On a more positive note, at least Apple manages to describe the technology without resorting to buzzwords ("Active Protection System", "ThinkVantage Technology") or made-up statistics ("up to four times greater impact protection").
That said, the new Powerbooks do feature "PowerPC G4 processors with Velocity Engine".
Re:Offline games require online reporting = BOGUS
on
Steam Users Steamed
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· Score: 1
I'm not sure why you chose to respond to me, I didn't even mention Steam specifically. I did think of it when posting, though, so that's okay.
No offense, but Steam doesn't prevent any of these. In fact it makes it easier to lend to a friend or use on other computers-- just log in anywhere and it will download the entire games list at your whim. You don't even need the disks.
No offense taken, but you're totally wrong: Steam absolutely prevents you from lending a game. There is no such thing as a game, really, there is only your Steam subscription of which the game is only a part.
You can give away your Steam log-in, as you say, but that gives away all your Steam games, not just one. Not a big deal right now, as there only is one game worth mentioning, namely HL2+mods, but if Valve has their way, that will change. In fact, for those people who're still playing HL it already is a limitation: with the WON servers disabled, I don't think you can play both HL1 and HL2 at the same time. (I might be wrong, I'm not up-to-date on HL1, the point still remains.)
What's more, you can't really lend your log-in, at least not easily: after all, once your friend has got your log-in, you can't really take it away. Okay, you can - and so does he! - by changing your password, which is why I said "not easily". But it's still different from getting back your physical copy of the game. Note that I'm aware that this is a problem with cd-keys in general, you couldn't really lend the original HL pre-Steam, either - in fact, that was worse because you had no password you could change. Once your cd-key was out, it was out.
Anyway, there's still more: I would assume Steam's terms of conduct have got something to say on account-lending. Sharing accounts certainly is a violation of the TOC, apart from the fact that they are doing their best to prevent it by technical means, and lending accounts might also be a TOC, it's not very different from sharing them after all. Steam accounts are bought and sold on occasion - the only way to sell a used version of HL2 - but I'm not sure if that's in violation of the TOC. I'm also not sure what violating the TOC might (in theory) ensue - at worst a cancellation of the whole account, with the obvious consequences.
Just punch in their account name and password and you could both play offline.
Since that's (I assume) a violation of the TOC, you might as well download the relevant cracks and be done with it. Both works, neither is really an argument for Steam.
This certainly wouldn't be my main complaint, but I have seen a lot of people look a bit puzzled at first. Kilobit are a common unit, but mostly just when dealing with the lowest layers of network communication. As you say, modems, NICs, wireless NICs, and some types of computer periphery. But really once you're dealing with software, kilobyte/s are just way more common - I don't think I know any web browser, P2P software or FTP client that measures downloads in kilobit/s. And writing Kb instead of KB isn't very expressive - it's a convention that's often broken and not known to all that many people.
But as I said, while it's a tad annoying from a GUI designer's perspective, it's not really a concern. The friends list is a concern though, I wish they'd get that to work properly. Although it already works a lot better than a month ago.
Re:Offline games require online reporting = BOGUS
on
Steam Users Steamed
·
· Score: 1
If nobody pirated their games, there would be no need for the DRM.
Not true. IP companies would probably still want DRM to prevent previously unregulated or fair use. Like lending a game to a friend, making copies of music and movies for your own usage, or watching a movie bought on another continent.
Most were desktop-sized cases with the monitor on top. (Oh, the horror!)
Yes, terrible. We have some of them left at work, often housing modern systems. I don't mind the desktop-sized cases - these days, you could just turn them on their size and have midi-towers. But putting the monitor on top?! That's just totally insane. And worse, many people seem to think this is actually better because the center of the monitor is at the height of your eyes. I wonder if that's where they hold a book when reading it, too...
Try rereading the grandparents post. He appears to be aware of the geo traceroute tools, but he says this is something different. You blatantly missed his point.
OK, so Winamp isn't installed by default, but is is becoming the player of choice for the IT cogniscenti in place of WMP.
