Alright, this is the first argument that sounds reasonable to me -- all the comments saying how it doesn't matter because no one has HDMI support seem kind of self-defeating.
I think your argument (mostly) convinced me, assuming the issue is clear when you buy the console. I'm still skeptical about the HDTV/blu-ray strategy in the first place, but I'll accept that it isn't necessarily inconsistent with this decision.
By the end of the PS3's shelf-life, most people will have HDTVs. Remember, we're talking about a product with a projected 6-year lifespan.
Most people will have HDTVs 6 years from now? How does that fit with the rather lackluster sales so far, combined with declining median income (in the US, anyway)?
Is a feature worthless just because "only" a third of your current buyers will be able to use it?
I never said it was worthless -- I'm questioning whether it's worth $200+, especially since without this feature the pool of buyers could be much larger (when you say 1/3 of the buyers will have HDTV, you're already restricting the buyers to a very small, elite group, and admitting that unlike the PS1 and PS2, the average gamer is not going to be buying these things anytime soon -- nowhere near 1/3 of consumers own HDTVs right now).
If the system was debuting at $3-400 like the 360, I could see myself buying it someday, after a couple price drops, given the right game library. But debuting at $5-600, even after price drops it would be an awful lot on my budget -- I couldn't justify that purchase even for another Guitar Hero game, no matter how pretty it looks on the HDTV that I also can't afford.
The argument that "it's all okay because consoles have long life cycles" doesn't quite work out. Yes, half of PS2 sales were after the first couple years -- but if during the first couple years the console had only sold, say, a third as many units as it actually did, I'm willing to bet the remaining years would have seen a similar drop. You can't just say it's alright for a console to not sell well/not have noticeable advantages for the first couple years, because people will notice these things -- game publishers will respond by reallocating their budgets away from the PS3, gamers will notice that the PS3 isn't the console their friends are buying, and even when (if) people can afford HDTVs and PS3s later on, major market share damage will already have been done. If the first two years are bad, publishers will not keep pumping money in, thinking "well in a few years when most people own HDTVs they'll start buying the PS3, and then people will come flocking to buy our back library of games!" -- even if that was good reasoning, which I don't think it is, media publishers tend to think on a pretty short timeline. They'll put money into the platforms where they get the sales.
Tell me again why people are getting bent out of shape here - it's a cheap $20 cable that 5% of PS3 owners are going to want/need
But that's my entire point -- Sony's fundamental premise for this entire console is that most serious gamers will want/need HDMI and blu-ray support. If this is not true, and the percentage is closer to the 5% that you claim, then Sony's entire strategy for this generation is invalidated, and they should have made a $300-400 console instead. If you're already assuming that the vast majority even of the self-selected population that is actually willing to spend $600 on a PS3 is still not going to be able to use the most expensive part of the system, then what is that most expensive part for?
If most people would have to buy a downgrade cable, then why are they charging $600 for HDMI and Blu-ray support that most people will be unable to use? If you're going to charge this much money with the exclusive excuse that it's the best possible quality, then why assume by default that your users will not be able to take advantage of that quality? Doesn't that kind of blow the whole party line for why it's okay to charge $600?
If you have $600 to drop on a PS3, you have another $20 for cables, true. But if they're advertising this as some sort of luxury sports car of the gaming world, and charging a huge amount for HD and Blu-ray, why assume by default that people won't be able to use them? If you're correct that such a "tiny percentage of homes have HDMI-ready TVs" that it is a negligible issue for prospective PS3 owners, then where's the damn $300 version of the console that doesn't include HDMI/Blu-ray support?
The solution of making sure that there isn't a single person, anywhere on earth, that doesn't want to blow up an airplane seems a little... unrealistic.
Of course it's unrealistic. Most straw men are.
What the GP actually said was that we can't keep deadly weapons off planes, and that we should promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us. Not a world where there is not even a single person who wants to attack us, which would be impossible, but ideally at least one where there are drastically fewer such people than there are today. Since today the number of people who want to attack us is going up, we're kind of going in the wrong direction with this.
Now, I do think it's a little idealistic to suggest that the problem can be (essentially) solved that way, but it's certainly a reasonable criticism to say we should be putting a lot more weight on this aspect of things than we are now.
even though you say that searches are completely ineffective, aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily.
Another fallacy. There are many things preventing airplanes from falling from the sky daily, and "random" searches are only one, and certainly not the most important. It is entirely possible to argue that these searches are not an effective way of preventing terrorism -- the fact that no one has brought down a plane just lately does not refute it.
No matter what we do, people will always find ways to blow up airplanes. We can and should find ways to make sure it happens less often, but that doesn't mean we should do everything that might make it happen less often. My desire to fly has dropped more because of the absurd overreaction in security policies than the possibility of an attack.
This isn't a good excuse. It's more than an "inconvenience" to deny someone the right to read and sign their own service contracts, it's completely uncalled for. If people over 70 want assistance they're free to have it, of course, but comparing it to speed limits is a bad analogy. It's more akin to taking away someone's car, regardless of their driving skill, when they turn 70.
It really doesn't inspire my confidence in the reviewer to hear a) they're running Internet Explorer
It would in fact be a pretty incompetent reviewer that didn't even try it on the dominant web browser (yes, that's still IE, however the trends are going).
b) running a beta version no less
Alright, I'm with you on this one. This falls in line with my "incompetent" description above, since IE beta is not the dominant web browser, and can be expected to have problems.
c) can't tell that it's obviously a problem with IE 7 (Beta 3) (which no doubt Google didn't test it on) rather than Writely.
And neither can you, since you didn't try it on regular IE, presumably (from the rest of your comment). Granted, that's a likely source of trouble, but you say they "can't tell" the problem is IE7 as though you have some evidence that it is true. The real issue here is that the reviewer didn't bother to try it on a more standard browser, not that they didn't immediately know some "fact" you're assuming.
