I do agree with you on most of this. I do get annoyed when I'm wanting to check many aspects of a site, and have to open them left click style one by one. But there are instances where I feel it's ok for people to use Flash navigation, if they're providing a site with little important information you need, but a gimmick or portfolio style effect.
Ooh, that's a pretty good idea actually, cheers! Cos certainly I have wanted to get round to seeing the quality of the DVD, which with a film like Matrix would show it off superbly (I mean hell it was sony's test film).
yea, i'm holding out for the trilogy set. I still haven't bothered to get the original on DVD or video in any format cos I know I'll get the trilogy. I just have it videoed off tv for now. Not that I need to watch it that often either.
Nice one. He is exactly the kinda guy I was talking of. I mean how is it science!? Wow he can make doors know who he is. This is a good thing!?
I think I'll remember your technique for next time I see him mentioned on anything.
New Scientist used to be far better than it has been of late. It's articles are, if not 3 months behind other sources available online, just plain wrong. Either that or so wildly hypothetical that it makes me wonder why devoting 5 pages to it is really necessary. I mean a page at most, with the 'scientists' hypothesis is really enough. But for some reason they go into huge amounts of useless detail, probably to pad it all out.
After having bought NS every issue for a year or two, I stopped at the point when it only gave me enough reading matter for about 10 minutes, and that was cover to cover browsing for something worthwhile.
I find it far more interesting to spend time doing research into any issues that come p that I am interested in, chiefly online, which does of course necessitate the use of a damn good bullshit detector.
As for science journals, they are good for that research, you only read the bit you're interested in, and you're going to get a hell of a lot more, useful, information than from any media story on the issue.
The media either dumbs things down, takes things that aren't true/possible, or as you said of the BBC, talks about utter bullshit research some 'scientist' carried out in his 'lab'.
for scientist see: idiot for lab see: garden shed/garage
I get the feeling this may be just something that comes from Rockstar being a relatively cool company. Their UK offices are just round from my brother's in Leith, and from their thankyou note to the pond in VC (the pub down the road from the office, and best pub I've ever been to) they do seem fairly cool guys.
Now, if more companies were like this, and less corporately minded then maybe we'd see more of this kind of thing.
you mean people pay for windows!?
Hell I thought that's why the only anti-piracy method was the "please do not make copies of this disc" warning and microsoft's outstanding fascism.
There are certain things having better speed would be good for. It would make virtual memory far more useful (yea i know we got enough with RAM, but it means games could essentially preload the whole world into memory, and bounce the needed sections backwards and forwards from RAM to HD).
I am still stuck on an old IBM 6314 (yea, I know, ick!) due to cost, even having had a problem with it a few years back. A fuse went in it, and I took it to get repaired, where they said "Well, we'll see but it's unlikely to be repairable due to it's age." They ended up sending it back to IBM who managed to find a replacement fuse for it at the back of a warehouse or something and got it fixed for me, all for, I seem to recall, about £30. So I'm still using it to this day, til I get round to getting a 19" Trinitron. And Apart from the odd color flicker, which is fixed by smacking it around a bit, it still works as good as ever!
Well, the price of a CD if you putting together the album.
I mean, I don't have any problem morally with downloading a couple of songs for free if I don't like the band neough to buy the album. It's just the same as getting a copy from a friend, or recording it from radio or whatever. If I like them, then I get the album, and for 99cents a song, it'd be about as cheap to get the CD, then it's better quality, especially if you were to write the mp3 to CD (two encodes, loses that little bit more quality).
Well, I was speaking as a PC gamer only. I don't have the cash to fork out for consoles and the prices of games for consoles is somewhat scary frankly (GTA:VC still selling at it's original release price on PS2, the PC version coming out in May starting at £25 already).
And in terms of the game engine not only is the PC capable of so much more than any console, but John Carmack is by far the best coder in the industry. I am unsurprised Silent Hill has continued to do so well in the horror genre, bu in terms of gameplay it never really got me involved, whereas an FPS (ok, I suspect Doom3 will not actually be termed an FPS, but it's first person so straight into the FPS genre it'll go, 'cause there's shooting too) is a far better way to get people further into the game, to feel the horror more.
But maybe there's nothing wrong with taking something and making it a thousand times better. Something that can be done within games fairly well, since the technology updates. Films, well yea special effects get better, but I think the way in which films are made now means remakes tend to trash the original. But back to my point... Looking at Doom3, the engine is innovative; the graphics, the sound- all of it is doing something new, and that's one of the things the games industry needs, is people to push the envelope so we get better end products. Plus I feel Doom3 might be more innovative in gameplay than most. More cinematic gameplay is a good thing in my eyes. It's one of the reasons I rate Mafia highly, it took things that maybe weren't new, but polished them and put them together to make a superb end product, that was one of the most cinematic, and engrossing games I've ever played. And I think Doom3 will do that, engross you in the gameplay and make it to some extent, an interactive movie.
