In the case of other crimes, the depiction is entirely separate from the depicted. Reading about a bank robber does not make you a thief.
Pornography is a little different, however, in that it exists as the interaction between the subject and the material. The whole point of pornography is to not just be a depiction of some sexually-arousing act, but to actually arouse.
A) Horror films invoke fear, and many depictions of murder are designed to give the viewer a viceral charge, espcecially of revenge. Clearly fictional works of violence work very hard to arouse the emotions of the viewer.
B) So what if someone gets aroused by a cartoon depiction of kiddie porn? "No child was harmed in the creation of this film." I abosolutly have no tolerance or empathy with child pornographers. I loathe them as the lowest form of existance. But that's because they hurt kids. If no kids are harmed, I don't really care how you get your jollies.
Isn't this true for Windows as well? Sure, open source would be better, but i'm not sure I get how it's ethical to force the issue. It even sounds like Linux is looking for an advantage. Yes, I'd like to have that advantage too, but forcing companies to give you that advantage seems contrary to the open source movements goals.
Sure, I get it, open source drivers are better. But does that give us the right to coerce them to open their drivers? We didn't grab Unix code to make Linux. We didn't grab Windows code to make Samba. Why on earth should we feel we have to the right to grab ATI code to make ATI drivers? When Linux first came out, all the drivers were made by the community. If vendors aren't offering their driver code in the ways we need it, why would we try to make a grab for their code instead of going back to writing our own?
BTW, please don't tell me it's "unrealistic," "too hard," "the release schedules are too fast," or "the open source drivers wouldn't be as good." The fact that all these things may be true is not an excuse for forcing their hand on opening up their code.
Understood. Haven't we gotten the EFF to sue people who illegally put GPLed software into their proprietary software? I'm all for that. I think it's funny that people who want to keep their own stuff from gettnig stolen have no problem with stealing the work of others. But it's not ha ha funny.
Wasn't all that actually the case with the gamecube or PS2? Do we need a PS3, Xbox or Wii to accomplish it?
I'm not saying it's some kind of crime to release games that don't use everything your console can muster, I'm just saying that it's not neccessary. I have a 1.4 Ghz PC running Win98 that I use to play quite a few of my favorite games and the only reason I ever upgraded was because I needed more power for my the more recent ones. In other words, I use next gen hardware for next gen tasks. If you're not looking for next gen taks, why use next gen hardware?
So I'm a little hazy on this one. If proprietary hardware vendors release proprietary drivers, what exactly is the harm? Sure, it would be nice to have them GPLed so they can be extended, or even trimmed down, but it's not like you're going to need the driver if you don't have the hardware. In the case that the hardware vendor is slow to make Linux drivers, or just decides to not make them at all, the community has created drivers of their own.
Seriously, this is more a question that a statement. What is the harm to Linux? Whenever I build a Windows machine I find that some drivers are available in the OS due to Microsoft's contracts with hardware vendors, Microsoft has made many of it's own drivers, and some of the drivers must be hand loaded. I'm not sure I understand the problem with this being workable on Linux.
I understand that it would be difficult to keep up with all these vendors, but that doesn't neccessarily mean we have the right to make them open their proprietary code. Open Source has always been about the community doing for itself what proprietary software vendors wouldn't. I'm not sure I got the memo where we decided that it was about forcing others to not be proprietary. The one is giving, where the other is taking. I feel better about giving.
It also begs the question of whether they would feel cheated if they were playing 2D after spending $600 for their game console.
I really like Loco Roco on my PSP, even though it's not using all the capabilities of the machine. It's fresh, and that's not easy to do these days. But if the majority of games I played were 2D, I'd feel like it was a waste to buy the PSP. I think the guys buying Xbox 360s and PS3s might really enjoy a small number of 2D games, but they'd start to question the next gen creds of their box if they saw too many. Lets face it, the term next gen implies that you have something new. If you don't have a slick new controller and you're not playing graphically high end games, what exactly is "next gen" about your fancy new box?
The system that could probably get away with this best is the Wii, because everyone knows it's not as graphically powerful as the other two. But, ironically, that new controller is so well suited for 3D space that I'd be surprised if anyone even tried to do a 2D game. Then again, I was also surprised anyone made a fresh, new 2D game for the PSP.
Sure, you compromise and you have people from both teams, but someone has to lead the show. It's a bad idea to not have a project lead. Project leads make sure someone is ultimately responsible for meeting deadlines, standards, etc.
One project lead has to be from IT. The IT department is responsible for timing, security standards, rollback plan, etc. Then you have a project lead from development. The Dev lead is responsible for making sure the software actually works, but has no responsibility for proper OS configuration, network security, etc. The development lead is subordinate to the IT lead for all things IT and visa versa.
