That's not really fair. Slashdot pretty much covers all things science, be it computer science, or quantum physics. There are frequently articles posted which I, being in the field of computer science, do not necessarily understand or comprehend. I'm not going to tell all of the quantum physicists out there that "slashdot is not the place for them" because Slashdot IS for them. While it might have a technical slant to it, I think it's a place for anyone more interested in hearing news of advancements in various scientific fields, rather than what prison Paris Hilton is going to next.
For that matter, even when I don't understand what an article is talking about, I am still usually more than interested to read about it.
In some respects, I -am- waiting on the backup industry. I work in the industry (as most do, on Slashdot), and backups are a huge problem for some of my larger small business customers. True enterprise level backups are outside of their price range, and current non-enterprise level technologies don't suit their needs. I agree that I have some odd clients, but it would be nice if the technology existed to provide them with better backups. In my opinion, they should probably accept the fact that they've reached the enterprise level and bite the bullet, but I'm not the one making the checks out, and they certainly aren't going to shell out that much money.
I would just love to see something as ubiquitous as CDR or DVDR that has a much larger capacity. That would suit me just fine, and suit my customers pretty well, too.
I suppose it is mostly a matter of time. Eventually, with a little hope, the markets will catch up with each other.:)
I guess that's 20$ less than I *would* have spent, had I intended on buying this, or any "next generation" movie format. Until this entire thing sorts itself out, I refuse to buy either. I personally hope they both go down in flames, and in return, we can get something the entire market agrees upon. Not only that, maybe we'll get something less locked down. (I know, it'll never happen, but one can always hope.)
My interest in next generation formats has very little to do with movies, anyway. I'm much more interested in high capacity removable storage for my PC. One that doesn't include moving parts, and one that I can easily hand off to my relatives and not worry about getting back.
Far be it from Microsoft to actually do something for their users, but Microsoft does have some idea of what is good and bad for their business. Users being bombarded with ads is definitely bad for business -- hence Microsoft's purchase of the anti-spyware software that became Windows Defender. It is difficult to nail down the spyware makers, so I can imagine Microsoft doing this simply for a legal offense should any adware creator try and do the same.
I suppose if you aren't a technical person, it's probably too much. As a technical person who does it for a living as well as a hobby, I've always really liked being surrounded by electronics with lots of lights. NOC/IDC facilities are even more fun. It's a mood thing.
As long as all of this stuff is not in my room so I can't sleep, I have no problems with the office looking like NASA.
Yes, leveling to 60 was easy. Hell, leveling to 70 is easy.
But... that's not really where the real game is at. It's almost like the entire process of leveling up is merely a training session for you to get to know your character so that you can move on to something actually difficult. It allows you to acquire a very close understand of your character and how your skills and abilities work together.
The real challenge is the so called "endgame" content. Yes, there's plenty of people who will also trash this content as well, but for me, this is where the fun begins. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find a guild that can take on the raid instances and also maintain a fun attitude about it. However, we you do finally get into a guild that raids and simply has fun raiding, the game is very challenging. The challenge doesn't come so much from the game, but from learning to cooperate and improvise with your guildmates to beat something you could not possibly hope to do on your own. Every boss has a key strategy, and the fun is in executing that strategy as a group.
I started out working with the desktop, and to this day, I still despise working on web applications. Admittedly, a lot of this is because I have less experience with web applications, and so when users ask for desktop-style features on a web applications, I tend to get very frustrated. I'm not saying web development is bad, it is definitely useful and there are many skilled web developers. I just prefer to keep to the desktop.
Most of my work lies in databases, mostly custom business software. It's not exactly fascinating or glamorous, most people find it pretty dull, but I enjoy it.
Speakeasy is extremely good. I've never been happier with an ISP than I am with Speakeasy. Excellent support who know what they are doing, and available at all hours of the night.
That said...
They've just been purchased by Best Buy. Thankfully, I've been a customer for four years, and I'm under no contractual obligation of any form. I say this, because I'm reasonably certain that Best Buy will do what they always do. Their eyes will be filled with dollar signs because Speakeasy maintains a solid, happy customer base, and then begin to figure out how they can "cut costs". My help desk of knowledgeable technicians will be changed to a call center somewhere with people reading from a list. My 24 hour support will be cut to business hours only.
Inevitably, I'm sure they'll begin cutting heavy users off. I don't think I qualify as one, but I do run my own servers, and they'll probably want to block the ports on those as well. God forbid I run a mail server for my own use.
Why, yes, I do anticipate switching ISPs as soon as things turn sour.:)
The problem is not that there are fake keys lying around, it's that there are real keys lying around.
