You can tell them Advance Wars is brilliant but all people see is cartoony graphics and ask how come this costs the same as that full 3D PSP game. To be fair how do you explain that GTA Liberty City costs the same?
GTA Liberty City has a fraction of the play value that Advance Wars has; by that standard, GTA should cost significantly less than AW.
I agree about the SNES controller. In fact, my brother got a 3rd party Gamecube controller that is basically a SNES controller, and I prefer it to the stock GC controller. The only problem is that the digital pad will not work with games that require the analog stick, and they don't sell a wireless version.
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,[140] tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." . . . The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial . . . Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
Of course, you are welcome to disagree with the position of the Church.
Maybe I'm overestimating the power of god here, but shouldn't the "word" of an all-powerful entity transcend contemporary events ?
From where I'm standing, either you believe the bible literally, or you believe that god makes mistakes.
Well... We don't take the bible literally, and we also don't believe that god makes mistakes. Perhaps that makes Catholics, as another poster put it, "delusional."
You are indeed out of touch with your own Church. The Pope has explicitly barred women from the priesthood, citing the very passage from Timothy that I quoted - see this for instance. I was the original poster, and I stated that the church's position on homosexuality was dangerous - your fine distinctions do nothing to convince me otherwise. It would also appear that you view the Bible as a book from which you can choose from selectively, which is remarkably self-delusional to say the least.
Ok. I can't argue some of your points. Catholicism does not relegate women to second class status, although they are barred from the priesthood. You may consider the Church's position on homosexuality dangerous; I don't dispute that. I only dispute that the church condemns homosexuals and the statement that homosexuality is wired. Finally, I'm not sure what to think of your final comment. The bible is not meant to be taken word for word; that would be totally illogical. It's not so much a matter of selectivity as a matter of interpretation. The passage from Timothy, hell... I don't know how to interpret it. But Catholics don't usually subdue their wives and treat them like slaves.
You evaded the question of the church's position on birth control by responding with a non sequitur. When you have something to say on the subject, I'll be glad to respond.
Alrighty. The Church does not condone artificial birth control. There are other methods available, and while I won't argue that abstinance and natural birth control are as effective (or seemingly viable these days, in the case of abstinance) as artificials, they still remain an option.
Pseudoscience? While a biological basis for homosexuality is certainly not an established fact, there are several studies which strongly indicate that possibility. Read this summary, for instance.
Your study was interesting, to say the least. It was not, as you admit, definitive, by any means... I will gladly concede that there are genetic factors that can contribute to a predisposition to homosexuality. There is not enough evidence at this point to claim that some people are "wired" to be homosexuals. While I may be making an assertion, so was the original poster.
Anyway, just as an aside, it seems odd that homosexuality, which by nature does not favor reproduction, is still around and as prevalent as ever (and actually increasing, I believe).
"Homosexuality: Sexual activity between persons of the same sex. It is not a normal condition, the acts being against nature are objectively wrong." The Catholic Encyclopedia.
This does not condemn homosexuals. It condemns homosexual acts. At this point, it sounds like I'm avoiding the issue, but the original poster claimed that Catholics condemned homosexuality. Maybe the distinction is unimportant to you.
"The research on homosexuality is very clear. Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality. Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals." The American Psychological Association's Statement on Homosexuality, 1994-JUL.
While I don't have a Catholic Encylcopedia on hand and am not sure of their exact stance, I'd agree with the APA's position on homosexuality. The Church position regarding homosexuality that I am familiar with does not condemn homosexuality, but does condemn homosexual acts. More fine lines, I know...
Oh, and what do you have to say about the Bible's (often contradictory) position on women, which is largely the position of the Church today? I quote from Timothy: 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet.
As I mentioned in another post, biblical quotes are a cop-out. The bible may be the word of God, but it was written, translated, and retained by humans. It reflects the attitudes and culture of the time in which it was written. Also, I might be out of touch with my own Church, but I don't believe Catholics tend to uphold statements such as the one quoted above. I know for a fact that my girlfriend has authority over me...
