This article.... is, well, not worth much of anything, when you take a look at it. Here are the facts:
1. Neoplanet is a cracked up IE for Windows only.
2. Opera is not available for the Mac as yet and is, IMHO, FAR uglier than.....
3. iCab, which is NOT available for the PC. It's a Mac-only product.
This doesn't add up at all- browsers such as Lynx and Mozilla have been deliberately left out, as have any real considerations for platform. It looks like someone at C-net was bored.... either that or the poor bastard is getting paid by the word.
There's an "Ask Slashdot" for you- we're obviously all using web browsers here. What do we use and why do we use it? [I'm on IE5/Mac because, unlike Netscape 4.x/Mac, it works. And I can kill all of the toolbars quickly and easily.] Rather than link to someone else's shoddy attempt at a browser review, I believe that we're fully capable of conducting our own- either through a poll [how many people would vote "Mosaic!"? ], an "Ask Slashdot", or plain old thread commentary. C-net doesn't need the hits and I'm sure none of us is going to switch based on their recommendations.
i've been using the things for three years. And for content creation, there's no point in considering anything else. But they suck when it comes to browsing the web- particularly on OS 8.1 or lower. The speed difference is scary: set up a linux box, a windows box, and a Mac to load a page and the Mac will lose every time, given unweighted test conditions [the fact that the system goes "uh..." when you press the mouse button has something to do with it, I imagine.]
Still....
If you *like* the Big Two, the Mac is STILL the best choice, with IE5/Mac being a browser like no other. Yeah, it may be open source and all, but Mozilla fucking BLOWS in my opinion [last use was M16 and I'm not using it again until there's a final release, period.]
The Browser Wars concept looks like a pretty grim outcome to me- Mac has the best cut of IE, Windows users are pretty much stuck with shittier versions, and *nix users have Nutscrape/Mozilla. Nice of them to consider the browser that comes with OSX server as an option. [I forget what it's called- all I remember is that it wasn't exaclty satisfactory.]
Opera isn't even an option, really... when the rest are free, why pay money? [the product's window tiling is more of a severe annoyance than a feature with popup ads and java-traps and so forth running rampant out there.]
I'd like to see Mozilla get it's act together so that I actually have a CHOICE of web browsers. If you use Mac and design for web, you're using IE5, and that's all there is.
1. Small teams, no more than 3-5 people at the most.
2. Give these people whatever hardware they need.
3. Stick 'em in an irregulalry shaped room [doesn't matter how, just as long as it ISN't a box- an L would work easily] with outlets EVERYWHERE.
4. Weekly meetings with the next guy up on the food chain.
5. No dress code- your ass has to be covered and your shirt can't say Fuck or other bad words.
I had this at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, working a multimedia piece... it was GREAT environment- we could work in piece without seeing each other, we all had our headphone,s and if we had probelsm, everyone else was a voice away.
An unproductive work environment? Suits, daily meetings, and particularly CUBICLES. If I ever have to wear khakis and work in one of those fucking things I WILL kill someone. I'm sure many of you have the same loathing I do of those charming little prisons.... people work better in groups or solo, not stuck in a rat maze of coffee pots and neckties.
Keep us comfortable, keep us happy, give us our SPACE, leave us ALONE and we get it DONE.
Yeah, sure, embedded devices. Okay. Right.
That aside-
1. Linux is for the smart, the patient, or the insane. Or some combination.
2. AOL is for idiots who call tech support every time Junior unplugs their box. [Keep in mind that 90% of everything is shit, which explains why this thing is so popular- majority rules, right?]
3. These two elements are mutually exclusive. I know a few linux users, and out of my entire pod o' computer friends, I don't know a single one that would be caught DEAD using an AOL disk as anything other than what it IS- a beer coaster.
I've had enough problems with linux when it comes to learning / installing / begging it to work. If you're smart enough to get linux going, you're smart enough to know better than to use AOL- so how is this applicable to the desktop market?
Okay, so three people go to see a movie. We get whining about hackers, some comments on effects and dropped footage, and Katz whining about something that should best be left in the past and dropped in favor of actually thinking up a good, original concept rather than clinging to a buzzword that has long since lost the interest of anyone interesting. After sleeping through what I was told were the worst parts of the recent Star Wars fuckup of last year, fuck hype and fuck secondhand. I've read seven or eight of the reviews for this thing, and I'll probably skip it until it hits video. Katz is the only fucker to whine about Columbine. I think the word has been hard-coded into his neuralgia.
On that note, and in disfavor of Katz:
Realize, if you will, that no intelligent person is an outcast. GET IT THROUGH YOUR FUCKING HEADS. We are levels above the common man, with command of knowledge and skills that they have neither the patience nor the intelligence to master. The fact that Katz seems to value thier opinion does not speak well of him. We are BETTER than these people- why do so many of you seek to be LIKE them? Why does their approval MATTER to you?
Being different has been a fact of life for the entirety of recorded history. Katz more than likely keeps sticking to columbine because the idiots whose approval he is apparently going for cannot remember any popularized incident of aggression older than that. Holocaust? Salem Witch trials? The crusades? Spanish Inquisition? C'mon- different has NEVER been percieved as "good", so get fucking used to it and start getting a little more fucking diverse here. A corporate empire rising out of the ashes of post midwest gothic rebellion? Any of these elements is typical of the one-trick katz pony. With an audience as demanding as the slashdot crowd, you'd expect more diverse content rather that the same old shit reptetetively spewed for the sake of ratings. We're different, we're better for it, so quit beating it like it's a bad thing and smell the fucking coffee.
Where do I get off? I did something few geeks have the stomach to do- I killed my TV, sold my consoles, and went to Ozzfest with the members of a band that is composed of people who were bitter enemies in high school and the best of friends in the Really Real World. I got hammered, I got high, and I have a pleasant ringing in my ears. The primal rush of seeing over an acre of mud in the air at any given moment as Static X and later Pantera smashed out of the speakers like the voice of some Angry God was enough to bathe my grey matter in adrenaline, and cause me to lose any sort of tolerance for repetetive, canned bullshit the likes of which this alleged "columnist" has been spewing for months on end. Ozzfest me realize that I can never possibly say "Fuck" more than anyone on the B stage, and it clued me into something that quite a few of us are probably missing out on: Passive Aggression is going to get you nowhere. I sat out the mudfight until Static X murdered a Ministry song.... then the next thing I knew my clothes were coated in dirt and I had sprained my shoulder from recycling dirt at the fuckers with arena seats. And I had realized something.... something that no hack, no amount of graphic wizardry or high-offer conract work could do for me. I felt alive, really ALIVE.... like I had a pulse, for the first time in years. I had realized that I had NOTHING to lose by participating, and that not doing so was only going to piss me off further. So I dove in, and emerged a new man, less tolerance and more apt to rage against this sort of ignorance. There's a time and a place for being a fucking dumbass- and it sure as hell isn't in front of the Slashdot crowd.
Can we see a real article that doesn't play to your chronic misconceptions about intelligence, John? Hmm? When you get back from the next Backstreet Boys concert?
