"More like: "Even if there was a redesign coming, we would lie and say there wasn't until the last second so that people don't stop buying the current version."
Possibly. Probably even, considering everybody's reaction to the 360 announcement about the HD-DVD capability. But knowing Nintendo, they're going to wait until demand subsides to release the new unit. By the time that happens, prices come down, and they make the upgrade relatively cheap. The SP comes to mind. I remember some bitching that the SP should have come out, skipping the original GBA. I'm sitting here thinking "And what.. release it at $200?"
"Why doesn't Nintendo offer downloadable firmware upgrades?"
I was under the impression the games did this, not the firmware. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I have never touched a WEP setting until I ran Mario Kart, and that was done in the game. The game even remembers my settings. I should remember to clear those if I ever sell the game.
Alternatively, what about the USB device they sell? Is it a simple WiFi router, or is it a Nintendo only connection? If it's the latter, then you could get it, plug it into your machine, and use whatever encryption you like for your wireless router. So long as the Nintendo USB connection isn't creating a significant security problem, that should work just fine. Worst case scenario: Only plug in the USB when you're ready to play etc.
Yeah, I know, I haven't totally addressed your concern. Sorry, I can't ignore that Nintendo created a bit of a problem here. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if more games coming down the pipeline use WPA. I just hope I'm not horribly misunderstanding how the DS works with wireless. (i.e. if the encryption is done via firmware.)
"You want a pre-packaged GUI program? Sheesh dude, if you don't see what you like out there in userland, make it yourself and present it as a gift to the world."
I predict that 2006 is the year of Linux on the desktop!!!!!!
I know this was presented amusingly, but I would have modded it insightful. Early adopters are the reason the technology field is progressing so well. It helps offset the high cost of R&D.
I realize I'm stating the obvious here, but I'm still amazed at how barfy people around here get when new things come along at ridiculous prices. I mean, it's one thing to say "I wouldn't pay that much so I'll wait until the price comes down..." but often I hear "This product will instantly fail!" That's the way it works. Supply and Demand and all that guff.
"This statement is contrary to reality. If data is stored in a central registry, it can be easily (and untraceably) falsified by anyone with access to the central registry."
Why would the opposite sort of system be better, then?
"North Korea is making far bigger noises about making their own nuclear bombs, but no one seems to make such a fuss...."
[OT, Sorry.]
Um, yeah, that's because several countries have diplomatic relations with NK and are negotiating with them. The US is actually doing the right thing here (or at least what everybody wanted them to do with regards to Iraq), but nobody wants to acknowledge that because of the monkey in the White House.
"In another scenario, the Intelligent Designer put them on that specific plane just to see how long it took before somebody noticed and claimed that it must be Dark Matter."
Yeah yeah, we get it, fanatics suck. Let's not be fanatical about bringing up the fanaticism of the fanatics, k?
"The fact that they've imported decades of legacy Windows code, written for a period of time when security was designed for LAN environments rather than open access to public networks, seems a bit shocking even to people like me who already KNEW THIS."
Sounds to me like they're trying to maintain backwards compatibiity. I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft should do what Apple did, say "screw backwards compatibility!", and start on a brand new OS. I find that unlikely, though, because that's a hell of a lot of work and it would likely alienate the 100million or so users using Windows. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. It's great for me because I sell torches and pitchforks.
"Before you go taking that 80% pay cut, allow me to point out that "80% pay cut" and "80% of current pay" are two very different things. You might want to choose your wording very carefully."
I really don't know much about Bali, but I assumed he used that wording intentionally. I went to Brazil a couple of times and the cost of living is much much lower than it is here in L.A. I'm paying roughly $1,000 a month for a 1bd apartment. In Brazil, a much much larger apt was roughly $200USD a month. I've actually thought about relocating down there and doing freelance work for the US. Living is cheap and man it's nice down there. The people there are so nice. I mean... wow I still fantasize about it from time to time.
So what stopped me? Even when I found places where I could get 'broadband' internet access, I couldn't get US websites to load very fast. (It's worth mentioning that this was a few years ago.) Since I'm a 3D artist that often works with footage, the practicality of doing something like that was quite questionable. I gave up on that idea.
I have a couple of reasons for posting here. One is that I'm hoping somebody will chime in and say if Bali is like Brazil in the ways I've mentioned. The other is that I'm curious if the internet access in either place today is strong enough to support that type of work. Comments?