Anyways, I should have known better than to respond to the original poster. Religious posts will just turn into huge, off-topic banters, and I think my uneducated arguments will do more harm for my cause than good...
I haven't encountered a real, live Christian apologist in a while, so I'm curious to see how you reconcile things like these choice quotes from the Bible about slavery. .."
I wouldn't describe myself as a Christian apologist. I'm not intelligent nor educated enough to fight most of the arguments directed against religion. Anyway, my comments were only applicable to the Catholic Church, not any other Christian denomonations.
As for biblical quotes... Times change, the Church changes. I can't 'reconcile' the quotes with respects to modern society because they simply are no longer relevant. Perhaps if the Church actively participated in slavery or polygamy, you would have a point.
I don't take the bible literally, and niether do most Catholics. It's pretty obvious that some of the passages (such as yours) are completely absurd in the context of the modern world. Maybe that makes the entire religion irrelevant to you. Just take 'em in context. The bible is full of passages that are still valuable. Anyway, you can count this as a victory, if you like, as I am unwilling and probably unable to attempt to reconcile your quotes.
If you really believe that the Bible, which is a haphazard collection of much-revised and edited documents chock full of fallacies and appalling misinformation from a time and place where mankind was a mostly irrational tribal society, is the word of God I'll stop arguing.
What would you accept as the word of God?
It has very little to do with pre-marital sex, and everything to do with sex within the marriage in poor countries where missionaries use the threat of hell and damnation to intimidate people into following such edicts, and don't think about what happens when a family which can barely afford to feed itself has yet another addition.
Catholics who threaten anyone with hell and damnation are few and far between. Not to say they don't exist... but they are not the norm.
And the church's position on homosexuality is dangerous - some people are wired that way, and who are we or the Church to condemn them?
Ignoring your bit of pseudoscience, the Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuals.
If I get this right, Microsoft is trying to make an incompatible, low cost console that has mediocre technology. Wasn't that the downfall of the gamecube? Lousy technology? No back compatability?
Right, because Microsoft whipped the pants offa them Nintendo fellers.
Sure, graphics do not make the game. But when you're playing a game like Madden and your team's white jerseys are sharply contrasting against the deep green field to the point where you have to squint your eyes to create anti-aliasing, I'd say there's a problem.
Just wait till it snows. Then those darn white jerseys will just blend right in.
They never left the playing card arena. Just cause you never owned a pack of Nintendo 'playing' cards doesn't mean that they stop making them.
Nintendo owns the company (GameFreak) who created the original Pokemon Gameboy game and the sequels. They licensed Pokemon to Wizards of the Coast, who created the card game. Electronic game came first, card game followed by a different company. Nintendo did not produce the card game.
Since RCN grabbed them, it went up to $178US a YEAR. That's $14.83 a month. Dirt cheap. This goes back to around '95 or '96.
I recall mowing lawns back in '93 to pay that $3/hour fee, just to get one more hour of DragonRealms on AOL. Other than my NetZero account, I haven't dealt with dial-up in a while. My parents, I believe, are still paying $20 a month for a service which sounds much less reliable than yours.
It wasn't. I post at +2 when I want to...:-)
I must admit, I can't keep all the naunces of/. straight.;)
Although I 100% agree with you, I'm on 56gay and my line is up 24/7. I pay $178US a year. I can run whatever I want (yea, it's just a modem but, still...). I run SSH, my own mail, etc. And anytime anyone in the household sits down to a machine on the LAN, the Internet will be there. Anytime I need to check on my LAN or need a 100% external connection from work for testing or something, it's there. Granted I happen to have a pretty damn good ISP (I only get hung up on every 1.5 to 2 weeks (yes, seriously).