All that said... I ran it on Firefox and had no problems:)
Anecdote != evidence
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The Expert Mind
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· Score: 3, Insightful
A lot of people are pointing out that natural ability vs. training isn't a boolean, so the article oversimplifies. But a lot of people are also saying "Natural ability is necessary, I know because I spent 10 years doing [whatever]" or "I saw people who spent 10 years working on [whatever] and they still aren't the best."
That's making very unwarranted assumptions: no one is saying that it's enough to work for 10 years at something, no matter how you work at it. People who drive every day for 10 years still aren't typically world-class drivers, because they aren't spending that daily driving time doing anything that would lead to real improvement. Even people who work hard to improve at something, for years, can still make little or no progress because of how they are working or being taught, completely independent of any innate ability they may have.
I believe in innate ability, and I think it would be very difficult to honestly argue it doesn't exist at all. But I think it can be overstated -- as one of the other commenters noted, in some disciplines the experts don't do things the way they tell their students to (and as a budding mathematician who is appalled with the state of mathematical exposition today, I think the same is true in that field -- it would be very easy for someone with a lot of ability in math to nevertheless become discouraged by the way higher math is presented). Apparent "innate ability" in such cases may just mean that someone happened upon the correct approach to something despite, or at least independently of, their "official" training. If that's true, it doesn't mean natural talent doesn't exist, but it does suggest that there are many more "naturally talented" people than we are aware of because of our limited understanding and education.
My brother is quite a talented guitarist but I don't think this would automatically mean that he would "pwn" at guitar heroes (At least that's my theory; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
You are wrong, but for the right reason: Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar. However, it uses two skills that every guitarist must have: good rhythm, and good finger dexterity. I would similarly expect a pianist to do quite well at the game, even though the actual action of "playing" is completely different.
A backwards compatible game like you describe is all but impossible, at least for a mass market. The appeal of these games seems to be that you get much of the satisfaction of playing a real instrument in a professional-quality song, but with a comparatively minor investment in developing the skills. To come anywhere near professional quality songs on a guitar requires years of boring practice on songs that aren't that much fun -- if you remove the simplicity in these games that allows a quick learning curve (but also prevents a direct analogue with a real instrument), that means years of playing boring songs in the game before you can do anything real. Bleh.
On the other hand, as a mediocre keyboard player, I'd love to have a game along these lines that used a real midi keyboard and real music notation, so I could get better at reading music -- I just suspect that the market for such a program would be almost entirely musicians, and not gamers.
Actually, for a long time, Nintendo had a free (meaning only long distance charges, not toll-free) line that would give you help/hints if you were stuck. I remember being disappointed when they phased that out in favor of 900 numbers. I never used it much, but it was nice to have if I rented a game and really couldn't figure out what to do next.
Bizarrely, I still remember the phone number (206-885-7529!), long after I've completely forgotten my home phone number from back then, which I used much more often...
Most people base their belief in the cult of evolutionism from what they read in high school and from other various "proofs" like this story, which is pretty far-fetched.
Of course. Most people on both sides base their beliefs on what they are taught as children. So? That many people misunderstand the evidence does not mean there is no good evidence to be found.
As for this far-fetched proof: this story was not offered as a proof, and is far-fetched, and is not accepted by most evolutionists. Attacking it (or even refuting it) in no way affects the long-standing evidence for evolution. This was merely one possible suggestion of selection pressures on humanity's ancestors, and not a particularly good one.
For example, millions of tiny chance mutations occurred that suddenly transformed into improved vision and larger brains because snakes were attacking primates.
Your understanding of natural selection is not even remotely accurate. If you're going to criticize something so aggressively, you should make sure your critiques reflect the real state of the field. These do not. The myth that there is no way to build effective vision incrementally has been debunked: we basically know how it was done, and each step was comparatively small. And the snake issue is just one person, and it's insulting to attack an entire field based on one person's suggestion, regardless of it's quality. I could suggest that fear of clowns contributed to human evolution, but that wouldn't invalidate evolution, it just means I'm a wacko.
Do you want me to just assume that this miracle happened, with no proof besides some "scientist" said that it did?
I don't know what the scare quotes are for, but do you want me to accept creationism with no proof besides some "book" said that it did? In the case of evolution, no, you're perfectly welcome to view the evidence, read the papers and so on to see why the scientists said that. Your failure to investigate further does not mean that scientists have no reasons for their opinions.
That sounds more like blind faith than any religion I have ever heard of.
I agree. Fortunately, your caricature in no way resembles the actual state of evolutionary science, so that's not really relevant to this debate.
Alright, that's a reasonable point, but I'm not sure I agree. I considered myself a "retro gamer" for a long time, because I loved lots of classic games (though I didn't spend much time on them anymore) but never enjoyed any new ones when I sat down to try them.
But now I think I might have been wrong -- what I've found since getting a DS is that I'm very much enjoying new games/gameplay, even when it has no retro feel at all. My problem wasn't that I didn't enjoy new games anymore, it's that I didn't enjoy the type of games I was playing -- first person shooters generally bore me, and I am only moderately interested in ultra-realistic graphics. And while I have nothing against violent games in principle, I just tend to get bored with them.
Most of the games I'm playing on the DS, and expect to play on the Wii, are significantly more than I could get for free via emulation. Recent games have progressed in a lot of ways that aren't just based on polygon count, and I've found myself enjoying that a lot. But some people still respond to my skepticism about Sony in the way I misunderstood you as saying -- essentially, "Well, you aren't their target market." I guess I'm not. But I don't think Nintendo is just going for the retro gamer -- if it was just about the virtual console, I'd stick with my computer, where I already have archives of more old games than I could ever play. The reason I and some people I know are excited about the Wii isn't that it's promising to give us the same games we remember, it's that it's promising to give us the fun we remember, that made us loyal to those games in the first place. As far as I can tell, the DS is a great first step, so I'm inclined to trust them.