You can have one lead above both of 'em or you can make the IT lead the overall project manager. Both can work. Security and downtime and back-out plan are often not seen as important to Dev, but a broken product is always important to IT. Since IT's goals more closely match the overall deployment needs, it's at least possible for IT to lead the entire team. Since the reverse is less true, it's a bad idea to have Dev lead the overall team.
You never make both Dev and IT co-leads. Ever. It's a recipe for finger pointing and bad blood. It's begging for disaster. A friend once told me about his malamutes' social structure. He said that many newbie owners leave food and enforce both dogs eating at the same time because of their mistaken belief that "fairness" is important. He said that under this scenario, the dogs almost always end up in constant fights. He told me that the proper way to do it is to leave out the bowl and let the dominant dog eat as much as he wants. Then the bowl goes to the next dog. Both dogs are usually satisfied with this arrangement.
Translated into human terms, if one person leads overall, then everyone knows their place. Most often everyone will do their job and everything will turn out ok. However, if you put two people in charge, then those two people will not know their place. Each might try to assert authority in such a way that the other has a problem with. Alternately, one may slack and the other has no authority to suggest picking up the pace. If he does suggest this, the likely answer will often be one that does not foster harmony. Make one guy in charge and these problems are far less likely to happen.
I try not to get pissed reading/. and I'm not sure why this post is an exception. Perhaps the post itself is innocent/naive enough, but it was the "informative" mods that set me over the edge.
#1. Everyone in gaming wants you to think their stuff if cool. Everyone. It's nice if the reason you think it's cool has something to do with quality, but in the end, that's not an absolute necessity. Question, which one was it, the GBA, or the DS that Nintendo purposely set out to look uncool? Neither? Well, thank you for entering reality. (BTW ads showing sweater-wearing yuppies smiling and laughing while they play with their Wii are very, very cool, if you're a sweater wearing yuppie.)
#2. The PSP is a fucking awesome game machine. It also happens to be a passable music and movie player. Don't let your prejudices prevent you from being honest about this. In playability, in fun, in versatility, it god-damn rocks. Is it better than the DS? I'm not gonna touch that with a thousand foot pole, not the least because I don't happen to own a DS and thus would not be able to make a fair comparison. However, even if the DS were ten times better than the PSP, that DOES NOT mean the PSP "is not a particularly good portable videogame machine." Say what you want about the relative merits of the two, but you are smoking crack or worse if you think the PSP is actually bad for playing games.
#3. I'm sick and tired of this "the DS sells better" crap. Do you live in Japan? What was that answer? Say it a little louder for us here in the U.S.? That's what I thought. Though/. has an international readership, the vast majority of readers are Americans. This is the score in America:
Wikipedia says that, "On December 1, 2006 Nintendo of America released launch-to-date information indicating that the Nintendo DS had sold 6.63 million units in the United States." Nice numbers. Wish I sold that many of the Total_Wimp Portable Game Console.
However, according to Sony, they had shipped close to that number, 6.39 million units, by the end of March and had exceeded that number, 7.57 million, by the end of June. The number shipped by the end of September was 9.57 million.
Two points here. One, I absolutely know that number shipped does not equal number sold. I am also not a moron enough to think that Sony didn't sell all the stock it sent back in April and July by Dec 1. Yes, I freely admit that I do not know the exact number of units Sony sold by Dec 1, but despite whatever you may think of them, they're not quite stupid enough to ship 3 million more units into a market that can't sell that last 6 million units it sent. It's time for you all to admit it, Sony has sold more PSPs in the US than Nintendo sold DSs. And it's done that despite Nintendos very significant lead in release date.
Point two. Who cares about the fact that Nintendo outsells the Sony in Japan. I'm sure the game designers do. I'm sure the Japanese do. But the last time I was in the store and decided to give the DS another shot, I was greeted by Elite Beat Agents, an anime inspired game that featured "yelling guy", "frantic gut" and a whole lot of other anime stereotypes that I've been actively trying to avoid now for several years. My daughter loves this stuff. I'd buy it for her in a heart beat (or an "Elite Beat". Har! I crack myself up!) But if I never see another sweat drop, bloody nose or chibi, it'll be too soon. So why, may I ask, would I want to encourage the game designers to be making more games specifically tailored to the Japanese taste? Heck, as far as I'm concerned, it's a blessing the PSP isn't selling as well in Japan. Game designers will need to cater to their core audience and for the moment, that audience looks American
For you anti-ms people i have a question, a hypnotical really. If you had cancer and were on your death bed and "Satan" creates a cure for cancer, do you take it? Your only option is die or take the cure. But the devil made it... what do you do?
The question isn't whether I'd take the medicine, it's whether I'd let Satan set the standards for the medicine, set the price for the medicine, and change both at will.