I'm pretty sure if you had to pay $.25 an hour for Internet access, you would have a much more conservative attitude. It was only a few years ago that I was paying $3 an hour for access, and only a few years before that I was dialing up Prodigy long distance for around $6 (including the long distance bill). I certainly couldn't afford a 24/7 connection to either of these ISPs.
The point is, what I pay a year is what (roughly) these folks over there would pay a month.
It seems highly unlikely, with these rates, that Egyptians would be leaving the connection on at all times. Even for you, it's more of a luxury than a need. I don't see why this was modded up.
I was under the impression that Towel Day was May 25th. A quick search reveals (http://www.systemtoolbox.com/towelday/) that at least some people consider May 25th to be Towel Day...
I, presonally, have been prepping my towels for the 25th, and I don't think I'll change my plans in light of this Slashdot story.
While I'm of course happy for you that you like your LCD, I'd recommend to wait before buying one for motion intensive applications, such as movies or games. Two recent reviews of 15" LCD on Tom's Hardware Guide were still quite negative on that issue.
Why not try them out for yourself? I watch movies and play graphic-intensive games all the time on my laptop, and it looks fantastic. Much sharper and even brighter than a good CRT, and so much easier on the eyes. Unless some advancement in CRTs comes along quite soon, I'll never go back.
Yes, but is it fair? Before Nintendo, there was a free market in videogames.
It should be noted that the free video game market failed and Nintendo revitalized it
A developer could port to any system they wished, at their discretion. Now it has become the norm that the developer must pay the hardware vendor for the priveledge to write software for their system. This approach opened the door to price fixing and non-compete clauses in the videogame market, in addition to stifiling homebrew development.
There was somewhat of a resurgence in this style of market, with the release of the Playstation. However, the overall effect seems to be similar to what happened in the early eighties - More and more games are released, lowering the profit margin for everyone; The ratio of good to bad software is terrible; It becomes increasingly difficult to find niche games, because they can't hold shelf space next to games from EA and other big publishers, etc.
I know that many Slashdotters grew up on Nintendo, but *they are* the Microsoft of the videogame world.
I suppose I am fairly sentimental about Nintendo... I've owned every system since the Nintendo, and although I've never been a huge gamer, I always considered Nintendo to be the top company when it came to games. I suppose, even though it's true, I don't like seeing Nintendo portrayed in a negative light.;)
Oh yeah... Now that Microsoft has entered the videogame world, what has Nintendo become...?
Years ago, after reading about all the shifty crap that Nintendo pulled in this book [amazon.com], I started thinking of them as the Microsoft of Japan. Price fixing, exclusivity deals with retailers to lock out competitors, the lockout chip feature in their carts, lots of different stuff. Nintendo and Microsoft already have a lot of similar pages in their respective playbooks.
Remarkably, Nintendo has still managed to release games and systems that were of very high quality. I'm sure there are a number of MS haters who would quickly forgive them if Windows and various other products weren't so horrifically bad.
Not to mention the fact, of course, that Nintendo has done very little to stifle any actualy competition in the console market (outside of the average, everyday stuff, of course). Price fixing and required licensing of third party software is fairly standard.
As far as exclusivity deals with retailers... Hah. First of all, Sony has used a number of strongarm tactics itself. Secondly, a number of retailers refused to carry Nintendo products, because of policy disagreement, (I believe TRUS was one, though I'm not sure) and came *crawling* back once they realized the sales that they were losing. Nintendo didn't necessarily force themselves on anyone, but ended up being mutually beneficial to both parties.
No, Sony does not sell at a loss. Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft, however, do sell at a loss. Read the prophetic words of the Almighty Gord. http:// www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html
This a fairly recent developtment... Sony began making a profit on the PS2 console only within the last few months, after being in production for almost two years. MS, OTOH, has a console less than half a year old, is still losing money on production, and is now cutting the price in two territories. Doesn't look good.
Nintendo, also, loses a miniscule amount of money compared to Microsoft. If they lost the same amount, the Gamecube would be selling for no more than a hundred. AND... This is the first console Nintendo has ever sold at cost.
