Since all of us "power users" don't like those performance-detracting ACPI/APM functions, we always disable them.
Speak for yourself, Mr. Power User. I find that if I've been away from my workstation for more than 15 minutes, I don't mind waiting to use it for another 2-3 seconds while my hard drives spin back up.
And as far as general performance is concerned: I could care less if things load in 0.1 seconds instead of 0.11 seconds. I'd rather have power saving and error-checking features enabled than save that 100th of a second (which is probably a gross overestimate).
Blizzard can provide a very simple network request scheme to allow the Bnetd server to challeneg the cd-key.
It doesn't take much creative thinking to see how this would be exceptionally *bad* for Blizzard's paying customers.
Blizzard allows bnetd to check CD keys. Great. bnetd is open source. Great. Anyone can grab the CD key checking code. Not quite so great... Anyone could modify the code to just check hundreds/thousands/ALL CD keys, and spit out a list of which ones work. Yeah, defninitely not great.
Finally: I attempt to log in to Battle.Net with my new copy of WC3 and my CD key is already taken by someone that stole it because they had access to a utility that was written before the game even hit the shelves. Screw that.
Yeah, in an ideal world, Blizzard could just let bnetd have access to all of bnet's services. Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world. But everyone makes these "ideal world" arguments anyway.
In an ideal world, all of our doors would be unlocked. Are yours?
Imagine everyone everywhere having the power of a supercomputer at their disposal.
Imagine... I could play WarCraft 3 at... 100% speed! Or I could write my code at... 100% speed! (compiling and linking would be great as a distributed task, but compiling doesn't take *nearly* as much time as writing the code does).
My mom could do her AutoCAD drawings at... 100% speed! She could then send the drawings to 1000 different printers, have 1/1000th printed by each one, and then assemble the pieces by hand to save time! My dad could type up the Christmas letter in Word at... 100% speed! He could play solitaire at... 100% speed!
Truly, if everyone, everywhere, had a supercomputer at their disposal, the world would be a much more efficient place.
Nah -- it froze over last weekend when I bought Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for my GCN. (or in November when I got Super Monkey Ball...)
On a similar story: Sonic Team somehow managed to make the problems of Sonic Adventure (fun game; minor irritations) orders of magnitude worse in Sonic Adventure 2 (so-so game; incredibly frustrating flaws all over the place).
Give me Amusement Vision... Sonic Team can go die unless they can come up with a tight control system and usable camera.
Maybe you should read what we are talking about before responding or posting to a thread? Just a suggestion.
I'm reading knee-jerk reactions to someone mentioning the DMCA. Hong Kong companies have been making piracy-friendly hardware for years, and Nintendo and Sega have been shutting down manufacturing/distribution of these devices whenever they get the chance. There's nothing different about this case, except that they're using the (flawed) DMCA for additional legal firepower. If the DMCA didn't exist, the same letter would've been sent, citing a different legal infraction.
Someone mentions a case like this and breathes 'DMCA' in the same sentence, and suddenly there's something sinister and oppressive about what's happening.
After all, at least the artists can try to negotiate with the record labels
A friend of mine is a professional musician in the Austin, Texas area (James Harwood - the drummer for Seven Percent Solution -- some of you may have heard of him/them). This is (roughly) his description of how negotiations work with major record labels:
Record Label: Here's what we've worked out for our deal. Is it acceptable?
Musician: Umm, we don't like how this --
Record Label: Okay, no deal. Next, please.
The musicians don't have much bargaining power, since bands are a dime a dozen, and the labels don't give a damn about quality. (note: 7% Solution doesn't belong to a major record label)
"Newsflash: Another cookie cutter over-violent FPS released by some company run either by (a)Sick juvenile twit programmers, or (b)Unimaginative corporate executives trying to make a buck by designing what their market analysts tell them is 'hip with the kids'."
This case is an exception to the rule: SK is putting together an excellent game (not FPS; it's RE-esque) and will end up getting cheated by one of these cookie-cutter reviews. Silicon Knights isn't a juvenile-pandering developer, and anyone who thinks that Nintendo is run by unimaginative execs is a fool.