In the first scenerio, I get cured. In the second one, I may be cured, but those after me might get medicine that includes a mind control agent and those that cant afford the medicine's new prices would just die.
If a generic drug manufacturer was offering pretty good medicine for almost free, and any manufacture could use the formula at will, then I'm thinking that might be better than dealing with the devil.
BTW, I'm not anti-MS. I just don't think a category of product that is abosolutely neccessary should have a "standard" that effectively damands people buy proprietary, expensive goods. It's a bad idea.
On the other hand, your new Linux box can function as a full-featured PS3.
You can go back and forth, but the bottom line is that some of the core PS3 funtionality should have some value to you if you want to get your money's worth out of it. If you don't care about BluRay or games, then you're 100% correct, you should look elseware for your next Linux box. But if you really want to play Motor Storm, getting a "free" Linux box with the deal could be a nice bonus.
It's a good idea to encourage civil behavior in your enemies. Getting a truce and a peace treaty is almost always much cheaper, eisier and almost always gives you a better outcome than spending every last ounce of strength trying to destroy them
Selling a couple xian tunes w/o drm isn't going to exactly cause a wave of common sense to break out. Does anyone actually listen to this crap?
They're doing exactly the same thing they did with DRM on CDs; they're releasing them in very limited quantities so they can guage the public reaction.
This is a big deal. It's not big because the numbers are big, but because they're actually looking at the format at all. At one point (yesterday?) we were forced to use quasi-legal tools and we were treated like criminals if we wanted to have cross-platform music. Now at least there's hope.
My suggestion is run, don't walk, to your computer and buy these tracks, even if you hate the artists involved. The music industry is quite predictible in that they always seem to go in the direction that they think will make them more money. We want to encourage this behavior.
I got a chance to play with a friend's Wii. I was very impressed with the smoothness of the Wiimote, finding it much more precise and easy to use than my Gyrations mouse.
That said, my guess would be that ergonomics would be an issue. The way you hold a Wiimote doesn't seem very similar to me to the way you'd hold a paint brush. Even the size of the thing would be an issue. It's not huge, but it's certainly no paint brush.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'd be suprised if Wii painting ever caught on.
The resolution was a suprise. I thought I had seen something much smaller elseware. 1200x900 is actually pretty good and 320x240 actually kind of sucks.
However, I have a bluetooth (cheaper IR ones are available) external keyboard which negates the keyboard issue. And on the operating system I gotta ask, who cares? Were PowerPC Mac laptops any less laptops because they only ran the Mac OS?
I just looked at the specs of the OLPC laptop. In general, it's much better than I remember it being. Cheaper than my 8125 too. But that doesn't mean my handheld couldn't perform most of the role of a laptop if asked to do so, which I do on a regular basis. I agree that we should send the OLPC laptop to a kid in Africa over my 8125 any day of the week. But that doesn't make my 8125 any less a cheap "laptop" in functionality. TW
I think it depends on your viewpoint. The OLPC initiative was willing to make a lot changes in the typical configuration of a laptop in order to make their project work. They have a much smaller screen, a different OS than most people in the world use, a non-standard and very small "hard drive" and an unusual wireless configuration.
On the other hand, I have a full-size external keyboard, an email client, a web browser, the ability to use quite a large number of off the shelf software packages, many of them free or open source, and a full blown SDK available from the OS vendor.
It may not technically be a laptop, but I'd be interested in hearing your take about the things the make the OLPC more of a laptop than my 8125? After you get past form factor, I think it's going to be kind of hard.
BTW, can you guess why I wouldn't include a Leapfrog? No open programing support. If you can't write programs for your general-purpose computer, then it's not a general-purpose computer.
It was a legitimate question. There's no reason reason to chastise him for asking it. I think the fact that he read the origional article and was reading through the comments was proof enough that he was already taking time to learn about the subject.
One good thing about article submiters is that in addition to a link, they also give you a summary. You can learn enough to know whether or not to click the link, and sometimes the summary itself is good enough to tell you what you need.
It's nice that you took the time to tell that guy where to find information, but you could have helped him, and the rest of us, by giving us the short version in your post. It could have kept us on site reading other insightful comments and "you will look like a genius compared to most people around here."
I think the project is doing ok. I've seen one in person. It has 2GB of flash memory, a 200mhz processor, a Microsoft OS and high speed wireless internet. It happens to also be one of the most portable computers I've ever seen. They didn't get it down to $100, but even with the storage upgrade it was only about $350. I think they called it a Cingular 8125.
I can't figure out why you got modded down. If anything, this was insightful. I found it especially interesting that you refered to this as a torture device. Though technically not true (torture would be causing pain in order to get information, a confession, etc), because it's purpose is to cause pain, I can see how it could easily be interpreted that way by those affected.
