Oh well done. You don't agree with my perfectly ON-TOPIC comment, yet you don't have the wit, intelligence or insight to reply, so you moderate it down. Thanks for abusing the moderation system, you make this whole site more miserable for the rest of us.
If this goes into force, anything you hear today is unlikely to be returned to the public domain within the lifetime of your GRANDCHILDREN.
Returned? It was never in the public domain in the first place, so how could it be returned? As soon as it was created it was de facto copyright of the creators. Why are you 'fucking furious' about this? Because you might have to pay for the music you want rather than being able to download it for free? That's a very weak argument agaisnt copyright extensions.
Why should intellectual property go to the public domain? If someone buys for instance a country estate, it doesn't become public domain 50 years later, so why should copyrighted materials? Surely if we're going to be fair, copyright should last forever?
These media cartels have stolen our public domain and culture, and are renting it back to us in perpetuity.
Stolen? Public domain? This story is about copyrighted material which was privately created. When have the 'media cartel' taken material which was originally public domain and given themselves the copyright to it? Your argument is confusing.
I'm off to write to my MP.
I might do as well, although I might tell him something different. Don't assume we all have the same view on copyright. Some people aspire to financial success rather than resenting it.
You do realise that this would only penalise small business and individuals, it wouldn't hurt the evil megacorporations who piss away $20,000 in cocaine a day. And of course, those evil megacorporations infringing our God-given rights to free mp3s are the real target in this, rather than any genuine concern for creativity or the public good.
You know, you're not FORCED to pay for anything. If you don't want a song, the RIAA or whoever aren't forcing you to buy it at gunpoint.
I don't get all this fuss about copyright. Seems 99% of Slashdot hate copyright and want everything public domain. I can't see why, no-one has yet to justify that position. Surely if you don't want to acquire it in the way the copyright holder wants, then just don't bother with it? We're not talking about water or food here, we're talking music and films, they're luxuries. I can't think of a way to justify forcing these into the public domain, other than 'I want it for free'.
I think if we're being honest, that's what it generally boils down to, getting things for free. I don't remember so much bitching about copyright law before Napster came along. Since then, people have got a taste for free music, and now the authorities and copyright holders are clamping down, there's an angry backlash. "I used to be able to download music for free, therefore I should always be able to do so. Any attempt to restrict me can be criticised as a conspiracy by evil corporations and the goverment."
Wow, great strawman. Slightly tweaking an interface of largely insignificant software is hardly comparable with inventing the transistor. The GUI was a great innovation. Google hasn't invented the GUI, they've just moved the buttons about and changed the colour of the writing. And if they're doing fundamental research into HCI, why are their services not that user friendly? Gmail is pretty slow and awkward compared to other webmail services. The search engine is OK but nothing special. The interface for Google groups has got WORSE since they took it from Dejanews. How's that for advancement?
Effectively there is not much cost for maintaining copyright law. In a civil case the parties involved pay their own lawyers. You can't really make an argument for applying land taxes to IP, because there isn't a finite amount of copyrightable material, you can create as much as you want.
Copyright doesn't take the state resources to maintain. Enforcing criminal violations of copyright infringement isn't public resources protecting the copyright, it's public resources upholding the law. By your argument we could put a tax on Ipods to pay for the courts prosectuting Ipod thieves.
Also without any solid figures your idea is dead in the water. You can't just say 'tax copyrights' without explaining exactly how such a system would work. Also bear in mind that the big evil companies you all hate so much would be able to pay to 'tax' their copyrights, whereas the small businesses wouldn't.
I wonder who would pay the tax for GPL software. Perhaps RMS could get his chequebook out.
What fundamental research is this? All I see from Google is web applications that have been done a million times before, but with slightly different interfaces. Excuse me if I'm not blown away by that. That 20% is only one day a week. What can you do in one day a week?
I wouldn't describe them working at hyperspeed either. I mean gmail has been at the beta stage for how long? Remember this is a WEBMAIL service we're talking about, not a fusion reactor. It's a service which has a million equivalents on the Internet, gmail having a slightly slicker interface and some more disk space. That's it.
