i was reluctant... perhaps the fact that The Olivia Tremor Control is one of the most popular artists on the site doesn't bode well for emusic's commercial success, but it does bode well for my MP3 collection. Ahh those goofy boys from Athens, what will they think of next?
"CD quality" means that at that level, most people don't have good enough stereo equipment to discern the difference.
listen to any song with heavy drums, you can hear the MP3 mess quite well when the high hats come in. that isn't there on CD. 192 bit is "CD-quality" for me.
but since you obviously can't hear the difference, i reccomend you save yourself the harddrive space.
This is why I wonder why Mac news is even posted in Slashdot. (I'm being rhetorical, of course it should be posted) But this is News for Nerds, and Apple is not a company nor line of products for nerds. Or at least they are for a different type of nerd.
Most consumers care a great deal about how things look. Most customers will never notice the difference between a 1GhZ processor and a 1.3 GhZ processor. Most consumers will never run a server, and would never think to open up their computer.
Slashdot is a bunch of engineers. We work with wires and boxes. White block text against a black background is familiar and inviting to us. We are not, to say the least, Apple's primary market. Now for work, I'd never think of using anything less than a Linux or Unix environment. For play, I know that my DIY Windows box is the best solution. But when my mother wanted a new computer, I went Mac shopping with her.
Macintosh is still the easiest interface for a newcomer to use, and still does the best job of insuring that the average user will never have to mess around with the ugly technical mess.
$1800 for an all in one home computing solution with a DVD burner and powerful media software. Really, what's to complain about?
No. The death of the record industry would mean the death of the millionare rock star. who cares. what band is in it for the money? sure some great acts have gotten rich off of their record sales, but if they had remained moderately succesful club acts, don't you think they'd still do it. good musicians play for the love of the music, not for big bucks. i hate the logic that says no multi-million dollar payoffs = no artist compensation. exhibit A: Fugazi.
this is different than the usual Slashdot condemnation of patents. Philips actually spent lots of time and resources to develop a totally new product, for which they more than deserve their patents. The ones we usually complain about are cases when someone gets the patent because they were (not always) the first to implement a really really obvious idea. Also, Philips is using their patent for the CD purchasing public's good, not to beat down a competitor when traditional methods of coming out on top fail. Bravo Philips, don't let the man get you down.
never mind, i'm an idiot. in my sleepless fog, i posted in the wrong open window. one of the hazards of late-night multitasking, i suppose. don't waste your mod points.
something noone has commented on just yet: did you get a look at that keyboard? Judging from the picture (and probably a sentence that i'm not seeing on my second read-through) there is a built in *physical* qwerty keyboard that you can access by expanding the PDA Transformers-style. Can anyone else say bad-ass? This feature single handedly makes this the best PDA hardware on the market.
Now as to software concerns: this is a first-gen product. I know it will be competing with third and fourth gen products from Microsoft and Palm, but we should also remember that immediately after release, the software will undergo *rapid* improvement.
it looks like the standard PDA apps will be working out of the box, and how many part time hackers will be jumping to work on ports? I can't wait for portable nethack. (and yes i know it already exists)
there are potential problems: it sounds like it takes a few seconds to power-up and boot. that's a big no-no, unless there's a very good standby mode. The name is also a mistake. "Linux" is a scary thing to most consumers, and any reference to it in the name is a marketing mistake. The interface should hide the nerdier aspects of the system completely, it worried me to see a terminal window in the review. Not that the technical side of things should be inaccessible, it just shouldn't be required for anything outside of development or hard-core tweaking.
all in all, i want one, and at $300, it will be the cheapest 200mhz, 64mbit PDA out there. Sounds like a winner.
I've given this a bit of thought, since it is what turned me away from MMORPGs since the text-based AOL days.
First the price system needs to change. Once there are more massively multiplayer games out there, people could pay for one service that provides access to all games (still purchasing boxed games separately i'd imagine) This would be more like cable (pay for a lot of channels) rather than HBO (pay for one channel) which I think more people would go for.
I think RPGs themselves need to be tailored to the realities of the MMORPG market. Perhaps you could have different "planes" or "parallel universes" where more powerful, obsessive players can ascend, leaving the casuals and newbies to deal with each other.
Also, I think a lot of robbing/murdering issues would be taken care of if monsters were playable races. I think a lot of people would love to start as an adolescent dragon and build up to being a reknowned and feared monster. This would most likely cater to people who normally play abusive characters.
Yeah... it could be cool... but it would probably be a lot more like the Flintstones meet the Jetsons.
I think the lack of continuity is one of the best things about the series. If they kept running stories or characters, that would get in the way of their creativity and make it harder for new players to enjoy the games.