As for the original poster, well, who knows -- he does sound more towards the retro end of the spectrum than I am. But he also plans to buy a Wii and a couple of games, and once he's already made that step it's very easy to buy another game every once in a while, even if he just says "one or two" now... so he sounds, essentially, like the sort of "occasional gamer" that Nintendo is trying to attract. If he's in Nintendo's target audience but not Sony's, well too bad for Sony, but he's still a target audience for at least one of the next-gen systems...
I've seen this argument used a lot to defend Sony, but it's very frequently used against people (like me) who say the PS3 is too expensive, but they will probably buy a Wii. If someone is going to buy a next-gen console, then whether Sony considers them the "intended audience" or not, they are the next-gen audience. The point is that Nintendo has been trying very hard lately to expand their audience to include more than just devoted hard-core gamers, and so far it shows signs of working (I recently bought a DS Lite after not owning a console since the SNES, and I have multiple friends in the same boat -- it's almost the perfect "casual gamer" system [my wife, who almost never plays video games, is now most of the way through New Super Mario Bros.])
So, when all these people who are not in the traditional "next-gen" market say that they will be buying a next-gen system, and that it will not be the PS3, how can you dismiss it with "Well, you aren't the target audience?" Do console sales only count if they're buyers that Sony is interested in?
Sony isn't going to offer every game at $90 a pop. They may be cocky, but they're not stupid.
Similarly, "Sony isn't going to launch a console at $600 a pop. They may be cocky, but they're not stupid." Except that they are doing that. So why is it obvious that their games won't be more expensive? I mean, sure, not $90 maybe, but if all he'll say is "probably below $100" that does little to rule out, say, $70 or $75.
And like another comment already says, Nintendo actually came out and said they're aiming for $50, so "well, I don't expect $100" does suggest a noticeable gap.
I do agree slashdot is a little crazy with the "Sony sucks! OMG Nintendo is awesome!" posts right now, and maybe this headline is exaggerated a little, but I don't think it's too much. He may not have been deliberately hinting, but it is completely incompetent PR that could be suggestive of what's coming. (Couldn't he have at least said "it won't be anywhere near $100" instead of "I don't expect it to be $100"? If you're going to throw out a ridiculously high price that you aren't going to hit, at least sound confident that you won't hit it.)
Wow, I thought that I'd really been enjoying playing through New Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart DS since getting my DS lite, finding all the secrets, unlocking all the karts, etc., but now I realize that since I wasn't scared I was actually bored the entire time, and not completely engrossed as I had thought.
Come to think of it, this article rules out all of my favorite games, except the original Half Life.
I guess I'd better go play a real entertaining game, like Doom 3... that's unfortunate, the last time I tried it I thought it was silly and gimmicky instead of fun:( I guess my tastes need to be corrected...
...There are people on the benefit having children, knowing full well they don't have the funds to pay for the associated costs...
How much damage is this really doing? And to what extent do these people have other options? It's far too easy for people with plenty of resources who will never be stuck in these kinds of situations to judge those who are desperate and have little choice -- for the conservatives, it's "How could these people even think of an abortion?!", ignoring the actual situation these people are in, and for you it's "How could these people even think of having a child?!", again ignoring their situation and culture.
I think this is especially strange since the US, which has some of the highest birth rates in the western world, is still just barely edging out the death rate. People say ominous things about overpopulation, while much of Europe is slowly killing itself by not having children, and if you got rid of the poor US families who have children despite economic hardship, we'd probably be doing the same.
why not allow people to sue fast food companies who fail to put warning labels
And if fast food companies deliberately put dangerous chemicals in their food to make it more addictive (I mean, more than they already do), then maybe such lawsuits would be justified. The lawsuits against tobacco companies are (at least some of the time) a lot more complicated than just people claiming they didn't know smoking was bad for you.
I hadn't heard about this -- on the face of it it sounds like a terrible idea, though obviously I haven't looked into it much. But they'll have a deal of a time convincing me that it's a good idea when I have a kid getting vaccinated... what's the justification in light of the possibly fatal consequences later on?
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
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Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
Pro-capitalism, pro-"free trade", pro-whatever-you-think-that-is americans (I'm not american btw) usually point out that the market sorts itself out, how about letting it sort itself out for once?
What?! Have you forgotten your Newspeak, citizen? When consumers and employees are screwed over by wealthy multinationals, we let the market sort itself out. God bless that Invisible Hand.
But when wealthy multinationals are at active risk of decreased profits, that puts our entire economy, society, our very way of life in danger. This is why, with consumer gas prices soaring out of control, congress took decisive action to increase federal subsidies to oil companies, because Lord knows they shouldn't have to bear the burden of increased profits without our help!
It's the same thing here... think of it, a whole mega-billion-dollar industry, in dire risk of decreased short-term advertising revenues! We can't let that happen. Not on our watch.
I would at this point tell you to report to your local indoctrination center for counselling, but I see from your post that you aren't American. Don't worry. We'll get to you soon enough.
Other replies point out some of the problems with your reasoning. But for a different perspective: My wife is Nigerian (just became a US citizen a few years ago). She had malaria as a child, and so did most of her family. And she doesn't see why this is such a big deal.
Malaria is not a terrible scourge that puts people in fear of their lives. It is a common disease that, much like the flu, is unlikely to be fatal except in those who were already ill or infirm. Those deaths are still sad and should be prevented where possible, but people have a very distorted perspective of it because they only know about it by the death count and not through personal experience. The flu has a non-negligible death toll, and pretty much everyone gets the flu at some point during their lives, but this is rarely seen as a scourge of mankind, just a disease that is worthy of reasonable preventative measures.