Are there any companies doing fast-paced, ground-breaking research these days? Or do they all just chase profits based on existing stagnant business models?
The problem with descent was, it was all jerky. And even on the easiest difficulty setting, the enemies were so fast they'd practically killed you before you could see them, whilst I was trying to remember which key turns around.
as I just said, I had only *just* went into an 80km/h zone from a 90km/h zone and could still plainly see the sign from where I was pulled over.
When I learnt to drive, I was informed that you are supposed to slow down BEFORE you get to the lower speed limit. Most people think that after you pass a lower speed limit sign THEN you slow down, but that's not what the law says. Profiteering policemen often put their speed traps right after these signs to catch people out. Petty, yes, but the law's on their side and you can't really argue against it, especially as you were letting the car control the speed it seems that you weren't really concentrating.
That doesn't make it a more exciting opponent, it just means there are more ways to kill it. In fact it's not an opponent it's just another puzzle in the game that you work out how to kill, and once you've worked out how to kill it then the challenge is over. Even the latest and greatest AI is no match for a human opponent, no matter how many spells and weapons you put in the game.
Being a blacksmith or an inn keeper would be dead boring. You sit in one spot and make do one task. Yay.
And how exactly is this different from being an adventurer levelling up for 12 hours at a time, or playing Everquest and spending an hour pressing the same keys over and over again to kill the dragon? But then again without the player element (i.e. pkilling), such games are just treadmills anyway. Like real life, but without the monetary rewards.
The problem with a vertical set up is, I sit so close to the monitor (say 2 feet) that I'd be straining my neck to look at the 'upper' monitor. It's not very ergonomically safe to keep turning your neck to view your monitor.
if you spend another $250 on the vertical stand, you have a nice dual display for around $750
I got my current monitor (17" crt) for £20 second hand, I can't really justify spending all that money on what at the end of the day is just another part of the computer. Also how do they justify $250 for a stand?
I've heard this rumour, that, you know, this technology might be in its infancy, and that in the future (this is just a rumour mind), these devices might a) get bigger, b) cost less.
That's short-sighted thinking. We can find more environmentally friendly ways of producing electricity, we won't find an environmentally friendly way of burning oil. Also in a few hundred years, electricity will still be here. Fossil fuels are used up at a rate much higher than they are being produced, and unless the earth contains an infinite amount of oil, it's not going to last forever.
I wouldn't say either. I'd say that approximately 5kg is suitable for a portable device. Light enough to carry, heavy enough to stay in place when you put it down, and heavy enough to feel valuble and solid, rather than light and flimsy. Well 5kg for laptops, perhaps 1kg for mp3 players.
The DoubleSight DS-1900 packs two 19" LCD panels in a neat package and will take up less total space than that cathode ray tube whic has created the permanent bow in your desk.
The bit that gets me is, it takes up more space, not less. My desk space is limited by width rather than depth. Moving from a CRT to an LCD doesn't give me extra room at the sides, it gives me more room behind or in front of the monitor. Unless these LCDs are going to be in front of each other, it's not taking up existing CRT space. If I had width-space on my desk for another monitor I'd get another CRT and save spending ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on a monitor. That's assuming the cheap, short cables that come with monitors would actually reach the computer.
Other than the blurring/dead pixel issue, LCDs are pretty good. The image is a lot sharper and less harsh on the eyes than CRTs. Although the colours and resolutions aren't so good, for most people not doing graphic design and not playing games, they're pretty good for word processing or spreadsheets or something.
A commonly-bandied figure is that the average lifetime income increase from a college education is a million bucks or so. Paying back $8,000 over ten years at an average of 5% a year interest leads to a total of about $13,000, or $1,300 a year.