In general, non-lethal coersion methods have not been regarded well. They seem like a really good idea, but they have a tendency to piss people off in a very direct way. These are living people, by the way, who will be more than happy to use their still living mouths to denounce you as villian who's out to hurt people. Theoretically, death should be worse than hurt, but people seem to have a very long memory for pain.
Consoles shouldn't replace PCs either. If I had to make a choice between removing all games forever from my PCs or through all my consoles out the window, it would be a fairly straight forward goodbye to the ol' PS2. There is a reason why I wanted the PC to be included in this article after all.
BTW, check out Treadmarks at LDAgames.com. It's a great small-publisher game, though a little dated by this point. It's been one of my favorite for years.
historically the permit process has been abused to deny groups their right to peacfully assemble. Governmental bodies have unreasonably delayed protests, put up unreasonable barriers to protest, disallowed reasonable locations and just about everything else you can think of. I agree with the poster, "must get a permit to protest" is often an oxymoron.
To put it more simply, what do you think would be the best way to protest the permit process?
The problem with something different is that it's different. If your kid has the same thing as everyone else, the good stuff will work the same and the bad stuff will be dismissed because everyone feels the same pain. But if it's different, all that bad stuff is going to be glaringly obvious. Because it has different bad stuff, your kid will point out, correctly, that "Windows doesn't do that." You may have the same number of great programs, some that are completely unique or that you would never consider buying the Windows equivilant because it costs too much, but your kid will focus on all that programs that he can't run. Your bugs may actually be fewer, but they'll all be noticed.
The kids will discover the difference as soon as they want to run some piece of software that they used at their friend's house. They will be sad. My daughter discovered some rare bug in Open Office that kept her teacher from opening my her "Powerpoing" show on her Mac with MS Office. Considering her grade was at stake, she was not amused.
Sure, think different(ly). Linux rocks. But don't pull that "it's the same" crap. It's not. And your kids will notice.
A TV tray with a shorty keyboard actually works pretty well. I just grab a chair from the dining room or the home office. It's not ideal, but neither is doing these kinds of games with a gamepad. I have high hopes for the Phantom Lapboard.
The lack of split screen mutiplayer games is a bigger problem, but, hey, I never said the PC should replace consoles. It's just a heck of a lot of fun playing Doom3 on a big screen with 5.1 and no lights:-) I was kind of hoping more people would catch on so we could get more cool stuff like the Phantom.
Dude, look at the last month, year, and 3 years news from Iraq on CNN, MSNBC, or any of the four networds. Look for stories of American casualties and then look at the number of Iraqi casualties in the same story. Not common to see them, is it? We fight, we get shot at, yet there doesn't appear to be a close account of how many we kill.
Now look for stories that talk about how many civilians we've killed? Still kind of hard, isn't it? How about stories from the main invasion on how many Iraqi soldiers we killed. You're searching pretty hard aren't you?
Don't you know, logically, that we're not just sitting there letting everyone take pot shots at us? We did successfully take over the country didn't we? We probably had to kill a few people to make that happen, didn't wee? And we know for a fact that bombs, mortar rounds, etc take out civilians as well as soldiers. When you bomb cities, someone always gets caught in the crossfire. So where are the stories even estimating how many we killed?
I know that there are a few stories. They're small, or vague, or go away after a day and don't get picked up by the other networks. But you have to know these things are happening. So how do you justify insinuating we're taking great pains to avoid killing civilians? Do you have some great news source I'm missing? Do you believe that rules of engagement are being followed, without any source other than our own millitary telling you it's true? I'm not saying you should believe they're not being followed, but there's not exactly a lot of justification to believe one way or the other, is there?
I'm not saying I have all the facts. I'm really saying the opposite, that I don't have very many facts about how many Iraqi soldiers or civilians we've killed. I know about a year ago, Bush himself put the number at around 30 thousand (that number was widely reported) which is more than 10 times the numbers of US soldiers killed. Bush is not likely to be exagerating on the high side with that number.
Please don't patronize me by saying I'm being manipulated. The truth is that we're both being manipulated. The question is, can you see it, can you read between the lines and can you come to some conclusion with the data you actually have? My conclusion is that we care a lot about US casualties. We know to the man how many have died. We print all of their names in some newspapers. We read them aloud at cerimonies. The number of dead are in the news almost daily for all media and almost weekly for any individual news network. But we just don't care enough about the Iraqi dead to report casualties with any kind of regularity or any kind of accuracy. That tells me we don't really care that much about Iraqi casualties at all. We have American human beings that die and are morned, even by those that never met them, but Iraqis die the same bloody deaths and we're almost completely indifferent.
You can talk about manipulation all you want, but I generated my conclusion from our press with our numbers. If you think we really care, go back and look again. Iraqis don't even justify a number to us, much less represent human grief. That being the case, I find it very hard to believe that "US forces generally expose themselves to extra risk in order to avoid endangering civilians as much as possible" has very much real meaning.