If you'd like to take a preview of what to sort of expect from Eternal Darkness, pick up Legacy of Kain for the PS1, and ignore the terrible loading times. It's a great game, with a highly original story. (No, Silicon Knights didn't have *ANYTHING* to do with the garbage Soul Reaver titles.)
I, for one, have been looking forward to ED for a long time. I pity the people who'll miss out on a good experience by assuming that these reviews are valid. Or worse -- get an XBox or PS2 because there "aren't any good 'mature' games for the GameCube."
Why the hell don't we see shitload of Windows-based software then?!
Because most universities are research institutions, not application developers. And, (at least here at the University of Idaho) most software development is done for major contractors like HP, or the DOD and would be of little use to desktop users.
This is getting further and further off topic, but there're actually some fascinating studies going on here using modified kernels of both NT and Linux related to security. One professor has a series of functions hooked into all system APIs, and then monitors those API calls to see how the OS behaves during different types of attacks. (DOS, break-ins, whatever) Then the OS can automatically attempt to compensate for what it *thinks* might be an attack.
Instead, people charge off with grandiose ideas and big buzzwords (event handling, GUI, object oriented).
These are big buzzwords? An event-driven GUI is a grandiose idea? Have you done any coding (besides shell scripts) in the last 10 years?
People wonder why there is so much crap software out there. This is one reason: sitting around discussing the language without discussing the problem.
The project I'm currently on (management system for the University of Idaho's campus-wide network) underwent about 6 months of requirements discussions (including language requirements, hardware requirements, and functional requirements), along with a fully-implemented HTML prototype, before a *single* line of code was written. I'm the lead programmer, and I wasn't even brought into it until the last 3 weeks of requirements documentation.
Crap software exists because, for some reason, demand for crap software exists. It's got nothing to do with the development process. I wonder if you've ever even *worked* on large projects in an enterprise environment. It's a whole different ball game from sitting at your home workstation and scripting your OS.
another point which is this also taken from the afore mentioned site,(actsofgord.com),:
"To date, Sony has sold nearly 100,000,000 PS1's. That's a lot. And for the
sake of the argument, we'll pretend Nintendo sold nearly 30 million N64's
(though sales data suggests between 20 to 24 million, but who cares). So,
assuming every N64 owner also bought a PS1, that means 70% of the market bought ONE console. One console. Just one.
I'm curious about this one. Although I have absolutely no real data to make any claims, I have to wonder how many of those 100 million PS1's were sold to people as a replacement for their first PS1 that *broke*.
I have a PS1 that's got about 300 hours of use (bought in '98), that can't load most games. No, it's not abused, and yes, the lens is clean. I've got friends that are (were) on their 4th and 5th PS1 during the system's lifespan because the things kept breaking. I've never known one person that had to replace their N64 because it quit working. (I'm sure there *are* dead N64's out there, but not a significant percentage)
Probably the best way to look at actual market penetration is to look at game sell-through to your install base, even though this would still be mostly speculation. Zelda: Ocarina of Time had a nearly 1:1 sell-through of games to consoles in Japan. How does Final Fantasy 9 stack up to that?
Who cares? I've got a nice Panasonic DVD player. It's got component video out, optical digital audio out, and even a built-in Dolby Digital decoder and 6-channel audio output. Why do I want a crappy DVD player built into my game console?
I get so tired of people listing this as some sort of selling point for a *game* system. Please -- "It's a dessert topping. It's a floor wax!"
Look at where the linux desktop was a year ago. Now extrapolate another year. You see where I am going here. A year ago linux desktop was little more then a dream right now KDE looks and works great. KDE 3.0 will probably be even better.
First impressions are everything. A couple years ago, I installed Slackware on my "spare" box so that I could give it a go and see what all the fuss was about Linux. It was about what I expected it to be: a solid unix-like environment and not much else that a desktop user would be interested in.