OK, it's not 8k. Assuming a four year course, that's $32k. Secondly, a million over a lifetime would be approximately $25k per year. I'm sure it's closer to 5k or 10k per year. Take tax away from that, and it's not very high. Interest is usually higher than 5%, hell even some bank accounts give 5%. You're looking more at 10-15%, especially with credit cards. That's assuming you get a loan or a credit card. If you can't, where does the 32k come from? And I've heard of US students with near to 100k of debt. And it's assuming you get to walk into a high-paid job straight away. In the current climate, that's not very likely, just look at all the people with degrees working minimum wage jobs.
so I just paid for fees, room and board
What other costs are there? That covers pretty much all the major costs. $1.5k per semester is still $3k per year. Add accomodation and living costs and you're back to $8k per year. Where is the saving, other than the reduced education quality and having to live in the shit-hole state you come from?
Even if you make a couple of thousand a year, that's still 6k of debt. And depending on where you get the loan, the interest could mean you're paying it off for decades. How many parents can afford 8k per year? I know that slashdot is generally full of rich kids, but in the real world, many families are lucky to have 1k a year spare after living costs.
And if the cost still offends you, the first two years can be done from home, at a local community college,
I'm afraid I don't know about this community college thing. If it's as good as a normal university then why not stay the whole time at the community college? How much does it cost in comparison?
Oh, and many state universities are just as well-renowned as their private counterparts.
Then why does anyone bother going to the private ones?
Angle it so that thrust is opposite the orbital motion of the earth. You slow down relative to the sun. You fall to a lower orbit. Nifty, huh?
How fast exactly would that be?
The sun is 1.50x10^11m away from the earth. The mass of the sun is 1.99x10^30kg. Using the equation a = Gm/r^2, we get acceleration = 6.67x10^-11 x 1.99x10^30 / (1.5x10^11)^2, which means acceleration starts at 5.9x10^-3 ms^-2 towards the sun.
I know that as you get closer to the sun the gravity and acceleration would increase, but I can't remember the equations to take that into account, but even at that starting acceleration, an object free-falling towards the sun from the Earth's orbit would take 46 days to get to Mercury's orbit. It would be a lot quicker when the sums are done by someone who actually knows about this sort of thing.
There is no way to count all PCs playing games. First of all, there is a huge percentage that never buys any games, but pirates them
Then why do the publishers care about such numbers? Someone who pirates the game isn't buying their games, and so they don't count as part of the market. Game developers are not going to target the PC because of all the pirates, in fact the opposite is more likely true.
HL2 (arguably, the best game ever) would not be possible without great sactifices in graphic detail on the XBOX or the PS2 or the GC.
So you're saying that the 'greatest game ever' relies almost entirely on its graphics? Whatever happened to playability? If you take the graphics away from a game and it ceases to work as a game, then it's hardly the best game ever is it?
Let's see them beat raid 0 scsi drive at 15k rpm with 3 gig of ddr 2 with a P4 3,7 gig and a geforce 6800 ultra pci express. 42 inch lcd screen at 2048x1536 with half-life or doom runnig full screen 8x anti-aliasing.
Imagine all that just to play another shitty doom clone. Must be boring being a hardcore PC gamer, paying all that money to get a few more fps in a game where you do what you've been doing for over a decade: walking around corridors shooting people.
Computers have a mouse and a keyboard. Consoles have crappy little controllers.
A mouse and keyboard are for navigating menus and typing letters. Controllers are for playing games. Is it any wonder which are more useful? Ever tried playing football games on a keyboard? Or fighting games? Or driving games? A bloody nightmare, you need about thirty fingers, each 12" long.
Controllers are ergonomically designed to be good at playing games, that's why they're so easy to use, all the buttons are where you need them. Keyboards are optimised for typing, not playing games, so it's a great hassle. And who wants to fiddle about with a mouse trying to aim at someone?
But the fact is, controllers are really only good for a small subset of games. They suck for shooters, and they are absolutely useless for RTSs, simulation, and building games.
Those sorts of games are a small subset, more to do with trying to simulate things than to create an enjoyable gaming experience. Controllers are better for the majority of games, they're more intuitive and it feels like you're in control, whereas with a keyboard you're guessing which of 100 keys is the one to change your weapon, and then when you find it you realise it's on the other side of the keyboard to where your hand is. Just what you want in a life-or-death situation.