What is wrong with the series, though, is that they're becoming interactive movies. I can't count how much time is spent in FFX in totally or practically non interactive sequences (and walking along with no choice in path, and clicking through dialog isn't interaction). It's certainly an interesting story, but it kills the replay value. I hope I don't screw up too bad on the sphere grid, because I'm *not* sitting through all of the chatty parts again.
Of course, a MMPG wouldn't have that problem. My problem with FFXI will be I'm taking hard classes and attempting to keep up a social life, I just don't have the time. With FFX, I can finish the game over winter break and be done with it.
I think the series hit its highpoint around 3 (6 in Japan) and 7. Of course, the best RPG Square ever made was Chrono Trigger for the SNES. Too bad it sells for like $70 on ebay.
In my old age I will reflect on my youth and think "where did it all go?" I may perhaps regret a few too many hours spent with computers, but mostly I will remember good times and close friends. These guys will think back and ask themselves "where did it all go?"
To which they can only reply "oh, yeah, that's right."
Seriously though, art? This makes no statement, interests no one, and achieves nothing. If they seriously think that this is art, then it is a worse masturbatory act of "expression" than you will find at any highschool poetry slam. They're just making up a lame reason to sit on a sidewalk with a webcam for four months.
Normally I just let people live their lives as they see fit, and I try not to judge, but dudes, as Will Shatner once said, "Get a life!"
compromise then? the "free" in the free software movement came from elsewhere, but the software originated with Linus. Can't have free software without software.
First Mathematics doesn't say that there are as many positive even integers as there are integers alltogether, it simply states that injective mappings exist between the two sets. For finite sets, that is functionally equivalent to saying that they are equal in number, but when dealing with infinity such phrases as "as many" don't make much sense. It is not absurd at all, you simply don't understand the subject matter.
Now you almost got a good analogy with the slavery thing. The point of comparason you *should* have made is that in both examples of ethics, the society seems wrong because they have a different definition of "human life"
Peter Singer is an interesting fellow. I think he's wrong, and dangerously so. But he's an intelligent man who has made significant contributions to his field.
An example of Singer's bizarre ethical system: Killing a newborn isn't murder because it isn't a person yet. Buying a big screen TV is murder because you could have sent the money to Unicef who would have saved an innocent life with it.
He is a skilled essayist, and makes both claims difficult (though not impossible) to refute.
Though to his credit, he lives his philosophy, he strictly limits his income, and donates the vast majority of what he earns to charity.
If I had gone to Princeton, I'd take one of his classes for sure.
and what would you have taken out to add those things?
this is the problem with adaptations. people can't watch the movie as a movie. of course it isn't going to be exactly like the book because film isn't exactly like a novel... it's closer in form to a short story, which means great movies either focus mainly on plot and have a lot of action, or focus mainly on character and have much more subdued action. novells have the ability to do both. it was a damn good movie, and part of the reason is they decided to take something out. really, if the whole book had been there, it would either have been 5 hours long, or just felt like a ridiculously paced plot-summary.
i know you're joking but i do want to ask why we insist on clinging to "memorabilia"
the original trilogy belongs in a museum, if we were ever to lose that, then a fairly significant bit of 20th century pop culture would be lost, but as to the pieces of plastic used to make the movie? who cares? i understand the coolness for fans, but i can't see justifying putting darth vader's helmet in a museum.
This all sounds a lot like the arguments against any massively successful new technology. Remember the best products don't fill needs, they create them. You don't need a cell phone. Ten years ago you got along just fine with payphones and your home, you just planned around the fact that sometimes you'd be out of touch. Similarly you don't need an always ready video broadcast / recording capability, but in five to ten years, you may very well want it pretty badly.
Here at school tons of kids have cheapo webcam/microphone setups that came with the computer. I know for a fact that people are using internet videophones.
Right now... IBM microdrive. It's a bit extreme, and it will kill your batteries, but the hardcore Ipaqers all have 'em.
Re:Can we think of a good reason for this?
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
if you can sustain a 12 mph pace on foot for more than a few hundred yards, you're in damn better shape than 99% of the population. For most people "running" is 6mph. 12 mph is a 5 minute mile pace. Sure, trained distance runners can keep it up, but can you?
Slashdot Mirror
i was reluctant... perhaps the fact that The Olivia Tremor Control is one of the most popular artists on the site doesn't bode well for emusic's commercial success, but it does bode well for my MP3 collection. Ahh those goofy boys from Athens, what will they think of next?
you sir, are a jackass
"CD quality" means that at that level, most people don't have good enough stereo equipment to discern the difference.
listen to any song with heavy drums, you can hear the MP3 mess quite well when the high hats come in. that isn't there on CD. 192 bit is "CD-quality" for me.
but since you obviously can't hear the difference, i reccomend you save yourself the harddrive space.