I realize that Slackware wasn't the best place to go looking for a good GUI and desktop app package, but I really wasn't interested in replacing Windows at the time so it didn't weigh into my decision much. But after fighting with my X config for several days to finally get it to just *work*, I didn't feel any desire to look at Linux on my primary desktop PC in the future.
My point is, a lot of people started hearing about Linux in the last couple years. Probably a lot of them picked up a Linux distro to give it a try. Probably a lot of them were underwhelmed by what they saw. Probably a lot of those people won't be interested in coming back to Linux based on that first impression. So saying "look at where it was and where it might be going" is going to be a tough sell to all the people who've already got this bad taste in their mouthes.
I've thought about giving it another go, but I haven't yet. Win2k works well enough for me, and the thought of manually editing config files still makes me cringe. Hell, I don't know if I'd even *need* to manually edit config files anymore, but my first experience turned me off enough that I don't feel compelled to find out.
As a side note -- I've been programming for the past 12 years on a wide variety of different OSes. (DOS, Win, MAC, HPUX, Sun...) I'm currently developing a web-based network management system to automagically configure Cisco hardware and software, and to keep track of the 10,000+ network devices on the University of Idaho campus. So I'm not *scared* of computers (obviously), or editing configurations myself. I'm just lazy and would prefer to let the software do things for me whenever possible.
Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.
AFAIK, FF Tactics was only produced by Square. It was developed by the same house that does the Ogre Battle series (also excellent games -- if you can follow the convoluted plotlines.:) ). I forget the name of the developer, though...
--Jeremy
Slashdot Mirror
Since all of us "power users" don't like those performance-detracting ACPI/APM functions, we always disable them.
Speak for yourself, Mr. Power User. I find that if I've been away from my workstation for more than 15 minutes, I don't mind waiting to use it for another 2-3 seconds while my hard drives spin back up.
And as far as general performance is concerned: I could care less if things load in 0.1 seconds instead of 0.11 seconds. I'd rather have power saving and error-checking features enabled than save that 100th of a second (which is probably a gross overestimate).
--Jeremy
First: Mod me down -- I'm on Blizzard's side.
Blizzard can provide a very simple network request scheme to allow the Bnetd server to challeneg the cd-key.
It doesn't take much creative thinking to see how this would be exceptionally *bad* for Blizzard's paying customers.
Blizzard allows bnetd to check CD keys. Great. bnetd is open source. Great. Anyone can grab the CD key checking code. Not quite so great... Anyone could modify the code to just check hundreds/thousands/ALL CD keys, and spit out a list of which ones work. Yeah, defninitely not great.
Finally: I attempt to log in to Battle.Net with my new copy of WC3 and my CD key is already taken by someone that stole it because they had access to a utility that was written before the game even hit the shelves. Screw that.
Yeah, in an ideal world, Blizzard could just let bnetd have access to all of bnet's services. Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world. But everyone makes these "ideal world" arguments anyway.
In an ideal world, all of our doors would be unlocked. Are yours?
--Jeremy
Imagine everyone everywhere having the power of a supercomputer at their disposal.
... I could play WarCraft 3 at ... 100% speed! Or I could write my code at ... 100% speed! (compiling and linking would be great as a distributed task, but compiling doesn't take *nearly* as much time as writing the code does).
... 100% speed! She could then send the drawings to 1000 different printers, have 1/1000th printed by each one, and then assemble the pieces by hand to save time! My dad could type up the Christmas letter in Word at ... 100% speed! He could play solitaire at ... 100% speed!
Imagine
My mom could do her AutoCAD drawings at
Truly, if everyone, everywhere, had a supercomputer at their disposal, the world would be a much more efficient place.
--Jeremy
Nah -- it froze over last weekend when I bought Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for my GCN. (or in November when I got Super Monkey Ball...)
... Sonic Team can go die unless they can come up with a tight control system and usable camera.
On a similar story: Sonic Team somehow managed to make the problems of Sonic Adventure (fun game; minor irritations) orders of magnitude worse in Sonic Adventure 2 (so-so game; incredibly frustrating flaws all over the place).
