It is also more than the entire worldwide recorded music industry has ever made summed over its entire existence. But I bet the lawyer industry has easily made that much, and the RIAA is really a lawyers' group, not a musicians' group. That's where the real money lies.
Apple has flatly and repeatedly stated that there will be no Windows virtualization integrated into Leopard. That the author of this article thinks that Parallels will acquire new status as anything other than a standalone, third-party product just makes him look uninformed.
To elaborate just a little more, Command-` (that's the key above the tab key) switches between non-minimized windows within the front application the same way that Command-tab switches between entire applications. Lots of people coming from Windows don't know that because Windows doesn't have an equivalent for Command-`.
Re:The rest of the launch lineup can go to hell...
on
Two Weeks with the Wii
·
· Score: 2, Funny
You just can't call a videogame SMB unless it's Super Mario Brothers, especially on Nintendo hardware. The best-selling game ever * deserves a little respect.
If you are informed enough to ask that question, you are more informed than many, many voters. I wish everyone were as informed as you. A lot of people's knowledge of a candidate consists of just a bit or two of catchy bad rhetoric and memory of a trustworthy-looking face. A lot more people treat political parties like sports teams to root for, not like an actual decision to consider.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to have that reaction to the atrocious writing. I actually did a mental double check that it wasn't April 1. Clearly, this post was submitted by an automated drone and then machine translated through several different languages to mask its true origin. Fortunately, I am onto the evil botmaster and have no intention to RTFA or click anything.
I haven't yet been conditioned to think that a $60 game is cheap. There are lots of people like me. Fortunately for us, there are tons of great $20 games out there that we haven't played yet, and there's always eBay. But with the new Gran Turismo No Cars Edition, that game will never be cheap, even when the sticker price falls to $20, even if I buy it for $0.99 used ten years from now. If Sony (and Microsoft) try to nickel and dime us all like that, they will get unhappy customers. In the face of viable competition that's just as fun, like PC and Nintendo, unhappy customers will turn into no customers.
So I think Sony will have to change their tune; I'd just like them to learn that lesson the easy way before it becomes a problem for everyone. Oh wait, sorry, I was lost in a dream world. Well, they aren't the only game in town. They'd do well to remember that.
Most of your eye's resolution is in the center, but you tend to look around to see an entire scene. An image displayed large enough that you can't take it all in at a glance needs more resolution than your eye can see when it's only in one spot.
It has a space shuttle that noisily swoops and accelerates into a crash landing on an asteroid with its main engines still burning at full power -- even though it has no fuel tank. That's just about every spaceflight rule in the book broken in a single scene. It's a triumph of art over reality... OK, actually, it just sucks.
OpenDNS is not a solution to this problem those with dynamic IPs, which includes most Earthlink customers (like me). By default, they do exactly the same thing Earthlink does: from their webpage:
"...when we can't fix your typo we take you to a page with a set of search results." They do allow you to turn that behavior off on their prefs page, but only if you have a static IP. And I somehow doubt that there isn't a speed hit going off your ISPs own network for all your DNS queries, anyway.
The correct solution, of course, is to ditch Earthlink. Or in my case, not renew with them the next time I change my service -- unfortunately, changing now would be expensive. Until then, I'm going with Earthlink's secret, unbroken servers over OpenDNS.
The only requirement is that it be some format QuickTime understands.
I hope that's the case. But it's possible that the bits streamed to the reciever will be the compressed video file, not the rendered pixels. This is especially likely if they ever allow real HD resolutions -- there just isn't enough bandwidth, even with 802.11n, to do reliable HD streaming in real-world conditions with other networks and traffic around, from what I understand. If they do stream compressed video, you will have to re-encode everything to one of their "blessed" resolutions and codecs beforehand, much like is currently required to play videos on an iPod.
An important part of new HD video formats is that they are usually (always?) recorded on the disc in 1080p resolution (even if first-gen players won't output that or seriously mangle it). There are no displays, I believe, that will accept 1080p over component cables. So to fully take advantage of HD video, you do need HDMI, even when the image constraint token is off. But that's only if you have the very best TV that can even accept 1080p over HDMI, in which case you can afford the cable and probably already have some lying around. So Sony's decision isn't that bad after all, assuming they let you use a normal, non Sony-proprietary HDMI cable of your own.
That's the same question as, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then why should you mind if I invade your privacy?" And my response would be the same: "I don't need to prove anything to you. Proof is your responsibility, and please stay out of my business until you have at least some shred of it."