Go to Ozzfest, Katz. Go see FIFTY THOUSAND "outcasts" in one place, having a good fucking time and seeing some good fucking bands. Let's see you review THAT without a Columbine or Corporate reference [the Dreamcast ads are between sets and on the B stage- rather a struggling company than a fatass megacorp like Sony... Hell, someone has to pay the damned bills.]. Or does metal offend your delicate, outcast sensibilities?
This sounds like something I was following back in the day. A VTOL rocket system that I THINK [correct me if I'm wrong] was called the "Delta V" or something similar to that name. it was an insanely cool concept, but from what I remember, turned out to be seriously itchy-bitchy in application: the test model crashed in a most spectacular fashion. Something to do with balancing lift and the fragile landing struts- if you're the slightest bit unstable, down it goes.
At least they managed to get it working in application. Now if onl they'd get some sort of railgin going that could lift passengers into orbit via magnetics- launch it to the east near the equator [finally, a use for the Andes- a launch tube ramp!] and you're in business.
As much as I loath advertising, if that's what it takes to get us back up there, i'm all for it!
I'm not even going to pretend to speak for everyone. Here's my reasoning:
1. First, the clones. Power Computing and others were price-cutting Apple. With market share already abysmal, they had no choice: lose the clones or lose the company.
2. Second, and the rest fo the list. Apple is a "monopoly" from the standpoint that they are the sole providers of an integrated consumer-priced hardware/software package.
3. The hardware is the >BOMB [boot from ANY drive, zero compatability problems if you know a little about SCSI, painless to network, easy to set up (now), long-lasting, QUIET (say THAT about a PeeCee!)...].
4....and say what you will about the OS- the UI is the sweetest thing that modern computing has ever seen. I tried Linux and was thoroughly DISGUSTED by the fact that X-windows handled just like the windows UI, and in some cases was even goofier. [don't flame me!! I loved the CLI, but the UI needs to EVOLVE, not DEVOLVE]. The MacOS has the most advanced UI system out there- the only thing more transparent is the PalmOS. Every other system I've tried has seemd like a windows knock-off- clunky and painful.
5. Much less to take care of. A reasonably intelligent Mac user can fix any system screwup with a little bit of help or simple plugging around to see what works. Drivers don't conflict, extensions can be switched on and off with relative ease... in general, you can fix a seriously scragged Mac without having to reformat it.
6. No one complains about Apple having a monopoly. Everything important on the Mac has been ported to Windows, or vice versa. MS apps actually work and run BETTER on the Mac [go figure]. As a graphic designer, you can choose your platform- and ninety percent of us use Macs, because they're more intuitive and easier to use for things like Photoshop and Illustrator. [also, burning CDs is a HELL of a lot easier on a Mac than it is in windows- more options, more flexibility, ISO support, dual partitioning, et al. Every burning program I've used on windows handles like a twenty year old basset hound that's been kicked in the groin.]
7. And finally.... [relating to six] If the MS codebase were half as good as linux, and its UI even a third as useable as the MacOS, I very seriously doubt that anyone would be complaining about them having a monopoly. The only reason anyone is up in arms at all is because we KNOW that MS makes a horribly shitty, derivative OS. [Too bad IBM had the marketing clout to push their "PC" and invite MS along for the OS ride.....] If MS made quality product, Linux would likely not exist, and Apple would have died a gruesome death many years ago.
Thank the powers that be for gross incompetance and total obliviousness on the part of lord bill, for the great and mighty Visionary hath given rise to the discontented masses that have given birth to or continued to support Linux, UNIX, Be, and MacOS.
Complaints about new systems being incompatable with old hardware? Well, the hardware market needs to change or die, buried in a mass of backward compatability. How many ports do you really WANT on the back of your box, anyway? [and why aren't keyboard ports on the FRONT? You lose two feet of cord getting the thing around from the back to the front...]
Want the new goodies, but don't want to lose the old? Let's say you have a reasonably recent Mac- a PCI model. Let's say you're not using it for production and actually have the slots free. Consider this:
1. You already have SCSI, ADB, RS232, etc. 2. PCI cards with USB and/or Firewire ports are available for older machines [pre blue+white tower]. They're a couple of hundred bucks. 3. Processors are upgradeable. Heck, even a 7100 can be turned into a G3. Up the cache if you haven't already [cards are cheap on Ebay], then go to Newer Technology or another third party company and plunk down the cash for a processor upgrade. WONG! For 250-400 $ you've bumped your box from a 604/120 to a G3/450. 4. End result: an older motherboard with a buttload of modern gear. Since you've alredy bought the old box, you have a reasonablym odern system for less than the cost of a new one, and you can still use all of your old gear.
As for myself, I have a pair of 7100s, an iMac, and a Pismo. I have all of the ports I need on four machines, and I'm networked [one 7100 has a nubus NIC, the other is using a Farrallon [sp?] adapter]. The 601s are turtles, but it all works!
A properly set up OSX Server [re: two hard drives, fast ethernet, several gig of dedicated space] is capable of supporting a "Net Booting" environment- you can boot your happy little iMac, pismo powerbook, or pretty much anything recent from a network server: the option exists in the "Startup Disk" control panel, and will remain greyed out unless you're on a properly set up net-boot network. If you're on one, and use the option, then your machine boots- you guessed it- straight from the server. With this sort of setup going, you can physically remove the hard disk, and the machine remains fully functional [assuming the network isn't lagged to hell by Mp3 whores such as myself]. If you're willing to go "kiosk" and can get a stripped system folder and content set up properly, you can also run the system from the CDROM drive- again, without a hard disk. Every CD-equipped Mac can do that. Net-booting has been around for the past year and a half or so, if not longer: nothing new there.
As an occultist of sorts and a graphics manipulator by profession, I can totally agree with the majority of Katz's statement [hell, I have a first edition hardback of Shadowrun sitting in a duffelbag under my workbench]. But I have to contradict his point on Magic.
Sure, the corps have no use for it. Magic is the application of the laws of physics to the one thing they cannot control and have yet to profit from - human Will. It is intangible, a complicated and gordian morass of conceptology that the average individual- entranced with Quake or the Backstreet Boys or Buffy- cannot come to grips with, or have no interest in, pushing the occult aside in favor of other, more mundane distractions.
While it may not take the form of Dragons, elves, trolls, dwarves, etceteras [though look at the general population base- similarities exist within our own gene pool], Magic has been growing in popularity for the majority of the past century. Unless you have a manifest interest in it and persue it with a passion, those who practice it are invisible to you, lost in the general population, blips on radar and nothing else.
Practitioners of magical arts stay out of the public eye, due to the negative opinions on the subject that have been ingrained into the American conscious by forces such as Chrisitanity and general ignorance. And really- who gets more work done? The manager stuck in meetings all day or the graphic artist at the company Mac, told only to "make it look neat" and left alone? Bring down attention on yourself and you lose the time you need to get the Work done.