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Re:I think the biggest problem is..
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Sharing Doesn't Hurt
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Why is this not true for books/cds/software, because they assume that you copied them. This is what needs to change. If I hear a song on the radio that I like, go and buy the CD and the whole rest of the CD sucks, then I should be able to bring it back to the store and get a refund.
This point is quite valid as far as music and software are concerned. My experience with books, however, has been that most stores are quite willing to accept returns. In the past few years, I've returned several books to stores such as Walden's and Barnes & Nobles, and they were more than happy to give me store credit. Not quite a refund, but better than the "exchange for same item only" policy of music and software.
Even better, in most cases the reciept was not required as long as the book was in very good condition. I've often wondered if people take advantage of this and use B&N as a personal library. I've gotten too attached to my paperbooks, though.;)
anyway i digress you are, wrong, it was Bushes fault, part of being a leader is taking the rap when everything goes bad, even if you had nothing to do with it.
Yeah, the country really went to seed the eight or so months that Bush was president. If he had been conducting personal inspections of those aircraft, like, say, Clinton did, this entire disaster could have been prevented.
Not that I'm defending the actions of the US, but it is pretty cowardly to attack a civilian target. With the same logic you're spewing, we could strike up a good defense for most criminals across the world. I guess we need more men (and women) with the balls to pull off this sort of thing. Maybe there is a reason why they're dead or in jail...
I can see your point, but I still disagree. I think it's absurd to believe that piracy is more prevalent in the pc world than for consoles. Spend a few minutes on FastTrack or Gnutella and do a comparison of the number of rom and iso images, as compared to the number of PC games available. If I wanted to, I could download a copy of essentially any game I wanted for any console up to the PS2. I can't find a copy of, say, Alpha Centauri, or Wizardry 8. This is by no means a definitive answer, but if the games are available online, I think that means that quite a few people are making us of them.
Most console owners, particularly the psx, are young men in college, or just out of it, and in the military. This is exactly the group that you would expect to have the knowledge to pirate these games. The demographics of console sales back me up here. Even if, say, only a tenth of console users fall into this catagory, it would still be a greater number than the total amount of PC gamers.
I'm not buying it. I don't know a single PC gamer that hasn't pirated a game at least once. On the other hand, I don't know anyone with a modded playstation or copycarts or anything like that. I'm not saying it's hard or it doesn't happen, just that the piracy % on the PC is much higher than on consoles.
I would have to disagree. With the psx, all it takes is a $10 mod card found at any import or independant game store, and a cd burner. Finding someone with the capability to copy roms is harder, but not impossible. And, until burner prices went down, it was cheaper to make copies of cartridge based games than CDs. I worked at an independant game store for quite a while. We sold mod cards for the psx. I'd estimate that we sold roughly one mod card for every two playstations. One of the biggest aspects of our business was trading in newer model playstations for older models with the serial port. DC games are even easier, no additional hardware required. It is a huge problem for consoles. Profit margins are just so small in the pc world that it has a much greater impact.
Why do you think consoles have orders of magnitude greater sales?
I'd imagine it has more to do with the stability and ease of use that consoles have than the lack of piracy. The psx was one of the easiest platforms ever to pirate games for. PS2 quickly followed in it's footsteps. The N64 and Dreamcast were both widely pirated, as well. Take a look on Kazaa or Gnutella. For $150, I can buy enough hardware to make copies of every N64 cartridge produced. Even the XBox and GC seem to be prone to piracy, although the GC is at least using proprietory media. Piracy has more of an effect on the PC game industry because profits are smaller in the first place.
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You can tell them Advance Wars is brilliant but all people see is cartoony graphics and ask how come this costs the same as that full 3D PSP game. To be fair how do you explain that GTA Liberty City costs the same?
GTA Liberty City has a fraction of the play value that Advance Wars has; by that standard, GTA should cost significantly less than AW.