This is true, and I am with you on it for the most part, but there are companies abusing this, and for that I feel it needs heavier regulation.
Companies like those who sell the essentially knock-off drugs to countries in Africa or Cuba vastly overpriced, meaning the people who need the drugs aren't getting the quality they should for the price they should. Even the organizations trying to help these people aren't getting anything good out of it. There was a particularly good Mark Thomas Product on UK's channel 4 last year (He's essentially a comedian, but he does this show where he reveals scary things the governments are doing and tries to change them) where he was investigating this, and trying to get the government to change it's attitude to this. Of course no MP's were willing to comment...
They're hardly about to release CDRW's. They're not going to want they're portion of the disk to be written over. That would be un-corporate!
If there was a way to stop you from erasing the first section maybe.
What I'm thinking though, is that to get a cd you're not interested in but want to use the space on, it would be ever so frustrating if it had an autorun.inf file on there (yea, so turn it off, but if you've just reinstalled and nt got round to it!).
So the big fuss over 3dMark, isn't that it's proving the ATi to be better, it's just showing that they didn't think to write code that could actually compare the technologies effectively.
I hold with it being more sense to buy a PC, but at the same time, if you're wanting to play a bunch of games that you can only get in X-Box, and you have enough time and money to make it look better, which lets be honest, isn't difficult with the Billy-Box, then why not?
Much as I've been tempted to experiment with Ogg, I haven't got round to it because of my technology impeding me. Things like the DJ software I use, which doesn't support it, or my new car stereo which is mp3 cd player. If it weren't for these things not supporting it I'd try. As for this, with my car stereo playing mp3's I don't know how much I'm likely to ever need my discman or mp3 cd player again!
Thanks for the huge amount of info. We've somehow started a wonderful semi-ot but hugely useful discussion!
I'll certainly note down and take a look at many of those pieces of info, see what I can do to evolve my setup now.
I'm currently working without any MIDI, using only software synth (Reason's is essentially a freeform synth) with samplers (so I record guitar and vocals and drum lines and use the sampler to put them in) thus allowing post recording compression and effects on all. I have been very impressed by the quality of output I get from Reason, and especially since it's Propellerhead (I thought nothing of ReBirth). I use two soundcards atm anyway, a Live and an Audigy (wanted a Montego 2 but alas not in the UK), so I get ASPI and 0ms latency in Reason2, and have an external mixing desk for DJ'ing, as well as being hugely useful (it's 3 channel with 3 outputs so I can do a fair amount with it, and means i can get a live loopback to my soundcard of 2 mixed channels, allowing mp3 dj'ing (with DJS Mk1)).
But certainly if I had a linux box with 2 soundcards and another mixer (I plan to replace this one tho it still works) it would give me vast options, also allowing for the continuing use of Reason2 (which to prove it's quality is professionally used by the likes of Trent and the guys at Nothing Studios - one of the demo tracks, in fact the only good one that came with version 2 is by Charlie Clouser), with the almost infinitely extra options allowed by using Linux.
unfortunately I'm basically unable to run a linux box atm, so the only software based effects program i have atm is alienconnections revalver. and well, the sound quality sucks. I've been running my guitar straight into both my Live and my Audigy but revalver just doesn't give a quality of sound I can use in any finished work. I can't really run linux since atm I don't have the disk space, and the software i use (apart from all the other programs I use which are windows native, or at least the versions I have and can't afford to get others) is Reason2 (while everyone uses it for crap techno, it is actually viable as an amazing quality virtual studio with use). But having analogue equipment I just find to be more pleasing. I'll certainly take a look at that prog you mentioned tho since I am planning to set up a Linux box soon, as it would still be cheaper than hauling out to replace the equipment I have that is currently dead!
Ok so they mean digital pickup,(article has been/.'ed to hell). So it may have benefits. I'll have to wait and see. But even so, i like the sounds you can get from a tube amp, the warmth and slight distortion is a part of the effect as far as I see it.
Nope, I listen to everything on mp3 (192k true stereo), but I have done a lot of poduction and other various working on music, with various software solutions, and working digitally to an extent. And I know from this that unless they have come up with something truly innovative and new, then samples, in whatever manner, can not have as much quality, or options as analogue. Piano, drums, guitar, all have certain features in analogue that you just cannot get from digital versions (you can get close by having 50,000 samples of each, on every pitch, every style etc.).
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I do agree with you on most of this. I do get annoyed when I'm wanting to check many aspects of a site, and have to open them left click style one by one. But there are instances where I feel it's ok for people to use Flash navigation, if they're providing a site with little important information you need, but a gimmick or portfolio style effect.