Any Willed act is a magical act- by base definition, these "Shadowrunners", the technological individualists who value the ideal of creation and exploration over a paycheck and a suit, are magicians of a sort. They have a morale that is incompatable with that of the Corps, and hence are cast aside because by their base nature, they cannot be assimilated.
Corps and most people barely have enough interest in base-level reality, let alone the deeper levels that are plunged by magical science. As such, you can expect magic and its practitioners to keep a relatively low profile in the times to come, though odds are you feel the influence every day, rather you are aware of it or not.
Performing a web search using Sherlock WILL flash ads. But then, performing a web search with any engine but Google gets you ads, and going ANYWHERE on the web at all lands the same results- face it, if you have a modem, advertisers have you by the balls. I don't care HOW useable the technology is, I'm interested in keeping two things off of my machine- ads and Windows. Fortunately, if you don't want to search the web, no one is forcing you to.
Bonus: for those of you who absolutely CAN NOT stand the OS 9 sherlock [such as myself], the much simpler, much smaller, much less ugly and disgusting version of Sherlock from 8.5 works just fine.
...does not exist. There IS an SE/30, but the minimum system software for the machine is 6.0.3. Having the Mac Secrets fifth edition propping up the old Powerbook makes Mac comments pretty easy to spot and correct, neh?
Talk about an incentive to NOT upgrade. I've been using 4.6 since it came out, and I'm not upgrading to 4.7 out of laziness. But the options discussed in netscape six? Every last one of them are reasons for me NOT to upgrade. I LOATH AOLIM, and I'm not about to stand for advertising being integrated straight into my browser interface.
"The new policy means that Web sites can offer visitors customized browser versions as a way to draw and retain users and build brand loyalty. "
Uh... no? The only reason I use netscape is a graphical browser is a necessity for a large amount of web access, iCab sucks, and IE is... well, Microsoft. Sure, they'll be building brand loyalty with the sheeple out there who are dumb enough to dig that sort of thing....
With companies like AOL providing slow connections, shitty content, asinine service, and STILL somehow becoming number one due to the fact that their interface is so idiot friendly that it makes Mac users retch, it's no wonder the Linux community is as strong as it is.
I could refer any of you who bring up religion to the treatise "Magic without Tears" by Aleister Crowley- early on he defines the universe and the concept that the answer to the riddle is 0 = 2. The belief that some "god" created the universe is obviously a false one, as something would have to have brought about the existance of god as well- and as we all know, to question god is Blasphemy, which covers everyone's tracks and gets them out of explaining what is in fact a convenient delusion.
Christians in general- not saying that anyone here represents the general religious community- are narrowminded in their steadfast belief in this concept. Not only that, but most chrisitan sects are evangelical in nature, with missionaries hell-bent on screwing up so-called "godless" cultures that were just fine before their close-minded self-centered evangelicism intervened.
I haven't read much Katz, but I can see where he's coming from if he's alleged to rail on religion- anyone who can't accept "it just IS. Live with it." as an excuse would be foolish to accept the concept of One God creating the universe. Likewise, it is foolish people that have a habit of putting the stomp on geeks, setting trends, wearing suits, and being generally "pop culture" - the people we have to clean up after and kindly inform that the CDROM drive is "NOT a drink tray, thank you" are the ones who refuse to question "why" and go for the god thing in the first place. Willing ignorance. Who in their right mind would advocate this? I'll side with Katz in this argument, naturally [assuming these allagations are correct].
While I do not suppose to get in the way of anyone's belief systems, I do wish to potentially nullify the "do YOU believe in god?" and "you're going to hell" and "ATHEIST!" arguments: In order to "go to hell", one must "believe" in a devil- and god. Since I recognize the faallacy of the mythos- it's your lie, tell it any way you want. In order to be an Atheist, one must believe in no "spuernatural" or "supernormal" [sic] systems. These concepts are patently obvious, from the ground up- karma, "coincidence", "luck"... all intangible forces that follow abstracted science. There is more to Reality than humanity-- and there is no God but man [you ARE the center of your own universe, no? Where does it go when you blink? ] You define reality on your own terms based from your own experience. Geeks like to figure things out- it would seem that a "religious" geek has missed one of the critical insites of the underlying scientific nature of reality. I gather that Katz has no appreciation for religion- an outdated, hopelessly confused system that has no bearing but spiritual oppression. He can lamb-baste it all he wants: I'm behind him a hundred percent.
Uh. Only if you LIKE football. I'm lucky- I'm attuned to the negative metabolic effects of the tube and do not react positively to them. Contrast. Fun = spending nine hours at a coffee house you haven't frequented in years and discussing various occult systemology with friends, while at the same time doodling and making shorthand notes of the whole event. Yeah, the Photoshop WAS work- about 200$ worth, thank you. And if I had not been tasked with freelance, I would be reading or working on personal artwork. I've had my dose of entertianment at the coffee house- it was real, it was tangible, I could SMELL it, and there weren't any commercials. I spent the day doing something memorable, and worked off the coffee-stasis hangover bitshifting, rather than lowering my metabolic rate in front of the idiot box.
As in, the state of the TV for the past few weeks. Off. I didn't even know the football equivalent of a Holy Orgy was going on until my roommate came up to tell me about one of the commercials around seven.
My question isn't "What was your favorite?", but "What could you have accomplished instead of spending a few hours doping up on Soma?" Advertising is the worst sort of mental static, and a horrible reason to watch an atrociously unfulfilling event. I liked "Off" the most. Because of Off, I got to work in Photoshop for six hours while my roommates have nothing to show for themselves but a few scraps of conversation for the water cooler tomorrow.
Vidiots are really what's wrong with entertainment these days, why it has ceased to be entertaining.
Thought they made the cartoon from the books when I was younger- I was 18 before I'd even seen the show and got the whole story put together. They don't know what they're missing, do they?
The above is intended as an introduction to Sci-Fi. Here, in my opinion, are the best of the lot.
01. Dune/Herbert 02. 1984/Orwell 03. Brave New World/Huxley 04. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich/Solzhenitsyn [Not Sci-fi but so horryfing it COULD be.] 05. Those Annoying Post Brothers/Comic book by Matt Howarth 06. Savage Henry/Comic book by Matt Howarth 07. Appleseed/Manga by Masamune Shirow 08. The Heechee saga/Pohl [I believe] 09. The Gap books/Donaldson 10. The Rings of the Master/Chalker [his best work, IMHO] 11. 2001 and subsequent digits/Clarke 12. Snow Crash / Neal Stephenson 13. Neuromancer/ gibson 14. Dominion: Tank Police/Manga by Shirow 15. Robotech/20+ book series by "Jack McKinney", a novelization of Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada, plus the Sentinels [unproduced] and a few extra books to tie it all together. The books are light years beyond the Robotech TV series and make for a very, very entertaining read!
I read nothing but Sci-Fi as a kid, until I got my hands on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", after which I haven't gone back since. I can recommend the following selection of books, for various reasons.