I shoudn't have to allow my computer to perform someone else's bidding, especially when it's of no possible benefit to myself. I bought my computer for my own purposes, not so it can use my internet connection to send Microsoft whatever they decide they want it to send them, all without telling me.
Therefore, there can not be any quality difference inherent to the formats
Well, maybe not in the formats, but there is a quality difference in the current players. The first Bluray players are supposed to be able to output the disc's native 1080p at 24fps (film is natively 24fps), while the HD-DVD players released so will show a picture converted to 1080i at 30fps. If you had a reallly good TV, you could theoretically get a better result with BluRay, at least until HD-DVD starts releasing 1080p players.
Refrigerators are mechanical analog devices, they actually wear out and need replacements.
Right, so the computer is already better eight years later (although it, too, will eventually break). And it can get new features, unlike the fridge. But you should stop expecting them after a while. The analogy is about expectation, not whether features can be added. It isn't a pervasive analogy that extends well cover all aspects of the situation, so I didn't belabor it. Well, until now, that is.
If you want to use an eight year old OS, that's fine, but you are pretty much running in legacy mode. You can keep what you've got until your computer breaks, including the current version of FireFox, but any new capabilities that get added to your computer at this point should be regarded as a bit of good fortune. In order to expect to get new free features, you should have a platform based not in the past but in the present with everybody else. It's a simple economy of scale thing for the friendly hackers who give us all such nice presents.
You can, of course, get the decompressed audio that way. But then you will probably want to recompress the music back into mp3 or something similar. Unless you use a lossless codec and settle for a file much larger than the original, you will lose sound quality. And although iTunes music (with which I'm familiar) generally sounds decent, I wouldn't say it's so good that it has sound quality to spare.
Also, with the soundcard approach, you're stuck decrypting your music in realtime, and I'm not aware that there are good tools for automatically copying over the filenames and tags, either. Of course the alternative, direct decryption of the DRMed files, is a tough arms race to keep up with. For example, jHymn, which used to decrypt iTunes music, got broken by an iTunes update, and I don't know of a replacement yet.
That's why I'm not currently buying any DRMed music. But it is a comfort to know that the soundcard hole is there if I need it someday when I don't have better options and want to buy new music without surrendering entirely to the RIAA.
Hmm. Yeah, sorry. The always goes with governments, and the sometimes goes with the abuse. So in every government, abuse will sometimes happen. Clear as mud. As punishment for my own abuse, I will now go flog myself. Oh crap. I should just stop writing.
There are some important differences between fingerprints and blood that get glossed over by calling them both just means of identification. Blood has historically been regarded as much more private than fingertips. Plus, the more we learn about genetics, the more powerful that DNA becomes. The government could theoretically start analyzing it for different genetic traits. They could probably clone you someday soon. Not that they couldn't just follow you around and pick up your hair, of course, and sure, they have no policy of doing any of that stuff, but governments always abuse their powers sometimes. I can understand the guy's reluctance.
I think you'll find we see pretty much eye to eye.
Oh, cool. Polite agreement feels almost inappropriate on Slashdot.
Yeah, by "hard," I do mostly mean complex or a lot of work. It sounds like they ran out of time on the heavy paperwads, decided to not mess with some of the issues like clipping on dead bodies, and I'll take your word that they overdid the cinematic physics. That kind of thing is a lot easier to get right in something like a movie where each shot can be individually edited and finessed.
...except for the killing blow, where your.1lb arrow sends even the biggest, heaviest enemies flying so far that it makes a Kung Fu movie seem realistic
That isn't an accident. I used to think that games should have the most realistic physics possible, up to the point when I got a job programming game physics. It turns out that total realism is less fun.
In one of the Tony Hawks, I recall an option to use more realistic physics -- the manual recommended not using it. Games like Smash Brothers are all about bizarre physics interactions. The vehicles in Halo skid and slide in a highly satisfying way unlike any real vehicle. Hell, the pieces in Tetris fall totally unlike real blocks. All of these things are based on reality, but subtly different, with plenty of special tweaks to achieve various game effects. In the end, the point is the specific dynamics, options, and goals the game sets up, and the physics are a tool to achieve those, not an end in themselves.
One might argue that in an RPG, realism is part of the point. But the game designers made a conscious decision to make enemies go flying when they get killed. Trust me, it was not an oversight. The really heavy wads of paper... OK, that's probably a mistake. Did I mention that game physics is hard? But that's another discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
It is also more than the entire worldwide recorded music industry has ever made summed over its entire existence. But I bet the lawyer industry has easily made that much, and the RIAA is really a lawyers' group, not a musicians' group. That's where the real money lies.