I agree about the SNES controller. In fact, my brother got a 3rd party Gamecube controller that is basically a SNES controller, and I prefer it to the stock GC controller. The only problem is that the digital pad will not work with games that require the analog stick, and they don't sell a wireless version.
I was under the impression that IBM would take any product back within the first thirty days with no questions asked...
I was looking around for a new laptop, and that was one of the major reasons I'd have gone with IBM. Perhaps I'm mistaken, however.
From the Catholic Catechism:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,[140] tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." . . . The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial . . . Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
Of course, you are welcome to disagree with the position of the Church.
Maybe I'm overestimating the power of god here, but shouldn't the "word" of an all-powerful entity transcend contemporary events ? From where I'm standing, either you believe the bible literally, or you believe that god makes mistakes.
Well... We don't take the bible literally, and we also don't believe that god makes mistakes. Perhaps that makes Catholics, as another poster put it, "delusional."
You are indeed out of touch with your own Church. The Pope has explicitly barred women from the priesthood, citing the very passage from Timothy that I quoted - see this for instance. I was the original poster, and I stated that the church's position on homosexuality was dangerous - your fine distinctions do nothing to convince me otherwise. It would also appear that you view the Bible as a book from which you can choose from selectively, which is remarkably self-delusional to say the least.
Ok. I can't argue some of your points. Catholicism does not relegate women to second class status, although they are barred from the priesthood. You may consider the Church's position on homosexuality dangerous; I don't dispute that. I only dispute that the church condemns homosexuals and the statement that homosexuality is wired. Finally, I'm not sure what to think of your final comment. The bible is not meant to be taken word for word; that would be totally illogical. It's not so much a matter of selectivity as a matter of interpretation. The passage from Timothy, hell... I don't know how to interpret it. But Catholics don't usually subdue their wives and treat them like slaves.
You evaded the question of the church's position on birth control by responding with a non sequitur. When you have something to say on the subject, I'll be glad to respond.
Alrighty. The Church does not condone artificial birth control. There are other methods available, and while I won't argue that abstinance and natural birth control are as effective (or seemingly viable these days, in the case of abstinance) as artificials, they still remain an option.
Pseudoscience? While a biological basis for homosexuality is certainly not an established fact, there are several studies which strongly indicate that possibility. Read this summary, for instance.
Your study was interesting, to say the least. It was not, as you admit, definitive, by any means... I will gladly concede that there are genetic factors that can contribute to a predisposition to homosexuality. There is not enough evidence at this point to claim that some people are "wired" to be homosexuals. While I may be making an assertion, so was the original poster.
Anyway, just as an aside, it seems odd that homosexuality, which by nature does not favor reproduction, is still around and as prevalent as ever (and actually increasing, I believe).
"Homosexuality: Sexual activity between persons of the same sex. It is not a normal condition, the acts being against nature are objectively wrong." The Catholic Encyclopedia.
This does not condemn homosexuals. It condemns homosexual acts. At this point, it sounds like I'm avoiding the issue, but the original poster claimed that Catholics condemned homosexuality. Maybe the distinction is unimportant to you.
"The research on homosexuality is very clear. Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality. Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals." The American Psychological Association's Statement on Homosexuality, 1994-JUL.
While I don't have a Catholic Encylcopedia on hand and am not sure of their exact stance, I'd agree with the APA's position on homosexuality. The Church position regarding homosexuality that I am familiar with does not condemn homosexuality, but does condemn homosexual acts. More fine lines, I know...
Oh, and what do you have to say about the Bible's (often contradictory) position on women, which is largely the position of the Church today? I quote from Timothy: 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet.
As I mentioned in another post, biblical quotes are a cop-out. The bible may be the word of God, but it was written, translated, and retained by humans. It reflects the attitudes and culture of the time in which it was written. Also, I might be out of touch with my own Church, but I don't believe Catholics tend to uphold statements such as the one quoted above. I know for a fact that my girlfriend has authority over me...