For quite some time, the key algorithm for the Volume License copies of XP has been cracked. They're perfectly valid keys, they simply haven't actually been sold to anyone. That's why they can't use the same algorithm, and why they have to keep this magic database of "actually sold" keys to compare against. I have no idea how this database was generated, but I'm willing to bet it was cobbled together, and that Microsoft had no real easy way of knowing which keys were sold and which were not, which resulted in a highly error prone database.
Given how many products are suddenly having caffeine added to them, I wonder how long it will take before somebody does something really stupid with all of these products, and deliberately or inadvertently manages to harm themself or someone else. It doesn't take all THAT much caffeine to cause some pretty nasty side effects, especially if you don't drink it all that often.
Well, in my world, if I insult a customer, I get reprimanded or fired. I don't know anyone who does this directly to a client. Behind the scenes? Sure, perhaps. But not to the client's face. That ranks up with other unthinkable actions such as stealing from the company, and I'm not talking post-it notes. Why on earth would anybody want to insult their clientele?
If they've done something that they shouldn't be doing, there is a perfectly acceptable way of enlightening them that doesn't involve berating them. In my experience, most users are perfectly willing and able to learn if you're willing and able to take the time to explain it without an attitude problem.
I was thinking the same thing, actually. I mean, I know things look less pixelated on my computer screen because I'm not stretching the image to fit my television's resolution, but still.
To be completely honest, The Twilight Princess is an ugly game. Before you flame me -- I loved the game. Dearly. It's one of the best games I've ever played, and certainly one of the best in the entire series. The artists responsible for all of the game's graphics did a fantastic job. The problem, for the most part, is that it just doesn't get along very well with low resolutions. It's almost as if the game was designed with a higher resolution in mind and then pushed back to what it is now.
I have the component cables for my Wii. They do make a huge difference, and every game so far - Excite Truck, even Wii Sports, looks a great deal better in 480p on my television set. I understand a lot of it is the television, and I don't have the best LCD TV in the world, but those games looked pretty good even in 480i. Zelda appears to be very blurry in 480i as compared to the other games, and in 480p the blur goes away and starts to look like a mishmash of pixels. It isn't so bad close up, but things in the distance begin to get very ugly. From a layman's perspective, it seems like everything in Zelda was rendered in high detail intended for higher resolutions and now looks worse because it is being compressed into a lower resolution.
But again, don't get me wrong, the game was fantastic. I will undoubtedly play through it again. I just wish Nintendo had given it a bit more TLC, especially after having been delayed for so long. Graphics are not everything, and a good game can overcome virtually any graphical problems provided it has a solid plot and gameplate, but they aren't something to be completely disregarded, either. There is a reason why everyone drools over finely done CG, and well done graphics make it easier to immerse yourself in the story.
Store prices on music has dropped quite a bit, as well. It's not unusual for me to find a new artist that I like and their CD is $9.99 in stores. Not coincidentally, I've also purchased quite a few more CDs in the past year than I usually have. I find this is a fair price for a CD.
Though, factoring into that is the fact that I actually found quite a few bands this year that I enjoyed, which is a rarity. Personally, I'd like to see them get rid of the copy protection and DRM and leave music prices where they are at, that way I could actually easily rip my own CDs. As it stands, it's easier for me to get my CDs into MP3 form by downloading it, than worry about whether or not the disc I bought has copy protection on it.
I agree... I was completely surprised by Excite Truck. I'm not a racing game sort of person. I wasn't really expecting much.
Now I'm screaming at my TV because I need my last two S-ranks in Super Excite. It's great fun for a racer, and not stuff about "reality", which usually turns me off in racing games. The controls are exceedingly easier to use than those steering wheel add-ons you can buy. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to play.
I even bought the little plastic steering wheel that Ubisoft put out. Some people might not like it, but I think the wheel is great, it's helped me a lot.
I played my Wii quite a bit until I finished Zelda, and I'm still playing Excite Truck pretty frequently.
These aren't officially tested or anything, but just a general idea. I changed my batteries after about 40 hours of Zelda (according to the game timer), and about 5 hours of Excite Truck, and a few other things here and there.
So, I'd say they'd last about 50 hours, depending on what you're playing. You could probably save some battery power by turning off the Wiimote speaker. I like the speaker, personally.:P
I could have sworn Novell has been tits up for quite some time...
Okay, sorry! OW! Stop hitting me!
All jokes aside, Novell hasn't been a choice for me in some time. I grew up on Netware 3.11 and 3.12, all the way up until 5.5. I look back fondly on those days, but Novell hasn't been the same for some time. My recent experiences with it were anything but pleasant, with a lot of strange issues cropping up. A part of me wishes that Novell would get back to their former glory, but I doubt that's going to happen. They seem to have a case of indecision, and I think if they were to really decide what they wanted to focus on and keep at it, they could make some progress.