Your implicit claim "and there is absolutely no possible issue or complication with DDT, which will completely eliminate malaria" is silly. First, it won't completely eliminate malaria. DDT-resistant mosquitos already exist. If DDT use was truly widespread, this would be the dominant strain within a generation, and then we'd have no way to respond. Second, even if DDT is safe, this has not been sufficiently demonstrated. DDT is very unique in terms of how it accrues and remains within the human body for a very long time, and just stays there. Unlike many substances humans could be exposed to, you can't just observe people closely for a few years and say "Yep! They seem okay!" It's very dangerous to say "Well, we don't know exactly what the consequences of this will be 40 years down the road, but let's go ahead and use it!" especially with such a dubious benefit as temporarily reducing a single not-terribly-dangerous disease.
I would be very skeptical about deploying drugs that have not been fully studied, that collect in the human body for a very long time, with unknown consequences, on a large chunk of the population, just to decrease incidences of the flu for the next 10 years. The benefit just wouldn't be worth such a risk. But that's essentially the equivalent of what you're advocating, it's just a more exotic-sounding disease that many people mistakenly believe is dangerous to the general population in these countries.
You do realize, that Mexico has a fence, with armed guards, at their southern border. And they shoot trespassers on sight.
So what? Are you saying we should pattern our government after Mexico's? Or, because a country shoots illegal immigrants, it is alright to shoot citizens of that country when they flee to another? How does this have anything to do with the actual immigrants themselves?
I certainly hope other nations don't base their standards of ethical treatment for me on what my government is doing right now...
In this debate, we should be asking ourselves what is the right thing to do, not what we can get away with, or justify with "but they did it first!"
It is possible to make a case for securing our border without invoking xenophobia, but xenophobia is in fact invoked a disheartening amount of the time.
This poker law is stupid. But your philosophy of "only violent crimes deserve jail time" doesn't really hold up.
By your philosophy, someone who has no money, can't get a job, can't get rent money, and out of desperation, robs a convenience store at gunpoint, would go to jail. Now this is a sad situation, but I won't argue with the outcome. But now you're going to tell me that someone who has plenty of money, a ridiculously high-paying job, and no legitimate reason for complaint, can completely premeditatedly ruin thousands of other people's lives by fraud, embezzling, shady business dealings and whatever other white-collar crime cocktail you might name, and the only consequence will be "restitution?" After you've seized all their assets (which could be considerably less than they originally stole), they are then perfectly free to go fraudulently take more money from more people via more sleazy pseudo-corporations. How is this not a danger to the rest of society? They won't "blow your head off" or "rape your children" as you charmingly suggest, but swindling people out of their retirement/college savings is still pretty damaging, and is just a minor example of their possible overall impact.
It really bothers me the way violent crimes are demonized to the extent that we dismiss any other crime as a sort of "second-tier" offense. Violence is terrible, yes, and the reaction is understandable -- we fear for our own safety, and that of our families. Alright, I feel the same way. But when corporate executives can commit far more deliberate, premeditated, and far-reaching crimes, and with far less motivation, and just get a slap on the wrist or have some of their fraudulent earnings confiscated, something is wrong. The fact that they didn't use violence isn't a moral victory on their part, they're just successful and well-educated enough that they can commit reprehensible crimes more successfully by other means.
A lot of this seems to be linked to the philosophy that "protecting even one person from [death, injury, physical harm of some kind] is worth any cost." This philosophy is implicit all kinds of major issues right now. The intention is good, but in the grand scheme of empathy for fellow man it's a kind of tunnel vision, ignoring the serious non-physical harm being done to millions by a handful of people, and focusing exclusively on the sometimes more urgent but much more narrow issue of physical harm. There are other ways to hurt people and menace society than just personal violence. And as firmly as I believe that human life is sacred, I'm not prepared to say (as some would be) that injustice to millions is acceptable in order to save one life, or prevent one terrorist attack, or whatever event we're afraid of today. Life is a disease with a fatality rate of 100%, and nothing we do can change that, ever. We could learn to cope with that in healthy ways, but this exaltation of violence as the Most Reprehensible Action No Matter What is a sign that so far, we haven't.
I could rant about broader issues of social justice and treatment of poverty right now, but I guess that would be even further off-topic...
Uh... I just said, I don't want or need a new PC (well, maybe want, if it was free, sure).
No $600 computer can play games as well as the PS3.
Maybe a $600 won't "play games as well as a PS3" (though it would sure play them as well as I'd need), but no PS3 will run Quicken or Corel Painter, or support my scanner, printer, and other essential hardware. Those limitations immediately make it worth significantly less than a desktop to me, regardless of its games capability. (If I want a PC that will match the PS3 for graphics/gaming, I will wait one year, then buy a $600 desktop.) Also, you're mixing up "the ability to play games" with "the ability to do fast texture mapping." My 6-year-old desktop can actually play some fairly entertaining games, though admittedly it can't manage much at 1600x1200.
And as far as consoles go? High definition is pointless for me. I have a $150 TV. It works great, I can watch DVDs and everything, but I just don't care about high definition. Same as a new PC, if someone gave me a free HD TV I wouldn't turn it down, but right now I wouldn't buy a flat-panel 36" HD TV for $300, because I just don't care. I will buy a high-definition television when my current TV breaks and low-def ones are no longer for sale, or HD is so cheap that it doesn't matter. Sharp visuals are nice, but are pretty much the least important part of the experience for me -- existing DVD/cable quality is already above the threshold where I hardly notice it, so why spend tons of money just to push it up another level?
Sure it's a laptop but you'd expect it to hold it's own better.
Not really -- unless you bought a laptop with gaming in mind, it will probably be bad at it. Once upon a time I had a laptop that was two years newer than my current PC, better clockspeed, more RAM, but if you wanted to play games you'd sure prefer the desktop. I would expect a $600 desktop to stand up pretty well to the current console generation at pretty much any point (maybe not right after console release, but otherwise...) -- but it wouldn't surprise me if laptops lagged behind quite a bit more.
