Fascinating. As it turns out, I can also set up a CS server [or insert network game here] and play with only my friends there. I don't see what I'm missing out on that I can't get on a PC.
They can go ahead and blow all the money they want to force me to view advertisements. Even if they somehow completely prevent me from stripping them out, I'll still just continue to mute them and look elsewhere as I do for broadcast TV anyways. Their message won't reach me regardless.
Yeah, all my apparent PS3 fanboyism aside, the only "next-gen" console I've bought is a Wii, and it's the only one I'll have for a while. I love it--and I get sick of people saying "Oh, but the graphics aren't great." Pssh, are they nuts? Sure it doesn't rise to PS3 awesomeness, but it's still better than a PS2 anyways. Even as recently as 2 or 3 years ago I would have killed for graphics this good.
Meh, I've made some comments to that tune above. I've been saying it all along. Some of these huge "epic" games are going to require more hardware--hard drives, high definition optical drives, etc. And once you buy all the add-on hardware for the 360 needed to play that stuff the cost is about the same. And you don't even have everything in a neat package like you do with the PS3.
Note, I don't even own a PS3 and don't plan to buy one soon. It's outside my price range. But it's clearly more bang for the buck...or would be if there were more games I was interested in >_>
Most of the issues with the PS3, I imagine, are just programming the damn thing and working with the Cell cores. I'm not saying that's an easy challenge to overcome, but the PS2 was also tough to develop for, and Rockstar has proven themselves to have some smart programmers able to really juice a system for all it's worth. The 360, on the other hand, isn't much more than a stripped down Windows machine, which is why developers (understandably) like working on it. It's comparatively simple.
The problems they'd have to overcome with a game like GTA IV on the 360 are much more difficult, as they involve trying to overcome actual physical limitations. I think that the only solutions are to require a hard drive (or face ridiculous load times) and to require the HD-DVD drive (or release a version on multiple DVDs requiring constant disc swaps--no fun). Basically, it's clear that they're going to produce enough content for this game to fill up a high capacity disc, as there are even PS2 games that fill multiple DVDs, and here we're talking about a next-gen game with thousands of high-resolution textures. So there's no way they can compress that data to a single DVD. Better require the HD-DVD drive than limit the game's possibilities. I don't see any other solution here.
Exactly. While on the one hand I bash the X-Box and the 360 for being *too* PC-like, I think that the introduction of a hard drive and and built-in LAN were two innovations worth bringing to the console market. When Microsoft removed the hard drive from the 360 (the core system aynways) it was like a step backwards--now I still find it too PC-like, but even more stripped down.
As for the disc-size limit, this is also vindicating. I remember lots of people on Slashdot scoffing at Sony's insistence in including Blue-ray. Some of the complaints make some sense--for example that Sony is just doing it to push their HD movie format to the market. But I've said all along that it was well worth having the extra space for games, and if they're going to go with an HD format obviously they're going to use the one that they were instrumental in developing.
I already have a number of PS2 games that have had to come on multiple DVDs. And with the new consoles' support for more complex worlds and higher quality textures and other HD content, it was clear to me that DVDs would be way too limiting for large games like a GTA or a Final Fantasy. When I saw that they were developing GTA IV for the X-Box I became concerned that it would become limited by the 360 core system. I think they should just require the hard drive and require the HD-DVD drive, and then there would be much less problems.
Well, I impulse-bought a Wii in a sense. It was just three weekends ago. I heard rumours in the internets that they'd have them at Circuit City that Sunday morning. I hadn't been planning on buying a Wii that weekend, but I had the cash, so I grabbed some supplies and went right out and got in line that night. Got home the next morning successful, and spent the rest of the day playing "Wii Sleep".
In my area, there are plenty of PS3's on the shelf, waiting for someone to find them a home.
The way you put that almost makes me feel sorry for them. *sigh* I'll probably get one eventually. I'm not as rabidly anti-Sony as some people around here. I'm more rabidly anti-Microsoft. I don't see how someone can get excited about playing online games with a bunch of snot-faced thirteen year olds on what is little more than a stripped down gaming PC in an ugly box.
Most of the things to be pissed at Sony about aren't related to their console division, though some of the higher ups there have said some amazingly stupid things. But that doesn't change the fact that it's an interesting piece of technology, and might be worth giving a home one day. It's not the console's fault that the bosses of its creators are all insane. We'll just see how I feel once some games I'm interested in come out...