Anyways, I should have known better than to respond to the original poster. Religious posts will just turn into huge, off-topic banters, and I think my uneducated arguments will do more harm for my cause than good...
I haven't encountered a real, live Christian apologist in a while, so I'm curious to see how you reconcile things like these choice quotes from the Bible about slavery. . ."
I wouldn't describe myself as a Christian apologist. I'm not intelligent nor educated enough to fight most of the arguments directed against religion. Anyway, my comments were only applicable to the Catholic Church, not any other Christian denomonations.
As for biblical quotes... Times change, the Church changes. I can't 'reconcile' the quotes with respects to modern society because they simply are no longer relevant. Perhaps if the Church actively participated in slavery or polygamy, you would have a point.
I don't take the bible literally, and niether do most Catholics. It's pretty obvious that some of the passages (such as yours) are completely absurd in the context of the modern world. Maybe that makes the entire religion irrelevant to you. Just take 'em in context. The bible is full of passages that are still valuable. Anyway, you can count this as a victory, if you like, as I am unwilling and probably unable to attempt to reconcile your quotes.
Heh, gotta love how they shut up when confronted with facts.
Or, you could give me a few hours to get back to Slashdot... I do have one or two other obligations.
If you really believe that the Bible, which is a haphazard collection of much-revised and edited documents chock full of fallacies and appalling misinformation from a time and place where mankind was a mostly irrational tribal society, is the word of God I'll stop arguing.
What would you accept as the word of God?
It has very little to do with pre-marital sex, and everything to do with sex within the marriage in poor countries where missionaries use the threat of hell and damnation to intimidate people into following such edicts, and don't think about what happens when a family which can barely afford to feed itself has yet another addition.
Catholics who threaten anyone with hell and damnation are few and far between. Not to say they don't exist... but they are not the norm.
And the church's position on homosexuality is dangerous - some people are wired that way, and who are we or the Church to condemn them?
Ignoring your bit of pseudoscience, the Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuals.
If I get this right, Microsoft is trying to make an incompatible, low cost console that has mediocre technology. Wasn't that the downfall of the gamecube? Lousy technology? No back compatability?
Right, because Microsoft whipped the pants offa them Nintendo fellers.
Sure, graphics do not make the game. But when you're playing a game like Madden and your team's white jerseys are sharply contrasting against the deep green field to the point where you have to squint your eyes to create anti-aliasing, I'd say there's a problem.
Just wait till it snows. Then those darn white jerseys will just blend right in.
Um, no. The first quality game from Bioware was Fallout.
Bioware had nothing to do with Fallout.
They never left the playing card arena. Just cause you never owned a pack of Nintendo 'playing' cards doesn't mean that they stop making them.
Nintendo owns the company (GameFreak) who created the original Pokemon Gameboy game and the sequels. They licensed Pokemon to Wizards of the Coast, who created the card game. Electronic game came first, card game followed by a different company. Nintendo did not produce the card game.
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Since RCN grabbed them, it went up to $178US a YEAR. That's $14.83 a month. Dirt cheap. This goes back to around '95 or '96.
I recall mowing lawns back in '93 to pay that $3/hour fee, just to get one more hour of DragonRealms on AOL. Other than my NetZero account, I haven't dealt with dial-up in a while. My parents, I believe, are still paying $20 a month for a service which sounds much less reliable than yours.
It wasn't. I post at +2 when I want to... :-)
I must admit, I can't keep all the naunces of /. straight. ;)
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Although I 100% agree with you, I'm on 56gay and my line is up 24/7. I pay $178US a year. I can run whatever I want (yea, it's just a modem but, still...). I run SSH, my own mail, etc. And anytime anyone in the household sits down to a machine on the LAN, the Internet will be there. Anytime I need to check on my LAN or need a 100% external connection from work for testing or something, it's there. Granted I happen to have a pretty damn good ISP (I only get hung up on every 1.5 to 2 weeks (yes, seriously).
