"When I (in North Carolina) buy something on the Internet from, say, Oregon, where does the sale actually take place? I would certainly say Oregon."
North Carolina would argue that they get the tax because they lost taxes from local business.
I'm not sure which side I'm on here. Each one has it's ups and downs. Tax based on where the custommer lives, and you have a complex system. Tax where the company is, and one state will become the haven for all of these businesses.
" But once the price advantage of no sales tax goes away, goods that incur a shipping charge will be better bought locally, all things being equal."
That's not necessarily true. Not everybody orders online because it's cheaper. Amazon comes to mind. It's much easier to buy gifts for people throuhg Amazon than it is to go to a bunch of stores, find the items, and then giftwrap them.
Businesses are another example. It's problematic to send an employee out to buy office supplies. Delivery is a nice feature.
And, for a third example, there's the whole "if I have it delivered, I can order it from work." aspect of it that most ppl won't admit to.
I agree that the tax will cause problems, may even cause some places to fail. No argument there. But it's an exaggeration to say that it'll kill off eCommerce. If mail-order is still around, then eCommerce is still around.
"I like this idea, but until there's a reason (lawsuits or whatever) for people to be scared of illegally downloading ROMs, they're not going to want to pay for them. "
I don't think that's true. I think you're right that the existence of other sites will dampen this company's chances of success, but not for the same reason. I've run across a handful of ROM sites that were quite large, had a great selection of ROMS, and had fast downloads. If those didn't exist, then this site would have a damn good chance. All they'd need is a healthy library, good information about the site, and fast reliable downloads.
People are happy to pay the cost if the service is good, even on the net. Don't believe me? Go read about iTunes.
"y the fact that your tax dollars (if you live in the US) are going to create a game which simulates basic training?"
No.
" it's one thing if a private company wants to do it, but don't do it with my money!"
Why not? This game is better than most that are out there from a moral point of view. When you die in this game, you die. You don't respawn. Kind of like real life.
So what if they use tax dollars with it? They want people to join the Army. That Army is there to keep you living your happy care-free life.
" the basic training exercises were specifically designed to desensitize soldiers' human instinct not to kill people after studies post-WWII found that many soldiers never fired their weapons."
Damn straight. We definitely don't want our soldiers knowing how to kill!
" but i don't want to pay to train kids to kill."
I hate to break it to you, but they're not teaching you how to kill here. They're trying to get you interested into joining the Army. Using a mouse to aim a cursor and click does not a killer make.
"how long before we have another columbine-type scenario where the kids have learned team combat tactics from playing these kinds of games and are far more successful?"
This game will not cause another Columbine. Vice City will not cause another Columbine. Maryiln Manson will not cause another Columbine. None of these games would have taught any of those kids how to have been more affective at killing. Assuming so is ridiculous, and shows how uninformed you are about what playing a game is really like. I have to ask though, why is your energy being directed at video games? Why not paintball?
I hate to break this to you, but you are really misguided. You're worried about the game funding a game that 'teaches kids to kill', despite the fact that it clearly illustrates to the gamers that when they die, they die. Shoot your own team mate, go to jail. You can't run uber fast, you can't jump uber high, and you MUST follow the rules of your instructor. (i.e. if you aim your gun at him, you're busted.)
Sorry bud, all I detect here is a knee-jerk games are bad reaction.
"Those of us who have struggled to get cranky directx Windows games to run know what a miserable kludge the directx thing is and will immediately embrace the idea of the bootable linux CD as an alternative gaming platform."
Exactly how is a bootable Linux CD going to be any better at this experience? How is it going to predict what new cards will come out in the future and use them properly?
" Even Windows users will become big Linux fans if they can just boot from a CD-ROM and run a high-quality game."
How? "Dammit, WTF do I have to reboot my machine to play this dumb game?"
"Microsoft has pushed Directx as a replacement for DOS as a gaming platform but no one has ever loved (or even liked) directx"
DirectX is widely adopted and accepted.
" and now it looks as if Linux has skewered it right through its gizzard."