Just be clear about something, I wouldn't necessarily call New Hampshire 'very conservative'--just more concerned with personal liberties. If any state allowed gays to marry (okay, they're not calling it 'marriage', but same difference) I'd expect it to be NH.
Look moron, first of all, stop feeding the goddamn troll.
Second of all, how exactly is the CD dead? For some smaller labels and independent bands this may not be an issue, but I'd like to know one place where I can legally obtain CD-quality, DRM-less music downloads complete with high quality liner note scans of any major label artists (not that there are many who I like, but enough to justify buying the occasional CD). Because if such a thing existed, then I would have no need for CDs.
Strongly agreeing here. Like, there's this radio show I listen to on the way to work where they always mention how you can 'blog' on their website, and how people are 'blogging'. No. Your site is not a blog. There's a goddamn forum you can post on. Not a blog. It's annoying.
I'll also add on to this that internet radio is *not* the same as traditional broadcast radio. With internet radio it's easy for a single "broadcaster" to operate an arbitrary number of streams at once--even custom-tailored streams per-user. Under the new rules I think they might have to pay royalties on a per-stream basis, basically eliminating one of the great advantages and innovations of internet radio.
That's why it's difficult. I see where some people are coming from when they reacted to my statement about it "going without saying that guns should be banned on schools". Perhaps "it goes without saying" should have been dropped. The whole point is that I don't want to see students' freedoms infringed upon.
But letting every asshole defend themselves isn't the answer either. Most people don't have the wherewithall to defend themselves in such a situation. But perhaps it should be possible to give citizens access to the same training and vetting as a police officer. Certainly many people would be capable of defending themselves and others in such a situation given the right training. But not anybody. As it is getting a fire arm license is far too easy in most states. And I don't think there's any reason to need it concealed either. If you have the license to carry a gun, the people around you should be able to see that you're armed, and you should be able at any time to show your license, just as a police officer should be able to show their badge. In other words, have the same training and responsibilities, without making it your full time job.
There is one part of what you say that's hard to reconcile--the question of "why should someone be allowed to carry a gun on the street, but not onto a public college campus which is just as likely as anywhere else to have some nutball running around that you'd need to defend yourself from?"
I can't answer that question. There's clearly a slippery slope there and I recognize that. But does being allowed to carry a gun around with you really make you, and the people around you safer? Just look at how responsible the average freshman college student is with a car. Often, not very, which is why many schools ban freshmen from having cars on campus (a policy I disagree with). I wouldn't disagree with disallowing freshmen (or most students for that matter) from having a hand gun on campus. First of all, it's of far less general utility than a car. And while it's easy to misuse a car, it's also much easier to learn to use safely than a gun. I'll give kids the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cars, but you just can't trust people the same way with guns.
Do you think Joe College who just his gun license would necessarily be able to defend himself, even with a hand gun, against an insane killer with an automatic weapon? He might get lucky, but more likely he'll mis-aim and hit someone innocent himself. It takes a lot of training to use a gun safely and effectively. There's a reason we have trained and (sometimes) vetted police officers. It makes a lot more sense to have better trained, better funded police forces than just giving every asshole a gun and saying "defend yourself."
If you're concerned about giving the police too much power, a valid concern, I would be in favor of making the same training available to average citizens if they want to be vigilantes like that. But they should have to go through the same training and the same background checks before we just hand them a gun.
So maybe I would agree to allowing people to carry guns in that case. But really it's still far too easy in most places for irresponsible people to legally get a hold of one. And in a world where responsible people *are* allowed to carry guns around on schools, it's not even necessarily that likely that there will always be someone standing around with the courage and the skills to take on an armed psycho.
This is what I'm worried about though. On the one hand, I think it goes without saying that guns *should* be prohibited on college campuses, and they are.
But now we're already hearing things about how universities are going to have to review their security, and some campuses are going to have to start clamping down on security. But at what cost? College dorms are already bad enough as far as privacy is concerned (I'm fortunate in that I barely spent any time in on-campus housing when I was in school). But the last thing we need is for college campuses to become police states. And it'll get ugly if too many campuses try to clamp down too much, especially on the more liberal campuses.