I like games with a lot of depth and complexity.
I like games that are fun. But then for me, games are about enjoyment. I don't find depth and complexity playing yet another sim city clone or doom clone. It's funny you talk about depth and complexity, most of the complaints in this forum lodged against consoles by PC fanatics is about the graphics. Not a mention of playability, they all seem to be interested in nothing but graphics. Then again, these are the type who'll buy 50 identical doom clones because they have progressively better graphics, even though the game's pretty much exactly the same but with a different gun or something.
And forget about MMOGs
Yes, let's. I don't want to recall how many thousands of hours I spent playing those sorts of games. They don't have much 'depth of complexity', it's just hour after soulless hour of levelling up and collecting equipment. There's no reward or excitement or feeling of achievement, but you keep doing it none-the-less. It's like a drug but without the high.
But as long as consoles behave like toys and only play toy games,
But then what is a game if not a toy? You speak as if gaming is some sort of sophisticated art, rather than a way to pass the time. I've enjoyed PC games before, but I can't stand this elitism from these obsessive PC fanboys who think the only way anyone can possibly enjoy computer games is to spend 6 hours installing a FPS before spending another 12 hours installing patches and drivers and mods and bots and then spending weeks tweaking it to get the best FPS or the best resolution. Before finding out the game's exactly like Doom I but with better graphics.
Sure, you sometimes have to do that. Now that you own a PS2, your wife wants a game that is only on Xbox or Nintendo and you simply have to tell her no, it won't work, and you can't have it.
Same with a PC, if your wife wants an Xbox game you can't play it on the PC either, so your argument makes little sense.
If the game is developed properly, it can be played on almost any PC OS with a little work from the game company.
And if a PS2 game is developed properly, it can be played on not almost, but EVERY PS2. The same goes for Xbox and Gamecube.
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 8 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
consoles will always be an *additional* gaming platform. People use 'puters on the job, so when they buy something for home, they get the thing they know for email, web, Quicken, etc. The installed base for PCs is far larger than necessary to support a gaming industry, and that installed base will continue because of inertia in other areas
Yes, but how many of those computers used for email, web, quicken etc. will be capable of playing the latest games? In a few years, when consoles have gotten even more powerful, the equivalent PCs will cost upwards of a grand. Most PC users don't upgrade very often if the computer they have is capable of running their spreadsheets.
Ironically, as PCs get more and more powerful, the user-base for PC games will shrink and shrink as PC games, in trying to keep up with consoles, alienate the average home PC owner.
Breathless articles like this always fail to mention one thing: Who wants to check their email in the living room in front of the whole family? Or surf for pr0n? Or shop online while the kids are whining to play FF?
Conversely, who wants to play games in the office, stuck at a desk? How many people can crowd round a PC for multiplayer? How on earth do you connect multiple controllers to a PC?
4) PC technology progresses while consoles are stuck in "generations". Sure, these new consoles might be on par with today's top-end consumer gaming machines, but what about 3 years down the line?
In three years time, today's top-end gaming machine will also be out of date. PCs only have an advantage if you're willing to constantly upgrade your PC when every new graphics card/CPU comes out. Also, with generations, then for a few years you don't need to worry about compatabilities or upgrades, you just buy a game and it works. Notice how people fret about buying new graphics cards whenever the latest bland PC first-person shooter comes out with 50000x50000 pixels and 400,000,000,000 colour depth, all used to show the same grimy dank boring corridors that we saw in similar games 10 years ago, designed by some computer programmer with no sense of aesthetics, and has no idea what secret military bases or nuclear power plants look like in real life.
The good thing about consoles is that you can concentrate on making games which are enjoyable to play, rather than working on the latest lighting techniques etc.
And the whole argument about mouse/keyboard vs controllers is wrong. Controllers are designed for playing games. Keyboards are designed for typing letters, mice are designed for navigating menus. It's no wonder that controllers are the most useful for playing games. What exactly does a decades old device made for writing letters have to do with first person shooters? Nothing, they're not even slightly suitable, it's a hack.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh well done. You don't agree with my perfectly ON-TOPIC comment, yet you don't have the wit, intelligence or insight to reply, so you moderate it down. Thanks for abusing the moderation system, you make this whole site more miserable for the rest of us.