I'm pretty sure if you had to pay $.25 an hour for Internet access, you would have a much more conservative attitude. It was only a few years ago that I was paying $3 an hour for access, and only a few years before that I was dialing up Prodigy long distance for around $6 (including the long distance bill). I certainly couldn't afford a 24/7 connection to either of these ISPs.
The point is, what I pay a year is what (roughly) these folks over there would pay a month.
It seems highly unlikely, with these rates, that Egyptians would be leaving the connection on at all times. Even for you, it's more of a luxury than a need. I don't see why this was modded up.
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I was under the impression that Towel Day was May 25th. A quick search reveals (http://www.systemtoolbox.com/towelday/) that at least some people consider May 25th to be Towel Day...
I, presonally, have been prepping my towels for the 25th, and I don't think I'll change my plans in light of this Slashdot story.
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While I'm of course happy for you that you like your LCD, I'd recommend to wait before buying one for motion intensive applications, such as movies or games. Two recent reviews of 15" LCD on Tom's Hardware Guide were still quite negative on that issue.
Why not try them out for yourself? I watch movies and play graphic-intensive games all the time on my laptop, and it looks fantastic. Much sharper and even brighter than a good CRT, and so much easier on the eyes. Unless some advancement in CRTs comes along quite soon, I'll never go back.
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Yes, but is it fair? Before Nintendo, there was a free market in videogames.
It should be noted that the free video game market failed and Nintendo revitalized it
A developer could port to any system they wished, at their discretion. Now it has become the norm that the developer must pay the hardware vendor for the priveledge to write software for their system. This approach opened the door to price fixing and non-compete clauses in the videogame market, in addition to stifiling homebrew development.
There was somewhat of a resurgence in this style of market, with the release of the Playstation. However, the overall effect seems to be similar to what happened in the early eighties - More and more games are released, lowering the profit margin for everyone; The ratio of good to bad software is terrible; It becomes increasingly difficult to find niche games, because they can't hold shelf space next to games from EA and other big publishers, etc.
I know that many Slashdotters grew up on Nintendo, but *they are* the Microsoft of the videogame world.
I suppose I am fairly sentimental about Nintendo... I've owned every system since the Nintendo, and although I've never been a huge gamer, I always considered Nintendo to be the top company when it came to games. I suppose, even though it's true, I don't like seeing Nintendo portrayed in a negative light. ;)
Oh yeah... Now that Microsoft has entered the videogame world, what has Nintendo become...?
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Years ago, after reading about all the shifty crap that Nintendo pulled in this book [amazon.com], I started thinking of them as the Microsoft of Japan. Price fixing, exclusivity deals with retailers to lock out competitors, the lockout chip feature in their carts, lots of different stuff. Nintendo and Microsoft already have a lot of similar pages in their respective playbooks.
Remarkably, Nintendo has still managed to release games and systems that were of very high quality. I'm sure there are a number of MS haters who would quickly forgive them if Windows and various other products weren't so horrifically bad.
Not to mention the fact, of course, that Nintendo has done very little to stifle any actualy competition in the console market (outside of the average, everyday stuff, of course). Price fixing and required licensing of third party software is fairly standard.
As far as exclusivity deals with retailers... Hah. First of all, Sony has used a number of strongarm tactics itself. Secondly, a number of retailers refused to carry Nintendo products, because of policy disagreement, (I believe TRUS was one, though I'm not sure) and came *crawling* back once they realized the sales that they were losing. Nintendo didn't necessarily force themselves on anyone, but ended up being mutually beneficial to both parties.
random
No, Sony does not sell at a loss. Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft, however, do sell at a loss. Read the prophetic words of the Almighty Gord. http:// www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html
This a fairly recent developtment... Sony began making a profit on the PS2 console only within the last few months, after being in production for almost two years. MS, OTOH, has a console less than half a year old, is still losing money on production, and is now cutting the price in two territories. Doesn't look good.