Nope. Not only will this not take off, but it doesn't provide anything but more challenges to gaming. Why don't you just get a Playstation?
" I'd love to just pop in a disk of Baldur's Gate, Nascar, Halflife, etc... and get the best of both worlds. Quick access to the game w/o the hassle of an install and all the advantages of the superior AI seen on the p.c. platform as compared to the console platform."
You don't need bootable CDs to accomplish that. You simply need for the game designer to make that a consideration.
" When you're playing a game best to get all of the potential of your machine focused on putting out the most frames per second, most textured and anti-aliased pixels, and least lag. End of story..."
Why is that when anybody ever says "end of story", it never is the end of story? I should sic Lionel Hutz on your ass.
You'll see some FPS improvement, maybe. But you'll also see less bearable issues. How do you patch it? How do you install a new driver that makes things go faster or more stable? How do you justify the time lost rebooting the machine by getting another 2 fps? How do you go about using other programs such as Roger Wilco to talkk to your team mates? Etc.
Sorry, I don't share the 'cool factor' here because PC based architecture is too varied from machine to machine. If they were all the same generic build, then yeah I'd be on your side here. But no, too many different machines, too much can go wrong. That's why us gamers like having a common OS with an API like OpenGL or DirectX. If your hardware works with those two APIs, then the game should (theoretically) work, no need to tell the game what kind of sound card you have.
So no, not end of story. Piece of advice, when something seems so gosh darn simple to you, it's not because everybody in the world is a fucking moron, it's because you're missing information that they have.
"What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on an Opteron system? A lot.
What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on a GameCube? Nothing."
What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on your Opteron system that your current system you're using to post on Slashdot can't do? Not much.
"All you do is play games? Buy the cheap GameCube.
Do other things with technology besides play games? Buy the Opteron."
Or make a minor ~$500 upgrade to your computer and spend another $100 for the GameCube. That way you can play more games on both machines. Spending $2,000 on an Opteron will not give you a new library of games today. Nor will it do something your existing computer cannot do today.
"With the additional capabilities of the linux kit, exactly why is it not a "real" computer?"
A computer is a generalized device meant to perform a number of tasks. A Playstation is a device custom built to play games. Get enough of the customers out there to use it as more than a game machine, and we'll have this discussion again.
"Some of the PR folks would have greater credibility if they and all of the upper management were committed [1] to their words."
Why? I mean if it was the founder of one of these companies, then I'd understand. However, just because it's an executive making those nasty things happen, doesn't mean they agree with them. I mean, think about it, you're getting paid $200,000 a year. Are you going to rebel or bark like a dog?
I'm not defending these guys, I mean it is kind of amusing. However, to many of these guys, it's just a job, not some eveangelistic experience in their lives.
"Yet another not-so-subtle attempt at increasing state revenue."
There was a story on the news last night that another big company is leaving Portland (OR) to move to Nashville citing that it's more business friendly. That basically translates as "lower taxes". Other companies here have moved up to Vancouver WA, about 10 miles north. So, in effect, Portland's rising taxes are pushing the businesses that support the economy aay.
You know, I watched Arnie talk a little bit about California, and he made a point that the solution is to cut the spending, not raise the taxes.
Gotta say, if I were in Cali, I'd be paying a lot of attention to that guy. At the very least, I hope he creates ripples over here.
"As long as I can play my ps1/ps2 games on my ps3 I will be happy. If only Nintendo would add a port for NES carts... I could finally mothball my old system. "
Am I in the minority who thinks that backwards compatibility isn't all that exciting? Now, I'm willing to grant you that it's hard to find a working NES system today. Those things broke down quick. But except for the NES, why isn't your old system around to play on?
I just never really considered that a big selling point. It's kind of neat in a way, I mean if I want to consolidate systems it's kind of useful. But it's not something that makes me pick one over another. I like new games, especially if I still have the ability to play the old ones either way.
(Note: I really am asking for insight here, not trying to put you down or argue with you. I'm not sure I'm being tactful enough, though. I'm sorry if that's the case.)