Apple has flatly and repeatedly stated that there will be no Windows virtualization integrated into Leopard. That the author of this article thinks that Parallels will acquire new status as anything other than a standalone, third-party product just makes him look uninformed.
To elaborate just a little more, Command-` (that's the key above the tab key) switches between non-minimized windows within the front application the same way that Command-tab switches between entire applications. Lots of people coming from Windows don't know that because Windows doesn't have an equivalent for Command-`.
You just can't call a videogame SMB unless it's Super Mario Brothers, especially on Nintendo hardware. The best-selling game ever * deserves a little respect.
If you are informed enough to ask that question, you are more informed than many, many voters. I wish everyone were as informed as you. A lot of people's knowledge of a candidate consists of just a bit or two of catchy bad rhetoric and memory of a trustworthy-looking face. A lot more people treat political parties like sports teams to root for, not like an actual decision to consider.
They made it "fanless", right?
No, but they're working hard on it. Right now, some people still like Sony. I don't know why.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to have that reaction to the atrocious writing. I actually did a mental double check that it wasn't April 1. Clearly, this post was submitted by an automated drone and then machine translated through several different languages to mask its true origin. Fortunately, I am onto the evil botmaster and have no intention to RTFA or click anything.
Actually, they're 98.75 cents each (79 MS points x 1.25 cents per point). Sorry to ruin your big savings.
I haven't yet been conditioned to think that a $60 game is cheap. There are lots of people like me. Fortunately for us, there are tons of great $20 games out there that we haven't played yet, and there's always eBay. But with the new Gran Turismo No Cars Edition, that game will never be cheap, even when the sticker price falls to $20, even if I buy it for $0.99 used ten years from now. If Sony (and Microsoft) try to nickel and dime us all like that, they will get unhappy customers. In the face of viable competition that's just as fun, like PC and Nintendo, unhappy customers will turn into no customers.
So I think Sony will have to change their tune; I'd just like them to learn that lesson the easy way before it becomes a problem for everyone. Oh wait, sorry, I was lost in a dream world. Well, they aren't the only game in town. They'd do well to remember that.
Most of your eye's resolution is in the center, but you tend to look around to see an entire scene. An image displayed large enough that you can't take it all in at a glance needs more resolution than your eye can see when it's only in one spot.
It has a space shuttle that noisily swoops and accelerates into a crash landing on an asteroid with its main engines still burning at full power -- even though it has no fuel tank. That's just about every spaceflight rule in the book broken in a single scene. It's a triumph of art over reality... OK, actually, it just sucks.
OpenDNS is not a solution to this problem those with dynamic IPs, which includes most Earthlink customers (like me). By default, they do exactly the same thing Earthlink does: from their webpage: "...when we can't fix your typo we take you to a page with a set of search results." They do allow you to turn that behavior off on their prefs page, but only if you have a static IP. And I somehow doubt that there isn't a speed hit going off your ISPs own network for all your DNS queries, anyway.
The correct solution, of course, is to ditch Earthlink. Or in my case, not renew with them the next time I change my service -- unfortunately, changing now would be expensive. Until then, I'm going with Earthlink's secret, unbroken servers over OpenDNS.
The only requirement is that it be some format QuickTime understands.
I hope that's the case. But it's possible that the bits streamed to the reciever will be the compressed video file, not the rendered pixels. This is especially likely if they ever allow real HD resolutions -- there just isn't enough bandwidth, even with 802.11n, to do reliable HD streaming in real-world conditions with other networks and traffic around, from what I understand. If they do stream compressed video, you will have to re-encode everything to one of their "blessed" resolutions and codecs beforehand, much like is currently required to play videos on an iPod.
An important part of new HD video formats is that they are usually (always?) recorded on the disc in 1080p resolution (even if first-gen players won't output that or seriously mangle it). There are no displays, I believe, that will accept 1080p over component cables. So to fully take advantage of HD video, you do need HDMI, even when the image constraint token is off. But that's only if you have the very best TV that can even accept 1080p over HDMI, in which case you can afford the cable and probably already have some lying around. So Sony's decision isn't that bad after all, assuming they let you use a normal, non Sony-proprietary HDMI cable of your own.
What's wrong with that?
That's the same question as, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then why should you mind if I invade your privacy?" And my response would be the same: "I don't need to prove anything to you. Proof is your responsibility, and please stay out of my business until you have at least some shred of it."