I had that too for a while. IIRC it was bought by Mindspring. Which in turn disappeared into the ether at some point. I had switched to DSL prior that though.
I *just* ordered Speakeasy DSL for my new apartment. God dammit, now what the fuck do I do?
I guess I'll stick with it for now...it's the least expensive option I have that gives me a static IP, and certainly the most geek friendly ("Want to run a web server? No problem." whereas Verizon blocks port 80 unless you shell out for a business account).
There is a great deal of sci-fi in which cyborg parts (artificial limbs, sensory organs, even full cyborg bodies) are fueled by extracting energy from sugar and carbohydrates in special cyborg "food" consumed like normal food (usually it tastes pretty awful).
Obviously, this research hasn't succeeded in providing nearly enough power to fuel most artificial body parts, but I wonder if it's a first step.
I would say that Halliburton affects millions of Americans too--probably much moreso than it affects Iraqis. Who do you think is footing the bill on Halliburton's no-bid contracts to send mercenary armies with better equipment and training than US forces over to Iraq to fritter away billions of dollars on god knows what? Not the Iraqis I'll tell you that.
Right on. If I could get more or less the same product that I get at the store, that is, lossless, drm-less encoding, and preferably high-quality scans of cover art and liner notes, I'd totally pay for downloads.
Anyone who has bought CDs knows each CD is engineered to have 2-3 good tracks and the rest as mediocre filler songs. The big songs are what they advertise and publicize via concerts, radio, movie soundtracks, etc. The filler take much less money to produce.
I'm so sick of hearing this argument. I don't know what music you listen to, but personally I prefer to listen to artists who put together actual *albums* that are worth listening to as a whole. It doesn't necessarily have to be the case that every single track is golden, but artists who are only capable of turning out one or two hit singles per album plus filler probably aren't worth listening to in the first place.
This concept of downloading individual tracks is foreign to me. And when I consider that most music download sites are giving you less than CD-quality music, usually DRM'd, I remember why I still buy CDs.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up. He/she makes some good points.
(Oh my god, someone agreeing to a counter point made against them on the internet?!)
Fascinating. As it turns out, I can also set up a CS server [or insert network game here] and play with only my friends there. I don't see what I'm missing out on that I can't get on a PC.
They can go ahead and blow all the money they want to force me to view advertisements. Even if they somehow completely prevent me from stripping them out, I'll still just continue to mute them and look elsewhere as I do for broadcast TV anyways. Their message won't reach me regardless.
Yeah, all my apparent PS3 fanboyism aside, the only "next-gen" console I've bought is a Wii, and it's the only one I'll have for a while. I love it--and I get sick of people saying "Oh, but the graphics aren't great." Pssh, are they nuts? Sure it doesn't rise to PS3 awesomeness, but it's still better than a PS2 anyways. Even as recently as 2 or 3 years ago I would have killed for graphics this good.
Meh, I've made some comments to that tune above. I've been saying it all along. Some of these huge "epic" games are going to require more hardware--hard drives, high definition optical drives, etc. And once you buy all the add-on hardware for the 360 needed to play that stuff the cost is about the same. And you don't even have everything in a neat package like you do with the PS3.
Note, I don't even own a PS3 and don't plan to buy one soon. It's outside my price range. But it's clearly more bang for the buck...or would be if there were more games I was interested in >_>
Most of the issues with the PS3, I imagine, are just programming the damn thing and working with the Cell cores. I'm not saying that's an easy challenge to overcome, but the PS2 was also tough to develop for, and Rockstar has proven themselves to have some smart programmers able to really juice a system for all it's worth. The 360, on the other hand, isn't much more than a stripped down Windows machine, which is why developers (understandably) like working on it. It's comparatively simple.
The problems they'd have to overcome with a game like GTA IV on the 360 are much more difficult, as they involve trying to overcome actual physical limitations. I think that the only solutions are to require a hard drive (or face ridiculous load times) and to require the HD-DVD drive (or release a version on multiple DVDs requiring constant disc swaps--no fun). Basically, it's clear that they're going to produce enough content for this game to fill up a high capacity disc, as there are even PS2 games that fill multiple DVDs, and here we're talking about a next-gen game with thousands of high-resolution textures. So there's no way they can compress that data to a single DVD. Better require the HD-DVD drive than limit the game's possibilities. I don't see any other solution here.