Hm. First off, I wouldn't say that Winamp is becoming anything - it already is, and has been for a while. People, and not only "IT cogniscenti" (aka geeks), have been using Winamp in the days when WMP wasn't a generally known acronym. To me, Winamp was the player of the period when MP3 was still new (remember oth.net and AudioGalaxy?). I kind of doubt the number of users is still increasing, in fact I imagine that if anything, the number is decreasing. I might be wrong, though - so, what is the choice among the geeks these days? Do you all still use Winamp? Personally, I've been using Foobar for a long time now, mostly because of it's small footprint, straightforward interface and out-of-the-box global hotkeys. Because I'm so happy with it, I really haven't even looked out for any other new players, so I'm curious as to whether I've missed anything. (And I don't mean iTunes for Windows.)
You could have been doing this for years with many PDAs, and without resorting to odd UMDs. There are also plenty of standalone portable video players, think iPod with mpeg video instead of audio.
I had started to write a reply, but then I saw some of the other posts on the topic of knowledge and truth and I realized there really is not much of a point in discussing such the nature of knowledge and faith here on Slashdot. I think therefore I am.;)
See, that's what I was talking about, one of the more annoying things people do on the internet is display an extremely condescending attitude. Now that should be banned.
No mangling of any kind is involved, neither by Slashdot/Slashcode nor by your browser. Zonk (initially) posted a relative URL by accident, instead of an absolute URL.
Yes, easily. And in about ten thousand ways, all much worse than saying "shit" (oh, no!). Among all the rudeness that you routinely experience on the web and in online games, swearing doesn't even appear on the radar. I hate it when people (yes, the FCC, that is you) are so unsophisticated about swearing, they're just interjections for crying out loud, they don't even mean anything, really.
Slashdot Mirror
On a more positive note, at least Apple manages to describe the technology without resorting to buzzwords ("Active Protection System", "ThinkVantage Technology") or made-up statistics ("up to four times greater impact protection").
That said, the new Powerbooks do feature "PowerPC G4 processors with Velocity Engine".
I'm not sure why you chose to respond to me, I didn't even mention Steam specifically. I did think of it when posting, though, so that's okay.
No offense, but Steam doesn't prevent any of these. In fact it makes it easier to lend to a friend or use on other computers-- just log in anywhere and it will download the entire games list at your whim. You don't even need the disks.
No offense taken, but you're totally wrong: Steam absolutely prevents you from lending a game. There is no such thing as a game, really, there is only your Steam subscription of which the game is only a part.
You can give away your Steam log-in, as you say, but that gives away all your Steam games, not just one. Not a big deal right now, as there only is one game worth mentioning, namely HL2+mods, but if Valve has their way, that will change. In fact, for those people who're still playing HL it already is a limitation: with the WON servers disabled, I don't think you can play both HL1 and HL2 at the same time. (I might be wrong, I'm not up-to-date on HL1, the point still remains.)
What's more, you can't really lend your log-in, at least not easily: after all, once your friend has got your log-in, you can't really take it away. Okay, you can - and so does he! - by changing your password, which is why I said "not easily". But it's still different from getting back your physical copy of the game. Note that I'm aware that this is a problem with cd-keys in general, you couldn't really lend the original HL pre-Steam, either - in fact, that was worse because you had no password you could change. Once your cd-key was out, it was out.
Anyway, there's still more: I would assume Steam's terms of conduct have got something to say on account-lending. Sharing accounts certainly is a violation of the TOC, apart from the fact that they are doing their best to prevent it by technical means, and lending accounts might also be a TOC, it's not very different from sharing them after all. Steam accounts are bought and sold on occasion - the only way to sell a used version of HL2 - but I'm not sure if that's in violation of the TOC. I'm also not sure what violating the TOC might (in theory) ensue - at worst a cancellation of the whole account, with the obvious consequences.
Just punch in their account name and password and you could both play offline.
Since that's (I assume) a violation of the TOC, you might as well download the relevant cracks and be done with it. Both works, neither is really an argument for Steam.
This certainly wouldn't be my main complaint, but I have seen a lot of people look a bit puzzled at first. Kilobit are a common unit, but mostly just when dealing with the lowest layers of network communication. As you say, modems, NICs, wireless NICs, and some types of computer periphery. But really once you're dealing with software, kilobyte/s are just way more common - I don't think I know any web browser, P2P software or FTP client that measures downloads in kilobit/s. And writing Kb instead of KB isn't very expressive - it's a convention that's often broken and not known to all that many people.