If this goes into force, anything you hear today is unlikely to be returned to the public domain within the lifetime of your GRANDCHILDREN.
Returned? It was never in the public domain in the first place, so how could it be returned? As soon as it was created it was de facto copyright of the creators. Why are you 'fucking furious' about this? Because you might have to pay for the music you want rather than being able to download it for free? That's a very weak argument agaisnt copyright extensions.
Why should intellectual property go to the public domain? If someone buys for instance a country estate, it doesn't become public domain 50 years later, so why should copyrighted materials? Surely if we're going to be fair, copyright should last forever?
These media cartels have stolen our public domain and culture, and are renting it back to us in perpetuity.
Stolen? Public domain? This story is about copyrighted material which was privately created. When have the 'media cartel' taken material which was originally public domain and given themselves the copyright to it? Your argument is confusing.
I'm off to write to my MP.
I might do as well, although I might tell him something different. Don't assume we all have the same view on copyright. Some people aspire to financial success rather than resenting it.
You do realise that this would only penalise small business and individuals, it wouldn't hurt the evil megacorporations who piss away $20,000 in cocaine a day. And of course, those evil megacorporations infringing our God-given rights to free mp3s are the real target in this, rather than any genuine concern for creativity or the public good.
You know, you're not FORCED to pay for anything. If you don't want a song, the RIAA or whoever aren't forcing you to buy it at gunpoint.
I don't get all this fuss about copyright. Seems 99% of Slashdot hate copyright and want everything public domain. I can't see why, no-one has yet to justify that position. Surely if you don't want to acquire it in the way the copyright holder wants, then just don't bother with it? We're not talking about water or food here, we're talking music and films, they're luxuries. I can't think of a way to justify forcing these into the public domain, other than 'I want it for free'.
I think if we're being honest, that's what it generally boils down to, getting things for free. I don't remember so much bitching about copyright law before Napster came along. Since then, people have got a taste for free music, and now the authorities and copyright holders are clamping down, there's an angry backlash. "I used to be able to download music for free, therefore I should always be able to do so. Any attempt to restrict me can be criticised as a conspiracy by evil corporations and the goverment."
Wow, great strawman. Slightly tweaking an interface of largely insignificant software is hardly comparable with inventing the transistor. The GUI was a great innovation. Google hasn't invented the GUI, they've just moved the buttons about and changed the colour of the writing. And if they're doing fundamental research into HCI, why are their services not that user friendly? Gmail is pretty slow and awkward compared to other webmail services. The search engine is OK but nothing special. The interface for Google groups has got WORSE since they took it from Dejanews. How's that for advancement?
Effectively there is not much cost for maintaining copyright law. In a civil case the parties involved pay their own lawyers. You can't really make an argument for applying land taxes to IP, because there isn't a finite amount of copyrightable material, you can create as much as you want.
Copyright doesn't take the state resources to maintain. Enforcing criminal violations of copyright infringement isn't public resources protecting the copyright, it's public resources upholding the law. By your argument we could put a tax on Ipods to pay for the courts prosectuting Ipod thieves.
Also without any solid figures your idea is dead in the water. You can't just say 'tax copyrights' without explaining exactly how such a system would work. Also bear in mind that the big evil companies you all hate so much would be able to pay to 'tax' their copyrights, whereas the small businesses wouldn't.
I wonder who would pay the tax for GPL software. Perhaps RMS could get his chequebook out.
What fundamental research is this? All I see from Google is web applications that have been done a million times before, but with slightly different interfaces. Excuse me if I'm not blown away by that. That 20% is only one day a week. What can you do in one day a week?
I wouldn't describe them working at hyperspeed either. I mean gmail has been at the beta stage for how long? Remember this is a WEBMAIL service we're talking about, not a fusion reactor. It's a service which has a million equivalents on the Internet, gmail having a slightly slicker interface and some more disk space. That's it.