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A) Horror films invoke fear, and many depictions of murder are designed to give the viewer a viceral charge, espcecially of revenge. Clearly fictional works of violence work very hard to arouse the emotions of the viewer.
B) So what if someone gets aroused by a cartoon depiction of kiddie porn? "No child was harmed in the creation of this film." I abosolutly have no tolerance or empathy with child pornographers. I loathe them as the lowest form of existance. But that's because they hurt kids. If no kids are harmed, I don't really care how you get your jollies.
TW
Isn't this true for Windows as well? Sure, open source would be better, but i'm not sure I get how it's ethical to force the issue. It even sounds like Linux is looking for an advantage. Yes, I'd like to have that advantage too, but forcing companies to give you that advantage seems contrary to the open source movements goals.
TW
Sure, I get it, open source drivers are better. But does that give us the right to coerce them to open their drivers? We didn't grab Unix code to make Linux. We didn't grab Windows code to make Samba. Why on earth should we feel we have to the right to grab ATI code to make ATI drivers? When Linux first came out, all the drivers were made by the community. If vendors aren't offering their driver code in the ways we need it, why would we try to make a grab for their code instead of going back to writing our own?
BTW, please don't tell me it's "unrealistic," "too hard," "the release schedules are too fast," or "the open source drivers wouldn't be as good." The fact that all these things may be true is not an excuse for forcing their hand on opening up their code.
TW
Understood. Haven't we gotten the EFF to sue people who illegally put GPLed software into their proprietary software? I'm all for that. I think it's funny that people who want to keep their own stuff from gettnig stolen have no problem with stealing the work of others. But it's not ha ha funny.
TW
Wasn't all that actually the case with the gamecube or PS2? Do we need a PS3, Xbox or Wii to accomplish it?
I'm not saying it's some kind of crime to release games that don't use everything your console can muster, I'm just saying that it's not neccessary. I have a 1.4 Ghz PC running Win98 that I use to play quite a few of my favorite games and the only reason I ever upgraded was because I needed more power for my the more recent ones. In other words, I use next gen hardware for next gen tasks. If you're not looking for next gen taks, why use next gen hardware?
TW
So I'm a little hazy on this one. If proprietary hardware vendors release proprietary drivers, what exactly is the harm? Sure, it would be nice to have them GPLed so they can be extended, or even trimmed down, but it's not like you're going to need the driver if you don't have the hardware. In the case that the hardware vendor is slow to make Linux drivers, or just decides to not make them at all, the community has created drivers of their own.
Seriously, this is more a question that a statement. What is the harm to Linux? Whenever I build a Windows machine I find that some drivers are available in the OS due to Microsoft's contracts with hardware vendors, Microsoft has made many of it's own drivers, and some of the drivers must be hand loaded. I'm not sure I understand the problem with this being workable on Linux.
I understand that it would be difficult to keep up with all these vendors, but that doesn't neccessarily mean we have the right to make them open their proprietary code. Open Source has always been about the community doing for itself what proprietary software vendors wouldn't. I'm not sure I got the memo where we decided that it was about forcing others to not be proprietary. The one is giving, where the other is taking. I feel better about giving.
TW
Interesting game. 2D in a 3D space (you are the 3rd dimension). Folks are really pushing this Wiimote in some interesting directions.
TW
It also begs the question of whether they would feel cheated if they were playing 2D after spending $600 for their game console.
I really like Loco Roco on my PSP, even though it's not using all the capabilities of the machine. It's fresh, and that's not easy to do these days. But if the majority of games I played were 2D, I'd feel like it was a waste to buy the PSP. I think the guys buying Xbox 360s and PS3s might really enjoy a small number of 2D games, but they'd start to question the next gen creds of their box if they saw too many. Lets face it, the term next gen implies that you have something new. If you don't have a slick new controller and you're not playing graphically high end games, what exactly is "next gen" about your fancy new box?
The system that could probably get away with this best is the Wii, because everyone knows it's not as graphically powerful as the other two. But, ironically, that new controller is so well suited for 3D space that I'd be surprised if anyone even tried to do a 2D game. Then again, I was also surprised anyone made a fresh, new 2D game for the PSP.
TW
Sure, you compromise and you have people from both teams, but someone has to lead the show. It's a bad idea to not have a project lead. Project leads make sure someone is ultimately responsible for meeting deadlines, standards, etc.
One project lead has to be from IT. The IT department is responsible for timing, security standards, rollback plan, etc. Then you have a project lead from development. The Dev lead is responsible for making sure the software actually works, but has no responsibility for proper OS configuration, network security, etc. The development lead is subordinate to the IT lead for all things IT and visa versa.