Ooh, that's a pretty good idea actually, cheers!
Cos certainly I have wanted to get round to seeing the quality of the DVD, which with a film like Matrix would show it off superbly (I mean hell it was sony's test film).
I'll go check out the video rental places...
yea, i'm holding out for the trilogy set. I still haven't bothered to get the original on DVD or video in any format cos I know I'll get the trilogy. I just have it videoed off tv for now. Not that I need to watch it that often either.
Nice one. He is exactly the kinda guy I was talking of. I mean how is it science!? Wow he can make doors know who he is. This is a good thing!? I think I'll remember your technique for next time I see him mentioned on anything.
New Scientist used to be far better than it has been of late. It's articles are, if not 3 months behind other sources available online, just plain wrong. Either that or so wildly hypothetical that it makes me wonder why devoting 5 pages to it is really necessary. I mean a page at most, with the 'scientists' hypothesis is really enough. But for some reason they go into huge amounts of useless detail, probably to pad it all out.
After having bought NS every issue for a year or two, I stopped at the point when it only gave me enough reading matter for about 10 minutes, and that was cover to cover browsing for something worthwhile.
I find it far more interesting to spend time doing research into any issues that come p that I am interested in, chiefly online, which does of course necessitate the use of a damn good bullshit detector.
As for science journals, they are good for that research, you only read the bit you're interested in, and you're going to get a hell of a lot more, useful, information than from any media story on the issue.
The media either dumbs things down, takes things that aren't true/possible, or as you said of the BBC, talks about utter bullshit research some 'scientist' carried out in his 'lab'.
for scientist see: idiot
for lab see: garden shed/garage
I get the feeling this may be just something that comes from Rockstar being a relatively cool company. Their UK offices are just round from my brother's in Leith, and from their thankyou note to the pond in VC (the pub down the road from the office, and best pub I've ever been to) they do seem fairly cool guys.
Now, if more companies were like this, and less corporately minded then maybe we'd see more of this kind of thing.
you mean people pay for windows!?
Hell I thought that's why the only anti-piracy method was the "please do not make copies of this disc" warning and microsoft's outstanding fascism.
you mean yesterday...
There are certain things having better speed would be good for. It would make virtual memory far more useful (yea i know we got enough with RAM, but it means games could essentially preload the whole world into memory, and bounce the needed sections backwards and forwards from RAM to HD).
There was a comment a few weeks ago on /. about how in Australia, you are guilty til proven innocent. So that would explain the police being fascists!
I am still stuck on an old IBM 6314 (yea, I know, ick!) due to cost, even having had a problem with it a few years back. A fuse went in it, and I took it to get repaired, where they said "Well, we'll see but it's unlikely to be repairable due to it's age."
They ended up sending it back to IBM who managed to find a replacement fuse for it at the back of a warehouse or something and got it fixed for me, all for, I seem to recall, about £30.
So I'm still using it to this day, til I get round to getting a 19" Trinitron. And Apart from the odd color flicker, which is fixed by smacking it around a bit, it still works as good as ever!
Well, the price of a CD if you putting together the album.
I mean, I don't have any problem morally with downloading a couple of songs for free if I don't like the band neough to buy the album. It's just the same as getting a copy from a friend, or recording it from radio or whatever. If I like them, then I get the album, and for 99cents a song, it'd be about as cheap to get the CD, then it's better quality, especially if you were to write the mp3 to CD (two encodes, loses that little bit more quality).
Well, I was speaking as a PC gamer only. I don't have the cash to fork out for consoles and the prices of games for consoles is somewhat scary frankly (GTA:VC still selling at it's original release price on PS2, the PC version coming out in May starting at £25 already).
And in terms of the game engine not only is the PC capable of so much more than any console, but John Carmack is by far the best coder in the industry.
I am unsurprised Silent Hill has continued to do so well in the horror genre, bu in terms of gameplay it never really got me involved, whereas an FPS (ok, I suspect Doom3 will not actually be termed an FPS, but it's first person so straight into the FPS genre it'll go, 'cause there's shooting too) is a far better way to get people further into the game, to feel the horror more.
Plus, well, play it before you judge it!
But maybe there's nothing wrong with taking something and making it a thousand times better.
Something that can be done within games fairly well, since the technology updates. Films, well yea special effects get better, but I think the way in which films are made now means remakes tend to trash the original. But back to my point...