1. The Hitch-hiker's trilogy. [Douglas Adams] I first read them when I was 12, and they were a wonderful read for me then. I've gone through them several times over the years- short enough to keep my young attention span and funny enough to keep me interested.
2. The Dune Cycle. [Frank Herbert] Read at least the first one- the other five are optional and the prelude that just came out doens't count. [Unless you're a VERY serious Dune buff, in which case it fills in a lot of gaps.] Very powerful concepts, and a very complete universe- this man has done his thinking.
3. The following novels by Robert Heinlein are so important to me as to be almost required reading. They all say something about the human condition as it is, and as it could be: Citizen of the Galaxy. Job: A Comedy of Justice. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Starship Troopers. Stranger in a Strange Land- this one's a MUST.
4. 2001: A Sapce Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke. I also more than recommend the wide-screen cut of the film.
4.5. It's not exactly sci-fi, but most people have a tendency to enjoy Fantasy as well- the Xanth books by Piers Anthony are aimed at a younger audience and seem to hit the spot, particularly if you're up for puns. IMHO, the best book the man has written is "On a Pale Horse".
For more mature audiences....
4.5.1. "Moon Child" by Aleister Crowley. It's not Sci-Fi so much as Fantasy, but it's worth the read, and a great deal of fun for both those interested in the occult and those who could care less for it.
5. Nova and Dhalgren, two books by Samuel R. Delaney. Dhalgren's about a thousand pages, Nova a fifth of that. The important thing about this guy is the style with which he writes- it takes some getting used to, but it works like nothing I've ever seen.
6. The Gap series, by Stephen Donaldson . Fascinating reading, but NOT for young minds, even if I WAS in high school when I read them. These books are adults-only fare, but worth the trip to the library.
Most importantly...
You would do well do subscribe to "Analog" and "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"- I've piles and piles of these magazines- I refuse to give them away, as they gave me no end of reading plesure as a child. Some of the material is adult, some of itis good for all ages- they should be available from th local bookstore, in theory. Most of the memorable short stories I've read have come out of the annals of Anaolg, IASFM, or Fantasy and Science Fiction. Were you to take any direction in the search for reading, I would most heavily recommend a subscription to one or both of these magazines- a bunch of new stories delivered monthly, spanning the sub-genres from straight sci-fi to humor to mystery to suspense, all of it sci-fi and nearly all of it good.
These are novels I am comfortable recommending to anyone, for they are of outstanding quality [in my opinion] and have cuased some change either in my perception of reading or my style of writing.
How about a Baldur's Gate port to Linux? Yes, it's a bunch of CDs, but that kind of game would be plain old fun in a stable environment.
Further... Why don't companies adapt the id model of game development? The nifty thing about id games is that all of the code is stashed in a wad, and the executable is the only thing you have to worry about- my Quake 2 wad will work on Be, Wintel or Mac as long as I have the right EXE file. This makes game porting excuciatingly easy. If more developers built along these lines, then we'd see more multi-platform games, a lot faster, neh? [of course, this is from a layman standpoint- if I'm wrong, be nice about it!]
With this kind of approach, I don't see why developers don't go for it. Toss all of your executables into one package with the rest of the data and market the thing as "Works with Linux, Win95+, and MacOS 8.1 or higher! YEAH!" Economicly, it's more for the end use to worry about, but it would be nice to tell dear old mom "Buy me Quake III for christmas, k?" And relieve the dear lady of the hassle of finding a Mac copy.
While it would be nice to see more games for linux, it would be great to see them for the Mac as well- how long for Halflife, folks? Any idea if it's ever going to be ported to anything else if it hasn't been already?
I'm sure I'm not the only out there who has read "Neuromancer"- Anyone else out there really that hot on having your memories duped into a ROM construct, to be set on the shelf to gather dust for who-knows-how-long? "Not I", he said. Duping memories is a scary thought- lets not forget that even IF they can do this, that doesn't mean that they can successfully carry over the awareness or sentience of the human organism- these things are tied into our meat in such a way as to be intangible. The technology will certianly have its uses, but it'll more than likely be something only the rich can afford, of course- and who really wants to interface with a mind whose primary motivating factor is greed? Methinks science should be spending time on finding a cure for stupidity, rather than running hellbent to develope the silicon means to preserve it.
And possible poor design. Whomever favored the whole "put the SUBMIT after the PREVIEW instead of having both on the same page" idea is right on the money. I made some corrections, readjusted the dmaned defaults [fresh Netscape install], and before I realized it, I had three copies and I'd been docked two VERY, VERY hard-earned Karma points. I'm mad at no one- I wish Commander Taco had a more refined site design technique, but who am I to chastize the man? More common sense [or testing the page on idiots] would have avoided this, and someone with a name may have read the article instead of sniggering at the Zero. Ah well. Goes to show: you can have the best code on the planet, but if your layout lacks, it won't mean a thing.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form.
Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism.
Guess what?
Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title.
Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying, the combat cinematics were a design flaw, and the characters had nothing special in a combat environment beyond trite and generally unfulfilling Limit Breaks . The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia.
Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion.
So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons.
It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form. Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism. Guess what? Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title. Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying. The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia. Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion. So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons. It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form. Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism. Guess what? Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title. Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying. The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia. Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion. So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons. It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet. Game on.
Slashdot Mirror
This article.... is, well, not worth much of anything, when you take a look at it. Here are the facts:
1. Neoplanet is a cracked up IE for Windows only.
2. Opera is not available for the Mac as yet and is, IMHO, FAR uglier than.....
3. iCab, which is NOT available for the PC. It's a Mac-only product.
This doesn't add up at all- browsers such as Lynx and Mozilla have been deliberately left out, as have any real considerations for platform. It looks like someone at C-net was bored.... either that or the poor bastard is getting paid by the word.
There's an "Ask Slashdot" for you- we're obviously all using web browsers here. What do we use and why do we use it? [I'm on IE5/Mac because, unlike Netscape 4.x/Mac, it works. And I can kill all of the toolbars quickly and easily.] Rather than link to someone else's shoddy attempt at a browser review, I believe that we're fully capable of conducting our own- either through a poll [how many people would vote "Mosaic!"? ], an "Ask Slashdot", or plain old thread commentary. C-net doesn't need the hits and I'm sure none of us is going to switch based on their recommendations.
i've been using the things for three years. And for content creation, there's no point in considering anything else. But they suck when it comes to browsing the web- particularly on OS 8.1 or lower. The speed difference is scary: set up a linux box, a windows box, and a Mac to load a page and the Mac will lose every time, given unweighted test conditions [the fact that the system goes "uh..." when you press the mouse button has something to do with it, I imagine.]
Still....
If you *like* the Big Two, the Mac is STILL the best choice, with IE5/Mac being a browser like no other. Yeah, it may be open source and all, but Mozilla fucking BLOWS in my opinion [last use was M16 and I'm not using it again until there's a final release, period.]
The Browser Wars concept looks like a pretty grim outcome to me- Mac has the best cut of IE, Windows users are pretty much stuck with shittier versions, and *nix users have Nutscrape/Mozilla. Nice of them to consider the browser that comes with OSX server as an option. [I forget what it's called- all I remember is that it wasn't exaclty satisfactory.]
