The again, Microsoft's been screwing the HD content crowd for a while now. No clear QAM support (except for Cablecards, which is pointless), the Cablecard limitations, no DirectTV support (it's been "coming soon" since like early 2006), and so on. Even their MVPs are starting to lose their patience.
I played the game for a bit, but I could never get into the touchscreen controls. Maybe I'm too used to "old school" Zelda, but it felt off to me when I was using a stylus. I can see how some folks would fall in love with the game, mind you, but it didn't resonate with me, for whatever reason. Maybe it gets better further in?
I actually disagree with your main premise. Many game companies are selling cheap, "casual" games that have low system requirements and broad appeal. Those would be the bass boats you're talking about. It's just that the "yacht market", so to speak, is a lot more visible, because those boats are a lot more impressive than some bass boat. And when you start shifting down those yachts to make them less "elitist" (whatever the hell that means in the gaming context), you wind up with a bass boat. High-end games require high-end hardware - you can't make a purse out of a sow's ear.
I also disagree with your secondary premise - HT enthusiasts are always looking for the next best thing, and they spend money to do so. There's cool new gear coming out every year, much of it quite expensive.
It really depends on how much you make. If you're pulling 200 grand a year in pre-tax household-income, have no kids, don't have a huge car and house payment, and don't have any other serious hobbies or money-sinks... no, $500 isn't a whole hell of a lot for a system upgrade that'll last you for at least another year.
OTOH, if you're making $40k a year in pre-tax household income, have three kids, a large house and car payment, and you've got CC debt issues... yes, $500 is a significant, large sum of money. Context is everything, I guess.
In the grand scheme of "expensive hobbies", PC gaming is pretty tame. Compare it to automobiles, home theaters, some equipment-heavy sports, and so forth, and PC gaming looks reasonable enough. With the relative cheapness of RAM and CPUs these days, I'd argue it's even more affordable. That doesn't solve the "don't you have better things to spend your money on?" argument, but it does put the issue as a whole into context.
The real solution is for the "inclusionists" to fork Wikipedia into "WikiKnowledge". I've followed the issue for a while as an observer, and that's pretty much the answer I've come to. There are people who want an encyclopedia, and there are people who want the sum of human knowledge. The groups seem more or less equal in number, so why not accommodate them?
I doubt I'll ever contribute to Wikipedia. I read the discussion pages, see the way people just go crazy at each other over edits, and decide that I don't really need the hassle. There's no academic discussion going on most of the time - just whines and rants about procedure that often devolve into nasty personal battles. As far as I'm concerned, it's no longer a place where everyone can contribute freely.
Or, you know, they found it more efficient to increase their investment in technology rather than just people, which you could derive from simple labor economics. I'm getting a little tired of union shills claiming that they alone were what gave us a 40-hour work week. It's almost certainly not true.
Sure, and there are some consumers who violate "fair use" by shoving it up on the net for everyone to download. Laying the entire situation down on the media companies is willful blindness.
"The question is *why* do you need to buy "large quantities of food" at once."
Because walking to the store every day is an inefficient time-waster? I only have so many hours in my day, and taking the friggin' _metro_ to the supermarket every other day is a great way to waste them. We buy plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as it is. And, if your family is five or six people, including three or four hungry kids, your scenario just won't work to begin with. That is a LOT of food.
Sorry, but my original point stands. And your insistence that Greenbelt Park is somehow a good vacation spot is HILARIOUS. Compared to many of the other parks in the state, it's just friggin' awful. Plus, you aren't going to be taking two to four kids camping with just backpacks and a sleeping bag.
My original point stands: the OP's insistence that city dwellers never need cars is BS.
The "subway" isn't a good substitute for a car. If I want to go to downtown DC, sure, the metro is great. If I want to go to the supermarket and buy large quantities of food at a time for my family, it's basically worthless. And, of course, forget actually going off to the beach for a small vacation - the metro sure isn't going to take you there. Buses? Well, those are good in a pinch, but you can't haul back any serious amount of stuff - there's just no room to put it. Cabs? You'll end up spending a fortune if you use them with any regularity.