" In fact, if no one in a position to make your changes reads your comment, it's a totally ineffective way."
Untrue. Often when news reports pop up over topics like this, places like Slashdot are glanced at to get a feel for how people are responding to the product. Even this FA talks about reaction to the product being mixed. When the media starts reporting that Google Video has had a lot of complaints, you can bet changes will occur.
I understand that people who appreciate the product aren't interested in hearing bad things about it, but I still don't understand the "Don't bitch about the product I like!" attitude flying around here. The worst that would happen is that GV becomes better. Oh the horror. Having participated on both sides of these sort of things before, I guess I shouldn't be casting any stones. But as an outsider who doesn't have a strong opinion either way, I'm finding the whole "but it's beta so quit whining!" rebuttal really silly.
(Note: Most of this post is directed at a bunch of people that have posted in this thread, not just you. Apologies for responding to some stuff you personally didn't say. I know it's irritating, I just don't feel like posting a bunch of times in an article where I'm not exactly on Google's side.)
"I want a phone that has crystal clear voice and never drops a call and has an 8 hour talk time and a 2 week standby time. I don't want it to have a camera, web browsing, a PDA, mp3 player, or any other garbage and I want it to be as small as possible while still being sturdy. For mp3 playing I'll use my iPod."
I want a phone that has a PDA, web browser, camera, MP3 player, and other interesting garbage that, believe it or not, I actually use. I don't mind if I have to charge it every 4 days instead of 8, that's what bed time is for. For Mp3 playing, I'd use an iPod, but I don't want to carry it and a cell phone around. Pocket space is at a premium, and I don't have those fond nostalgic memories of cell phones being better than they are today. I remember the 2 week stand by, but I also remember the phone being basically useless otherwise. It didn't even have a decent alarm on it.
'Remember your first Nintendo "Mario's"? Plug em in n out, not enough gold on the contacts, but the chips still play if you blow on the contacts.How many disk games have worn out since?"
Amusingly, the reason why blowing on the contacts worked was because you were causing condensation to accumulate on the contacts. The reason the contact would lose connection is that if you rub two sheets of copper together, it produces a buildup of this dark gunky substance. Instert a cartridge a few times and enough buildup happens to break the connection. Clean the cartridge (or make the contacts wet, as you suggested) and the connections will light up again. This problem went away with every Nintendo catridge system ever since.
Anyway, here's the part where I agrue with you: EVERY medium you described is read only. Sure that'll last for decades, but that's not suitable for general computing purposes. With today's technology, reliability is still a huge issue. That's not to say that they won't become super resilient in the years to come, but you do have to consider that you're talking about technology with constant state changes. Those will eventually break. In simpler terms, the light switch in your bathroom will have a much shorter life than the wires carrying the electricity to the bulb.
That said, I can easily imagine these things eventually overtaking HDs in reliability. So it's not like we totally disagree.:)
"How is a 2GB flash drive with only 100,000 erase cycles supposed to rival a much faster 500GB hard drive with a much, much longer life span?"
Smaller/thinner/longer lasting laptops. I know we're not there yet, but if I could spend $300 for a 16 GB (byte, not bit) solid state drive, I'd happily plop it into my TabletPC. The desktop can be the storage device.
" And to make matters worse, carmakers plan to install automatic radar-based blind-spot checkers so motorists can avoid looking over their shoulders while changing lanes. Even geeks find some of these technologies scary..."
I'm a geek living in Los Angeles. I find not having this technology far scarier. I trust technology far more than I trust the judgement of people in a perpetual hurry.
"The solution to that is to mod down the idiots ranting and raving about Beatles-Beatles and his website. It's not to reject interesting stories just because some people are so stupid that they see the name of a submitter and become instantly filled with hate."
Bingo. Amusingly, the whiney bitches are causing lots of ads to get served up. In Taco's place, I'd serve up a bunch of beatles beatles posts then go to the DVD store.
"Give a beginner a Windows XP CD and an Ubuntu CD and I have no doubts they would find Ubuntu easier to install in most cases."