You can have one lead above both of 'em or you can make the IT lead the overall project manager. Both can work. Security and downtime and back-out plan are often not seen as important to Dev, but a broken product is always important to IT. Since IT's goals more closely match the overall deployment needs, it's at least possible for IT to lead the entire team. Since the reverse is less true, it's a bad idea to have Dev lead the overall team.
You never make both Dev and IT co-leads. Ever. It's a recipe for finger pointing and bad blood. It's begging for disaster. A friend once told me about his malamutes' social structure. He said that many newbie owners leave food and enforce both dogs eating at the same time because of their mistaken belief that "fairness" is important. He said that under this scenario, the dogs almost always end up in constant fights. He told me that the proper way to do it is to leave out the bowl and let the dominant dog eat as much as he wants. Then the bowl goes to the next dog. Both dogs are usually satisfied with this arrangement.
Translated into human terms, if one person leads overall, then everyone knows their place. Most often everyone will do their job and everything will turn out ok. However, if you put two people in charge, then those two people will not know their place. Each might try to assert authority in such a way that the other has a problem with. Alternately, one may slack and the other has no authority to suggest picking up the pace. If he does suggest this, the likely answer will often be one that does not foster harmony. Make one guy in charge and these problems are far less likely to happen.
TW
I try not to get pissed reading /. and I'm not sure why this post is an exception. Perhaps the post itself is innocent/naive enough, but it was the "informative" mods that set me over the edge.
/. has an international readership, the vast majority of readers are Americans. This is the score in America:
#1. Everyone in gaming wants you to think their stuff if cool. Everyone. It's nice if the reason you think it's cool has something to do with quality, but in the end, that's not an absolute necessity. Question, which one was it, the GBA, or the DS that Nintendo purposely set out to look uncool? Neither? Well, thank you for entering reality. (BTW ads showing sweater-wearing yuppies smiling and laughing while they play with their Wii are very, very cool, if you're a sweater wearing yuppie.)
#2. The PSP is a fucking awesome game machine. It also happens to be a passable music and movie player. Don't let your prejudices prevent you from being honest about this. In playability, in fun, in versatility, it god-damn rocks. Is it better than the DS? I'm not gonna touch that with a thousand foot pole, not the least because I don't happen to own a DS and thus would not be able to make a fair comparison. However, even if the DS were ten times better than the PSP, that DOES NOT mean the PSP "is not a particularly good portable videogame machine." Say what you want about the relative merits of the two, but you are smoking crack or worse if you think the PSP is actually bad for playing games.
#3. I'm sick and tired of this "the DS sells better" crap. Do you live in Japan? What was that answer? Say it a little louder for us here in the U.S.? That's what I thought. Though
Wikipedia says that, "On December 1, 2006 Nintendo of America released launch-to-date information indicating that the Nintendo DS had sold 6.63 million units in the United States." Nice numbers. Wish I sold that many of the Total_Wimp Portable Game Console.
However, according to Sony, they had shipped close to that number, 6.39 million units, by the end of March and had exceeded that number, 7.57 million, by the end of June. The number shipped by the end of September was 9.57 million.
Two points here. One, I absolutely know that number shipped does not equal number sold. I am also not a moron enough to think that Sony didn't sell all the stock it sent back in April and July by Dec 1. Yes, I freely admit that I do not know the exact number of units Sony sold by Dec 1, but despite whatever you may think of them, they're not quite stupid enough to ship 3 million more units into a market that can't sell that last 6 million units it sent. It's time for you all to admit it, Sony has sold more PSPs in the US than Nintendo sold DSs. And it's done that despite Nintendos very significant lead in release date.
Point two. Who cares about the fact that Nintendo outsells the Sony in Japan. I'm sure the game designers do. I'm sure the Japanese do. But the last time I was in the store and decided to give the DS another shot, I was greeted by Elite Beat Agents, an anime inspired game that featured "yelling guy", "frantic gut" and a whole lot of other anime stereotypes that I've been actively trying to avoid now for several years. My daughter loves this stuff. I'd buy it for her in a heart beat (or an "Elite Beat". Har! I crack myself up!) But if I never see another sweat drop, bloody nose or chibi, it'll be too soon. So why, may I ask, would I want to encourage the game designers to be making more games specifically tailored to the Japanese taste? Heck, as far as I'm concerned, it's a blessing the PSP isn't selling as well in Japan. Game designers will need to cater to their core audience and for the moment, that audience looks American
The question isn't whether I'd take the medicine, it's whether I'd let Satan set the standards for the medicine, set the price for the medicine, and change both at will.
In the first scenerio, I get cured. In the second one, I may be cured, but those after me might get medicine that includes a mind control agent and those that cant afford the medicine's new prices would just die.
