth paying the monthly fee or it's not, Coca Cola posters aren't going to make or break the game. I just hope they're not stupid enough to actually cause inconviences in the game with the ads.
"Why do you automatically assume it's copyright-infringed music?"
Does it matter? The *AA will automatically assume that, and that's what'll get P2P into trouble.
It pisses me off, really. Before I settled on a music subscription service, nearly all the music downloads I did were MP3 copies of songs I had legitimately on CD. Why? Because I had a broadband connection and felt it was quicker/more convenient than hunting down all my CDs and ripping them. Heck, the only real reason I wanted Mp3 copies was so I could listen from work without a bunch of CDs around. Worse, I sometimes found bands that I hadn't heard before and bought some albums as a result.
Sorry for the rant, but for obvious reasons I agree with you that the assumptions that are made based off these figures are rotten. Sadly, we can expect that from the organization that counts CD-Rs (you know, the ones used for DATA backups) in their piracy figures. Those dipshits will twist the numbers in whatever way suits their fancy. I think that was the original point of his post.
"They'll likely just develop for the PS3 or Revolution."
Microsoft would love that. Controllers and memory cards tend to have decent profit margins. Sony and Nintendo are well aware of this and would probably follow suit quite happily.
"parents are who dont know are going to pick up the cheaper one, thinking that store just has a better price. then feel ripped off once they find out they could have bought the extras at once - for 100$ cheaper at the outset."
Um, if it were my dad, he wouldn't have given a flying fuck unless he was getting it for himself. If he got the wrong one, he'd either tell me I wasn't specific enough (assuming he actually would have sprung for the extras) or he would have told me to get a job and buy it myself.
I find it absolutely amazing that there's all this doom and gloom prediction about the XBOX 360. But when Sony says their machine will be expensive, nobody cares. Not all of us wants to pay $400-$500 for a console and can happily live with a smaller HD and no ability to play HD-DVDs. Kids in particular can live without these nicities. It's unlikely that MS is going to make this move, but I can tell you I'd FAR prefer this sort of scheme to Sony's "It's all or nothing and you had better be prepared to spend over $500 on launch day."
I'm glad I'm not getting either of these consoles.
I half do. Unfortunately, I'm worried about deep pocketed corps (*cough*MS*cough*) deciding to enter the market and ripping off the other guys. I'm all for competition, but who's going to be innovative if they feel their success will be ripped right out from under them?
The unfortunate thing about life is that copying is always easier than innovating.
"I don't think so. When cars first came along, there were places that said you had to have someone walking in front of the car ringing a bell."
I'm not sure I'm quite getting this reference. Does he mean that the bell would have to be rung so that people will stay clear of the vehicle? If so, why not affix the bell to the car?
I'm getting the point that there were people with silly ideas back then, but I was hoping somebody could clarify this point.
"Nonsense. If you are a copper-blooded lifeform green yoo-rhine is the last thing you'd want because you'd be losing all of your copper. This is like saying that an iron-blooded creature should have red yoo-rhine."
This is why I hate making Red Dwarf quotes. It's like that one show that everybody here SHOULD have seen but there's always some git that didn't do their homework.
"Apparently, all it took in this case was a game, and the game didn't even involve sex. I wonder what that says about humans."
There are over 6 billion people in the world and one dude died this way. If it says anything about humans, it says that the vast majority of us have strong self control.
Slashdot Mirror
" Everyone I talk to has this conception that computers are inherently unreliable machines that will always break. But when they say computers, they really mean Windows."
That conception existed well before Windows. Take a machine that requires proper hardware setup, build it upon a computing paradigm that is entirely too literal, and throw less than human-friendly software on it, and you'll get generalizations that computers are unreliable.
Don't get me wrong, Windows is a major contributer to this line of thinking, but no other OS is exempt from this feeling. Heck, I've known Mac users that felt they needed to reboot their machines because things went weird. It's amazing to me that these machines are actually mass-market items.
"Translation: I am insecure and need to compensate with my penis car."
Translation: I'm envious of your ownership of the penis car.
"So sorry, but RESEARCH your work first please?"
Oh brother. Not only was that 'dupe' from 2 years ago, you're the only one who remembers it.
Man I'm getting tired of the dupe gestapo.
"The story title is incorrect. The emulator runs DOS and not Windows. Its not as easy to get Windows running on PSP I guess."
Step 1) Click link.
Step 2) Remove head from ass.
"Then the photo with the Win95 boot screen is very misleading! Though why you would even want to run windows 95 on anything is beyond me."
PSP + Windows 95 == portable abandonware machine. I'd love to play the Space Quest games on it.
Back to reality, though, my laptop does that just fine and I don't travel much.
"Did Apple file a lawsuit mid-submission or something?"
Oh right, like Slashdot is known for breaking news.
" wonder sometimes, is slashdot/the editors thereof, having something of a joke about it's users?"
Given that most of the comments for this story would have orbitted just around that part of the summary, I'd say your suspicion is true. "Apple? Google?! Deal?!? Well, my mind's made up!"
"Baher Al Hakim writes "The Street suggests in a recent article that Apple is about to announce a deal with Google, to a"
Wow! The submitter of the story stopped at the same place all the commentors would have stopped at.
"For once, I'd like to see Microsoft playing second fiddle. It doesn't have to dominate EVERYTHING"
MS is only dominating with Windows, IE, and Office. That's a far cry from 'everything'.