I've never installed Ubuntu, but I have installed XP and 2k like a million times. Frankly, I have faith that you're correct. 3 years ago I installed Redhat just for giggles. I had lots of things to pick on Redhat about for the install, but as far as difficulty goes, I didn't think it was significantly worse than XP's. The partitions, for example, had good defaults, easy enough to just click through. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if, today, installling most Linux distros was easier than installing XP, mainly because of what you said about not having as much need to run around and reinstall new drivers. I don't think Linux is a great newb OS compared to XP, but the installation aspect of it is not one of the reasons why.
"Can somebody please explain to me what's so awful about DVD that it should prompt millions upon millions of consumers to throw away billions of dollars' worth of discs and players in favor of some new format? Honestly, I just don't see the urgency. A few extra lines of resolution had better not be the answer."
I was just at Fry's yesterday. They had big ass HDTVs with sporting events on. Pretty impressive. Then, a couple of TVs down, they had DVDs playing on these same TVs. See it side by side like that, and DVDs look butt ugly in comparison. Now, frankly, I think DVDs are fine. But I also don't have an HDTV. If I watch several hours of HDTV, then I pop a DVD in, there's going to be a jarring 'blech' reflex. With that, I could see somebody saying "Hmmm.. it's about time I spent $300 or so on an HD player."
In short: the demand is there. Taking it a little bit further, extra capacity on the discs wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Most of the DVDs I've purchased in recent months were either 2-disc special editions, or multi-disc seasons of TV shows. If they are thinking ahead enough, they could put more hours of content on these discs and save some manufacturing costs. That could potentially be a motivating factor here, but honestly I do not know. In any event, I don't see what's so non-sensical about it.
Slashdot Mirror
"More like: "Even if there was a redesign coming, we would lie and say there wasn't until the last second so that people don't stop buying the current version."
Possibly. Probably even, considering everybody's reaction to the 360 announcement about the HD-DVD capability. But knowing Nintendo, they're going to wait until demand subsides to release the new unit. By the time that happens, prices come down, and they make the upgrade relatively cheap. The SP comes to mind. I remember some bitching that the SP should have come out, skipping the original GBA. I'm sitting here thinking "And what.. release it at $200?"
"Why doesn't Nintendo offer downloadable firmware upgrades?"
I was under the impression the games did this, not the firmware. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I have never touched a WEP setting until I ran Mario Kart, and that was done in the game. The game even remembers my settings. I should remember to clear those if I ever sell the game.
Alternatively, what about the USB device they sell? Is it a simple WiFi router, or is it a Nintendo only connection? If it's the latter, then you could get it, plug it into your machine, and use whatever encryption you like for your wireless router. So long as the Nintendo USB connection isn't creating a significant security problem, that should work just fine. Worst case scenario: Only plug in the USB when you're ready to play etc.
Yeah, I know, I haven't totally addressed your concern. Sorry, I can't ignore that Nintendo created a bit of a problem here. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if more games coming down the pipeline use WPA. I just hope I'm not horribly misunderstanding how the DS works with wireless. (i.e. if the encryption is done via firmware.)
"Makes me wonder if sonic stimulation at the resonant frequency could be an effective low-power LASER equivalent."
Well, I could route it through one of the EPS taps, but it may cause the intertial dampners to destabilize. Damn I wish we had seatbelts.
"You want a pre-packaged GUI program? Sheesh dude, if you don't see what you like out there in userland, make it yourself and present it as a gift to the world."
I predict that 2006 is the year of Linux on the desktop!!!!!!
"Shhhhhhhhhhh! I frickin' love early adopters."
I know this was presented amusingly, but I would have modded it insightful. Early adopters are the reason the technology field is progressing so well. It helps offset the high cost of R&D.
I realize I'm stating the obvious here, but I'm still amazed at how barfy people around here get when new things come along at ridiculous prices. I mean, it's one thing to say "I wouldn't pay that much so I'll wait until the price comes down..." but often I hear "This product will instantly fail!" That's the way it works. Supply and Demand and all that guff.
"This statement is contrary to reality. If data is stored in a central registry, it can be easily (and untraceably) falsified by anyone with access to the central registry."
Why would the opposite sort of system be better, then?
"North Korea is making far bigger noises about making their own nuclear bombs, but no one seems to make such a fuss ...."
[OT, Sorry.]
Um, yeah, that's because several countries have diplomatic relations with NK and are negotiating with them. The US is actually doing the right thing here (or at least what everybody wanted them to do with regards to Iraq), but nobody wants to acknowledge that because of the monkey in the White House.