No, people with families often have a need for cars, even in DC. It's entirely unfair to say "no need to drive" as some kind of general rule for DC residents. I think singles can often make do without, but needs change tremendously once you have kids.
Do I need to drive to the Apple store? Probably not. But that's not what you said.
You managed to quote your final point, but it's a good one that no one's brought up. There's a lot of people here who are somehow betting that the open source community is going to somehow toss together a driver that's better than AMD's. I'll believe that when I see it. I think they'll get compiz/beryl working pretty well, but the 3D support is going to be buggy and incomplete - for one thing, some of the OpenGL extensions have licensing issues, IIRC (anyone remember the S3TC issues?).
If nukes aren't on the table as options, they're functionally worthless. That is to say, if I have a gun, but I am NEVER EVER, under any circumstances going to use it, I functionally do not have a gun, and it has no protective value at all. If I am never going to use nuclear weapons, I don't have them. Having them is a rather useful thing when it comes to fending off and deterring invasions and such, so any sane person who's interested in defending their country is naturally going to keep that option around.
Now, that's not to say I think nukes are an option that should be used in anything but the most extreme, dire situations. But just putting them on the table isn't crazy or irrational. The French have also, very clearly, pointed out that they have no qualms about responding to nuclear attacks on their soil with nukes of their own, IIRC.
And as for international terrorism, it's all state sponsored at some level, directly or indirectly. If you reduce the funding governments to smoking glass ruins, that'll put a pretty good crimp in it. The bin Laden family didn't make all their money in a vaccuum.
Again, not advocating that - only trying to point out that it's not a idea completely divorced from reality.
Spelljammer was a bit of a mess, even back in 2E. The two main problems:
1. As a "over-world", so to speak, it never really integrated that well into any of the component campaigns, such as Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. Spelljammers only existed in a spelljammer campaign, which made it feel more bolted-on than an integral part of the AD&D setting (like the elemental planes, for instance).
2. Ship-to-ship rules were ugly. I think modern gameplay designers could fix this, but it's not something I remember fondly.
I hate to say it, but Planescape was an improvement. Integrated much more elegantly into the existing settings. Spelljammer did have its moments, but it's dead now, and I'd be shocked if it was ever resurrected.
Now, Dark Sun was a campaign that died a death it didn't deserve...
The blurb makes it sound like MCE is completely incapable of receiving HD content. That's not true at all.
You can actually get HD content into your MCE system already. You've got either OTA HDTV, which is officially supported, or clear QAM (which isn't, but you can do it with HDHomeRuns (via hack)). Clear QAM is going to be officially supported soon, or so goes the current hints from Microsoft.
Of course, that's not going to get you very much compared to CableCard, which is really the problem here. But saying that MCE doesn't support HD just ain't the case.
Something that drives me particularly nuts about Linux is the number of regressions that happen. Don't get me wrong - I love Linux. But it feels like, in their haste to get things done better than ever, they sometimes reintroduce old flaws.
Case-in-point: Firewire, and more precisely, multi-LUN support. Sounds esoteric, but it's actually not too uncommon to find hardware that needs it these days. When 2.6 came out, 1394 (as a whole) was just plain broken. They finally got it fixed in 2.6.12 or so, but then, in 2.6.22, they introduced a new Firewire stack - which promptly broke multi-LUN support. Maybe not everyone needs this, but I'm heavily dependent on it. I'm now in a position where I can't do any kernel upgrades until I've confirmed the fix has made it into 2.6.23 final.
I know it's something of a petty gripe, but I'd appreciate it if Linus could do a better job of making sure regressions like that didn't slip back in. I don't need a repeat of the bad weather that we've already had.:)
And, the hilarious part is, the support I get through email is top-notch. Never had a problem like you hear about with calling in. They'll add/remove services, fix billing problems, or whatever.