No, not surprising at all. Consoles are so powerful today that the visual difference from game to game is limited mainly by the artists. There's enough you can do in real time that a doubling or quadrupling in processor speed isn't going to make $300 worth of difference to the consumer.
The next big upgrade people will be excited about is the ability to do CG in real-time comparable to the stuff we've seen come out of Pixar. Perfectly smooth, anti-aliased, nice shadows, bright color, etc. Unfortunately, consoles are still a ways away from that. What's worse is that when they do reach that point, then what?
I'm not the least bit surprised that niether Sony nor Microsoft are backburnering their next consoles. Unless they can deliver a 'holy shit!' product, they're going to find themselves nicely saturated. They need to be careful, though, they're leaving the door wide open for Nintendo. And those dudes sure like to innovate. Who here wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Nintendo's successor to the GameCube was portable? THat may not sound so exciting in light of Sony's PSP, but then again it would have Nintendo's support fully behind it as well as third parties dedicated to it.
"First of all, the SDK only supplies hooks into the black box of the proprietary code. This is still not as good as having access to all of the code; if the SDK sucks, then you're still screwed."
Your point is very true, guess I didn't clarify enough when I said the bit about nobody haveing the source code to Lightwave.
"And now to digress: instancing can only go so far. In an example of 1,000 monsters running down a hill, you only have one source model, but that model still has to be loaded into memory once for every instance. Every polygon still has to be rendered; heaven forbid the shot calls for raytracing! The only benefit of instancing in this case is that you can tweak the model once and have it propogate the changes 1,000 times."
This is also true. You cannot get around the render time. However, I guess I didn't clarify this enough either. Lightwave (just like any other app out there) loads all its objects into memory, and then does the render. So if you have 1,000 objects, you have 1,000 objects loaded at a time. That's where the 'wishing you had terabytes of ram' bit comes in. Lightwave would be swapping like mad. With instancing, you don't need to load 1,000 instances into RAM, instead it works on the first one, then does the transform and renders it again. It's very similar to just loading the mesh , rendering it once, and then compositing it.
I could see the problem yoiu mention here when it comes to reflections, though. You wouldn't need to keep reloading the mesh into RAM, but you would need for it to perform the appropriate transforms on each cast of the ray. Hmm.. I'd have to think about that. But, then again, it's only a problem if it's a problem.
"It wouldn't do a damn thing for saving memory unless you also re-write the rendering software to load the object for each particular instance, render, unload, reload to next position, etc."
Again, you wouldn't need to make the renderer do that. The worst case scenario is you script LW to render the object to a buffer, transform and light it, then render it again on top of the buffer of the previous image. Build it up. Actually, that's more or less what LW's renderer does on a per-polygon basis. Incidently, there's a plugin for LW right now that does the instancing trick. Somebody in this thread brought it up already.
"This is why animators render in layers. Greater control, less headaches, and no custom software necessary. Just intelligent thinking. "
Yep. I myself use this technique. Curious about it? Here's an example a friend of mine cooked up. In this case, he merged elements from two different apps together.
Actually I read that into his post too. Though I agree with you, it's possible that he's just got an idea about Microsoft that he cannot back up with facts or anything like that.
"Very simple. EVERY single ISP should be REQUIRED by law to implement a system where each user is limited to say 100 e-mails a day. This would stop much of the spam."
Um no, it wouldn't. Just build a mailserver and put it on your home account.
Slashdot Mirror
... What does banning screeners do to affect Indie filmmmakers?
Sorry if I'm being ignorant here, I'm not having a great day.
Off-topic? Based on what?
I'm just going to assume that 'overrated' was the intended moderation.
"When I (in North Carolina) buy something on the Internet from, say, Oregon, where does the sale actually take place? I would certainly say Oregon."
North Carolina would argue that they get the tax because they lost taxes from local business.
I'm not sure which side I'm on here. Each one has it's ups and downs. Tax based on where the custommer lives, and you have a complex system. Tax where the company is, and one state will become the haven for all of these businesses.