Nintendo, also, loses a miniscule amount of money compared to Microsoft. If they lost the same amount, the Gamecube would be selling for no more than a hundred. AND... This is the first console Nintendo has ever sold at cost.
random
Why is this not true for books/cds/software, because they assume that you copied them. This is what needs to change. If I hear a song on the radio that I like, go and buy the CD and the whole rest of the CD sucks, then I should be able to bring it back to the store and get a refund.
This point is quite valid as far as music and software are concerned. My experience with books, however, has been that most stores are quite willing to accept returns. In the past few years, I've returned several books to stores such as Walden's and Barnes & Nobles, and they were more than happy to give me store credit. Not quite a refund, but better than the "exchange for same item only" policy of music and software.
Even better, in most cases the reciept was not required as long as the book was in very good condition. I've often wondered if people take advantage of this and use B&N as a personal library. I've gotten too attached to my paperbooks, though. ;)
random
anyway i digress you are, wrong, it was Bushes fault, part of being a leader is taking the rap when everything goes bad, even if you had nothing to do with it.
Yeah, the country really went to seed the eight or so months that Bush was president. If he had been conducting personal inspections of those aircraft, like, say, Clinton did, this entire disaster could have been prevented.
Not that I'm defending the actions of the US, but it is pretty cowardly to attack a civilian target. With the same logic you're spewing, we could strike up a good defense for most criminals across the world. I guess we need more men (and women) with the balls to pull off this sort of thing. Maybe there is a reason why they're dead or in jail...
JMMurphy
I can see your point, but I still disagree. I think it's absurd to believe that piracy is more prevalent in the pc world than for consoles. Spend a few minutes on FastTrack or Gnutella and do a comparison of the number of rom and iso images, as compared to the number of PC games available. If I wanted to, I could download a copy of essentially any game I wanted for any console up to the PS2. I can't find a copy of, say, Alpha Centauri, or Wizardry 8. This is by no means a definitive answer, but if the games are available online, I think that means that quite a few people are making us of them.
Most console owners, particularly the psx, are young men in college, or just out of it, and in the military. This is exactly the group that you would expect to have the knowledge to pirate these games. The demographics of console sales back me up here. Even if, say, only a tenth of console users fall into this catagory, it would still be a greater number than the total amount of PC gamers.
JMMurphyI'm not buying it. I don't know a single PC gamer that hasn't pirated a game at least once. On the other hand, I don't know anyone with a modded playstation or copycarts or anything like that. I'm not saying it's hard or it doesn't happen, just that the piracy % on the PC is much higher than on consoles.
I would have to disagree. With the psx, all it takes is a $10 mod card found at any import or independant game store, and a cd burner. Finding someone with the capability to copy roms is harder, but not impossible. And, until burner prices went down, it was cheaper to make copies of cartridge based games than CDs. I worked at an independant game store for quite a while. We sold mod cards for the psx. I'd estimate that we sold roughly one mod card for every two playstations. One of the biggest aspects of our business was trading in newer model playstations for older models with the serial port. DC games are even easier, no additional hardware required. It is a huge problem for consoles. Profit margins are just so small in the pc world that it has a much greater impact.
JMMurphy
Why do you think consoles have orders of magnitude greater sales?
I'd imagine it has more to do with the stability and ease of use that consoles have than the lack of piracy. The psx was one of the easiest platforms ever to pirate games for. PS2 quickly followed in it's footsteps. The N64 and Dreamcast were both widely pirated, as well. Take a look on Kazaa or Gnutella. For $150, I can buy enough hardware to make copies of every N64 cartridge produced. Even the XBox and GC seem to be prone to piracy, although the GC is at least using proprietory media. Piracy has more of an effect on the PC game industry because profits are smaller in the first place.
JMMurphy