If a generic drug manufacturer was offering pretty good medicine for almost free, and any manufacture could use the formula at will, then I'm thinking that might be better than dealing with the devil.
BTW, I'm not anti-MS. I just don't think a category of product that is abosolutely neccessary should have a "standard" that effectively damands people buy proprietary, expensive goods. It's a bad idea.
TW
On the other hand, your new Linux box can function as a full-featured PS3.
You can go back and forth, but the bottom line is that some of the core PS3 funtionality should have some value to you if you want to get your money's worth out of it. If you don't care about BluRay or games, then you're 100% correct, you should look elseware for your next Linux box. But if you really want to play Motor Storm, getting a "free" Linux box with the deal could be a nice bonus.
TW
It's a good idea to encourage civil behavior in your enemies. Getting a truce and a peace treaty is almost always much cheaper, eisier and almost always gives you a better outcome than spending every last ounce of strength trying to destroy them
TW
They're doing exactly the same thing they did with DRM on CDs; they're releasing them in very limited quantities so they can guage the public reaction.
This is a big deal. It's not big because the numbers are big, but because they're actually looking at the format at all. At one point (yesterday?) we were forced to use quasi-legal tools and we were treated like criminals if we wanted to have cross-platform music. Now at least there's hope.
My suggestion is run, don't walk, to your computer and buy these tracks, even if you hate the artists involved. The music industry is quite predictible in that they always seem to go in the direction that they think will make them more money. We want to encourage this behavior.
TW
I got a chance to play with a friend's Wii. I was very impressed with the smoothness of the Wiimote, finding it much more precise and easy to use than my Gyrations mouse.
That said, my guess would be that ergonomics would be an issue. The way you hold a Wiimote doesn't seem very similar to me to the way you'd hold a paint brush. Even the size of the thing would be an issue. It's not huge, but it's certainly no paint brush.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'd be suprised if Wii painting ever caught on.
TW
The resolution was a suprise. I thought I had seen something much smaller elseware. 1200x900 is actually pretty good and 320x240 actually kind of sucks.
However, I have a bluetooth (cheaper IR ones are available) external keyboard which negates the keyboard issue. And on the operating system I gotta ask, who cares? Were PowerPC Mac laptops any less laptops because they only ran the Mac OS?
I just looked at the specs of the OLPC laptop. In general, it's much better than I remember it being. Cheaper than my 8125 too. But that doesn't mean my handheld couldn't perform most of the role of a laptop if asked to do so, which I do on a regular basis. I agree that we should send the OLPC laptop to a kid in Africa over my 8125 any day of the week. But that doesn't make my 8125 any less a cheap "laptop" in functionality.
TW
I think it depends on your viewpoint. The OLPC initiative was willing to make a lot changes in the typical configuration of a laptop in order to make their project work. They have a much smaller screen, a different OS than most people in the world use, a non-standard and very small "hard drive" and an unusual wireless configuration.
On the other hand, I have a full-size external keyboard, an email client, a web browser, the ability to use quite a large number of off the shelf software packages, many of them free or open source, and a full blown SDK available from the OS vendor.
It may not technically be a laptop, but I'd be interested in hearing your take about the things the make the OLPC more of a laptop than my 8125? After you get past form factor, I think it's going to be kind of hard.
BTW, can you guess why I wouldn't include a Leapfrog? No open programing support. If you can't write programs for your general-purpose computer, then it's not a general-purpose computer.
It was a legitimate question. There's no reason reason to chastise him for asking it. I think the fact that he read the origional article and was reading through the comments was proof enough that he was already taking time to learn about the subject.
One good thing about article submiters is that in addition to a link, they also give you a summary. You can learn enough to know whether or not to click the link, and sometimes the summary itself is good enough to tell you what you need.
It's nice that you took the time to tell that guy where to find information, but you could have helped him, and the rest of us, by giving us the short version in your post. It could have kept us on site reading other insightful comments and "you will look like a genius compared to most people around here."
TW
I think the project is doing ok. I've seen one in person. It has 2GB of flash memory, a 200mhz processor, a Microsoft OS and high speed wireless internet. It happens to also be one of the most portable computers I've ever seen. They didn't get it down to $100, but even with the storage upgrade it was only about $350. I think they called it a Cingular 8125.
Nice machine, and it even makes phone calls.
TW
I can't figure out why you got modded down. If anything, this was insightful. I found it especially interesting that you refered to this as a torture device. Though technically not true (torture would be causing pain in order to get information, a confession, etc), because it's purpose is to cause pain, I can see how it could easily be interpreted that way by those affected.
In general, non-lethal coersion methods have not been regarded well. They seem like a really good idea, but they have a tendency to piss people off in a very direct way. These are living people, by the way, who will be more than happy to use their still living mouths to denounce you as villian who's out to hurt people. Theoretically, death should be worse than hurt, but people seem to have a very long memory for pain.