Exactly. Gutmann's previous criticisms were laughably misinformed for the most part, and this is no different. He's warning us about HDCP? Welcome to 2005, Peter!
I have similar questions about what happened with the Firewire stack. I run a large number of 1394 drives, and I've always suspected the performance I was getting from them was rather sub-par, even when using the good TI chipets for the controllers.
If anyone could shine a little light on this, I'd be quite pleased.
I agree. The paper is poorly written from a straight grammatical and spelling perspective. If that wasn't bad enough, the research done to reach the conclusions in no way justifies them. If you want data on demographic shifts, you need to _talk to the site owners_ and mine their data. Reading a lot of profiles isn't good enough.
That said, the ideas it presents are interesting, but the sheer hubris that the author has in thinking anyone would ever cite that work is astonishing.
Having legitimate commercial interests take hold would probably be a nice improvement over the copyright infringement free-for-all it is right now. As far as 99.9% of students care, it's just a really fast place to trade warez and porn.
I really can't believe this made the front page. The questions are badly written, and the question itself could have been answered with some basic Internet research. RAID isn't an esoteric topic anymore, folks!
This place has really gone downhill. I thought Firehose was supposed to stop stuff like this, not increase it!
Anyways, just to be slightly on topic: there's no one answer to this question. It depends on your budget, your motherboard, your OS, and, most importantly, your actual redundancy needs. This kind of thing is addressed by large articles/essays, not brief comments.
You seemed to have missed the point that with fewer analog channels, they don't need to compress the digital ones as much. In any event, I believe it's a per-market thing - in DC, at least the local digital channels look fantastic.
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The again, Microsoft's been screwing the HD content crowd for a while now. No clear QAM support (except for Cablecards, which is pointless), the Cablecard limitations, no DirectTV support (it's been "coming soon" since like early 2006), and so on. Even their MVPs are starting to lose their patience.
I played the game for a bit, but I could never get into the touchscreen controls. Maybe I'm too used to "old school" Zelda, but it felt off to me when I was using a stylus. I can see how some folks would fall in love with the game, mind you, but it didn't resonate with me, for whatever reason. Maybe it gets better further in?
I actually disagree with your main premise. Many game companies are selling cheap, "casual" games that have low system requirements and broad appeal. Those would be the bass boats you're talking about. It's just that the "yacht market", so to speak, is a lot more visible, because those boats are a lot more impressive than some bass boat. And when you start shifting down those yachts to make them less "elitist" (whatever the hell that means in the gaming context), you wind up with a bass boat. High-end games require high-end hardware - you can't make a purse out of a sow's ear.
I also disagree with your secondary premise - HT enthusiasts are always looking for the next best thing, and they spend money to do so. There's cool new gear coming out every year, much of it quite expensive.
It really depends on how much you make. If you're pulling 200 grand a year in pre-tax household-income, have no kids, don't have a huge car and house payment, and don't have any other serious hobbies or money-sinks... no, $500 isn't a whole hell of a lot for a system upgrade that'll last you for at least another year.
OTOH, if you're making $40k a year in pre-tax household income, have three kids, a large house and car payment, and you've got CC debt issues... yes, $500 is a significant, large sum of money. Context is everything, I guess.
In the grand scheme of "expensive hobbies", PC gaming is pretty tame. Compare it to automobiles, home theaters, some equipment-heavy sports, and so forth, and PC gaming looks reasonable enough. With the relative cheapness of RAM and CPUs these days, I'd argue it's even more affordable. That doesn't solve the "don't you have better things to spend your money on?" argument, but it does put the issue as a whole into context.
The real solution is for the "inclusionists" to fork Wikipedia into "WikiKnowledge". I've followed the issue for a while as an observer, and that's pretty much the answer I've come to. There are people who want an encyclopedia, and there are people who want the sum of human knowledge. The groups seem more or less equal in number, so why not accommodate them?