Are there any companies doing fast-paced, ground-breaking research these days? Or do they all just chase profits based on existing stagnant business models?
The problem with descent was, it was all jerky. And even on the easiest difficulty setting, the enemies were so fast they'd practically killed you before you could see them, whilst I was trying to remember which key turns around.
as I just said, I had only *just* went into an 80km/h zone from a 90km/h zone and could still plainly see the sign from where I was pulled over.
When I learnt to drive, I was informed that you are supposed to slow down BEFORE you get to the lower speed limit. Most people think that after you pass a lower speed limit sign THEN you slow down, but that's not what the law says. Profiteering policemen often put their speed traps right after these signs to catch people out. Petty, yes, but the law's on their side and you can't really argue against it, especially as you were letting the car control the speed it seems that you weren't really concentrating.
That doesn't make it a more exciting opponent, it just means there are more ways to kill it. In fact it's not an opponent it's just another puzzle in the game that you work out how to kill, and once you've worked out how to kill it then the challenge is over. Even the latest and greatest AI is no match for a human opponent, no matter how many spells and weapons you put in the game.
Being a blacksmith or an inn keeper would be dead boring. You sit in one spot and make do one task. Yay.
And how exactly is this different from being an adventurer levelling up for 12 hours at a time, or playing Everquest and spending an hour pressing the same keys over and over again to kill the dragon? But then again without the player element (i.e. pkilling), such games are just treadmills anyway. Like real life, but without the monetary rewards.
The problem with a vertical set up is, I sit so close to the monitor (say 2 feet) that I'd be straining my neck to look at the 'upper' monitor. It's not very ergonomically safe to keep turning your neck to view your monitor.
if you spend another $250 on the vertical stand, you have a nice dual display for around $750
I got my current monitor (17" crt) for £20 second hand, I can't really justify spending all that money on what at the end of the day is just another part of the computer. Also how do they justify $250 for a stand?
I've heard this rumour, that, you know, this technology might be in its infancy, and that in the future (this is just a rumour mind), these devices might a) get bigger, b) cost less.
That's short-sighted thinking. We can find more environmentally friendly ways of producing electricity, we won't find an environmentally friendly way of burning oil. Also in a few hundred years, electricity will still be here. Fossil fuels are used up at a rate much higher than they are being produced, and unless the earth contains an infinite amount of oil, it's not going to last forever.
I wouldn't say either. I'd say that approximately 5kg is suitable for a portable device. Light enough to carry, heavy enough to stay in place when you put it down, and heavy enough to feel valuble and solid, rather than light and flimsy. Well 5kg for laptops, perhaps 1kg for mp3 players.
The DoubleSight DS-1900 packs two 19" LCD panels in a neat package and will take up less total space than that cathode ray tube whic has created the permanent bow in your desk.
The bit that gets me is, it takes up more space, not less. My desk space is limited by width rather than depth. Moving from a CRT to an LCD doesn't give me extra room at the sides, it gives me more room behind or in front of the monitor. Unless these LCDs are going to be in front of each other, it's not taking up existing CRT space. If I had width-space on my desk for another monitor I'd get another CRT and save spending ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on a monitor. That's assuming the cheap, short cables that come with monitors would actually reach the computer.
Other than the blurring/dead pixel issue, LCDs are pretty good. The image is a lot sharper and less harsh on the eyes than CRTs. Although the colours and resolutions aren't so good, for most people not doing graphic design and not playing games, they're pretty good for word processing or spreadsheets or something.
Now all they need to do is reduce the price.
A commonly-bandied figure is that the average lifetime income increase from a college education is a million bucks or so. Paying back $8,000 over ten years at an average of 5% a year interest leads to a total of about $13,000, or $1,300 a year.