Undoubtedly, no "might" about it. But then, so would a new $600 desktop, especially if I scavenge my current one for parts. But if I wanted a computer, I'd buy a computer. The whole point of my post is that I haven't bought a computer because it isn't worth that much to me (my current one serves for everything I need to do), so why should I spend a comparable amount for a game console when there are much cheaper alternatives?
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, this is the first argument that sounds reasonable to me -- all the comments saying how it doesn't matter because no one has HDMI support seem kind of self-defeating.
I think your argument (mostly) convinced me, assuming the issue is clear when you buy the console. I'm still skeptical about the HDTV/blu-ray strategy in the first place, but I'll accept that it isn't necessarily inconsistent with this decision.
By the end of the PS3's shelf-life, most people will have HDTVs. Remember, we're talking about a product with a projected 6-year lifespan.
Most people will have HDTVs 6 years from now? How does that fit with the rather lackluster sales so far, combined with declining median income (in the US, anyway)?
Is a feature worthless just because "only" a third of your current buyers will be able to use it?
I never said it was worthless -- I'm questioning whether it's worth $200+, especially since without this feature the pool of buyers could be much larger (when you say 1/3 of the buyers will have HDTV, you're already restricting the buyers to a very small, elite group, and admitting that unlike the PS1 and PS2, the average gamer is not going to be buying these things anytime soon -- nowhere near 1/3 of consumers own HDTVs right now).
If the system was debuting at $3-400 like the 360, I could see myself buying it someday, after a couple price drops, given the right game library. But debuting at $5-600, even after price drops it would be an awful lot on my budget -- I couldn't justify that purchase even for another Guitar Hero game, no matter how pretty it looks on the HDTV that I also can't afford.
The argument that "it's all okay because consoles have long life cycles" doesn't quite work out. Yes, half of PS2 sales were after the first couple years -- but if during the first couple years the console had only sold, say, a third as many units as it actually did, I'm willing to bet the remaining years would have seen a similar drop. You can't just say it's alright for a console to not sell well/not have noticeable advantages for the first couple years, because people will notice these things -- game publishers will respond by reallocating their budgets away from the PS3, gamers will notice that the PS3 isn't the console their friends are buying, and even when (if) people can afford HDTVs and PS3s later on, major market share damage will already have been done. If the first two years are bad, publishers will not keep pumping money in, thinking "well in a few years when most people own HDTVs they'll start buying the PS3, and then people will come flocking to buy our back library of games!" -- even if that was good reasoning, which I don't think it is, media publishers tend to think on a pretty short timeline. They'll put money into the platforms where they get the sales.
Tell me again why people are getting bent out of shape here - it's a cheap $20 cable that 5% of PS3 owners are going to want/need
But that's my entire point -- Sony's fundamental premise for this entire console is that most serious gamers will want/need HDMI and blu-ray support. If this is not true, and the percentage is closer to the 5% that you claim, then Sony's entire strategy for this generation is invalidated, and they should have made a $300-400 console instead. If you're already assuming that the vast majority even of the self-selected population that is actually willing to spend $600 on a PS3 is still not going to be able to use the most expensive part of the system, then what is that most expensive part for?
If most people would have to buy a downgrade cable, then why are they charging $600 for HDMI and Blu-ray support that most people will be unable to use? If you're going to charge this much money with the exclusive excuse that it's the best possible quality, then why assume by default that your users will not be able to take advantage of that quality? Doesn't that kind of blow the whole party line for why it's okay to charge $600?
If you have $600 to drop on a PS3, you have another $20 for cables, true. But if they're advertising this as some sort of luxury sports car of the gaming world, and charging a huge amount for HD and Blu-ray, why assume by default that people won't be able to use them? If you're correct that such a "tiny percentage of homes have HDMI-ready TVs" that it is a negligible issue for prospective PS3 owners, then where's the damn $300 version of the console that doesn't include HDMI/Blu-ray support?
The solution of making sure that there isn't a single person, anywhere on earth, that doesn't want to blow up an airplane seems a little... unrealistic.
Of course it's unrealistic. Most straw men are.
What the GP actually said was that we can't keep deadly weapons off planes, and that we should promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us. Not a world where there is not even a single person who wants to attack us, which would be impossible, but ideally at least one where there are drastically fewer such people than there are today. Since today the number of people who want to attack us is going up, we're kind of going in the wrong direction with this.
Now, I do think it's a little idealistic to suggest that the problem can be (essentially) solved that way, but it's certainly a reasonable criticism to say we should be putting a lot more weight on this aspect of things than we are now.
even though you say that searches are completely ineffective, aircraft aren't falling from the sky daily.
Another fallacy. There are many things preventing airplanes from falling from the sky daily, and "random" searches are only one, and certainly not the most important. It is entirely possible to argue that these searches are not an effective way of preventing terrorism -- the fact that no one has brought down a plane just lately does not refute it.
No matter what we do, people will always find ways to blow up airplanes. We can and should find ways to make sure it happens less often, but that doesn't mean we should do everything that might make it happen less often. My desire to fly has dropped more because of the absurd overreaction in security policies than the possibility of an attack.
This isn't a good excuse. It's more than an "inconvenience" to deny someone the right to read and sign their own service contracts, it's completely uncalled for. If people over 70 want assistance they're free to have it, of course, but comparing it to speed limits is a bad analogy. It's more akin to taking away someone's car, regardless of their driving skill, when they turn 70.
Hmm... now that I think about it...
Uh, I mean, which would clearly be outrageous!
It really doesn't inspire my confidence in the reviewer to hear a) they're running Internet Explorer
It would in fact be a pretty incompetent reviewer that didn't even try it on the dominant web browser (yes, that's still IE, however the trends are going).
b) running a beta version no less
Alright, I'm with you on this one. This falls in line with my "incompetent" description above, since IE beta is not the dominant web browser, and can be expected to have problems.
c) can't tell that it's obviously a problem with IE 7 (Beta 3) (which no doubt Google didn't test it on) rather than Writely.
