Seems like the whole idea the article suggests is a pipedream. So their great and new idea is to complete the most important features immediately, then refine them. Well that is all great, but what about the fact that a game usually isn't remotely playable until it is 90% done, no matter which pieces you work on or do in what order.
This reminds me of something I just read about how episodic content will never work, as making episode 1 requires 95% of the work of the entire game.
1. Nobody likes false starts HD-DVD is a greater step from DVD than DVD was from VHS. The reason is simple, they are finally upgrading video, which is what matters. Sure DVD was an upgrade, but not so much as HD-DVD, we are talking 1920x1080, that is almost a 16 fold increase in image information from DVD.
2. Format Wars Don't Sell Players Some movies will only be released on one format, especially the ones in the Sony camp as they are tied to a studio, making it EXACTLY like a game system with software, pick your system for which studios movies you like the most.
3. HD DVD and Blu-ray are NOT Quantum Leaps in Technology With HDMI there is convenience in the hook ups only taking 1 cable. Also to see HD material it will be much more convenent using 1 HD-DVD or Bluray disc rather than 5-10 DVDs, sure you don't see this now, but when HD recording is big this will be a major issue.
4. Studios are Conservative, Greedy and Unmotivated Hm, it's hard to argue this one. Conservative, yes most. Greedy, yes. Unmotivated, well their lawyers aren't;) All new technologies were rip-offs when they were released, I would say HDDVD is FAR more reasonably priced at release than ANY past technology of its type.
5. Playstation3 Cannot Save the World Having bluray in the PS3 can only help it as a movie medium, what its doing to it as a gaming medium is a whole other ballgame (crippling it IMO). If you don't think there will be more bluray players in households because of the PS3 you are nuts.
6. Those Who Ignore History... If history has shown us anything in electronics its that if you don't release better technology, it will pass you buy faster than you can blink and someone else will do it.
7. People Want Technology that's 15 Minutes Ahead of Its Time This is the biggest selling point I think. Rather than having to deal with HD sources, which there aren't many of, and are unknown to most consumers at the time of purchase. When you buy an HD-DVD player you can see which movies are available when you do it, and buy them right there, take them home and watch them.
8. Enthusiasts Are Getting Tired (and Smarter) Our whole economy is based on new consumers, there are more early adopters every year, not less.
9. A Skeptical News Media Doesn't Help Trying to compare SACD to HD-DVD is pretty pointless, they are far different in the consumers eyes. SACD is for audio elitists, where HD-DVD is already more mainstream and for everyone.
10. Broadband and IPTV to Compete? With all the HD content you are still going to need somewhere to keep it, and if you want it portable HD-DVD and bluray discs are the place.
In todays dollars how much have we spent on the interstate system? How much does it cost us to make 1 mile of interstate today? What kind of mass transit systems could have been built with that money?
If these motherboards were made in the USA by union workers they would probably cost $1000 - $3000 instead of $30-$100. Would you rather pay $1000 for your whole computer or $10000? It clearly states in the article that workers can work 8 hours if they wish, but most work 12 hours. Also most of the workers are women, who are considered a 2nd class human in China, the fact that they are allowed to work at all is a big step for them.
"Once packaged, random boards are put through shock tests to make sure their lot will survive the shipping process. The number of boards that go through this testing procedure is higher for high end products such as ECS' "EXTREME" lineup."
So if you buy an EXTREME board and get pissed at your computer, you can throw it a little harder against the wall. Cool!