I definitely agree with you on the price of the virtual console games. I only downloaded one or two as a novelty right now, but I'm not going to pay 5.00 and up for nostalgia, especially when I can pick up the actual cartridges for less in many cases.
I wouldn't find it strange if someone who has no interest in cars said "Hey, nice car!". Nor would I find it particularly odd if someone who had no interest in playing, say, World of Warcraft, made a post about the game.
This is a forum for communication. I may not be interested in "playing" Second Life myself, but that does not necessarily mean I have no interest in why other people do. It's quite possible that somebody might reply to my stated lack of interest with a perspective that I didn't think of. It might even lead me to approach the entire concept differently and discover something that may spark my interest.
I don't know. But, that's the point of posting, right?
I personally agree that if you're going to release something command-line based, it shouldn't matter at all. I myself am a software developer, and while my applications are not cross-platform, I certainly appreciate those utilities that are. In my case, what I'm doing is not simple and highly specialized, so cross-platform doesn't do anything for me except make more work for no reason. My applications are not things that anybody else would find useful aside from the people I am making it for.
Most people, when they run an application on Windows, expect it to react in the same old Windows way. Many of cross-platform libraries do a poor job of doing that. I personally don't use GAIM because I can't stand the way it looks. Even though complaining about the ugliness of the GUI might seem stupid to some, it is a genuine problem with people. Clearly, it makes some form of different, as evidenced by the ever increasing "beautification" of window managers like KDE and Gnome.
It may be that this bugs me more than most precisely because I am a developer. It may be that it bugs ordinary people even more. I have no idea. But I think that increasingly the transparency of external libraries would probably help gain them acceptance. The problem is made even worse by libraries that clutter up your system by popping up and asking you to update, or add entries in your menus that you'll never need, as a user.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not really fair. Slashdot pretty much covers all things science, be it computer science, or quantum physics. There are frequently articles posted which I, being in the field of computer science, do not necessarily understand or comprehend. I'm not going to tell all of the quantum physicists out there that "slashdot is not the place for them" because Slashdot IS for them. While it might have a technical slant to it, I think it's a place for anyone more interested in hearing news of advancements in various scientific fields, rather than what prison Paris Hilton is going to next.
For that matter, even when I don't understand what an article is talking about, I am still usually more than interested to read about it.
In some respects, I -am- waiting on the backup industry. I work in the industry (as most do, on Slashdot), and backups are a huge problem for some of my larger small business customers. True enterprise level backups are outside of their price range, and current non-enterprise level technologies don't suit their needs. I agree that I have some odd clients, but it would be nice if the technology existed to provide them with better backups. In my opinion, they should probably accept the fact that they've reached the enterprise level and bite the bullet, but I'm not the one making the checks out, and they certainly aren't going to shell out that much money.
:)
I would just love to see something as ubiquitous as CDR or DVDR that has a much larger capacity. That would suit me just fine, and suit my customers pretty well, too.
I suppose it is mostly a matter of time. Eventually, with a little hope, the markets will catch up with each other.
I guess that's 20$ less than I *would* have spent, had I intended on buying this, or any "next generation" movie format. Until this entire thing sorts itself out, I refuse to buy either. I personally hope they both go down in flames, and in return, we can get something the entire market agrees upon. Not only that, maybe we'll get something less locked down. (I know, it'll never happen, but one can always hope.)
My interest in next generation formats has very little to do with movies, anyway. I'm much more interested in high capacity removable storage for my PC. One that doesn't include moving parts, and one that I can easily hand off to my relatives and not worry about getting back.
I was thinking the same thing, actually.
Far be it from Microsoft to actually do something for their users, but Microsoft does have some idea of what is good and bad for their business. Users being bombarded with ads is definitely bad for business -- hence Microsoft's purchase of the anti-spyware software that became Windows Defender. It is difficult to nail down the spyware makers, so I can imagine Microsoft doing this simply for a legal offense should any adware creator try and do the same.
I suppose if you aren't a technical person, it's probably too much. As a technical person who does it for a living as well as a hobby, I've always really liked being surrounded by electronics with lots of lights. NOC/IDC facilities are even more fun. It's a mood thing.
As long as all of this stuff is not in my room so I can't sleep, I have no problems with the office looking like NASA.
Don't feel bad. I liked Terminator 3 as well, it was fun.
And Event Horizon freaked me out at the time, I loved it. We should start a support group.