" But once the price advantage of no sales tax goes away, goods that incur a shipping charge will be better bought locally, all things being equal."
That's not necessarily true. Not everybody orders online because it's cheaper. Amazon comes to mind. It's much easier to buy gifts for people throuhg Amazon than it is to go to a bunch of stores, find the items, and then giftwrap them.
Businesses are another example. It's problematic to send an employee out to buy office supplies. Delivery is a nice feature.
And, for a third example, there's the whole "if I have it delivered, I can order it from work." aspect of it that most ppl won't admit to.
I agree that the tax will cause problems, may even cause some places to fail. No argument there. But it's an exaggeration to say that it'll kill off eCommerce. If mail-order is still around, then eCommerce is still around.
"I like this idea, but until there's a reason (lawsuits or whatever) for people to be scared of illegally downloading ROMs, they're not going to want to pay for them. "
I don't think that's true. I think you're right that the existence of other sites will dampen this company's chances of success, but not for the same reason. I've run across a handful of ROM sites that were quite large, had a great selection of ROMS, and had fast downloads. If those didn't exist, then this site would have a damn good chance. All they'd need is a healthy library, good information about the site, and fast reliable downloads.
People are happy to pay the cost if the service is good, even on the net. Don't believe me? Go read about iTunes.
"I can go to the video game store and buy used games cheaper."
It's a combination of the cartridges being used and demand being nil. Frankly, the ROM is more useful than the cartridge anyway.
$2 is quite reasonable.
"I can go to the video game store and buy used games cheaper."
How are you going to play them on your PocketPC?
"y the fact that your tax dollars (if you live in the US) are going to create a game which simulates basic training?"
No.
" it's one thing if a private company wants to do it, but don't do it with my money!"
Why not? This game is better than most that are out there from a moral point of view. When you die in this game, you die. You don't respawn. Kind of like real life.
So what if they use tax dollars with it? They want people to join the Army. That Army is there to keep you living your happy care-free life.
" the basic training exercises were specifically designed to desensitize soldiers' human instinct not to kill people after studies post-WWII found that many soldiers never fired their weapons."
Damn straight. We definitely don't want our soldiers knowing how to kill!
" but i don't want to pay to train kids to kill."
I hate to break it to you, but they're not teaching you how to kill here. They're trying to get you interested into joining the Army. Using a mouse to aim a cursor and click does not a killer make.
"how long before we have another columbine-type scenario where the kids have learned team combat tactics from playing these kinds of games and are far more successful?"
This game will not cause another Columbine. Vice City will not cause another Columbine. Maryiln Manson will not cause another Columbine. None of these games would have taught any of those kids how to have been more affective at killing. Assuming so is ridiculous, and shows how uninformed you are about what playing a game is really like. I have to ask though, why is your energy being directed at video games? Why not paintball?
I hate to break this to you, but you are really misguided. You're worried about the game funding a game that 'teaches kids to kill', despite the fact that it clearly illustrates to the gamers that when they die, they die. Shoot your own team mate, go to jail. You can't run uber fast, you can't jump uber high, and you MUST follow the rules of your instructor. (i.e. if you aim your gun at him, you're busted.)
Sorry bud, all I detect here is a knee-jerk games are bad reaction.
"Those of us who have struggled to get cranky directx Windows games to run know what a miserable kludge the directx thing is and will immediately embrace the idea of the bootable linux CD as an alternative gaming platform."
Exactly how is a bootable Linux CD going to be any better at this experience? How is it going to predict what new cards will come out in the future and use them properly?
" Even Windows users will become big Linux fans if they can just boot from a CD-ROM and run a high-quality game."
How? "Dammit, WTF do I have to reboot my machine to play this dumb game?"
"Microsoft has pushed Directx as a replacement for DOS as a gaming platform but no one has ever loved (or even liked) directx"
DirectX is widely adopted and accepted.
" and now it looks as if Linux has skewered it right through its gizzard."
Nope. Not only will this not take off, but it doesn't provide anything but more challenges to gaming. Why don't you just get a Playstation?