Opera isn't even an option, really... when the rest are free, why pay money? [the product's window tiling is more of a severe annoyance than a feature with popup ads and java-traps and so forth running rampant out there.]
I'd like to see Mozilla get it's act together so that I actually have a CHOICE of web browsers. If you use Mac and design for web, you're using IE5, and that's all there is.
Here's the ideal work environment:
1. Small teams, no more than 3-5 people at the most.
2. Give these people whatever hardware they need.
3. Stick 'em in an irregulalry shaped room [doesn't matter how, just as long as it ISN't a box- an L would work easily] with outlets EVERYWHERE.
4. Weekly meetings with the next guy up on the food chain.
5. No dress code- your ass has to be covered and your shirt can't say Fuck or other bad words.
I had this at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, working a multimedia piece... it was GREAT environment- we could work in piece without seeing each other, we all had our headphone,s and if we had probelsm, everyone else was a voice away.
An unproductive work environment? Suits, daily meetings, and particularly CUBICLES. If I ever have to wear khakis and work in one of those fucking things I WILL kill someone. I'm sure many of you have the same loathing I do of those charming little prisons.... people work better in groups or solo, not stuck in a rat maze of coffee pots and neckties.
Keep us comfortable, keep us happy, give us our SPACE, leave us ALONE and we get it DONE.
Yeah, sure, embedded devices. Okay. Right.
That aside-
1. Linux is for the smart, the patient, or the insane. Or some combination.
2. AOL is for idiots who call tech support every time Junior unplugs their box. [Keep in mind that 90% of everything is shit, which explains why this thing is so popular- majority rules, right?]
3. These two elements are mutually exclusive. I know a few linux users, and out of my entire pod o' computer friends, I don't know a single one that would be caught DEAD using an AOL disk as anything other than what it IS- a beer coaster.
I've had enough problems with linux when it comes to learning / installing / begging it to work. If you're smart enough to get linux going, you're smart enough to know better than to use AOL- so how is this applicable to the desktop market?
Okay, so three people go to see a movie. We get whining about hackers, some comments on effects and dropped footage, and Katz whining about something that should best be left in the past and dropped in favor of actually thinking up a good, original concept rather than clinging to a buzzword that has long since lost the interest of anyone interesting. After sleeping through what I was told were the worst parts of the recent Star Wars fuckup of last year, fuck hype and fuck secondhand. I've read seven or eight of the reviews for this thing, and I'll probably skip it until it hits video. Katz is the only fucker to whine about Columbine. I think the word has been hard-coded into his neuralgia.
On that note, and in disfavor of Katz:
Realize, if you will, that no intelligent person is an outcast. GET IT THROUGH YOUR FUCKING HEADS. We are levels above the common man, with command of knowledge and skills that they have neither the patience nor the intelligence to master. The fact that Katz seems to value thier opinion does not speak well of him. We are BETTER than these people- why do so many of you seek to be LIKE them? Why does their approval MATTER to you?
Being different has been a fact of life for the entirety of recorded history. Katz more than likely keeps sticking to columbine because the idiots whose approval he is apparently going for cannot remember any popularized incident of aggression older than that. Holocaust? Salem Witch trials? The crusades? Spanish Inquisition? C'mon- different has NEVER been percieved as "good", so get fucking used to it and start getting a little more fucking diverse here. A corporate empire rising out of the ashes of post midwest gothic rebellion? Any of these elements is typical of the one-trick katz pony. With an audience as demanding as the slashdot crowd, you'd expect more diverse content rather that the same old shit reptetetively spewed for the sake of ratings. We're different, we're better for it, so quit beating it like it's a bad thing and smell the fucking coffee.
Where do I get off?
I did something few geeks have the stomach to do- I killed my TV, sold my consoles, and went to Ozzfest with the members of a band that is composed of people who were bitter enemies in high school and the best of friends in the Really Real World. I got hammered, I got high, and I have a pleasant ringing in my ears. The primal rush of seeing over an acre of mud in the air at any given moment as Static X and later Pantera smashed out of the speakers like the voice of some Angry God was enough to bathe my grey matter in adrenaline, and cause me to lose any sort of tolerance for repetetive, canned bullshit the likes of which this alleged "columnist" has been spewing for months on end. Ozzfest me realize that I can never possibly say "Fuck" more than anyone on the B stage, and it clued me into something that quite a few of us are probably missing out on: Passive Aggression is going to get you nowhere. I sat out the mudfight until Static X murdered a Ministry song.... then the next thing I knew my clothes were coated in dirt and I had sprained my shoulder from recycling dirt at the fuckers with arena seats. And I had realized something.... something that no hack, no amount of graphic wizardry or high-offer conract work could do for me. I felt alive, really ALIVE.... like I had a pulse, for the first time in years. I had realized that I had NOTHING to lose by participating, and that not doing so was only going to piss me off further. So I dove in, and emerged a new man, less tolerance and more apt to rage against this sort of ignorance. There's a time and a place for being a fucking dumbass- and it sure as hell isn't in front of the Slashdot crowd.
Can we see a real article that doesn't play to your chronic misconceptions about intelligence, John? Hmm? When you get back from the next Backstreet Boys concert?
Go to Ozzfest, Katz. Go see FIFTY THOUSAND "outcasts" in one place, having a good fucking time and seeing some good fucking bands. Let's see you review THAT without a Columbine or Corporate reference [the Dreamcast ads are between sets and on the B stage- rather a struggling company than a fatass megacorp like Sony... Hell, someone has to pay the damned bills.]. Or does metal offend your delicate, outcast sensibilities?
This sounds like something I was following back in the day. A VTOL rocket system that I THINK [correct me if I'm wrong] was called the "Delta V" or something similar to that name. it was an insanely cool concept, but from what I remember, turned out to be seriously itchy-bitchy in application: the test model crashed in a most spectacular fashion. Something to do with balancing lift and the fragile landing struts- if you're the slightest bit unstable, down it goes.
At least they managed to get it working in application. Now if onl they'd get some sort of railgin going that could lift passengers into orbit via magnetics- launch it to the east near the equator [finally, a use for the Andes- a launch tube ramp!] and you're in business.
As much as I loath advertising, if that's what it takes to get us back up there, i'm all for it!
I'm not even going to pretend to speak for everyone. Here's my reasoning:
...and say what you will about the OS- the UI is the sweetest thing that modern computing has ever seen. I tried Linux and was thoroughly DISGUSTED by the fact that X-windows handled just like the windows UI, and in some cases was even goofier. [don't flame me!! I loved the CLI, but the UI needs to EVOLVE, not DEVOLVE]. The MacOS has the most advanced UI system out there- the only thing more transparent is the PalmOS. Every other system I've tried has seemd like a windows knock-off- clunky and painful.
1. First, the clones. Power Computing and others were price-cutting Apple. With market share already abysmal, they had no choice: lose the clones or lose the company.