Looking at Doom3, the engine is innovative; the graphics, the sound- all of it is doing something new, and that's one of the things the games industry needs, is people to push the envelope so we get better end products. Plus I feel Doom3 might be more innovative in gameplay than most. More cinematic gameplay is a good thing in my eyes. It's one of the reasons I rate Mafia highly, it took things that maybe weren't new, but polished them and put them together to make a superb end product, that was one of the most cinematic, and engrossing games I've ever played. And I think Doom3 will do that, engross you in the gameplay and make it to some extent, an interactive movie.
by Rockstar themselves, and Amazon's preordering info.
Mark Thomas page - Drug Dumping is the program I was commenting on.
This is true, and I am with you on it for the most part, but there are companies abusing this, and for that I feel it needs heavier regulation.
Companies like those who sell the essentially knock-off drugs to countries in Africa or Cuba vastly overpriced, meaning the people who need the drugs aren't getting the quality they should for the price they should. Even the organizations trying to help these people aren't getting anything good out of it.
There was a particularly good Mark Thomas Product on UK's channel 4 last year (He's essentially a comedian, but he does this show where he reveals scary things the governments are doing and tries to change them) where he was investigating this, and trying to get the government to change it's attitude to this. Of course no MP's were willing to comment...
They're hardly about to release CDRW's. They're not going to want they're portion of the disk to be written over. That would be un-corporate!
If there was a way to stop you from erasing the first section maybe.
What I'm thinking though, is that to get a cd you're not interested in but want to use the space on, it would be ever so frustrating if it had an autorun.inf file on there (yea, so turn it off, but if you've just reinstalled and nt got round to it!).
So the big fuss over 3dMark, isn't that it's proving the ATi to be better, it's just showing that they didn't think to write code that could actually compare the technologies effectively.
I hold with it being more sense to buy a PC, but at the same time, if you're wanting to play a bunch of games that you can only get in X-Box, and you have enough time and money to make it look better, which lets be honest, isn't difficult with the Billy-Box, then why not?
Much as I've been tempted to experiment with Ogg, I haven't got round to it because of my technology impeding me. Things like the DJ software I use, which doesn't support it, or my new car stereo which is mp3 cd player. If it weren't for these things not supporting it I'd try. As for this, with my car stereo playing mp3's I don't know how much I'm likely to ever need my discman or mp3 cd player again!
Thanks for the huge amount of info. We've somehow started a wonderful semi-ot but hugely useful discussion!
I'll certainly note down and take a look at many of those pieces of info, see what I can do to evolve my setup now.
I'm currently working without any MIDI, using only software synth (Reason's is essentially a freeform synth) with samplers (so I record guitar and vocals and drum lines and use the sampler to put them in) thus allowing post recording compression and effects on all. I have been very impressed by the quality of output I get from Reason, and especially since it's Propellerhead (I thought nothing of ReBirth). I use two soundcards atm anyway, a Live and an Audigy (wanted a Montego 2 but alas not in the UK), so I get ASPI and 0ms latency in Reason2, and have an external mixing desk for DJ'ing, as well as being hugely useful (it's 3 channel with 3 outputs so I can do a fair amount with it, and means i can get a live loopback to my soundcard of 2 mixed channels, allowing mp3 dj'ing (with DJS Mk1)).
But certainly if I had a linux box with 2 soundcards and another mixer (I plan to replace this one tho it still works) it would give me vast options, also allowing for the continuing use of Reason2 (which to prove it's quality is professionally used by the likes of Trent and the guys at Nothing Studios - one of the demo tracks, in fact the only good one that came with version 2 is by Charlie Clouser), with the almost infinitely extra options allowed by using Linux.
unfortunately I'm basically unable to run a linux box atm, so the only software based effects program i have atm is alienconnections revalver. and well, the sound quality sucks. I've been running my guitar straight into both my Live and my Audigy but revalver just doesn't give a quality of sound I can use in any finished work.
I can't really run linux since atm I don't have the disk space, and the software i use (apart from all the other programs I use which are windows native, or at least the versions I have and can't afford to get others) is Reason2 (while everyone uses it for crap techno, it is actually viable as an amazing quality virtual studio with use). But having analogue equipment I just find to be more pleasing. I'll certainly take a look at that prog you mentioned tho since I am planning to set up a Linux box soon, as it would still be cheaper than hauling out to replace the equipment I have that is currently dead!
Ok so they mean digital pickup,(article has been /.'ed to hell). So it may have benefits. I'll have to wait and see. But even so, i like the sounds you can get from a tube amp, the warmth and slight distortion is a part of the effect as far as I see it.
Nope, I listen to everything on mp3 (192k true stereo), but I have done a lot of poduction and other various working on music, with various software solutions, and working digitally to an extent. And I know from this that unless they have come up with something truly innovative and new, then samples, in whatever manner, can not have as much quality, or options as analogue. Piano, drums, guitar, all have certain features in analogue that you just cannot get from digital versions (you can get close by having 50,000 samples of each, on every pitch, every style etc.).