The 2.4 GHz spectrum is unlicensed. This means anyone can throw any type of signal they want into it. Anything from wireless AP's, to home automation products, to everyday appliances will throw out signals in this radio frequency. What all this means to the average person is this... interference. Either interference from other AP's, or a microwave, or a cordless phone. Either way, multiple devices vying for the same spectrum can never be good; it will affect your signal and degrade your throughput. The way to deal with this type of interference is to either ignore it, or try to go around it. Ignoring it might be acceptable for some, but finding ways around it is really a hit or miss proposition. It is hard to work around something you can't see. Sure, changing the channel on the router or physically moving the device might work, but in the end, you are just guessing. Now you no longer have to guess. With the introduction of the Wi-Spy, you can "see" the interference you are trying so hard to avoid. Before, you might have gotten the channel or the position right and enjoyed a cleaner signal, but I doubt that happened quickly. With the Wi-Spy, you should be able to figure out quickly and definitively just what your monkeying around might have eventually revealed. If anything, being able to rule out what won't work, you have won half the battle. With all the time you save, you can finally get out and do more important things like mow the lawn or clean the kitchen. (Ed: Oh goody!)
You just can't beat being able to "see" the spectrum you are using. Not having to take out a personal loan to buy the equipment is another plus. The software may have its quirks here and there, but no matter what, it still provides a good view of the spectrum you will be attempting to navigate. Software can be upgraded and fixed, and I believe that as time goes by, it will only get better. Considering its competition, the Wi-Spy is a steal at $100. If you do any type of wireless network setups, or you get drafted to set up everyone else's, the Wi-Spy should most definitely be in your laptop bag.
If you'd like to purchase the MetaGeek Wi-Spy, you can get it for about $100 directly through MetaGeek.net or you can buy it at ThinkGeek.com.
Pros
A spectrum Analyzer on the cheap
Portable
Easy to use
Did I mention it wasn't $3000+
Cons
Software could use some tweaking
Requires.NET 2.0 to run
Only works on 802.11b and g, not 802.11a
It depends on what size image you are looking at and how close you are, look at the chart I linked. Of course you are going to see a difference on a 60" set standing 4' away, which is what 90% of the people are doing when they go to BestBuy, they see a huge difference. But when you take that same set home and sit 15' away you aren't going to see any of that extra detail.
There is a huge difference between 10fps of video and 10fps of a computer game, which is what I think you are referring to. And I think the number is more like 20-30fps, it depends on the person, which is why the film industry chose 24fps long ago. The difference with film is motion is blurred, where in a computer game it is not (well in all but the newest games), so to achieve that effect of motion it takes a much higher framerate, I would guess 60-100fps.
Since no one specifies what algorithm they use the only way you really know is to do some viewing tests. Most likely since the device supports BluRay it has a pretty powerful scaler and will look better than your TV scaler.
Since the image is converted to digital it will be of better quality because it won't have to be converted to analog ever.
For example:
normal DVD player > converted to analog > analog signal over 480i connection > at tv > converted to digital 1080p > displayed
bluray player > conversion to 1080p > digital signal to tv > displayed
There are only 5-10 tvs that will even display 1080p right now, not even the Sony SXBRs can (NOTE many TVs actually display 1080p, but only accept 1080i input, like the SXBR for example).
As can be seen on this chart 720p will do for for most people. The human eye can't resolve the extra detail in the picture from 8' on a 42" diagonal.
I hope Bill Gates does something really cool with his money, something that would change the world forever. There are only 2 or 3 people in the world that can do this. I am talking about some huge technology or project, like the Romans or Egyptians (creating the pyramids). He could create a space colony, some kind of huge wonder of the world, maybe an underwater city.
Does anyone have any cool ideas that are feasible with 50 BILLION?
This is a pretty good idea. I'm surprised they don't already have servers that ban trading of anything higher than a rare item. This way you can still craft and trade cheap ingrediants and stuff.
Another idea is to impose a sliding scale on auction charges, so the more you sell, the more you are charged by the auction house, this should curb farmers somewhat and not effect most of the other players as most players are casual.