I shoudn't have to allow my computer to perform someone else's bidding, especially when it's of no possible benefit to myself. I bought my computer for my own purposes, not so it can use my internet connection to send Microsoft whatever they decide they want it to send them, all without telling me.
Therefore, there can not be any quality difference inherent to the formats
Well, maybe not in the formats, but there is a quality difference in the current players. The first Bluray players are supposed to be able to output the disc's native 1080p at 24fps (film is natively 24fps), while the HD-DVD players released so will show a picture converted to 1080i at 30fps. If you had a reallly good TV, you could theoretically get a better result with BluRay, at least until HD-DVD starts releasing 1080p players.
Refrigerators are mechanical analog devices, they actually wear out and need replacements.
Right, so the computer is already better eight years later (although it, too, will eventually break). And it can get new features, unlike the fridge. But you should stop expecting them after a while. The analogy is about expectation, not whether features can be added. It isn't a pervasive analogy that extends well cover all aspects of the situation, so I didn't belabor it. Well, until now, that is.
If you want to use an eight year old OS, that's fine, but you are pretty much running in legacy mode. You can keep what you've got until your computer breaks, including the current version of FireFox, but any new capabilities that get added to your computer at this point should be regarded as a bit of good fortune. In order to expect to get new free features, you should have a platform based not in the past but in the present with everybody else. It's a simple economy of scale thing for the friendly hackers who give us all such nice presents.
You can, of course, get the decompressed audio that way. But then you will probably want to recompress the music back into mp3 or something similar. Unless you use a lossless codec and settle for a file much larger than the original, you will lose sound quality. And although iTunes music (with which I'm familiar) generally sounds decent, I wouldn't say it's so good that it has sound quality to spare.
Also, with the soundcard approach, you're stuck decrypting your music in realtime, and I'm not aware that there are good tools for automatically copying over the filenames and tags, either. Of course the alternative, direct decryption of the DRMed files, is a tough arms race to keep up with. For example, jHymn, which used to decrypt iTunes music, got broken by an iTunes update, and I don't know of a replacement yet.
That's why I'm not currently buying any DRMed music. But it is a comfort to know that the soundcard hole is there if I need it someday when I don't have better options and want to buy new music without surrendering entirely to the RIAA.
Hmm. Yeah, sorry. The always goes with governments, and the sometimes goes with the abuse. So in every government, abuse will sometimes happen. Clear as mud. As punishment for my own abuse, I will now go flog myself. Oh crap. I should just stop writing.
There are some important differences between fingerprints and blood that get glossed over by calling them both just means of identification. Blood has historically been regarded as much more private than fingertips. Plus, the more we learn about genetics, the more powerful that DNA becomes. The government could theoretically start analyzing it for different genetic traits. They could probably clone you someday soon. Not that they couldn't just follow you around and pick up your hair, of course, and sure, they have no policy of doing any of that stuff, but governments always abuse their powers sometimes. I can understand the guy's reluctance.
My initial reaction: let the namecalling begin. Wii Nintendo Revolution becomes too easy an acronym. I can't be the only one to think of this.
I think you'll find we see pretty much eye to eye.
Oh, cool. Polite agreement feels almost inappropriate on Slashdot.
Yeah, by "hard," I do mostly mean complex or a lot of work. It sounds like they ran out of time on the heavy paperwads, decided to not mess with some of the issues like clipping on dead bodies, and I'll take your word that they overdid the cinematic physics. That kind of thing is a lot easier to get right in something like a movie where each shot can be individually edited and finessed.
That isn't an accident. I used to think that games should have the most realistic physics possible, up to the point when I got a job programming game physics. It turns out that total realism is less fun.
In one of the Tony Hawks, I recall an option to use more realistic physics -- the manual recommended not using it. Games like Smash Brothers are all about bizarre physics interactions. The vehicles in Halo skid and slide in a highly satisfying way unlike any real vehicle. Hell, the pieces in Tetris fall totally unlike real blocks. All of these things are based on reality, but subtly different, with plenty of special tweaks to achieve various game effects. In the end, the point is the specific dynamics, options, and goals the game sets up, and the physics are a tool to achieve those, not an end in themselves.
One might argue that in an RPG, realism is part of the point. But the game designers made a conscious decision to make enemies go flying when they get killed. Trust me, it was not an oversight. The really heavy wads of paper... OK, that's probably a mistake. Did I mention that game physics is hard? But that's another discussion.
They are quieter than the PPC machines they replace. Although that might just mean the fan has already melted. But probably not.