OK, it's not 8k. Assuming a four year course, that's $32k. Secondly, a million over a lifetime would be approximately $25k per year. I'm sure it's closer to 5k or 10k per year. Take tax away from that, and it's not very high. Interest is usually higher than 5%, hell even some bank accounts give 5%. You're looking more at 10-15%, especially with credit cards. That's assuming you get a loan or a credit card. If you can't, where does the 32k come from? And I've heard of US students with near to 100k of debt. And it's assuming you get to walk into a high-paid job straight away. In the current climate, that's not very likely, just look at all the people with degrees working minimum wage jobs.
so I just paid for fees, room and board
What other costs are there? That covers pretty much all the major costs. $1.5k per semester is still $3k per year. Add accomodation and living costs and you're back to $8k per year. Where is the saving, other than the reduced education quality and having to live in the shit-hole state you come from?
Even if you make a couple of thousand a year, that's still 6k of debt. And depending on where you get the loan, the interest could mean you're paying it off for decades. How many parents can afford 8k per year? I know that slashdot is generally full of rich kids, but in the real world, many families are lucky to have 1k a year spare after living costs.
And if the cost still offends you, the first two years can be done from home, at a local community college,
I'm afraid I don't know about this community college thing. If it's as good as a normal university then why not stay the whole time at the community college? How much does it cost in comparison?
Oh, and many state universities are just as well-renowned as their private counterparts.
Then why does anyone bother going to the private ones?
Angle it so that thrust is opposite the orbital motion of the earth. You slow down relative to the sun. You fall to a lower orbit. Nifty, huh?
How fast exactly would that be?
The sun is 1.50x10^11m away from the earth. The mass of the sun is 1.99x10^30kg. Using the equation a = Gm/r^2, we get acceleration = 6.67x10^-11 x 1.99x10^30 / (1.5x10^11)^2, which means acceleration starts at 5.9x10^-3 ms^-2 towards the sun.
I know that as you get closer to the sun the gravity and acceleration would increase, but I can't remember the equations to take that into account, but even at that starting acceleration, an object free-falling towards the sun from the Earth's orbit would take 46 days to get to Mercury's orbit. It would be a lot quicker when the sums are done by someone who actually knows about this sort of thing.
There is no way to count all PCs playing games. First of all, there is a huge percentage that never buys any games, but pirates them
Then why do the publishers care about such numbers? Someone who pirates the game isn't buying their games, and so they don't count as part of the market. Game developers are not going to target the PC because of all the pirates, in fact the opposite is more likely true.
HL2 (arguably, the best game ever) would not be possible without great sactifices in graphic detail on the XBOX or the PS2 or the GC.
So you're saying that the 'greatest game ever' relies almost entirely on its graphics? Whatever happened to playability? If you take the graphics away from a game and it ceases to work as a game, then it's hardly the best game ever is it?
Let's see them beat raid 0 scsi drive at 15k rpm with 3 gig of ddr 2 with a P4 3,7 gig and a geforce 6800 ultra pci express.
42 inch lcd screen at 2048x1536 with half-life or doom runnig full screen 8x anti-aliasing.
Imagine all that just to play another shitty doom clone. Must be boring being a hardcore PC gamer, paying all that money to get a few more fps in a game where you do what you've been doing for over a decade: walking around corridors shooting people.
Computers have a mouse and a keyboard. Consoles have crappy little controllers.
A mouse and keyboard are for navigating menus and typing letters. Controllers are for playing games. Is it any wonder which are more useful? Ever tried playing football games on a keyboard? Or fighting games? Or driving games? A bloody nightmare, you need about thirty fingers, each 12" long.
Controllers are ergonomically designed to be good at playing games, that's why they're so easy to use, all the buttons are where you need them. Keyboards are optimised for typing, not playing games, so it's a great hassle. And who wants to fiddle about with a mouse trying to aim at someone?
But the fact is, controllers are really only good for a small subset of games. They suck for shooters, and they are absolutely useless for RTSs, simulation, and building games.
Those sorts of games are a small subset, more to do with trying to simulate things than to create an enjoyable gaming experience. Controllers are better for the majority of games, they're more intuitive and it feels like you're in control, whereas with a keyboard you're guessing which of 100 keys is the one to change your weapon, and then when you find it you realise it's on the other side of the keyboard to where your hand is. Just what you want in a life-or-death situation.