Damn, and 6200 is the average? I just did a quick look at 2 of my projects last year and they are around 25k-30k lines, and both were shipped projects, not including any utility code. I spend probably around 4 hours a day programming on average. Granted the code isn't the most beautiful specimen, but I doubt theirs is either, I guess thats the benefit of only having 1 person on my team:)
What a safe bet considering every major internet portal now has their own dedicated video services (google, yahoo, msn, youtube). Popularity is not the problem, its hard to actually make any money off this crap since its stolen from other sources and teenagers are too busy spending $5 to send a 100 byte text message. It sounds like hes making his own content though, which should be very hard to profit from as the current video sources are all profiting by simply being a gateway to stolen properties. I'm not saying its good or bad, its just a lot more expensive.
>>> Were you (literally) chained to your desk with no bathroom break for four hours at a time? Were they? How do you know?
>> Have you been threatened with physical assault and rape if you try to quit your job? Have they? Physical assult and rape happens at work all over the world, even in the USA.
>> Have you been raped on the job? Have they?
>> Did you get to choose where you live for that half of your income? Is it in a room with a hundred other people in bunks? Perhaphs a room with 100 bunks is better than the standard of living of people not working at the company, just because there are 100 bunks doesn't mean much.
>> I'm not feeling all sorry for you, but change my mind. The article could have been written to make apple look good or bad, just put in some facts and leave others out, its a totally different story. Unless you are there and know the workers, you have no idea of what is actually going on, so you shouldn't pretend to.
China has a vastly different social structure and class system than here, comparing the facts in this article to your daily life is about as relavent as an alien on another planet reading your blog.
its swirling in the bowl
on
DDO Goes Solo
·
· Score: 1
I played the beta, and didn't even want to try the full version, it is just that uninspiring. They didn't do anything terribly wrong with the game in any way, its just that wow and eq2 simply blow it out of the water in almost every aspect. Finding groups in the beta was ridiculously hard, at least making everything solo will give the people who bought the game a chance to play it.
Unless you are an absolute hardcore fan of D&D you should definitely pass on this game, the only unique thing about the game is its D&D stats system, and honestly after playing wow and eq2, I absolutely hate the D&D stats system, it was one of the worst things about the game.
Seeing that the eq2 team with their 'infinite' wisdom with MMORPGs can barely keep the eq2 servers populated, I don't think any fantasy/orc MMORPG has a chance in hell of competing in todays market.
Very good point. Anyone who has seen the Core2 benchmarks wouldn't think of buying a new computer in the last 3-6 months. Core2 will quite simply blow everything away. Besides an overclocked Pentium D at 4GHZ (see tomshardware), the Core2 will provide the biggest jump in performance released by anyone since the original Pentium.
AMD currently has a lot of momentum though, when the Core2 is a huge success, it will take some time for people to realize it, and perhaps give enough time for AMD to come back with a better chip.
The final puzzle piece in in place. Run this software on the CELL processor and have a radio that can receive and decode anything. Oh wait, that means a $5 radio will now be $300, oh well...
Seriously though, this is an awesome idea, its like the internet 20 years ago, or the personal computer 50 years ago. 100 years from everything will be the same exact microscopic chip running specialized software, from trans dimensional warp drives to an automated bionic eyelash.
This amount isn't even close to paying for the videos themselves, each video today costs.5-10M to produce (http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/musicvideo s/musicvideos.html).
you would be much better off buying dell axim x51v pocket pc, built in touch screen bluetooth, wifi, VGA screen, a buttload of software, and can terminal server to any windows desktop, up to 8GB memory. oh ya, and if you really want you can tape it to a wall socket for god knows what reason.
Before everyone gets all excited and thinks this will fix any MS bugs on your machine, stop right there, and read the first page of the onecare website.
This ISN'T paying for updates and patches. This IS paying for an antivirus and antispyware tools that several other companies already offer. So basically MS is trying to protect you from not only their mistakes, but other software's as well.
You can already get everything offered in the OneCare package for free from other utilities, but for huge companies that push out 1000's of licenses this is probably a cash cow for MS.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems like the whole idea the article suggests is a pipedream. So their great and new idea is to complete the most important features immediately, then refine them. Well that is all great, but what about the fact that a game usually isn't remotely playable until it is 90% done, no matter which pieces you work on or do in what order.