Exactly. While on the one hand I bash the X-Box and the 360 for being *too* PC-like, I think that the introduction of a hard drive and and built-in LAN were two innovations worth bringing to the console market. When Microsoft removed the hard drive from the 360 (the core system aynways) it was like a step backwards--now I still find it too PC-like, but even more stripped down.
As for the disc-size limit, this is also vindicating. I remember lots of people on Slashdot scoffing at Sony's insistence in including Blue-ray. Some of the complaints make some sense--for example that Sony is just doing it to push their HD movie format to the market. But I've said all along that it was well worth having the extra space for games, and if they're going to go with an HD format obviously they're going to use the one that they were instrumental in developing.
I already have a number of PS2 games that have had to come on multiple DVDs. And with the new consoles' support for more complex worlds and higher quality textures and other HD content, it was clear to me that DVDs would be way too limiting for large games like a GTA or a Final Fantasy. When I saw that they were developing GTA IV for the X-Box I became concerned that it would become limited by the 360 core system. I think they should just require the hard drive and require the HD-DVD drive, and then there would be much less problems.
Well, I impulse-bought a Wii in a sense. It was just three weekends ago. I heard rumours in the internets that they'd have them at Circuit City that Sunday morning. I hadn't been planning on buying a Wii that weekend, but I had the cash, so I grabbed some supplies and went right out and got in line that night. Got home the next morning successful, and spent the rest of the day playing "Wii Sleep".
In my area, there are plenty of PS3's on the shelf, waiting for someone to find them a home.
The way you put that almost makes me feel sorry for them. *sigh* I'll probably get one eventually. I'm not as rabidly anti-Sony as some people around here. I'm more rabidly anti-Microsoft. I don't see how someone can get excited about playing online games with a bunch of snot-faced thirteen year olds on what is little more than a stripped down gaming PC in an ugly box.
Most of the things to be pissed at Sony about aren't related to their console division, though some of the higher ups there have said some amazingly stupid things. But that doesn't change the fact that it's an interesting piece of technology, and might be worth giving a home one day. It's not the console's fault that the bosses of its creators are all insane. We'll just see how I feel once some games I'm interested in come out...
Just be clear about something, I wouldn't necessarily call New Hampshire 'very conservative'--just more concerned with personal liberties. If any state allowed gays to marry (okay, they're not calling it 'marriage', but same difference) I'd expect it to be NH.
Look moron, first of all, stop feeding the goddamn troll.
Second of all, how exactly is the CD dead? For some smaller labels and independent bands this may not be an issue, but I'd like to know one place where I can legally obtain CD-quality, DRM-less music downloads complete with high quality liner note scans of any major label artists (not that there are many who I like, but enough to justify buying the occasional CD). Because if such a thing existed, then I would have no need for CDs.
Strongly agreeing here. Like, there's this radio show I listen to on the way to work where they always mention how you can 'blog' on their website, and how people are 'blogging'. No. Your site is not a blog. There's a goddamn forum you can post on. Not a blog. It's annoying.
...you could be like me--I block all cookies from all sites until I've added them to my whitelist.
Hrm... I apparently have you marked as an enemy for some reason I can't remember.
It was probably a good reason, but regardless, I agree with you in this case.
I'll also add on to this that internet radio is *not* the same as traditional broadcast radio.
With internet radio it's easy for a single "broadcaster" to operate an arbitrary number of streams at once--even custom-tailored streams per-user. Under the new rules I think they might have to pay royalties on a per-stream basis, basically eliminating one of the great advantages and innovations of internet radio.
That's why it's difficult. I see where some people are coming from when they reacted to my statement about it "going without saying that guns should be banned on schools". Perhaps "it goes without saying" should have been dropped. The whole point is that I don't want to see students' freedoms infringed upon.
But letting every asshole defend themselves isn't the answer either. Most people don't have the wherewithall to defend themselves in such a situation. But perhaps it should be possible to give citizens access to the same training and vetting as a police officer. Certainly many people would be capable of defending themselves and others in such a situation given the right training. But not anybody. As it is getting a fire arm license is far too easy in most states. And I don't think there's any reason to need it concealed either. If you have the license to carry a gun, the people around you should be able to see that you're armed, and you should be able at any time to show your license, just as a police officer should be able to show their badge. In other words, have the same training and responsibilities, without making it your full time job.