And neither can you, since you didn't try it on regular IE, presumably (from the rest of your comment). Granted, that's a likely source of trouble, but you say they "can't tell" the problem is IE7 as though you have some evidence that it is true. The real issue here is that the reviewer didn't bother to try it on a more standard browser, not that they didn't immediately know some "fact" you're assuming.
All that said... I ran it on Firefox and had no problems :)
A lot of people are pointing out that natural ability vs. training isn't a boolean, so the article oversimplifies. But a lot of people are also saying "Natural ability is necessary, I know because I spent 10 years doing [whatever]" or "I saw people who spent 10 years working on [whatever] and they still aren't the best."
That's making very unwarranted assumptions: no one is saying that it's enough to work for 10 years at something, no matter how you work at it. People who drive every day for 10 years still aren't typically world-class drivers, because they aren't spending that daily driving time doing anything that would lead to real improvement. Even people who work hard to improve at something, for years, can still make little or no progress because of how they are working or being taught, completely independent of any innate ability they may have.
I believe in innate ability, and I think it would be very difficult to honestly argue it doesn't exist at all. But I think it can be overstated -- as one of the other commenters noted, in some disciplines the experts don't do things the way they tell their students to (and as a budding mathematician who is appalled with the state of mathematical exposition today, I think the same is true in that field -- it would be very easy for someone with a lot of ability in math to nevertheless become discouraged by the way higher math is presented). Apparent "innate ability" in such cases may just mean that someone happened upon the correct approach to something despite, or at least independently of, their "official" training. If that's true, it doesn't mean natural talent doesn't exist, but it does suggest that there are many more "naturally talented" people than we are aware of because of our limited understanding and education.
My brother is quite a talented guitarist but I don't think this would automatically mean that he would "pwn" at guitar heroes (At least that's my theory; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
You are wrong, but for the right reason: Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar. However, it uses two skills that every guitarist must have: good rhythm, and good finger dexterity. I would similarly expect a pianist to do quite well at the game, even though the actual action of "playing" is completely different.
A backwards compatible game like you describe is all but impossible, at least for a mass market. The appeal of these games seems to be that you get much of the satisfaction of playing a real instrument in a professional-quality song, but with a comparatively minor investment in developing the skills. To come anywhere near professional quality songs on a guitar requires years of boring practice on songs that aren't that much fun -- if you remove the simplicity in these games that allows a quick learning curve (but also prevents a direct analogue with a real instrument), that means years of playing boring songs in the game before you can do anything real. Bleh.
On the other hand, as a mediocre keyboard player, I'd love to have a game along these lines that used a real midi keyboard and real music notation, so I could get better at reading music -- I just suspect that the market for such a program would be almost entirely musicians, and not gamers.
Actually, for a long time, Nintendo had a free (meaning only long distance charges, not toll-free) line that would give you help/hints if you were stuck. I remember being disappointed when they phased that out in favor of 900 numbers. I never used it much, but it was nice to have if I rented a game and really couldn't figure out what to do next.
Bizarrely, I still remember the phone number (206-885-7529!), long after I've completely forgotten my home phone number from back then, which I used much more often...
Could you please cite some of this "overwhelming evidence" instead of just pretending it is so obvious that you don't need too?
Oh, why not.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution.
Most people base their belief in the cult of evolutionism from what they read in high school and from other various "proofs" like this story, which is pretty far-fetched.
Of course. Most people on both sides base their beliefs on what they are taught as children. So? That many people misunderstand the evidence does not mean there is no good evidence to be found.
As for this far-fetched proof: this story was not offered as a proof, and is far-fetched, and is not accepted by most evolutionists. Attacking it (or even refuting it) in no way affects the long-standing evidence for evolution. This was merely one possible suggestion of selection pressures on humanity's ancestors, and not a particularly good one.
For example, millions of tiny chance mutations occurred that suddenly transformed into improved vision and larger brains because snakes were attacking primates.
Your understanding of natural selection is not even remotely accurate. If you're going to criticize something so aggressively, you should make sure your critiques reflect the real state of the field. These do not. The myth that there is no way to build effective vision incrementally has been debunked: we basically know how it was done, and each step was comparatively small. And the snake issue is just one person, and it's insulting to attack an entire field based on one person's suggestion, regardless of it's quality. I could suggest that fear of clowns contributed to human evolution, but that wouldn't invalidate evolution, it just means I'm a wacko.
Do you want me to just assume that this miracle happened, with no proof besides some "scientist" said that it did?
I don't know what the scare quotes are for, but do you want me to accept creationism with no proof besides some "book" said that it did? In the case of evolution, no, you're perfectly welcome to view the evidence, read the papers and so on to see why the scientists said that. Your failure to investigate further does not mean that scientists have no reasons for their opinions.
That sounds more like blind faith than any religion I have ever heard of.
I agree. Fortunately, your caricature in no way resembles the actual state of evolutionary science, so that's not really relevant to this debate.
Alright, that's a reasonable point, but I'm not sure I agree. I considered myself a "retro gamer" for a long time, because I loved lots of classic games (though I didn't spend much time on them anymore) but never enjoyed any new ones when I sat down to try them.
But now I think I might have been wrong -- what I've found since getting a DS is that I'm very much enjoying new games/gameplay, even when it has no retro feel at all. My problem wasn't that I didn't enjoy new games anymore, it's that I didn't enjoy the type of games I was playing -- first person shooters generally bore me, and I am only moderately interested in ultra-realistic graphics. And while I have nothing against violent games in principle, I just tend to get bored with them.
Most of the games I'm playing on the DS, and expect to play on the Wii, are significantly more than I could get for free via emulation. Recent games have progressed in a lot of ways that aren't just based on polygon count, and I've found myself enjoying that a lot. But some people still respond to my skepticism about Sony in the way I misunderstood you as saying -- essentially, "Well, you aren't their target market." I guess I'm not. But I don't think Nintendo is just going for the retro gamer -- if it was just about the virtual console, I'd stick with my computer, where I already have archives of more old games than I could ever play. The reason I and some people I know are excited about the Wii isn't that it's promising to give us the same games we remember, it's that it's promising to give us the fun we remember, that made us loyal to those games in the first place. As far as I can tell, the DS is a great first step, so I'm inclined to trust them.