This reminds me of something I just read about how episodic content will never work, as making episode 1 requires 95% of the work of the entire game.
1. Nobody likes false starts
;) All new technologies were rip-offs when they were released, I would say HDDVD is FAR more reasonably priced at release than ANY past technology of its type.
HD-DVD is a greater step from DVD than DVD was from VHS. The reason is simple, they are finally upgrading video, which is what matters. Sure DVD was an upgrade, but not so much as HD-DVD, we are talking 1920x1080, that is almost a 16 fold increase in image information from DVD.
2. Format Wars Don't Sell Players
Some movies will only be released on one format, especially the ones in the Sony camp as they are tied to a studio, making it EXACTLY like a game system with software, pick your system for which studios movies you like the most.
3. HD DVD and Blu-ray are NOT Quantum Leaps in Technology
With HDMI there is convenience in the hook ups only taking 1 cable. Also to see HD material it will be much more convenent using 1 HD-DVD or Bluray disc rather than 5-10 DVDs, sure you don't see this now, but when HD recording is big this will be a major issue.
4. Studios are Conservative, Greedy and Unmotivated
Hm, it's hard to argue this one. Conservative, yes most. Greedy, yes. Unmotivated, well their lawyers aren't
5. Playstation3 Cannot Save the World
Having bluray in the PS3 can only help it as a movie medium, what its doing to it as a gaming medium is a whole other ballgame (crippling it IMO). If you don't think there will be more bluray players in households because of the PS3 you are nuts.
6. Those Who Ignore History...
If history has shown us anything in electronics its that if you don't release better technology, it will pass you buy faster than you can blink and someone else will do it.
7. People Want Technology that's 15 Minutes Ahead of Its Time
This is the biggest selling point I think. Rather than having to deal with HD sources, which there aren't many of, and are unknown to most consumers at the time of purchase. When you buy an HD-DVD player you can see which movies are available when you do it, and buy them right there, take them home and watch them.
8. Enthusiasts Are Getting Tired (and Smarter)
Our whole economy is based on new consumers, there are more early adopters every year, not less.
9. A Skeptical News Media Doesn't Help
Trying to compare SACD to HD-DVD is pretty pointless, they are far different in the consumers eyes. SACD is for audio elitists, where HD-DVD is already more mainstream and for everyone.
10. Broadband and IPTV to Compete?
With all the HD content you are still going to need somewhere to keep it, and if you want it portable HD-DVD and bluray discs are the place.
In todays dollars how much have we spent on the interstate system?
How much does it cost us to make 1 mile of interstate today?
What kind of mass transit systems could have been built with that money?
"but we can thank unions for a lot of things"
If these motherboards were made in the USA by union workers they would probably cost $1000 - $3000 instead of $30-$100. Would you rather pay $1000 for your whole computer or $10000? It clearly states in the article that workers can work 8 hours if they wish, but most work 12 hours. Also most of the workers are women, who are considered a 2nd class human in China, the fact that they are allowed to work at all is a big step for them.
"Once packaged, random boards are put through shock tests to make sure their lot will survive the shipping process. The number of boards that go through this testing procedure is higher for high end products such as ECS' "EXTREME" lineup."
So if you buy an EXTREME board and get pissed at your computer, you can throw it a little harder against the wall. Cool!