This is why I wonder why Mac news is even posted in Slashdot. (I'm being rhetorical, of course it should be posted) But this is News for Nerds, and Apple is not a company nor line of products for nerds. Or at least they are for a different type of nerd.
Most consumers care a great deal about how things look. Most customers will never notice the difference between a 1GhZ processor and a 1.3 GhZ processor. Most consumers will never run a server, and would never think to open up their computer.
Slashdot is a bunch of engineers. We work with wires and boxes. White block text against a black background is familiar and inviting to us. We are not, to say the least, Apple's primary market. Now for work, I'd never think of using anything less than a Linux or Unix environment. For play, I know that my DIY Windows box is the best solution. But when my mother wanted a new computer, I went Mac shopping with her.
Macintosh is still the easiest interface for a newcomer to use, and still does the best job of insuring that the average user will never have to mess around with the ugly technical mess.
$1800 for an all in one home computing solution with a DVD burner and powerful media software. Really, what's to complain about?
No. The death of the record industry would mean the death of the millionare rock star. who cares. what band is in it for the money? sure some great acts have gotten rich off of their record sales, but if they had remained moderately succesful club acts, don't you think they'd still do it. good musicians play for the love of the music, not for big bucks. i hate the logic that says no multi-million dollar payoffs = no artist compensation. exhibit A: Fugazi.
this is different than the usual Slashdot condemnation of patents. Philips actually spent lots of time and resources to develop a totally new product, for which they more than deserve their patents. The ones we usually complain about are cases when someone gets the patent because they were (not always) the first to implement a really really obvious idea. Also, Philips is using their patent for the CD purchasing public's good, not to beat down a competitor when traditional methods of coming out on top fail. Bravo Philips, don't let the man get you down.
no, his followers did that decades later.
the problem with christianity is and always will be the damn mortals.
never mind, i'm an idiot. in my sleepless fog, i posted in the wrong open window. one of the hazards of late-night multitasking, i suppose. don't waste your mod points.
something noone has commented on just yet: did you get a look at that keyboard? Judging from the picture (and probably a sentence that i'm not seeing on my second read-through) there is a built in *physical* qwerty keyboard that you can access by expanding the PDA Transformers-style. Can anyone else say bad-ass? This feature single handedly makes this the best PDA hardware on the market.
Now as to software concerns: this is a first-gen product. I know it will be competing with third and fourth gen products from Microsoft and Palm, but we should also remember that immediately after release, the software will undergo *rapid* improvement.
it looks like the standard PDA apps will be working out of the box, and how many part time hackers will be jumping to work on ports? I can't wait for portable nethack. (and yes i know it already exists)
there are potential problems: it sounds like it takes a few seconds to power-up and boot. that's a big no-no, unless there's a very good standby mode. The name is also a mistake. "Linux" is a scary thing to most consumers, and any reference to it in the name is a marketing mistake. The interface should hide the nerdier aspects of the system completely, it worried me to see a terminal window in the review. Not that the technical side of things should be inaccessible, it just shouldn't be required for anything outside of development or hard-core tweaking.
all in all, i want one, and at $300, it will be the cheapest 200mhz, 64mbit PDA out there. Sounds like a winner.
obviously a much *better* scheme would be to precede everything with "gnu-"
seriously though, simple names are best. the only reason palmpilot is still in business is that they have a great and obvious name.
I've given this a bit of thought, since it is what turned me away from MMORPGs since the text-based AOL days.
First the price system needs to change. Once there are more massively multiplayer games out there, people could pay for one service that provides access to all games (still purchasing boxed games separately i'd imagine) This would be more like cable (pay for a lot of channels) rather than HBO (pay for one channel) which I think more people would go for.
I think RPGs themselves need to be tailored to the realities of the MMORPG market. Perhaps you could have different "planes" or "parallel universes" where more powerful, obsessive players can ascend, leaving the casuals and newbies to deal with each other.
Also, I think a lot of robbing/murdering issues would be taken care of if monsters were playable races. I think a lot of people would love to start as an adolescent dragon and build up to being a reknowned and feared monster. This would most likely cater to people who normally play abusive characters.
Anyway... just my two cents.
Yeah... it could be cool... but it would probably be a lot more like the Flintstones meet the Jetsons.
I think the lack of continuity is one of the best things about the series. If they kept running stories or characters, that would get in the way of their creativity and make it harder for new players to enjoy the games.