There is one part of what you say that's hard to reconcile--the question of "why should someone be allowed to carry a gun on the street, but not onto a public college campus which is just as likely as anywhere else to have some nutball running around that you'd need to defend yourself from?"
I can't answer that question. There's clearly a slippery slope there and I recognize that. But does being allowed to carry a gun around with you really make you, and the people around you safer? Just look at how responsible the average freshman college student is with a car. Often, not very, which is why many schools ban freshmen from having cars on campus (a policy I disagree with). I wouldn't disagree with disallowing freshmen (or most students for that matter) from having a hand gun on campus. First of all, it's of far less general utility than a car. And while it's easy to misuse a car, it's also much easier to learn to use safely than a gun. I'll give kids the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cars, but you just can't trust people the same way with guns.
Do you think Joe College who just his gun license would necessarily be able to defend himself, even with a hand gun, against an insane killer with an automatic weapon? He might get lucky, but more likely he'll mis-aim and hit someone innocent himself. It takes a lot of training to use a gun safely and effectively. There's a reason we have trained and (sometimes) vetted police officers. It makes a lot more sense to have better trained, better funded police forces than just giving every asshole a gun and saying "defend yourself."
If you're concerned about giving the police too much power, a valid concern, I would be in favor of making the same training available to average citizens if they want to be vigilantes like that. But they should have to go through the same training and the same background checks before we just hand them a gun.
So maybe I would agree to allowing people to carry guns in that case. But really it's still far too easy in most places for irresponsible people to legally get a hold of one. And in a world where responsible people *are* allowed to carry guns around on schools, it's not even necessarily that likely that there will always be someone standing around with the courage and the skills to take on an armed psycho.
This is what I'm worried about though. On the one hand, I think it goes without saying that guns *should* be prohibited on college campuses, and they are.
But now we're already hearing things about how universities are going to have to review their security, and some campuses are going to have to start clamping down on security. But at what cost? College dorms are already bad enough as far as privacy is concerned (I'm fortunate in that I barely spent any time in on-campus housing when I was in school). But the last thing we need is for college campuses to become police states. And it'll get ugly if too many campuses try to clamp down too much, especially on the more liberal campuses.
I had that too for a while. IIRC it was bought by Mindspring. Which in turn disappeared into the ether at some point. I had switched to DSL prior that though.
I *just* ordered Speakeasy DSL for my new apartment. God dammit, now what the fuck do I do?
I guess I'll stick with it for now...it's the least expensive option I have that gives me a static IP, and certainly the most geek friendly ("Want to run a web server? No problem." whereas Verizon blocks port 80 unless you shell out for a business account).
God dammit.
There is a great deal of sci-fi in which cyborg parts (artificial limbs, sensory organs, even full cyborg bodies) are fueled by extracting energy from sugar and carbohydrates in special cyborg "food" consumed like normal food (usually it tastes pretty awful).
Obviously, this research hasn't succeeded in providing nearly enough power to fuel most artificial body parts, but I wonder if it's a first step.
I would say that Halliburton affects millions of Americans too--probably much moreso than it affects Iraqis. Who do you think is footing the bill on Halliburton's no-bid contracts to send mercenary armies with better equipment and training than US forces over to Iraq to fritter away billions of dollars on god knows what? Not the Iraqis I'll tell you that.
Right on. If I could get more or less the same product that I get at the store, that is, lossless, drm-less encoding, and preferably high-quality scans of cover art and liner notes, I'd totally pay for downloads.
I'm so sick of hearing this argument. I don't know what music you listen to, but personally I prefer to listen to artists who put together actual *albums* that are worth listening to as a whole. It doesn't necessarily have to be the case that every single track is golden, but artists who are only capable of turning out one or two hit singles per album plus filler probably aren't worth listening to in the first place.
This concept of downloading individual tracks is foreign to me. And when I consider that most music download sites are giving you less than CD-quality music, usually DRM'd, I remember why I still buy CDs.
I'm surprised it took this far down in the comments for one of these to appear. Or maybe they were all already downvoted into oblivion.
/. readers.
This is still, in a way, "stuff that matters". Also note that it got "too many submissions to ignore" so clearly it is of interest to many