2. Second, and the rest fo the list. Apple is a "monopoly" from the standpoint that they are the sole providers of an integrated consumer-priced hardware/software package.
3. The hardware is the >BOMB [boot from ANY drive, zero compatability problems if you know a little about SCSI, painless to network, easy to set up (now), long-lasting, QUIET (say THAT about a PeeCee!)...].
4.
5. Much less to take care of. A reasonably intelligent Mac user can fix any system screwup with a little bit of help or simple plugging around to see what works. Drivers don't conflict, extensions can be switched on and off with relative ease... in general, you can fix a seriously scragged Mac without having to reformat it.
6. No one complains about Apple having a monopoly. Everything important on the Mac has been ported to Windows, or vice versa. MS apps actually work and run BETTER on the Mac [go figure]. As a graphic designer, you can choose your platform- and ninety percent of us use Macs, because they're more intuitive and easier to use for things like Photoshop and Illustrator. [also, burning CDs is a HELL of a lot easier on a Mac than it is in windows- more options, more flexibility, ISO support, dual partitioning, et al. Every burning program I've used on windows handles like a twenty year old basset hound that's been kicked in the groin.]
7. And finally.... [relating to six]
If the MS codebase were half as good as linux, and its UI even a third as useable as the MacOS, I very seriously doubt that anyone would be complaining about them having a monopoly. The only reason anyone is up in arms at all is because we KNOW that MS makes a horribly shitty, derivative OS. [Too bad IBM had the marketing clout to push their "PC" and invite MS along for the OS ride.....] If MS made quality product, Linux would likely not exist, and Apple would have died a gruesome death many years ago.
Thank the powers that be for gross incompetance and total obliviousness on the part of lord bill, for the great and mighty Visionary hath given rise to the discontented masses that have given birth to or continued to support Linux, UNIX, Be, and MacOS.
Complaints about new systems being incompatable with old hardware? Well, the hardware market needs to change or die, buried in a mass of backward compatability. How many ports do you really WANT on the back of your box, anyway? [and why aren't keyboard ports on the FRONT? You lose two feet of cord getting the thing around from the back to the front...]
Want the new goodies, but don't want to lose the old? Let's say you have a reasonably recent Mac- a PCI model. Let's say you're not using it for production and actually have the slots free. Consider this:
1. You already have SCSI, ADB, RS232, etc.
2. PCI cards with USB and/or Firewire ports are available for older machines [pre blue+white tower]. They're a couple of hundred bucks.
3. Processors are upgradeable. Heck, even a 7100 can be turned into a G3. Up the cache if you haven't already [cards are cheap on Ebay], then go to Newer Technology or another third party company and plunk down the cash for a processor upgrade. WONG! For 250-400 $ you've bumped your box from a 604/120 to a G3/450.
4. End result: an older motherboard with a buttload of modern gear. Since you've alredy bought the old box, you have a reasonablym odern system for less than the cost of a new one, and you can still use all of your old gear.
As for myself, I have a pair of 7100s, an iMac, and a Pismo. I have all of the ports I need on four machines, and I'm networked [one 7100 has a nubus NIC, the other is using a Farrallon [sp?] adapter]. The 601s are turtles, but it all works!
A properly set up OSX Server [re: two hard drives, fast ethernet, several gig of dedicated space] is capable of supporting a "Net Booting" environment- you can boot your happy little iMac, pismo powerbook, or pretty much anything recent from a network server: the option exists in the "Startup Disk" control panel, and will remain greyed out unless you're on a properly set up net-boot network. If you're on one, and use the option, then your machine boots- you guessed it- straight from the server. With this sort of setup going, you can physically remove the hard disk, and the machine remains fully functional [assuming the network isn't lagged to hell by Mp3 whores such as myself]. If you're willing to go "kiosk" and can get a stripped system folder and content set up properly, you can also run the system from the CDROM drive- again, without a hard disk. Every CD-equipped Mac can do that. Net-booting has been around for the past year and a half or so, if not longer: nothing new there.
As an occultist of sorts and a graphics manipulator by profession, I can totally agree with the majority of Katz's statement [hell, I have a first edition hardback of Shadowrun sitting in a duffelbag under my workbench]. But I have to contradict his point on Magic.
Sure, the corps have no use for it. Magic is the application of the laws of physics to the one thing they cannot control and have yet to profit from - human Will. It is intangible, a complicated and gordian morass of conceptology that the average individual- entranced with Quake or the Backstreet Boys or Buffy- cannot come to grips with, or have no interest in, pushing the occult aside in favor of other, more mundane distractions.
While it may not take the form of Dragons, elves, trolls, dwarves, etceteras [though look at the general population base- similarities exist within our own gene pool], Magic has been growing in popularity for the majority of the past century. Unless you have a manifest interest in it and persue it with a passion, those who practice it are invisible to you, lost in the general population, blips on radar and nothing else.
Practitioners of magical arts stay out of the public eye, due to the negative opinions on the subject that have been ingrained into the American conscious by forces such as Chrisitanity and general ignorance. And really- who gets more work done? The manager stuck in meetings all day or the graphic artist at the company Mac, told only to "make it look neat" and left alone? Bring down attention on yourself and you lose the time you need to get the Work done.
Any Willed act is a magical act- by base definition, these "Shadowrunners", the technological individualists who value the ideal of creation and exploration over a paycheck and a suit, are magicians of a sort. They have a morale that is incompatable with that of the Corps, and hence are cast aside because by their base nature, they cannot be assimilated.
Corps and most people barely have enough interest in base-level reality, let alone the deeper levels that are plunged by magical science. As such, you can expect magic and its practitioners to keep a relatively low profile in the times to come, though odds are you feel the influence every day, rather you are aware of it or not.
Performing a web search using Sherlock WILL flash ads. But then, performing a web search with any engine but Google gets you ads, and going ANYWHERE on the web at all lands the same results- face it, if you have a modem, advertisers have you by the balls. I don't care HOW useable the technology is, I'm interested in keeping two things off of my machine- ads and Windows. Fortunately, if you don't want to search the web, no one is forcing you to.
Bonus: for those of you who absolutely CAN NOT stand the OS 9 sherlock [such as myself], the much simpler, much smaller, much less ugly and disgusting version of Sherlock from 8.5 works just fine.
...does not exist. There IS an SE/30, but the minimum system software for the machine is 6.0.3. Having the Mac Secrets fifth edition propping up the old Powerbook makes Mac comments pretty easy to spot and correct, neh?
Talk about an incentive to NOT upgrade. I've been using 4.6 since it came out, and I'm not upgrading to 4.7 out of laziness. But the options discussed in netscape six? Every last one of them are reasons for me NOT to upgrade. I LOATH AOLIM, and I'm not about to stand for advertising being integrated straight into my browser interface.
"The new policy means that Web sites can offer
visitors customized browser versions as a way to
draw and retain users and build brand loyalty. "
Uh... no? The only reason I use netscape is a graphical browser is a necessity for a large amount of web access, iCab sucks, and IE is... well, Microsoft. Sure, they'll be building brand loyalty with the sheeple out there who are dumb enough to dig that sort of thing....