"In another scenario, the Intelligent Designer put them on that specific plane just to see how long it took before somebody noticed and claimed that it must be Dark Matter."
Yeah yeah, we get it, fanatics suck. Let's not be fanatical about bringing up the fanaticism of the fanatics, k?
"The fact that they've imported decades of legacy Windows code, written for a period of time when security was designed for LAN environments rather than open access to public networks, seems a bit shocking even to people like me who already KNEW THIS."
Sounds to me like they're trying to maintain backwards compatibiity. I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft should do what Apple did, say "screw backwards compatibility!", and start on a brand new OS. I find that unlikely, though, because that's a hell of a lot of work and it would likely alienate the 100million or so users using Windows. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. It's great for me because I sell torches and pitchforks.
Thanks for the info. :)
I stayed in Joao Pessoa. Probably seems like a funny place for an American to go visit, but I have a friend down there.
"I was wrong when I saw significant progress for desktop Linux, which was wishful thinking."
"Ubuntu"
I haven't kept up. How many millions of people installed Ubuntu in 05?
"Before you go taking that 80% pay cut, allow me to point out that "80% pay cut" and "80% of current pay" are two very different things. You might want to choose your wording very carefully."
I really don't know much about Bali, but I assumed he used that wording intentionally. I went to Brazil a couple of times and the cost of living is much much lower than it is here in L.A. I'm paying roughly $1,000 a month for a 1bd apartment. In Brazil, a much much larger apt was roughly $200USD a month. I've actually thought about relocating down there and doing freelance work for the US. Living is cheap and man it's nice down there. The people there are so nice. I mean... wow I still fantasize about it from time to time.
So what stopped me? Even when I found places where I could get 'broadband' internet access, I couldn't get US websites to load very fast. (It's worth mentioning that this was a few years ago.) Since I'm a 3D artist that often works with footage, the practicality of doing something like that was quite questionable. I gave up on that idea.
I have a couple of reasons for posting here. One is that I'm hoping somebody will chime in and say if Bali is like Brazil in the ways I've mentioned. The other is that I'm curious if the internet access in either place today is strong enough to support that type of work. Comments?
" In fact, if no one in a position to make your changes reads your comment, it's a totally ineffective way."
Untrue. Often when news reports pop up over topics like this, places like Slashdot are glanced at to get a feel for how people are responding to the product. Even this FA talks about reaction to the product being mixed. When the media starts reporting that Google Video has had a lot of complaints, you can bet changes will occur.
I understand that people who appreciate the product aren't interested in hearing bad things about it, but I still don't understand the "Don't bitch about the product I like!" attitude flying around here. The worst that would happen is that GV becomes better. Oh the horror. Having participated on both sides of these sort of things before, I guess I shouldn't be casting any stones. But as an outsider who doesn't have a strong opinion either way, I'm finding the whole "but it's beta so quit whining!" rebuttal really silly.
(Note: Most of this post is directed at a bunch of people that have posted in this thread, not just you. Apologies for responding to some stuff you personally didn't say. I know it's irritating, I just don't feel like posting a bunch of times in an article where I'm not exactly on Google's side.)
"Look at their news and email services... they are still in beta! So if problems occur, they can just blame it on being in beta?!?!? I think not."
At least it makes the fanboys easy to spot.
"Meanwhile, the people who do like it would like you to shut the fuck up."
Yeah, you wouldn't want your criticisms about a beta product to get back to Google or anything.
"I want a phone that has crystal clear voice and never drops a call and has an 8 hour talk time and a 2 week standby time. I don't want it to have a camera, web browsing, a PDA, mp3 player, or any other garbage and I want it to be as small as possible while still being sturdy. For mp3 playing I'll use my iPod."
I want a phone that has a PDA, web browser, camera, MP3 player, and other interesting garbage that, believe it or not, I actually use. I don't mind if I have to charge it every 4 days instead of 8, that's what bed time is for. For Mp3 playing, I'd use an iPod, but I don't want to carry it and a cell phone around. Pocket space is at a premium, and I don't have those fond nostalgic memories of cell phones being better than they are today. I remember the 2 week stand by, but I also remember the phone being basically useless otherwise. It didn't even have a decent alarm on it.