Instant Replay: "Why not make storage bootable?"
" You get the best OS available and instantly into action with your hardware fully utilized."
Until you buy a video card that came out after the game was released...
" I'd love to just pop in a disk of Baldur's Gate, Nascar, Halflife, etc... and get the best of both worlds. Quick access to the game w/o the hassle of an install and all the advantages of the superior AI seen on the p.c. platform as compared to the console platform."
You don't need bootable CDs to accomplish that. You simply need for the game designer to make that a consideration.
" When you're playing a game best to get all of the potential of your machine focused on putting out the most frames per second, most textured and anti-aliased pixels, and least lag. End of story..."
Why is that when anybody ever says "end of story", it never is the end of story? I should sic Lionel Hutz on your ass.
You'll see some FPS improvement, maybe. But you'll also see less bearable issues. How do you patch it? How do you install a new driver that makes things go faster or more stable? How do you justify the time lost rebooting the machine by getting another 2 fps? How do you go about using other programs such as Roger Wilco to talkk to your team mates? Etc.
Sorry, I don't share the 'cool factor' here because PC based architecture is too varied from machine to machine. If they were all the same generic build, then yeah I'd be on your side here. But no, too many different machines, too much can go wrong. That's why us gamers like having a common OS with an API like OpenGL or DirectX. If your hardware works with those two APIs, then the game should (theoretically) work, no need to tell the game what kind of sound card you have.
So no, not end of story. Piece of advice, when something seems so gosh darn simple to you, it's not because everybody in the world is a fucking moron, it's because you're missing information that they have.
"What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on an Opteron system? A lot.
What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on a GameCube? Nothing."
What, besides great-graphics gaming, can you do on your Opteron system that your current system you're using to post on Slashdot can't do? Not much.
"All you do is play games? Buy the cheap GameCube.
Do other things with technology besides play games? Buy the Opteron."
Or make a minor ~$500 upgrade to your computer and spend another $100 for the GameCube. That way you can play more games on both machines. Spending $2,000 on an Opteron will not give you a new library of games today. Nor will it do something your existing computer cannot do today.
Spare us the reasoning not to buy a GameCube.
Well, I'd say this photo has taught us all a lesson. When the guy next to you on the plane says "Pull my finger", politely decline.
"With the additional capabilities of the linux kit, exactly why is it not a "real" computer?"
A computer is a generalized device meant to perform a number of tasks. A Playstation is a device custom built to play games. Get enough of the customers out there to use it as more than a game machine, and we'll have this discussion again.
"Some of the PR folks would have greater credibility if they and all of the upper management were committed [1] to their words."
Why? I mean if it was the founder of one of these companies, then I'd understand. However, just because it's an executive making those nasty things happen, doesn't mean they agree with them. I mean, think about it, you're getting paid $200,000 a year. Are you going to rebel or bark like a dog?
I'm not defending these guys, I mean it is kind of amusing. However, to many of these guys, it's just a job, not some eveangelistic experience in their lives.
"Yet another not-so-subtle attempt at increasing state revenue."
There was a story on the news last night that another big company is leaving Portland (OR) to move to Nashville citing that it's more business friendly. That basically translates as "lower taxes". Other companies here have moved up to Vancouver WA, about 10 miles north. So, in effect, Portland's rising taxes are pushing the businesses that support the economy aay.
You know, I watched Arnie talk a little bit about California, and he made a point that the solution is to cut the spending, not raise the taxes.
Gotta say, if I were in Cali, I'd be paying a lot of attention to that guy. At the very least, I hope he creates ripples over here.
"Time for a lot of That sounds like the Matrix jokes"
You mean like "It has no substance"?
"As long as I can play my ps1/ps2 games on my ps3 I will be happy. If only Nintendo would add a port for NES carts... I could finally mothball my old system. "
Am I in the minority who thinks that backwards compatibility isn't all that exciting? Now, I'm willing to grant you that it's hard to find a working NES system today. Those things broke down quick. But except for the NES, why isn't your old system around to play on?