As for the original poster, well, who knows -- he does sound more towards the retro end of the spectrum than I am. But he also plans to buy a Wii and a couple of games, and once he's already made that step it's very easy to buy another game every once in a while, even if he just says "one or two" now... so he sounds, essentially, like the sort of "occasional gamer" that Nintendo is trying to attract. If he's in Nintendo's target audience but not Sony's, well too bad for Sony, but he's still a target audience for at least one of the next-gen systems...
I've seen this argument used a lot to defend Sony, but it's very frequently used against people (like me) who say the PS3 is too expensive, but they will probably buy a Wii. If someone is going to buy a next-gen console, then whether Sony considers them the "intended audience" or not, they are the next-gen audience. The point is that Nintendo has been trying very hard lately to expand their audience to include more than just devoted hard-core gamers, and so far it shows signs of working (I recently bought a DS Lite after not owning a console since the SNES, and I have multiple friends in the same boat -- it's almost the perfect "casual gamer" system [my wife, who almost never plays video games, is now most of the way through New Super Mario Bros.])
So, when all these people who are not in the traditional "next-gen" market say that they will be buying a next-gen system, and that it will not be the PS3, how can you dismiss it with "Well, you aren't the target audience?" Do console sales only count if they're buyers that Sony is interested in?
Sony isn't going to offer every game at $90 a pop. They may be cocky, but they're not stupid.
Similarly, "Sony isn't going to launch a console at $600 a pop. They may be cocky, but they're not stupid." Except that they are doing that. So why is it obvious that their games won't be more expensive? I mean, sure, not $90 maybe, but if all he'll say is "probably below $100" that does little to rule out, say, $70 or $75.
And like another comment already says, Nintendo actually came out and said they're aiming for $50, so "well, I don't expect $100" does suggest a noticeable gap.
I do agree slashdot is a little crazy with the "Sony sucks! OMG Nintendo is awesome!" posts right now, and maybe this headline is exaggerated a little, but I don't think it's too much. He may not have been deliberately hinting, but it is completely incompetent PR that could be suggestive of what's coming. (Couldn't he have at least said "it won't be anywhere near $100" instead of "I don't expect it to be $100"? If you're going to throw out a ridiculously high price that you aren't going to hit, at least sound confident that you won't hit it.)
Wow, I thought that I'd really been enjoying playing through New Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart DS since getting my DS lite, finding all the secrets, unlocking all the karts, etc., but now I realize that since I wasn't scared I was actually bored the entire time, and not completely engrossed as I had thought.
Come to think of it, this article rules out all of my favorite games, except the original Half Life.
I guess I'd better go play a real entertaining game, like Doom 3... that's unfortunate, the last time I tried it I thought it was silly and gimmicky instead of fun :( I guess my tastes need to be corrected...
How much damage is this really doing? And to what extent do these people have other options? It's far too easy for people with plenty of resources who will never be stuck in these kinds of situations to judge those who are desperate and have little choice -- for the conservatives, it's "How could these people even think of an abortion?!", ignoring the actual situation these people are in, and for you it's "How could these people even think of having a child?!", again ignoring their situation and culture.
I think this is especially strange since the US, which has some of the highest birth rates in the western world, is still just barely edging out the death rate. People say ominous things about overpopulation, while much of Europe is slowly killing itself by not having children, and if you got rid of the poor US families who have children despite economic hardship, we'd probably be doing the same.
why not allow people to sue fast food companies who fail to put warning labels
And if fast food companies deliberately put dangerous chemicals in their food to make it more addictive (I mean, more than they already do), then maybe such lawsuits would be justified. The lawsuits against tobacco companies are (at least some of the time) a lot more complicated than just people claiming they didn't know smoking was bad for you.
I hadn't heard about this -- on the face of it it sounds like a terrible idea, though obviously I haven't looked into it much. But they'll have a deal of a time convincing me that it's a good idea when I have a kid getting vaccinated... what's the justification in light of the possibly fatal consequences later on?
What?! Have you forgotten your Newspeak, citizen? When consumers and employees are screwed over by wealthy multinationals, we let the market sort itself out. God bless that Invisible Hand.
But when wealthy multinationals are at active risk of decreased profits, that puts our entire economy, society, our very way of life in danger. This is why, with consumer gas prices soaring out of control, congress took decisive action to increase federal subsidies to oil companies, because Lord knows they shouldn't have to bear the burden of increased profits without our help!
It's the same thing here... think of it, a whole mega-billion-dollar industry, in dire risk of decreased short-term advertising revenues! We can't let that happen. Not on our watch.
I would at this point tell you to report to your local indoctrination center for counselling, but I see from your post that you aren't American. Don't worry. We'll get to you soon enough.
Malaria is not a terrible scourge that puts people in fear of their lives. It is a common disease that, much like the flu, is unlikely to be fatal except in those who were already ill or infirm. Those deaths are still sad and should be prevented where possible, but people have a very distorted perspective of it because they only know about it by the death count and not through personal experience. The flu has a non-negligible death toll, and pretty much everyone gets the flu at some point during their lives, but this is rarely seen as a scourge of mankind, just a disease that is worthy of reasonable preventative measures.
Your implicit claim "and there is absolutely no possible issue or complication with DDT, which will completely eliminate malaria" is silly. First, it won't completely eliminate malaria. DDT-resistant mosquitos already exist. If DDT use was truly widespread, this would be the dominant strain within a generation, and then we'd have no way to respond. Second, even if DDT is safe, this has not been sufficiently demonstrated. DDT is very unique in terms of how it accrues and remains within the human body for a very long time, and just stays there. Unlike many substances humans could be exposed to, you can't just observe people closely for a few years and say "Yep! They seem okay!" It's very dangerous to say "Well, we don't know exactly what the consequences of this will be 40 years down the road, but let's go ahead and use it!" especially with such a dubious benefit as temporarily reducing a single not-terribly-dangerous disease.