TW
Consoles shouldn't replace PCs either. If I had to make a choice between removing all games forever from my PCs or through all my consoles out the window, it would be a fairly straight forward goodbye to the ol' PS2. There is a reason why I wanted the PC to be included in this article after all.
BTW, check out Treadmarks at LDAgames.com. It's a great small-publisher game, though a little dated by this point. It's been one of my favorite for years.
TW
historically the permit process has been abused to deny groups their right to peacfully assemble. Governmental bodies have unreasonably delayed protests, put up unreasonable barriers to protest, disallowed reasonable locations and just about everything else you can think of. I agree with the poster, "must get a permit to protest" is often an oxymoron.
To put it more simply, what do you think would be the best way to protest the permit process?
TW
The problem with something different is that it's different. If your kid has the same thing as everyone else, the good stuff will work the same and the bad stuff will be dismissed because everyone feels the same pain. But if it's different, all that bad stuff is going to be glaringly obvious. Because it has different bad stuff, your kid will point out, correctly, that "Windows doesn't do that." You may have the same number of great programs, some that are completely unique or that you would never consider buying the Windows equivilant because it costs too much, but your kid will focus on all that programs that he can't run. Your bugs may actually be fewer, but they'll all be noticed.
The kids will discover the difference as soon as they want to run some piece of software that they used at their friend's house. They will be sad. My daughter discovered some rare bug in Open Office that kept her teacher from opening my her "Powerpoing" show on her Mac with MS Office. Considering her grade was at stake, she was not amused.
Sure, think different(ly). Linux rocks. But don't pull that "it's the same" crap. It's not. And your kids will notice.
TW
A TV tray with a shorty keyboard actually works pretty well. I just grab a chair from the dining room or the home office. It's not ideal, but neither is doing these kinds of games with a gamepad. I have high hopes for the Phantom Lapboard.
:-) I was kind of hoping more people would catch on so we could get more cool stuff like the Phantom.
The lack of split screen mutiplayer games is a bigger problem, but, hey, I never said the PC should replace consoles. It's just a heck of a lot of fun playing Doom3 on a big screen with 5.1 and no lights
TW
Dude, look at the last month, year, and 3 years news from Iraq on CNN, MSNBC, or any of the four networds. Look for stories of American casualties and then look at the number of Iraqi casualties in the same story. Not common to see them, is it? We fight, we get shot at, yet there doesn't appear to be a close account of how many we kill.
Now look for stories that talk about how many civilians we've killed? Still kind of hard, isn't it? How about stories from the main invasion on how many Iraqi soldiers we killed. You're searching pretty hard aren't you?
Don't you know, logically, that we're not just sitting there letting everyone take pot shots at us? We did successfully take over the country didn't we? We probably had to kill a few people to make that happen, didn't wee? And we know for a fact that bombs, mortar rounds, etc take out civilians as well as soldiers. When you bomb cities, someone always gets caught in the crossfire. So where are the stories even estimating how many we killed?
I know that there are a few stories. They're small, or vague, or go away after a day and don't get picked up by the other networks. But you have to know these things are happening. So how do you justify insinuating we're taking great pains to avoid killing civilians? Do you have some great news source I'm missing? Do you believe that rules of engagement are being followed, without any source other than our own millitary telling you it's true? I'm not saying you should believe they're not being followed, but there's not exactly a lot of justification to believe one way or the other, is there?
I'm not saying I have all the facts. I'm really saying the opposite, that I don't have very many facts about how many Iraqi soldiers or civilians we've killed. I know about a year ago, Bush himself put the number at around 30 thousand (that number was widely reported) which is more than 10 times the numbers of US soldiers killed. Bush is not likely to be exagerating on the high side with that number.
Please don't patronize me by saying I'm being manipulated. The truth is that we're both being manipulated. The question is, can you see it, can you read between the lines and can you come to some conclusion with the data you actually have? My conclusion is that we care a lot about US casualties. We know to the man how many have died. We print all of their names in some newspapers. We read them aloud at cerimonies. The number of dead are in the news almost daily for all media and almost weekly for any individual news network. But we just don't care enough about the Iraqi dead to report casualties with any kind of regularity or any kind of accuracy. That tells me we don't really care that much about Iraqi casualties at all. We have American human beings that die and are morned, even by those that never met them, but Iraqis die the same bloody deaths and we're almost completely indifferent.
You can talk about manipulation all you want, but I generated my conclusion from our press with our numbers. If you think we really care, go back and look again. Iraqis don't even justify a number to us, much less represent human grief. That being the case, I find it very hard to believe that "US forces generally expose themselves to extra risk in order to avoid endangering civilians as much as possible" has very much real meaning.
TW