'Remember your first Nintendo "Mario's"? Plug em in n out, not enough gold on the contacts, but the chips still play if you blow on the contacts.How many disk games have worn out since?"
:)
Amusingly, the reason why blowing on the contacts worked was because you were causing condensation to accumulate on the contacts. The reason the contact would lose connection is that if you rub two sheets of copper together, it produces a buildup of this dark gunky substance. Instert a cartridge a few times and enough buildup happens to break the connection. Clean the cartridge (or make the contacts wet, as you suggested) and the connections will light up again. This problem went away with every Nintendo catridge system ever since.
Anyway, here's the part where I agrue with you: EVERY medium you described is read only. Sure that'll last for decades, but that's not suitable for general computing purposes. With today's technology, reliability is still a huge issue. That's not to say that they won't become super resilient in the years to come, but you do have to consider that you're talking about technology with constant state changes. Those will eventually break. In simpler terms, the light switch in your bathroom will have a much shorter life than the wires carrying the electricity to the bulb.
That said, I can easily imagine these things eventually overtaking HDs in reliability. So it's not like we totally disagree.
"How is a 2GB flash drive with only 100,000 erase cycles supposed to rival a much faster 500GB hard drive with a much, much longer life span?"
Smaller/thinner/longer lasting laptops. I know we're not there yet, but if I could spend $300 for a 16 GB (byte, not bit) solid state drive, I'd happily plop it into my TabletPC. The desktop can be the storage device.
" And to make matters worse, carmakers plan to install automatic radar-based blind-spot checkers so motorists can avoid looking over their shoulders while changing lanes. Even geeks find some of these technologies scary..."
I'm a geek living in Los Angeles. I find not having this technology far scarier. I trust technology far more than I trust the judgement of people in a perpetual hurry.
"Unfortunately, I live in the real world and have to live with the consequences of my negligence."
I'm guessing you're a Linux user...?
"NOT work safe, and disgusting. It's hentai, with terrible body mutilation in graphic, well-drawn detail."
Thanks for the heads up! (I had my threshold set too high...)
"The solution to that is to mod down the idiots ranting and raving about Beatles-Beatles and his website. It's not to reject interesting stories just because some people are so stupid that they see the name of a submitter and become instantly filled with hate."
Bingo. Amusingly, the whiney bitches are causing lots of ads to get served up. In Taco's place, I'd serve up a bunch of beatles beatles posts then go to the DVD store.
I got an idea! We'll sell more XBOX360's by not making them available for purchase!
"Give a beginner a Windows XP CD and an Ubuntu CD and I have no doubts they would find Ubuntu easier to install in most cases."
I've never installed Ubuntu, but I have installed XP and 2k like a million times. Frankly, I have faith that you're correct. 3 years ago I installed Redhat just for giggles. I had lots of things to pick on Redhat about for the install, but as far as difficulty goes, I didn't think it was significantly worse than XP's. The partitions, for example, had good defaults, easy enough to just click through. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if, today, installling most Linux distros was easier than installing XP, mainly because of what you said about not having as much need to run around and reinstall new drivers. I don't think Linux is a great newb OS compared to XP, but the installation aspect of it is not one of the reasons why.
"Can somebody please explain to me what's so awful about DVD that it should prompt millions upon millions of consumers to throw away billions of dollars' worth of discs and players in favor of some new format? Honestly, I just don't see the urgency. A few extra lines of resolution had better not be the answer."
I was just at Fry's yesterday. They had big ass HDTVs with sporting events on. Pretty impressive. Then, a couple of TVs down, they had DVDs playing on these same TVs. See it side by side like that, and DVDs look butt ugly in comparison. Now, frankly, I think DVDs are fine. But I also don't have an HDTV. If I watch several hours of HDTV, then I pop a DVD in, there's going to be a jarring 'blech' reflex. With that, I could see somebody saying "Hmmm.. it's about time I spent $300 or so on an HD player."
In short: the demand is there. Taking it a little bit further, extra capacity on the discs wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Most of the DVDs I've purchased in recent months were either 2-disc special editions, or multi-disc seasons of TV shows. If they are thinking ahead enough, they could put more hours of content on these discs and save some manufacturing costs. That could potentially be a motivating factor here, but honestly I do not know. In any event, I don't see what's so non-sensical about it.