Why not just use a smaller diameter tube for the components that don't need as much cooling? KISS
www.wifigear.co.uk
.NET 2.0 to run
And from the review if you can't load it:
Conclusion
The 2.4 GHz spectrum is unlicensed. This means anyone can throw any type of signal they want into it. Anything from wireless AP's, to home automation products, to everyday appliances will throw out signals in this radio frequency. What all this means to the average person is this... interference. Either interference from other AP's, or a microwave, or a cordless phone. Either way, multiple devices vying for the same spectrum can never be good; it will affect your signal and degrade your throughput. The way to deal with this type of interference is to either ignore it, or try to go around it. Ignoring it might be acceptable for some, but finding ways around it is really a hit or miss proposition. It is hard to work around something you can't see. Sure, changing the channel on the router or physically moving the device might work, but in the end, you are just guessing. Now you no longer have to guess. With the introduction of the Wi-Spy, you can "see" the interference you are trying so hard to avoid. Before, you might have gotten the channel or the position right and enjoyed a cleaner signal, but I doubt that happened quickly. With the Wi-Spy, you should be able to figure out quickly and definitively just what your monkeying around might have eventually revealed. If anything, being able to rule out what won't work, you have won half the battle. With all the time you save, you can finally get out and do more important things like mow the lawn or clean the kitchen. (Ed: Oh goody!)
You just can't beat being able to "see" the spectrum you are using. Not having to take out a personal loan to buy the equipment is another plus. The software may have its quirks here and there, but no matter what, it still provides a good view of the spectrum you will be attempting to navigate. Software can be upgraded and fixed, and I believe that as time goes by, it will only get better. Considering its competition, the Wi-Spy is a steal at $100. If you do any type of wireless network setups, or you get drafted to set up everyone else's, the Wi-Spy should most definitely be in your laptop bag.
If you'd like to purchase the MetaGeek Wi-Spy, you can get it for about $100 directly through MetaGeek.net or you can buy it at ThinkGeek.com.
Pros
A spectrum Analyzer on the cheap
Portable
Easy to use
Did I mention it wasn't $3000+
Cons
Software could use some tweaking
Requires
Only works on 802.11b and g, not 802.11a
It depends on what size image you are looking at and how close you are, look at the chart I linked. Of course you are going to see a difference on a 60" set standing 4' away, which is what 90% of the people are doing when they go to BestBuy, they see a huge difference. But when you take that same set home and sit 15' away you aren't going to see any of that extra detail.
There is a huge difference between 10fps of video and 10fps of a computer game, which is what I think you are referring to. And I think the number is more like 20-30fps, it depends on the person, which is why the film industry chose 24fps long ago. The difference with film is motion is blurred, where in a computer game it is not (well in all but the newest games), so to achieve that effect of motion it takes a much higher framerate, I would guess 60-100fps.
Since no one specifies what algorithm they use the only way you really know is to do some viewing tests. Most likely since the device supports BluRay it has a pretty powerful scaler and will look better than your TV scaler.
Since the image is converted to digital it will be of better quality because it won't have to be converted to analog ever.
For example:
normal DVD player > converted to analog > analog signal over 480i connection > at tv > converted to digital 1080p > displayed
bluray player > conversion to 1080p > digital signal to tv > displayed
There are only 5-10 tvs that will even display 1080p right now, not even the Sony SXBRs can (NOTE many TVs actually display 1080p, but only accept 1080i input, like the SXBR for example).
As can be seen on this chart 720p will do for for most people. The human eye can't resolve the extra detail in the picture from 8' on a 42" diagonal.
I hope Bill Gates does something really cool with his money, something that would change the world forever. There are only 2 or 3 people in the world that can do this. I am talking about some huge technology or project, like the Romans or Egyptians (creating the pyramids). He could create a space colony, some kind of huge wonder of the world, maybe an underwater city.
Does anyone have any cool ideas that are feasible with 50 BILLION?
This is a pretty good idea. I'm surprised they don't already have servers that ban trading of anything higher than a rare item. This way you can still craft and trade cheap ingrediants and stuff.
Another idea is to impose a sliding scale on auction charges, so the more you sell, the more you are charged by the auction house, this should curb farmers somewhat and not effect most of the other players as most players are casual.
Damn, and 6200 is the average? I just did a quick look at 2 of my projects last year and they are around 25k-30k lines, and both were shipped projects, not including any utility code. I spend probably around 4 hours a day programming on average. Granted the code isn't the most beautiful specimen, but I doubt theirs is either, I guess thats the benefit of only having 1 person on my team :)
"suspended by thin wires"
Come on now, can't they use some kind of magnetic levitation system? Or even an air cushion, that would be pretty cheap and cool.