What is wrong with the series, though, is that they're becoming interactive movies. I can't count how much time is spent in FFX in totally or practically non interactive sequences (and walking along with no choice in path, and clicking through dialog isn't interaction). It's certainly an interesting story, but it kills the replay value. I hope I don't screw up too bad on the sphere grid, because I'm *not* sitting through all of the chatty parts again.
Of course, a MMPG wouldn't have that problem. My problem with FFXI will be I'm taking hard classes and attempting to keep up a social life, I just don't have the time. With FFX, I can finish the game over winter break and be done with it.
I think the series hit its highpoint around 3 (6 in Japan) and 7. Of course, the best RPG Square ever made was Chrono Trigger for the SNES. Too bad it sells for like $70 on ebay.
In my old age I will reflect on my youth and think "where did it all go?" I may perhaps regret a few too many hours spent with computers, but mostly I will remember good times and close friends. These guys will think back and ask themselves "where did it all go?"
To which they can only reply "oh, yeah, that's right."
Seriously though, art? This makes no statement, interests no one, and achieves nothing. If they seriously think that this is art, then it is a worse masturbatory act of "expression" than you will find at any highschool poetry slam. They're just making up a lame reason to sit on a sidewalk with a webcam for four months.
Normally I just let people live their lives as they see fit, and I try not to judge, but dudes, as Will Shatner once said, "Get a life!"
compromise then? the "free" in the free software movement came from elsewhere, but the software originated with Linus. Can't have free software without software.
You really fail to make good analogies here.
First Mathematics doesn't say that there are as many positive even integers as there are integers alltogether, it simply states that injective mappings exist between the two sets. For finite sets, that is functionally equivalent to saying that they are equal in number, but when dealing with infinity such phrases as "as many" don't make much sense. It is not absurd at all, you simply don't understand the subject matter.
Now you almost got a good analogy with the slavery thing. The point of comparason you *should* have made is that in both examples of ethics, the society seems wrong because they have a different definition of "human life"
Peter Singer is an interesting fellow. I think he's wrong, and dangerously so. But he's an intelligent man who has made significant contributions to his field.
An example of Singer's bizarre ethical system: Killing a newborn isn't murder because it isn't a person yet. Buying a big screen TV is murder because you could have sent the money to Unicef who would have saved an innocent life with it.
He is a skilled essayist, and makes both claims difficult (though not impossible) to refute.
Though to his credit, he lives his philosophy, he strictly limits his income, and donates the vast majority of what he earns to charity.
If I had gone to Princeton, I'd take one of his classes for sure.
Ok that document you link to, you didn't write it, did you?
Because Jesus, it's dumb. I hope that's your point.
yeah but in 39 and 42, Stalin was a good guy for the US. Just like the Saudis are good guys right now.
mod this anonymous droog up!
and what would you have taken out to add those things?
this is the problem with adaptations. people can't watch the movie as a movie. of course it isn't going to be exactly like the book because film isn't exactly like a novel... it's closer in form to a short story, which means great movies either focus mainly on plot and have a lot of action, or focus mainly on character and have much more subdued action. novells have the ability to do both. it was a damn good movie, and part of the reason is they decided to take something out. really, if the whole book had been there, it would either have been 5 hours long, or just felt like a ridiculously paced plot-summary.
the man works with computers
if he sleeps 8 hours a night, he's beating the average by a safe margin
oh come on! that bit with Bilbo in the second half?
that was great.
i thought the directing was dead on. sure there were some scares and some gore, but come on, these people are fighting wars.
and on the violence note: damn, i thought the troll in harry potter was good... that was probably the most impressed by CGI i've been since 1993.
i know you're joking but i do want to ask why we insist on clinging to "memorabilia"
the original trilogy belongs in a museum, if we were ever to lose that, then a fairly significant bit of 20th century pop culture would be lost, but as to the pieces of plastic used to make the movie? who cares? i understand the coolness for fans, but i can't see justifying putting darth vader's helmet in a museum.
This all sounds a lot like the arguments against any massively successful new technology. Remember the best products don't fill needs, they create them. You don't need a cell phone. Ten years ago you got along just fine with payphones and your home, you just planned around the fact that sometimes you'd be out of touch. Similarly you don't need an always ready video broadcast / recording capability, but in five to ten years, you may very well want it pretty badly.
Here at school tons of kids have cheapo webcam/microphone setups that came with the computer. I know for a fact that people are using internet videophones.
Right now... IBM microdrive. It's a bit extreme, and it will kill your batteries, but the hardcore Ipaqers all have 'em.
if you can sustain a 12 mph pace on foot for more than a few hundred yards, you're in damn better shape than 99% of the population. For most people "running" is 6mph. 12 mph is a 5 minute mile pace. Sure, trained distance runners can keep it up, but can you?