I doubt I'll ever contribute to Wikipedia. I read the discussion pages, see the way people just go crazy at each other over edits, and decide that I don't really need the hassle. There's no academic discussion going on most of the time - just whines and rants about procedure that often devolve into nasty personal battles. As far as I'm concerned, it's no longer a place where everyone can contribute freely.
Or, you know, they found it more efficient to increase their investment in technology rather than just people, which you could derive from simple labor economics. I'm getting a little tired of union shills claiming that they alone were what gave us a 40-hour work week. It's almost certainly not true.
Sure, and there are some consumers who violate "fair use" by shoving it up on the net for everyone to download. Laying the entire situation down on the media companies is willful blindness.
"The question is *why* do you need to buy "large quantities of food" at once."
Because walking to the store every day is an inefficient time-waster? I only have so many hours in my day, and taking the friggin' _metro_ to the supermarket every other day is a great way to waste them. We buy plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables as it is. And, if your family is five or six people, including three or four hungry kids, your scenario just won't work to begin with. That is a LOT of food.
Sorry, but my original point stands. And your insistence that Greenbelt Park is somehow a good vacation spot is HILARIOUS. Compared to many of the other parks in the state, it's just friggin' awful. Plus, you aren't going to be taking two to four kids camping with just backpacks and a sleeping bag.
My original point stands: the OP's insistence that city dwellers never need cars is BS.
The "subway" isn't a good substitute for a car. If I want to go to downtown DC, sure, the metro is great. If I want to go to the supermarket and buy large quantities of food at a time for my family, it's basically worthless. And, of course, forget actually going off to the beach for a small vacation - the metro sure isn't going to take you there. Buses? Well, those are good in a pinch, but you can't haul back any serious amount of stuff - there's just no room to put it. Cabs? You'll end up spending a fortune if you use them with any regularity.
No, people with families often have a need for cars, even in DC. It's entirely unfair to say "no need to drive" as some kind of general rule for DC residents. I think singles can often make do without, but needs change tremendously once you have kids.
Do I need to drive to the Apple store? Probably not. But that's not what you said.
You managed to quote your final point, but it's a good one that no one's brought up. There's a lot of people here who are somehow betting that the open source community is going to somehow toss together a driver that's better than AMD's. I'll believe that when I see it. I think they'll get compiz/beryl working pretty well, but the 3D support is going to be buggy and incomplete - for one thing, some of the OpenGL extensions have licensing issues, IIRC (anyone remember the S3TC issues?).
"In addition to this, the Foleo had a very limited amount of application that could run out of the box, making it not very practical/useful to use."
That's for sure. The Foleo's specs compare pretty well... to the two-year-old smartphone next to me.
If nukes aren't on the table as options, they're functionally worthless. That is to say, if I have a gun, but I am NEVER EVER, under any circumstances going to use it, I functionally do not have a gun, and it has no protective value at all. If I am never going to use nuclear weapons, I don't have them. Having them is a rather useful thing when it comes to fending off and deterring invasions and such, so any sane person who's interested in defending their country is naturally going to keep that option around.
Now, that's not to say I think nukes are an option that should be used in anything but the most extreme, dire situations. But just putting them on the table isn't crazy or irrational. The French have also, very clearly, pointed out that they have no qualms about responding to nuclear attacks on their soil with nukes of their own, IIRC.
And as for international terrorism, it's all state sponsored at some level, directly or indirectly. If you reduce the funding governments to smoking glass ruins, that'll put a pretty good crimp in it. The bin Laden family didn't make all their money in a vaccuum.
Again, not advocating that - only trying to point out that it's not a idea completely divorced from reality.
Spelljammer was a bit of a mess, even back in 2E. The two main problems:
1. As a "over-world", so to speak, it never really integrated that well into any of the component campaigns, such as Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. Spelljammers only existed in a spelljammer campaign, which made it feel more bolted-on than an integral part of the AD&D setting (like the elemental planes, for instance).