I would be very skeptical about deploying drugs that have not been fully studied, that collect in the human body for a very long time, with unknown consequences, on a large chunk of the population, just to decrease incidences of the flu for the next 10 years. The benefit just wouldn't be worth such a risk. But that's essentially the equivalent of what you're advocating, it's just a more exotic-sounding disease that many people mistakenly believe is dangerous to the general population in these countries.
Good point! Let's fix this right now.
"And Sony cried Wii! Wii! Wii! all the way home..."
Whew! I feel better. Thanks for reminding me.
So what? Are you saying we should pattern our government after Mexico's? Or, because a country shoots illegal immigrants, it is alright to shoot citizens of that country when they flee to another? How does this have anything to do with the actual immigrants themselves?
I certainly hope other nations don't base their standards of ethical treatment for me on what my government is doing right now...
In this debate, we should be asking ourselves what is the right thing to do, not what we can get away with, or justify with "but they did it first!"
It is possible to make a case for securing our border without invoking xenophobia, but xenophobia is in fact invoked a disheartening amount of the time.
By your philosophy, someone who has no money, can't get a job, can't get rent money, and out of desperation, robs a convenience store at gunpoint, would go to jail. Now this is a sad situation, but I won't argue with the outcome. But now you're going to tell me that someone who has plenty of money, a ridiculously high-paying job, and no legitimate reason for complaint, can completely premeditatedly ruin thousands of other people's lives by fraud, embezzling, shady business dealings and whatever other white-collar crime cocktail you might name, and the only consequence will be "restitution?" After you've seized all their assets (which could be considerably less than they originally stole), they are then perfectly free to go fraudulently take more money from more people via more sleazy pseudo-corporations. How is this not a danger to the rest of society? They won't "blow your head off" or "rape your children" as you charmingly suggest, but swindling people out of their retirement/college savings is still pretty damaging, and is just a minor example of their possible overall impact.
It really bothers me the way violent crimes are demonized to the extent that we dismiss any other crime as a sort of "second-tier" offense. Violence is terrible, yes, and the reaction is understandable -- we fear for our own safety, and that of our families. Alright, I feel the same way. But when corporate executives can commit far more deliberate, premeditated, and far-reaching crimes, and with far less motivation, and just get a slap on the wrist or have some of their fraudulent earnings confiscated, something is wrong. The fact that they didn't use violence isn't a moral victory on their part, they're just successful and well-educated enough that they can commit reprehensible crimes more successfully by other means.
A lot of this seems to be linked to the philosophy that "protecting even one person from [death, injury, physical harm of some kind] is worth any cost." This philosophy is implicit all kinds of major issues right now. The intention is good, but in the grand scheme of empathy for fellow man it's a kind of tunnel vision, ignoring the serious non-physical harm being done to millions by a handful of people, and focusing exclusively on the sometimes more urgent but much more narrow issue of physical harm. There are other ways to hurt people and menace society than just personal violence. And as firmly as I believe that human life is sacred, I'm not prepared to say (as some would be) that injustice to millions is acceptable in order to save one life, or prevent one terrorist attack, or whatever event we're afraid of today. Life is a disease with a fatality rate of 100%, and nothing we do can change that, ever. We could learn to cope with that in healthy ways, but this exaltation of violence as the Most Reprehensible Action No Matter What is a sign that so far, we haven't.
I could rant about broader issues of social justice and treatment of poverty right now, but I guess that would be even further off-topic...
Uh... I just said, I don't want or need a new PC (well, maybe want, if it was free, sure).
No $600 computer can play games as well as the PS3.
Maybe a $600 won't "play games as well as a PS3" (though it would sure play them as well as I'd need), but no PS3 will run Quicken or Corel Painter, or support my scanner, printer, and other essential hardware. Those limitations immediately make it worth significantly less than a desktop to me, regardless of its games capability. (If I want a PC that will match the PS3 for graphics/gaming, I will wait one year, then buy a $600 desktop.) Also, you're mixing up "the ability to play games" with "the ability to do fast texture mapping." My 6-year-old desktop can actually play some fairly entertaining games, though admittedly it can't manage much at 1600x1200.
And as far as consoles go? High definition is pointless for me. I have a $150 TV. It works great, I can watch DVDs and everything, but I just don't care about high definition. Same as a new PC, if someone gave me a free HD TV I wouldn't turn it down, but right now I wouldn't buy a flat-panel 36" HD TV for $300, because I just don't care. I will buy a high-definition television when my current TV breaks and low-def ones are no longer for sale, or HD is so cheap that it doesn't matter. Sharp visuals are nice, but are pretty much the least important part of the experience for me -- existing DVD/cable quality is already above the threshold where I hardly notice it, so why spend tons of money just to push it up another level?
Sure it's a laptop but you'd expect it to hold it's own better.
Not really -- unless you bought a laptop with gaming in mind, it will probably be bad at it. Once upon a time I had a laptop that was two years newer than my current PC, better clockspeed, more RAM, but if you wanted to play games you'd sure prefer the desktop. I would expect a $600 desktop to stand up pretty well to the current console generation at pretty much any point (maybe not right after console release, but otherwise...) -- but it wouldn't surprise me if laptops lagged behind quite a bit more.
Undoubtedly, no "might" about it. But then, so would a new $600 desktop, especially if I scavenge my current one for parts. But if I wanted a computer, I'd buy a computer. The whole point of my post is that I haven't bought a computer because it isn't worth that much to me (my current one serves for everything I need to do), so why should I spend a comparable amount for a game console when there are much cheaper alternatives?