I just never really considered that a big selling point. It's kind of neat in a way, I mean if I want to consolidate systems it's kind of useful. But it's not something that makes me pick one over another. I like new games, especially if I still have the ability to play the old ones either way.
(Note: I really am asking for insight here, not trying to put you down or argue with you. I'm not sure I'm being tactful enough, though. I'm sorry if that's the case.)
"perhaps surprising considering rapidly advancing technology. "
No, not surprising at all. Consoles are so powerful today that the visual difference from game to game is limited mainly by the artists. There's enough you can do in real time that a doubling or quadrupling in processor speed isn't going to make $300 worth of difference to the consumer.
The next big upgrade people will be excited about is the ability to do CG in real-time comparable to the stuff we've seen come out of Pixar. Perfectly smooth, anti-aliased, nice shadows, bright color, etc. Unfortunately, consoles are still a ways away from that. What's worse is that when they do reach that point, then what?
I'm not the least bit surprised that niether Sony nor Microsoft are backburnering their next consoles. Unless they can deliver a 'holy shit!' product, they're going to find themselves nicely saturated. They need to be careful, though, they're leaving the door wide open for Nintendo. And those dudes sure like to innovate. Who here wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Nintendo's successor to the GameCube was portable? THat may not sound so exciting in light of Sony's PSP, but then again it would have Nintendo's support fully behind it as well as third parties dedicated to it.
"First of all, the SDK only supplies hooks into the black box of the proprietary code. This is still not as good as having access to all of the code; if the SDK sucks, then you're still screwed."
Your point is very true, guess I didn't clarify enough when I said the bit about nobody haveing the source code to Lightwave.
"And now to digress: instancing can only go so far. In an example of 1,000 monsters running down a hill, you only have one source model, but that model still has to be loaded into memory once for every instance. Every polygon still has to be rendered; heaven forbid the shot calls for raytracing! The only benefit of instancing in this case is that you can tweak the model once and have it propogate the changes 1,000 times."
This is also true. You cannot get around the render time. However, I guess I didn't clarify this enough either. Lightwave (just like any other app out there) loads all its objects into memory, and then does the render. So if you have 1,000 objects, you have 1,000 objects loaded at a time. That's where the 'wishing you had terabytes of ram' bit comes in. Lightwave would be swapping like mad. With instancing, you don't need to load 1,000 instances into RAM, instead it works on the first one, then does the transform and renders it again. It's very similar to just loading the mesh , rendering it once, and then compositing it.
I could see the problem yoiu mention here when it comes to reflections, though. You wouldn't need to keep reloading the mesh into RAM, but you would need for it to perform the appropriate transforms on each cast of the ray. Hmm.. I'd have to think about that. But, then again, it's only a problem if it's a problem.
"It wouldn't do a damn thing for saving memory unless you also re-write the rendering software to load the object for each particular instance, render, unload, reload to next position, etc."
Again, you wouldn't need to make the renderer do that. The worst case scenario is you script LW to render the object to a buffer, transform and light it, then render it again on top of the buffer of the previous image. Build it up. Actually, that's more or less what LW's renderer does on a per-polygon basis. Incidently, there's a plugin for LW right now that does the instancing trick. Somebody in this thread brought it up already.
"This is why animators render in layers. Greater control, less headaches, and no custom software necessary. Just intelligent thinking. "
Yep. I myself use this technique. Curious about it? Here's an example a friend of mine cooked up. In this case, he merged elements from two different apps together.
Sorry to babble, don't feel all that well.
Use Macs for Photoshop you mean?
;)
BTW, remember me?
"We do not know this, this is your supposition."
Actually I read that into his post too. Though I agree with you, it's possible that he's just got an idea about Microsoft that he cannot back up with facts or anything like that.
"Very simple. EVERY single ISP should be REQUIRED by law to implement a system where each user is limited to say 100 e-mails a day. This would stop much of the spam."
Um no, it wouldn't. Just build a mailserver and put it on your home account.