With companies like AOL providing slow connections, shitty content, asinine service, and STILL somehow becoming number one due to the fact that their interface is so idiot friendly that it makes Mac users retch, it's no wonder the Linux community is as strong as it is.
I could refer any of you who bring up religion to the treatise "Magic without Tears" by Aleister Crowley- early on he defines the universe and the concept that the answer to the riddle is 0 = 2. The belief that some "god" created the universe is obviously a false one, as something would have to have brought about the existance of god as well- and as we all know, to question god is Blasphemy, which covers everyone's tracks and gets them out of explaining what is in fact a convenient delusion.
Christians in general- not saying that anyone here represents the general religious community- are narrowminded in their steadfast belief in this concept. Not only that, but most chrisitan sects are evangelical in nature, with missionaries hell-bent on screwing up so-called "godless" cultures that were just fine before their close-minded self-centered evangelicism intervened.
I haven't read much Katz, but I can see where he's coming from if he's alleged to rail on religion- anyone who can't accept "it just IS. Live with it." as an excuse would be foolish to accept the concept of One God creating the universe. Likewise, it is foolish people that have a habit of putting the stomp on geeks, setting trends, wearing suits, and being generally "pop culture" - the people we have to clean up after and kindly inform that the CDROM drive is "NOT a drink tray, thank you" are the ones who refuse to question "why" and go for the god thing in the first place. Willing ignorance.
Who in their right mind would advocate this? I'll side with Katz in this argument, naturally [assuming these allagations are correct].
While I do not suppose to get in the way of anyone's belief systems, I do wish to potentially nullify the "do YOU believe in god?" and "you're going to hell" and "ATHEIST!" arguments:
In order to "go to hell", one must "believe" in a devil- and god. Since I recognize the faallacy of the mythos- it's your lie, tell it any way you want.
In order to be an Atheist, one must believe in no "spuernatural" or "supernormal" [sic] systems. These concepts are patently obvious, from the ground up- karma, "coincidence", "luck"... all intangible forces that follow abstracted science. There is more to Reality than humanity-- and there is no God but man [you ARE the center of your own universe, no? Where does it go when you blink? ] You define reality on your own terms based from your own experience.
Geeks like to figure things out- it would seem that a "religious" geek has missed one of the critical insites of the underlying scientific nature of reality. I gather that Katz has no appreciation for religion- an outdated, hopelessly confused system that has no bearing but spiritual oppression.
He can lamb-baste it all he wants: I'm behind him a hundred percent.
"watching the superbowl is fun, in contrast."
Uh. Only if you LIKE football. I'm lucky- I'm attuned to the negative metabolic effects of the tube and do not react positively to them.
Contrast.
Fun = spending nine hours at a coffee house you haven't frequented in years and discussing various occult systemology with friends, while at the same time doodling and making shorthand notes of the whole event.
Yeah, the Photoshop WAS work- about 200$ worth, thank you. And if I had not been tasked with freelance, I would be reading or working on personal artwork. I've had my dose of entertianment at the coffee house- it was real, it was tangible, I could SMELL it, and there weren't any commercials. I spent the day doing something memorable, and worked off the coffee-stasis hangover bitshifting, rather than lowering my metabolic rate in front of the idiot box.
As in, the state of the TV for the past few weeks. Off. I didn't even know the football equivalent of a Holy Orgy was going on until my roommate came up to tell me about one of the commercials around seven.
My question isn't "What was your favorite?", but "What could you have accomplished instead of spending a few hours doping up on Soma?" Advertising is the worst sort of mental static, and a horrible reason to watch an atrociously unfulfilling event.
I liked "Off" the most. Because of Off, I got to work in Photoshop for six hours while my roommates have nothing to show for themselves but a few scraps of conversation for the water cooler tomorrow.
Vidiots are really what's wrong with entertainment these days, why it has ceased to be entertaining.
Thought they made the cartoon from the books when I was younger- I was 18 before I'd even seen the show and got the whole story put together. They don't know what they're missing, do they?
The above is intended as an introduction to Sci-Fi. Here, in my opinion, are the best of the lot.
/Herbert /Orwell /Huxley /Solzhenitsyn [Not Sci-fi but so horryfing it COULD be.] /Comic book by Matt Howarth /Comic book by Matt Howarth /Manga by Masamune Shirow /Pohl [I believe] /Donaldson /Chalker [his best work, IMHO] /Clarke /Manga by Shirow /20+ book series by "Jack McKinney", a novelization of Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada, plus the Sentinels [unproduced] and a few extra books to tie it all together. The books are light years beyond the Robotech TV series and make for a very, very entertaining read!
01. Dune
02. 1984
03. Brave New World
04. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
05. Those Annoying Post Brothers
06. Savage Henry
07. Appleseed
08. The Heechee saga
09. The Gap books
10. The Rings of the Master
11. 2001 and subsequent digits
12. Snow Crash / Neal Stephenson
13. Neuromancer/ gibson
14. Dominion: Tank Police
15. Robotech
I read nothing but Sci-Fi as a kid, until I got my hands on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", after which I haven't gone back since. I can recommend the following selection of books, for various reasons.
1. The Hitch-hiker's trilogy. [Douglas Adams] I first read them when I was 12, and they were a wonderful read for me then. I've gone through them several times over the years- short enough to keep my young attention span and funny enough to keep me interested.
2. The Dune Cycle. [Frank Herbert] Read at least the first one- the other five are optional and the prelude that just came out doens't count. [Unless you're a VERY serious Dune buff, in which case it fills in a lot of gaps.] Very powerful concepts, and a very complete universe- this man has done his thinking.
3. The following novels by Robert Heinlein are so important to me as to be almost required reading. They all say something about the human condition as it is, and as it could be:
Citizen of the Galaxy.
Job: A Comedy of Justice.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Starship Troopers.
Stranger in a Strange Land- this one's a MUST.
4. 2001: A Sapce Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke. I also more than recommend the wide-screen cut of the film.
4.5. It's not exactly sci-fi, but most people have a tendency to enjoy Fantasy as well- the Xanth books by Piers Anthony are aimed at a younger audience and seem to hit the spot, particularly if you're up for puns. IMHO, the best book the man has written is "On a Pale Horse".
For more mature audiences....
4.5.1. "Moon Child" by Aleister Crowley. It's not Sci-Fi so much as Fantasy, but it's worth the read, and a great deal of fun for both those interested in the occult and those who could care less for it.
5. Nova and Dhalgren, two books by Samuel R. Delaney. Dhalgren's about a thousand pages, Nova a fifth of that. The important thing about this guy is the style with which he writes- it takes some getting used to, but it works like nothing I've ever seen.
6. The Gap series, by Stephen Donaldson . Fascinating reading, but NOT for young minds, even if I WAS in high school when I read them. These books are adults-only fare, but worth the trip to the library.
Most importantly...