Give me Amusement Vision
--Jeremy
Maybe you should read what we are talking about before responding or posting to a thread? Just a suggestion.
I'm reading knee-jerk reactions to someone mentioning the DMCA. Hong Kong companies have been making piracy-friendly hardware for years, and Nintendo and Sega have been shutting down manufacturing/distribution of these devices whenever they get the chance. There's nothing different about this case, except that they're using the (flawed) DMCA for additional legal firepower. If the DMCA didn't exist, the same letter would've been sent, citing a different legal infraction.
Someone mentions a case like this and breathes 'DMCA' in the same sentence, and suddenly there's something sinister and oppressive about what's happening.
--Jeremy
Nintendo has no case, especially since they allow gameboy development kits IIRC
Yeah, Nintendo allow developers to use the Nintendo-built GBA dev kits that THEY SEND TO THEM WHEN THEY'RE SIGNED ON AS A GBA DEVELOPER.
I can't believe that the original post in this thread is somehow moderated as insightful... I need to stop reading this entire 'discussion'. Now.
--Jeremy
After all, at least the artists can try to negotiate with the record labels
A friend of mine is a professional musician in the Austin, Texas area (James Harwood - the drummer for Seven Percent Solution -- some of you may have heard of him/them). This is (roughly) his description of how negotiations work with major record labels:
Record Label: Here's what we've worked out for our deal. Is it acceptable?
Musician: Umm, we don't like how this --
Record Label: Okay, no deal. Next, please.
The musicians don't have much bargaining power, since bands are a dime a dozen, and the labels don't give a damn about quality. (note: 7% Solution doesn't belong to a major record label)
--Jeremy
"Newsflash: Another cookie cutter over-violent FPS released by some company run either by (a)Sick juvenile twit programmers, or (b)Unimaginative corporate executives trying to make a buck by designing what their market analysts tell them is 'hip with the kids'."
This case is an exception to the rule: SK is putting together an excellent game (not FPS; it's RE-esque) and will end up getting cheated by one of these cookie-cutter reviews. Silicon Knights isn't a juvenile-pandering developer, and anyone who thinks that Nintendo is run by unimaginative execs is a fool.
If you'd like to take a preview of what to sort of expect from Eternal Darkness, pick up Legacy of Kain for the PS1, and ignore the terrible loading times. It's a great game, with a highly original story. (No, Silicon Knights didn't have *ANYTHING* to do with the garbage Soul Reaver titles.)
I, for one, have been looking forward to ED for a long time. I pity the people who'll miss out on a good experience by assuming that these reviews are valid. Or worse -- get an XBox or PS2 because there "aren't any good 'mature' games for the GameCube."
--Jeremy
I'm suprised this made it past the [Wired] technical editors...
Wired has technical editors? Wow. They sure had me fooled...
--Jeremy
Why the hell don't we see shitload of Windows-based software then?!
Because most universities are research institutions, not application developers. And, (at least here at the University of Idaho) most software development is done for major contractors like HP, or the DOD and would be of little use to desktop users.
This is getting further and further off topic, but there're actually some fascinating studies going on here using modified kernels of both NT and Linux related to security. One professor has a series of functions hooked into all system APIs, and then monitors those API calls to see how the OS behaves during different types of attacks. (DOS, break-ins, whatever) Then the OS can automatically attempt to compensate for what it *thinks* might be an attack.
Anyway, enough OT for now...
--Jeremy
Instead, people charge off with grandiose ideas and big buzzwords (event handling, GUI, object oriented).
These are big buzzwords? An event-driven GUI is a grandiose idea? Have you done any coding (besides shell scripts) in the last 10 years?
People wonder why there is so much crap software out there. This is one reason: sitting around discussing the language without discussing the problem.