But as I said, while it's a tad annoying from a GUI designer's perspective, it's not really a concern. The friends list is a concern though, I wish they'd get that to work properly. Although it already works a lot better than a month ago.
If nobody pirated their games, there would be no need for the DRM.
Not true. IP companies would probably still want DRM to prevent previously unregulated or fair use. Like lending a game to a friend, making copies of music and movies for your own usage, or watching a movie bought on another continent.
In other words, you like to take other people's words and give them a totally unrelated spin.
It's got nothing to do with either law or morality. It's just got to do with posting flamebaits and being smug. Is that it?
Most were desktop-sized cases with the monitor on top. (Oh, the horror!)
Yes, terrible. We have some of them left at work, often housing modern systems. I don't mind the desktop-sized cases - these days, you could just turn them on their size and have midi-towers. But putting the monitor on top?! That's just totally insane. And worse, many people seem to think this is actually better because the center of the monitor is at the height of your eyes. I wonder if that's where they hold a book when reading it, too...
No, a lot of people don't do that, geeks rip their entire CD collection to their HD.
you void your warranty
No, you don't. Or at least that was the predominant interpretation last time I looked. Got any reference to back that up?
What, you mean it has an in-built heat spreader? Cool.
IIRC MS patented boolean values a few months ago?
Yep, that's tr... correct. (Actually, I have no idea.)
Try rereading the grandparents post. He appears to be aware of the geo traceroute tools, but he says this is something different. You blatantly missed his point.
That makes no sense. If a language stops being used then it dies. It doesn't have to "evolve".
It's an observation. If a language has stopped changing, that's typically due to the fact that nobody uses it anymore and it is in a phase of decline.
The latter. I do it all the time. It's fairly embarrasing. :)
I didn't bash anyone.
None of them is particularly famous for developing games.
Woohoo, the Iraqi information minister is posting on Slashdot!
OK, so Winamp isn't installed by default, but is is becoming the player of choice for the IT cogniscenti in place of WMP.
Hm. First off, I wouldn't say that Winamp is becoming anything - it already is, and has been for a while. People, and not only "IT cogniscenti" (aka geeks), have been using Winamp in the days when WMP wasn't a generally known acronym. To me, Winamp was the player of the period when MP3 was still new (remember oth.net and AudioGalaxy?). I kind of doubt the number of users is still increasing, in fact I imagine that if anything, the number is decreasing.
I might be wrong, though - so, what is the choice among the geeks these days? Do you all still use Winamp? Personally, I've been using Foobar for a long time now, mostly because of it's small footprint, straightforward interface and out-of-the-box global hotkeys. Because I'm so happy with it, I really haven't even looked out for any other new players, so I'm curious as to whether I've missed anything. (And I don't mean iTunes for Windows.)
Huh? He said: "Jitter is what that 10K tone test measures." Seems pretty clear he wasn't referring to the frequency response.
You could have been doing this for years with many PDAs, and without resorting to odd UMDs. There are also plenty of standalone portable video players, think iPod with mpeg video instead of audio.
I had started to write a reply, but then I saw some of the other posts on the topic of knowledge and truth and I realized there really is not much of a point in discussing such the nature of knowledge and faith here on Slashdot. I think therefore I am. ;)
No, whether you connect via DVI or analog port doesn't make a difference.
See, that's what I was talking about, one of the more annoying things people do on the internet is display an extremely condescending attitude. Now that should be banned.
Some information: Wikipedia on Project Xanadu
No mangling of any kind is involved, neither by Slashdot/Slashcode nor by your browser. Zonk (initially) posted a relative URL by accident, instead of an absolute URL.
Really, can you be any more uncivilized?
Yes, easily. And in about ten thousand ways, all much worse than saying "shit" (oh, no!). Among all the rudeness that you routinely experience on the web and in online games, swearing doesn't even appear on the radar. I hate it when people (yes, the FCC, that is you) are so unsophisticated about swearing, they're just interjections for crying out loud, they don't even mean anything, really.