What a safe bet considering every major internet portal now has their own dedicated video services (google, yahoo, msn, youtube). Popularity is not the problem, its hard to actually make any money off this crap since its stolen from other sources and teenagers are too busy spending $5 to send a 100 byte text message. It sounds like hes making his own content though, which should be very hard to profit from as the current video sources are all profiting by simply being a gateway to stolen properties. I'm not saying its good or bad, its just a lot more expensive.
>>> Were you (literally) chained to your desk with no bathroom break for four hours at a time?
Were they? How do you know?
>> Have you been threatened with physical assault and rape if you try to quit your job?
Have they? Physical assult and rape happens at work all over the world, even in the USA.
>> Have you been raped on the job?
Have they?
>> Did you get to choose where you live for that half of your income? Is it in a room with a hundred other people in bunks?
Perhaphs a room with 100 bunks is better than the standard of living of people not working at the company, just because there are 100 bunks doesn't mean much.
>> I'm not feeling all sorry for you, but change my mind.
The article could have been written to make apple look good or bad, just put in some facts and leave others out, its a totally different story. Unless you are there and know the workers, you have no idea of what is actually going on, so you shouldn't pretend to.
China has a vastly different social structure and class system than here, comparing the facts in this article to your daily life is about as relavent as an alien on another planet reading your blog.
I played the beta, and didn't even want to try the full version, it is just that uninspiring. They didn't do anything terribly wrong with the game in any way, its just that wow and eq2 simply blow it out of the water in almost every aspect. Finding groups in the beta was ridiculously hard, at least making everything solo will give the people who bought the game a chance to play it.
Unless you are an absolute hardcore fan of D&D you should definitely pass on this game, the only unique thing about the game is its D&D stats system, and honestly after playing wow and eq2, I absolutely hate the D&D stats system, it was one of the worst things about the game.
Seeing that the eq2 team with their 'infinite' wisdom with MMORPGs can barely keep the eq2 servers populated, I don't think any fantasy/orc MMORPG has a chance in hell of competing in todays market.
I think they would cry if they looked at how many CS or CSS games were played. Halo is for the unskilled.
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/i/p-loeb.jpg
Very good point. Anyone who has seen the Core2 benchmarks wouldn't think of buying a new computer in the last 3-6 months. Core2 will quite simply blow everything away. Besides an overclocked Pentium D at 4GHZ (see tomshardware), the Core2 will provide the biggest jump in performance released by anyone since the original Pentium.
AMD currently has a lot of momentum though, when the Core2 is a huge success, it will take some time for people to realize it, and perhaps give enough time for AMD to come back with a better chip.
The final puzzle piece in in place. Run this software on the CELL processor and have a radio that can receive and decode anything. Oh wait, that means a $5 radio will now be $300, oh well...
Seriously though, this is an awesome idea, its like the internet 20 years ago, or the personal computer 50 years ago. 100 years from everything will be the same exact microscopic chip running specialized software, from trans dimensional warp drives to an automated bionic eyelash.
"$3.7 million in three months"
.5-10M to produce (http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/musicvideo s/musicvideos.html).
This amount isn't even close to paying for the videos themselves, each video today costs
you would be much better off buying dell axim x51v pocket pc, built in touch screen bluetooth, wifi, VGA screen, a buttload of software, and can terminal server to any windows desktop, up to 8GB memory. oh ya, and if you really want you can tape it to a wall socket for god knows what reason.
Before everyone gets all excited and thinks this will fix any MS bugs on your machine, stop right there, and read the first page of the onecare website.
This ISN'T paying for updates and patches. This IS paying for an antivirus and antispyware tools that several other companies already offer. So basically MS is trying to protect you from not only their mistakes, but other software's as well.
You can already get everything offered in the OneCare package for free from other utilities, but for huge companies that push out 1000's of licenses this is probably a cash cow for MS.