2. Ship-to-ship rules were ugly. I think modern gameplay designers could fix this, but it's not something I remember fondly.
I hate to say it, but Planescape was an improvement. Integrated much more elegantly into the existing settings. Spelljammer did have its moments, but it's dead now, and I'd be shocked if it was ever resurrected.
Now, Dark Sun was a campaign that died a death it didn't deserve...
Thanks for the confirmation of that. I'm looking forward to 2.6.23 now. :)
The blurb makes it sound like MCE is completely incapable of receiving HD content. That's not true at all.
You can actually get HD content into your MCE system already. You've got either OTA HDTV, which is officially supported, or clear QAM (which isn't, but you can do it with HDHomeRuns (via hack)). Clear QAM is going to be officially supported soon, or so goes the current hints from Microsoft.
Of course, that's not going to get you very much compared to CableCard, which is really the problem here. But saying that MCE doesn't support HD just ain't the case.
Something that drives me particularly nuts about Linux is the number of regressions that happen. Don't get me wrong - I love Linux. But it feels like, in their haste to get things done better than ever, they sometimes reintroduce old flaws.
:)
Case-in-point: Firewire, and more precisely, multi-LUN support. Sounds esoteric, but it's actually not too uncommon to find hardware that needs it these days. When 2.6 came out, 1394 (as a whole) was just plain broken. They finally got it fixed in 2.6.12 or so, but then, in 2.6.22, they introduced a new Firewire stack - which promptly broke multi-LUN support. Maybe not everyone needs this, but I'm heavily dependent on it. I'm now in a position where I can't do any kernel upgrades until I've confirmed the fix has made it into 2.6.23 final.
I know it's something of a petty gripe, but I'd appreciate it if Linus could do a better job of making sure regressions like that didn't slip back in. I don't need a repeat of the bad weather that we've already had.
And, the hilarious part is, the support I get through email is top-notch. Never had a problem like you hear about with calling in. They'll add/remove services, fix billing problems, or whatever.
If you use Sprint, use the email support!
Exactly. Gutmann's previous criticisms were laughably misinformed for the most part, and this is no different. He's warning us about HDCP? Welcome to 2005, Peter!
Um, no. EDGE is 2G (or 2.5G, whatever). EVDO is 3G - it runs at the same speed as HSDPA (and has better roll-out in the US, I may add).
And also, UMTS == HSDPA.
I have similar questions about what happened with the Firewire stack. I run a large number of 1394 drives, and I've always suspected the performance I was getting from them was rather sub-par, even when using the good TI chipets for the controllers.
If anyone could shine a little light on this, I'd be quite pleased.
Huh? I recharge my smartphone nightly. That's a year or less of battery life before replacement. That's flatly unacceptable.
I agree. The paper is poorly written from a straight grammatical and spelling perspective. If that wasn't bad enough, the research done to reach the conclusions in no way justifies them. If you want data on demographic shifts, you need to _talk to the site owners_ and mine their data. Reading a lot of profiles isn't good enough.
That said, the ideas it presents are interesting, but the sheer hubris that the author has in thinking anyone would ever cite that work is astonishing.
Having legitimate commercial interests take hold would probably be a nice improvement over the copyright infringement free-for-all it is right now. As far as 99.9% of students care, it's just a really fast place to trade warez and porn.
I really can't believe this made the front page. The questions are badly written, and the question itself could have been answered with some basic Internet research. RAID isn't an esoteric topic anymore, folks!
This place has really gone downhill. I thought Firehose was supposed to stop stuff like this, not increase it!
Anyways, just to be slightly on topic: there's no one answer to this question. It depends on your budget, your motherboard, your OS, and, most importantly, your actual redundancy needs. This kind of thing is addressed by large articles/essays, not brief comments.
You seemed to have missed the point that with fewer analog channels, they don't need to compress the digital ones as much. In any event, I believe it's a per-market thing - in DC, at least the local digital channels look fantastic.