I like games with a lot of depth and complexity.
I like games that are fun. But then for me, games are about enjoyment. I don't find depth and complexity playing yet another sim city clone or doom clone. It's funny you talk about depth and complexity, most of the complaints in this forum lodged against consoles by PC fanatics is about the graphics. Not a mention of playability, they all seem to be interested in nothing but graphics. Then again, these are the type who'll buy 50 identical doom clones because they have progressively better graphics, even though the game's pretty much exactly the same but with a different gun or something.
And forget about MMOGs
Yes, let's. I don't want to recall how many thousands of hours I spent playing those sorts of games. They don't have much 'depth of complexity', it's just hour after soulless hour of levelling up and collecting equipment. There's no reward or excitement or feeling of achievement, but you keep doing it none-the-less. It's like a drug but without the high.
But as long as consoles behave like toys and only play toy games,
But then what is a game if not a toy? You speak as if gaming is some sort of sophisticated art, rather than a way to pass the time. I've enjoyed PC games before, but I can't stand this elitism from these obsessive PC fanboys who think the only way anyone can possibly enjoy computer games is to spend 6 hours installing a FPS before spending another 12 hours installing patches and drivers and mods and bots and then spending weeks tweaking it to get the best FPS or the best resolution. Before finding out the game's exactly like Doom I but with better graphics.
Sure, you sometimes have to do that. Now that you own a PS2, your wife wants a game that is only on Xbox or Nintendo and you simply have to tell her no, it won't work, and you can't have it.
Same with a PC, if your wife wants an Xbox game you can't play it on the PC either, so your argument makes little sense.
If the game is developed properly, it can be played on almost any PC OS with a little work from the game company.
And if a PS2 game is developed properly, it can be played on not almost, but EVERY PS2. The same goes for Xbox and Gamecube.
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 8 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
consoles will always be an *additional* gaming platform. People use 'puters on the job, so when they buy something for home, they get the thing they know for email, web, Quicken, etc. The installed base for PCs is far larger than necessary to support a gaming industry, and that installed base will continue because of inertia in other areas
Yes, but how many of those computers used for email, web, quicken etc. will be capable of playing the latest games? In a few years, when consoles have gotten even more powerful, the equivalent PCs will cost upwards of a grand. Most PC users don't upgrade very often if the computer they have is capable of running their spreadsheets.
Ironically, as PCs get more and more powerful, the user-base for PC games will shrink and shrink as PC games, in trying to keep up with consoles, alienate the average home PC owner.
Breathless articles like this always fail to mention one thing: Who wants to check their email in the living room in front of the whole family? Or surf for pr0n? Or shop online while the kids are whining to play FF?
Conversely, who wants to play games in the office, stuck at a desk? How many people can crowd round a PC for multiplayer? How on earth do you connect multiple controllers to a PC?
4) PC technology progresses while consoles are stuck in "generations". Sure, these new consoles might be on par with today's top-end consumer gaming machines, but what about 3 years down the line?
In three years time, today's top-end gaming machine will also be out of date. PCs only have an advantage if you're willing to constantly upgrade your PC when every new graphics card/CPU comes out. Also, with generations, then for a few years you don't need to worry about compatabilities or upgrades, you just buy a game and it works. Notice how people fret about buying new graphics cards whenever the latest bland PC first-person shooter comes out with 50000x50000 pixels and 400,000,000,000 colour depth, all used to show the same grimy dank boring corridors that we saw in similar games 10 years ago, designed by some computer programmer with no sense of aesthetics, and has no idea what secret military bases or nuclear power plants look like in real life.
The good thing about consoles is that you can concentrate on making games which are enjoyable to play, rather than working on the latest lighting techniques etc.
And the whole argument about mouse/keyboard vs controllers is wrong. Controllers are designed for playing games. Keyboards are designed for typing letters, mice are designed for navigating menus. It's no wonder that controllers are the most useful for playing games. What exactly does a decades old device made for writing letters have to do with first person shooters? Nothing, they're not even slightly suitable, it's a hack.