The project I'm currently on (management system for the University of Idaho's campus-wide network) underwent about 6 months of requirements discussions (including language requirements, hardware requirements, and functional requirements), along with a fully-implemented HTML prototype, before a *single* line of code was written. I'm the lead programmer, and I wasn't even brought into it until the last 3 weeks of requirements documentation.
Crap software exists because, for some reason, demand for crap software exists. It's got nothing to do with the development process. I wonder if you've ever even *worked* on large projects in an enterprise environment. It's a whole different ball game from sitting at your home workstation and scripting your OS.
--Jeremy
another point which is this also taken from the afore mentioned site,(actsofgord.com),:
"To date, Sony has sold nearly 100,000,000 PS1's. That's a lot. And for the sake of the argument, we'll pretend Nintendo sold nearly 30 million N64's (though sales data suggests between 20 to 24 million, but who cares). So, assuming every N64 owner also bought a PS1, that means 70% of the market bought ONE console. One console. Just one.
I'm curious about this one. Although I have absolutely no real data to make any claims, I have to wonder how many of those 100 million PS1's were sold to people as a replacement for their first PS1 that *broke*.
I have a PS1 that's got about 300 hours of use (bought in '98), that can't load most games. No, it's not abused, and yes, the lens is clean. I've got friends that are (were) on their 4th and 5th PS1 during the system's lifespan because the things kept breaking. I've never known one person that had to replace their N64 because it quit working. (I'm sure there *are* dead N64's out there, but not a significant percentage)
Probably the best way to look at actual market penetration is to look at game sell-through to your install base, even though this would still be mostly speculation. Zelda: Ocarina of Time had a nearly 1:1 sell-through of games to consoles in Japan. How does Final Fantasy 9 stack up to that?
Just a thought.
--Jeremy
GameCube doesn't give you a DVD option.
Who cares? I've got a nice Panasonic DVD player. It's got component video out, optical digital audio out, and even a built-in Dolby Digital decoder and 6-channel audio output. Why do I want a crappy DVD player built into my game console?
I get so tired of people listing this as some sort of selling point for a *game* system. Please -- "It's a dessert topping. It's a floor wax!"
--Jeremy
Look at where the linux desktop was a year ago. Now extrapolate another year. You see where I am going here. A year ago linux desktop was little more then a dream right now KDE looks and works great. KDE 3.0 will probably be even better.
First impressions are everything. A couple years ago, I installed Slackware on my "spare" box so that I could give it a go and see what all the fuss was about Linux. It was about what I expected it to be: a solid unix-like environment and not much else that a desktop user would be interested in.
I realize that Slackware wasn't the best place to go looking for a good GUI and desktop app package, but I really wasn't interested in replacing Windows at the time so it didn't weigh into my decision much. But after fighting with my X config for several days to finally get it to just *work*, I didn't feel any desire to look at Linux on my primary desktop PC in the future.
My point is, a lot of people started hearing about Linux in the last couple years. Probably a lot of them picked up a Linux distro to give it a try. Probably a lot of them were underwhelmed by what they saw. Probably a lot of those people won't be interested in coming back to Linux based on that first impression. So saying "look at where it was and where it might be going" is going to be a tough sell to all the people who've already got this bad taste in their mouthes.
I've thought about giving it another go, but I haven't yet. Win2k works well enough for me, and the thought of manually editing config files still makes me cringe. Hell, I don't know if I'd even *need* to manually edit config files anymore, but my first experience turned me off enough that I don't feel compelled to find out.
As a side note -- I've been programming for the past 12 years on a wide variety of different OSes. (DOS, Win, MAC, HPUX, Sun...) I'm currently developing a web-based network management system to automagically configure Cisco hardware and software, and to keep track of the 10,000+ network devices on the University of Idaho campus. So I'm not *scared* of computers (obviously), or editing configurations myself. I'm just lazy and would prefer to let the software do things for me whenever possible.
--Jeremy
Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb. AFAIK, FF Tactics was only produced by Square. It was developed by the same house that does the Ogre Battle series (also excellent games -- if you can follow the convoluted plotlines. :) ). I forget the name of the developer, though...
--Jeremy