Yes, leveling to 60 was easy. Hell, leveling to 70 is easy.
But... that's not really where the real game is at. It's almost like the entire process of leveling up is merely a training session for you to get to know your character so that you can move on to something actually difficult. It allows you to acquire a very close understand of your character and how your skills and abilities work together.
The real challenge is the so called "endgame" content. Yes, there's plenty of people who will also trash this content as well, but for me, this is where the fun begins. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find a guild that can take on the raid instances and also maintain a fun attitude about it. However, we you do finally get into a guild that raids and simply has fun raiding, the game is very challenging. The challenge doesn't come so much from the game, but from learning to cooperate and improvise with your guildmates to beat something you could not possibly hope to do on your own. Every boss has a key strategy, and the fun is in executing that strategy as a group.
Nope, I agree with you completely.
I started out working with the desktop, and to this day, I still despise working on web applications. Admittedly, a lot of this is because I have less experience with web applications, and so when users ask for desktop-style features on a web applications, I tend to get very frustrated. I'm not saying web development is bad, it is definitely useful and there are many skilled web developers. I just prefer to keep to the desktop.
Most of my work lies in databases, mostly custom business software. It's not exactly fascinating or glamorous, most people find it pretty dull, but I enjoy it.
Speakeasy is extremely good. I've never been happier with an ISP than I am with Speakeasy. Excellent support who know what they are doing, and available at all hours of the night.
:)
That said...
They've just been purchased by Best Buy. Thankfully, I've been a customer for four years, and I'm under no contractual obligation of any form. I say this, because I'm reasonably certain that Best Buy will do what they always do. Their eyes will be filled with dollar signs because Speakeasy maintains a solid, happy customer base, and then begin to figure out how they can "cut costs". My help desk of knowledgeable technicians will be changed to a call center somewhere with people reading from a list. My 24 hour support will be cut to business hours only.
Inevitably, I'm sure they'll begin cutting heavy users off. I don't think I qualify as one, but I do run my own servers, and they'll probably want to block the ports on those as well. God forbid I run a mail server for my own use.
Why, yes, I do anticipate switching ISPs as soon as things turn sour.
The problem is not that there are fake keys lying around, it's that there are real keys lying around.
For quite some time, the key algorithm for the Volume License copies of XP has been cracked. They're perfectly valid keys, they simply haven't actually been sold to anyone. That's why they can't use the same algorithm, and why they have to keep this magic database of "actually sold" keys to compare against. I have no idea how this database was generated, but I'm willing to bet it was cobbled together, and that Microsoft had no real easy way of knowing which keys were sold and which were not, which resulted in a highly error prone database.
Given how many products are suddenly having caffeine added to them, I wonder how long it will take before somebody does something really stupid with all of these products, and deliberately or inadvertently manages to harm themself or someone else. It doesn't take all THAT much caffeine to cause some pretty nasty side effects, especially if you don't drink it all that often.
Some of us are condemning the PS3 for the company who made it, rather than the console itself.
Well, in my world, if I insult a customer, I get reprimanded or fired. I don't know anyone who does this directly to a client. Behind the scenes? Sure, perhaps. But not to the client's face. That ranks up with other unthinkable actions such as stealing from the company, and I'm not talking post-it notes. Why on earth would anybody want to insult their clientele?
If they've done something that they shouldn't be doing, there is a perfectly acceptable way of enlightening them that doesn't involve berating them. In my experience, most users are perfectly willing and able to learn if you're willing and able to take the time to explain it without an attitude problem.
I was thinking the same thing, actually. I mean, I know things look less pixelated on my computer screen because I'm not stretching the image to fit my television's resolution, but still.
To be completely honest, The Twilight Princess is an ugly game. Before you flame me -- I loved the game. Dearly. It's one of the best games I've ever played, and certainly one of the best in the entire series. The artists responsible for all of the game's graphics did a fantastic job. The problem, for the most part, is that it just doesn't get along very well with low resolutions. It's almost as if the game was designed with a higher resolution in mind and then pushed back to what it is now.
I have the component cables for my Wii. They do make a huge difference, and every game so far - Excite Truck, even Wii Sports, looks a great deal better in 480p on my television set. I understand a lot of it is the television, and I don't have the best LCD TV in the world, but those games looked pretty good even in 480i. Zelda appears to be very blurry in 480i as compared to the other games, and in 480p the blur goes away and starts to look like a mishmash of pixels. It isn't so bad close up, but things in the distance begin to get very ugly. From a layman's perspective, it seems like everything in Zelda was rendered in high detail intended for higher resolutions and now looks worse because it is being compressed into a lower resolution.