In other news, the real estate bubble finally burst when a flood of basements suddenly became available for rent.
"Tivo could easily start buying up cheap movies and old series for cheap and start offering them. By doing that and buying discontinued tv series they could start to build an on-demand catalogue that would justify non-cable people shelling out for a cheap tivo. I think once they had a sustainable group doing that they could start getting more current content."
When I lived in Portland, I got a chance to use Comcast's On-Demand service. That kicked ass. They had entire seasons of TV shows ready to watch. On top of that, it also had DVR-esque pause/fast forward/rewind features. Sadly, I moved into a small town where that service isn't available.
Err no real point to my post here, just thought you'd be interested to know that a rather large company has already made strides in this area.
"my point is that you don't tivo for this."
That's sort of like saying "I moved across the street from where I work, therefore nobody actually needs to own a car."
There are a LOT of things not on that list of yours that a lot of people are quite happily watching on their TiVo's right now. It's a pity you can't edit your post to say "Here's an alternative to TiVo, it's up to you if it's good enough."
Eh, I think the patches argument is overrated. Okay, it sucks that you've gotta get patches. On the flip side, it also sucks that your 'game machine' bears little resemblance to anybody else's game machine. Couple that with the fact that people are always inventing new ways to cheat on-line.
Patches are a necessary evil.
So they show posters of real products, whoop-de-fuck. Either the game's worth paying the monthly fee or it's not, Coca Cola posters aren't going to make or break the game. I just hope they're not stupid enough to actually cause inconviences in the game with the ads.
"Why do you automatically assume it's copyright-infringed music?"
Does it matter? The *AA will automatically assume that, and that's what'll get P2P into trouble.
It pisses me off, really. Before I settled on a music subscription service, nearly all the music downloads I did were MP3 copies of songs I had legitimately on CD. Why? Because I had a broadband connection and felt it was quicker/more convenient than hunting down all my CDs and ripping them. Heck, the only real reason I wanted Mp3 copies was so I could listen from work without a bunch of CDs around. Worse, I sometimes found bands that I hadn't heard before and bought some albums as a result.
Sorry for the rant, but for obvious reasons I agree with you that the assumptions that are made based off these figures are rotten. Sadly, we can expect that from the organization that counts CD-Rs (you know, the ones used for DATA backups) in their piracy figures. Those dipshits will twist the numbers in whatever way suits their fancy. I think that was the original point of his post.
"They'll likely just develop for the PS3 or Revolution."
Microsoft would love that. Controllers and memory cards tend to have decent profit margins. Sony and Nintendo are well aware of this and would probably follow suit quite happily.
"parents are who dont know are going to pick up the cheaper one, thinking that store just has a better price. then feel ripped off once they find out they could have bought the extras at once - for 100$ cheaper at the outset."
Um, if it were my dad, he wouldn't have given a flying fuck unless he was getting it for himself. If he got the wrong one, he'd either tell me I wasn't specific enough (assuming he actually would have sprung for the extras) or he would have told me to get a job and buy it myself.
I find it absolutely amazing that there's all this doom and gloom prediction about the XBOX 360. But when Sony says their machine will be expensive, nobody cares. Not all of us wants to pay $400-$500 for a console and can happily live with a smaller HD and no ability to play HD-DVDs. Kids in particular can live without these nicities. It's unlikely that MS is going to make this move, but I can tell you I'd FAR prefer this sort of scheme to Sony's "It's all or nothing and you had better be prepared to spend over $500 on launch day."
I'm glad I'm not getting either of these consoles.
"An odd view, but somone must agree with me!"
I half do. Unfortunately, I'm worried about deep pocketed corps (*cough*MS*cough*) deciding to enter the market and ripping off the other guys. I'm all for competition, but who's going to be innovative if they feel their success will be ripped right out from under them?
The unfortunate thing about life is that copying is always easier than innovating.
"I don't think so. When cars first came along, there were places that said you had to have someone walking in front of the car ringing a bell."
I'm not sure I'm quite getting this reference. Does he mean that the bell would have to be rung so that people will stay clear of the vehicle? If so, why not affix the bell to the car?
I'm getting the point that there were people with silly ideas back then, but I was hoping somebody could clarify this point.
"Nonsense. If you are a copper-blooded lifeform green yoo-rhine is the last thing you'd want because you'd be losing all of your copper. This is like saying that an iron-blooded creature should have red yoo-rhine."
This is why I hate making Red Dwarf quotes. It's like that one show that everybody here SHOULD have seen but there's always some git that didn't do their homework.
"...then again it could have been the pea-green free hats!"
Yoo-rhine should only be green if you're Mr. Spock.
"EA Games: Sequel Everything"
EA Sports: You've Already Played the Game.
" So by your logic, if we get even more white programmers, there will be even more white gamers. Stupid logic, always getting in the way!"
Heh. I think there's a misconception out there that the programmers invent or design the games. It's not the programmers that make the heroes white.
"Perhaps he would like to use it as a phone, I dunno, outside of the house."
Obviously that's too complicated for him.
"Apparently, all it took in this case was a game, and the game didn't even involve sex. I wonder what that says about humans."
There are over 6 billion people in the world and one dude died this way. If it says anything about humans, it says that the vast majority of us have strong self control.