You would do well do subscribe to "Analog" and "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"- I've piles and piles of these magazines- I refuse to give them away, as they gave me no end of reading plesure as a child. Some of the material is adult, some of itis good for all ages- they should be available from th local bookstore, in theory. Most of the memorable short stories I've read have come out of the annals of Anaolg, IASFM, or Fantasy and Science Fiction. Were you to take any direction in the search for reading, I would most heavily recommend a subscription to one or both of these magazines- a bunch of new stories delivered monthly, spanning the sub-genres from straight sci-fi to humor to mystery to suspense, all of it sci-fi and nearly all of it good.
These are novels I am comfortable recommending to anyone, for they are of outstanding quality [in my opinion] and have cuased some change either in my perception of reading or my style of writing.
How about a Baldur's Gate port to Linux? Yes, it's a bunch of CDs, but that kind of game would be plain old fun in a stable environment.
Further...
Why don't companies adapt the id model of game development? The nifty thing about id games is that all of the code is stashed in a wad, and the executable is the only thing you have to worry about- my Quake 2 wad will work on Be, Wintel or Mac as long as I have the right EXE file. This makes game porting excuciatingly easy. If more developers built along these lines, then we'd see more multi-platform games, a lot faster, neh?
[of course, this is from a layman standpoint- if I'm wrong, be nice about it!]
With this kind of approach, I don't see why developers don't go for it. Toss all of your executables into one package with the rest of the data and market the thing as "Works with Linux, Win95+, and MacOS 8.1 or higher! YEAH!" Economicly, it's more for the end use to worry about, but it would be nice to tell dear old mom "Buy me Quake III for christmas, k?" And relieve the dear lady of the hassle of finding a Mac copy.
While it would be nice to see more games for linux, it would be great to see them for the Mac as well- how long for Halflife, folks? Any idea if it's ever going to be ported to anything else if it hasn't been already?
I'm sure I'm not the only out there who has read "Neuromancer"- Anyone else out there really that hot on having your memories duped into a ROM construct, to be set on the shelf to gather dust for who-knows-how-long?
"Not I", he said. Duping memories is a scary thought- lets not forget that even IF they can do this, that doesn't mean that they can successfully carry over the awareness or sentience of the human organism- these things are tied into our meat in such a way as to be intangible.
The technology will certianly have its uses, but it'll more than likely be something only the rich can afford, of course- and who really wants to interface with a mind whose primary motivating factor is greed?
Methinks science should be spending time on finding a cure for stupidity, rather than running hellbent to develope the silicon means to preserve it.
And possible poor design. Whomever favored the whole "put the SUBMIT after the PREVIEW instead of having both on the same page" idea is right on the money. I made some corrections, readjusted the dmaned defaults [fresh Netscape install], and before I realized it, I had three copies and I'd been docked two VERY, VERY hard-earned Karma points. I'm mad at no one- I wish Commander Taco had a more refined site design technique, but who am I to chastize the man?
More common sense [or testing the page on idiots] would have avoided this, and someone with a name may have read the article instead of sniggering at the Zero. Ah well.
Goes to show: you can have the best code on the planet, but if your layout lacks, it won't mean a thing.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form.
Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism.
Guess what?
Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title.
Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying, the combat cinematics were a design flaw, and the characters had nothing special in a combat environment beyond trite and generally unfulfilling Limit Breaks
.
The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia.
Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion.
So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons.
It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet.
Game on.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form.
Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism.
Guess what?
Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title.
Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying.
The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia.
Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion.
So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons.
It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet.
Game on.
...at least, not yet- and with devices like the playstation 2, they're certianly trying. Back in the day, I was considered Captian N the GameMaster- if it had the Nintendo seal of approval on it, I'd beaten it sixteen ways from Sunday. I knew so many tips and secrets about Final Fantasy Three [six, for you diehards] that I couldn't find in any gaming mag that I did my own multimedia piece on the topic. Then something changed, in a most dramatic form. Final Fantasy Seven was released to a great deal of hype and so forth, and it was a MASSIVE disappointment. For myself and several others, at any rate, ex D&D freaks that went back to Playstaiton because the people in college were far beyond our mild dweebiness. We'd been bitten by the Pen and Paper RPG bug, and we wanted more- a LOT more. We didn't want to deal with drunken dungeon masters or kill-fiends or people that were only in it because their roommate was, or to get magic items. We wanted full-level immersion, the ability to "become one" with the environment- the penultimate holy grail of escapism. Guess what? Didn't happen. Not even close. It hasn't, and it won't, for a very long time. A large part of this is due to corporate and monetary reasons cited in what I could stand to read of RIP's article [Sorry man, should've spell-checked and re-read before you sent that sucker up! Bad grammar and spelling will kill anyone. I'm lax with mine because really, how many people are going to read a "Score: 1" post?]- greed drives everything, so the corps will beat a dead horse until they can't do it any longer, then they'll change the graphics and do it again with a different title. Real innovation is not adding more weapons, better graphics, more levels and a lot more FMV than the other guy. FMV takes the player OUT of the game- he's forced to sit through a scene he has no control over, for however long it takes to unfold. Game engines have been beat to death, as have RPGS. All genres follow a formula that is becoming stale quickly - the only thing that changes is the terminology and presentation. And with the advent of CG, this gets even worse- games are taking on a more cinematic direction, the so-called "interactive movie" look. This was what sunk me about FF7. Cloud LOOKED cool, sure, but I really didn't like his character- which really angered me when I found out the whole story focused around HIM. The system has many other problems as well, namely being forced to sit through lengthy summon spells that could have been easily skipped to the point with the click of a button. Sephiroth took me an hour to kill not for difficulty, but for the fact his attack lasted long enough for me to change a load of laundry in the laundromat down the hall. [The attack, by the way, is a mathematical algorythm that does roughly 3/4 of your TOTAL HP insteafd of flatly assessed damage. I went at him with 3,000 hp and beat him, the attack doing 2,100. I went up with 8,000 and the attack did 6,500.] Point of fact, the game was far too easy and unsatisfying. The pattern continues with Quake and its bretheren, where plot is cast aside in favor of reflexes. Not having them, the only way I can enjoy these games is with the help of ~god and `impule 9 codes. Where's the fun? Where's the orginality? Why haven't companies "updated" cult classics? I'm sure if time and money went into Bionic Commando for the Playstation instead of Frogger, there would be some cash at hand rather than preying on nostalgia. Digital gaming has no flexibility- Baldur's Gate comes the closest, as does Fallout. But if these aren't your style of game, what then? What about the players that want things to happen rather they are around or not? People who want to dress their characters in whatever outfit, create or commission their own weapons, and drive their own choice of vehicles? The funding just simply isn't there to create that kind of immersion. So farewell to video games, left behind in favor of the ultimate challenge, the game with the most control, the most flexibility, the most rewards and fulfilment. The highest degree of interaction- it's not White Wolf, it's not Dungeons and Dragons. It's called Real Life. It's easy to install, suffers from an occasional virus, and has its bad moments, but it's the one game you control to the end, be it bitter or sweet. Game on.