But again, don't get me wrong, the game was fantastic. I will undoubtedly play through it again. I just wish Nintendo had given it a bit more TLC, especially after having been delayed for so long. Graphics are not everything, and a good game can overcome virtually any graphical problems provided it has a solid plot and gameplate, but they aren't something to be completely disregarded, either. There is a reason why everyone drools over finely done CG, and well done graphics make it easier to immerse yourself in the story.
Store prices on music has dropped quite a bit, as well. It's not unusual for me to find a new artist that I like and their CD is $9.99 in stores. Not coincidentally, I've also purchased quite a few more CDs in the past year than I usually have. I find this is a fair price for a CD.
Though, factoring into that is the fact that I actually found quite a few bands this year that I enjoyed, which is a rarity. Personally, I'd like to see them get rid of the copy protection and DRM and leave music prices where they are at, that way I could actually easily rip my own CDs. As it stands, it's easier for me to get my CDs into MP3 form by downloading it, than worry about whether or not the disc I bought has copy protection on it.
I agree... I was completely surprised by Excite Truck. I'm not a racing game sort of person. I wasn't really expecting much.
Now I'm screaming at my TV because I need my last two S-ranks in Super Excite. It's great fun for a racer, and not stuff about "reality", which usually turns me off in racing games. The controls are exceedingly easier to use than those steering wheel add-ons you can buy. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to play.
I even bought the little plastic steering wheel that Ubisoft put out. Some people might not like it, but I think the wheel is great, it's helped me a lot.
I played my Wii quite a bit until I finished Zelda, and I'm still playing Excite Truck pretty frequently.
:P
These aren't officially tested or anything, but just a general idea. I changed my batteries after about 40 hours of Zelda (according to the game timer), and about 5 hours of Excite Truck, and a few other things here and there.
So, I'd say they'd last about 50 hours, depending on what you're playing. You could probably save some battery power by turning off the Wiimote speaker. I like the speaker, personally.
I could have sworn Novell has been tits up for quite some time...
Okay, sorry! OW! Stop hitting me!
All jokes aside, Novell hasn't been a choice for me in some time. I grew up on Netware 3.11 and 3.12, all the way up until 5.5. I look back fondly on those days, but Novell hasn't been the same for some time. My recent experiences with it were anything but pleasant, with a lot of strange issues cropping up. A part of me wishes that Novell would get back to their former glory, but I doubt that's going to happen. They seem to have a case of indecision, and I think if they were to really decide what they wanted to focus on and keep at it, they could make some progress.
I definitely agree with you on the price of the virtual console games. I only downloaded one or two as a novelty right now, but I'm not going to pay 5.00 and up for nostalgia, especially when I can pick up the actual cartridges for less in many cases.
I wouldn't find it strange if someone who has no interest in cars said "Hey, nice car!". Nor would I find it particularly odd if someone who had no interest in playing, say, World of Warcraft, made a post about the game.
This is a forum for communication. I may not be interested in "playing" Second Life myself, but that does not necessarily mean I have no interest in why other people do. It's quite possible that somebody might reply to my stated lack of interest with a perspective that I didn't think of. It might even lead me to approach the entire concept differently and discover something that may spark my interest.
I don't know. But, that's the point of posting, right?
I feel like the only person in the world who has looked at Second Life and had absolutely zero interest in it.
That would certainly explain it. :)
My Linksys access point doesn't work with the Wii in G-only mode. I have to leave it in mixed mode to make it work.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if you're in G-only mode, try switching.
I'm watching the news right now.
This is possibly the dumbest, saddest thing I've ever seen.
I personally agree that if you're going to release something command-line based, it shouldn't matter at all. I myself am a software developer, and while my applications are not cross-platform, I certainly appreciate those utilities that are. In my case, what I'm doing is not simple and highly specialized, so cross-platform doesn't do anything for me except make more work for no reason. My applications are not things that anybody else would find useful aside from the people I am making it for.
Most people, when they run an application on Windows, expect it to react in the same old Windows way. Many of cross-platform libraries do a poor job of doing that. I personally don't use GAIM because I can't stand the way it looks. Even though complaining about the ugliness of the GUI might seem stupid to some, it is a genuine problem with people. Clearly, it makes some form of different, as evidenced by the ever increasing "beautification" of window managers like KDE and Gnome.
It may be that this bugs me more than most precisely because I am a developer. It may be that it bugs ordinary people even more. I have no idea. But I think that increasingly the transparency of external libraries would probably help gain them acceptance. The problem is made even worse by libraries that clutter up your system by popping up and asking you to update, or add entries in your menus that you'll never need, as a user.