(link to Wikipedia entry on overrated, has-been games factory)
Sorry, Psygnosis games sucked donkey balls.
Sure, Shadow of the Beast looked cool in the shop in demo mode, but the play of the game was worse than Atari's PitFall from ten years before. If anything, Psygnosis's legacy is "games that look better in the screenshots and demos than they do in normal play". (Oh, they also had annoyingly long cut scenes that you couldn't click through.)
And ALL of Psygnosis games had the reputation of copy protection vampires: they wouldn't launch from Workbench, wouldn't copy easily (in case your Amiga ate the originals) and they were touchy as hell (couldn't run on A1200s or A500s or visa versa).
And yes, I read the titles on the Wikipedia page...I still own a few of these, but thank God I got them for free, because Psygnosis games aren't the ones that made my Amiga computing a positive experience.
I still own two Amigas, but were there really ANY "influential" Amiga games? I mean, games that were unique to the Amiga platform that anyone outside Amiga cared about? I think the marketplace has spoken pretty loudly on this topic: if there HAD been any influential games, Amiga wouldn't have been extinguished. (Do you know anyone who bought an Amiga just to play game X? Neither do I.)
Innovative sound? Sorry, but I got my Amiga in part to play with music and the 8-bit stuff is what eventually kicked me over the PC world (and then soon into Linux).
And why do we still care in 2007, 15 years after Amiga's peak?
BYOC = Bring Your Own Clothespin (WOW'ers don't generally smell very good.)
1) Price - $100 - holy crap!
2) I hope they have a better answer than this in 2007: "Will there be wireless internet access for attendees to bring their own computers? BlizzCon will include a LAN area with over 300+ computers, but there will be no wireless internet access. Attendees cannot bring their own computers into the show, but some of the local hotels offer internet capabilities in their hotel rooms if you choose to bring your own computer."
3) "Artist and developer signings..." What could they possibly sign?
Wake me up if they ever publish another RTS; I'll lay the $25 to play it once it hits the discount bin.
Not the creation...the propogation...
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 3, Informative
Because somehow Microsoft doing this inspired Linus Torvalds to create a MINIX-like free kernel for research purposes? Or because Windows made x86 popular (rather than the other way around)? Yet I still don't even see how that would've mattered one way or the other to the creation of Linux.
The key word in my post was "cheap". Linus's little hobby may not have taken off it wasn't easy for college-age folks like me to buy the components for a cheap PC and run either Linux or Windows on it in the early 1990s. A lot of the people who helped Linux (and its programs) get going couldn't afford a second PC, or were happy a second PC was cheap when they did get one.
So...although Windows may not have helped the creation of Linux as a hobby, it certainly helped make Linux accessible to more people by making PC hardware cheap.
Let me know if you need more help...
Nowhere else for Palm to go...
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 1, Informative
The beauty of Microsoft OS's is that it turns all the hardware vendors who run it into commodity vendors*. This is happening to Palm today as well: as Microsoft's handheld OS is run by more and more handhelds, the value of "Palm" devices and its brand name is also decreased. Apple won't let anyone license its proprietary OS, so Linux is the only major OS name (that means anything to consumers) left for Palm to pursue if they want to remain a viable (and independent) handheld producer.
* There would have been no cheap Linux today if Microsoft hadn't flattened/commoditized the computer hardware market by the start of the 1990's.
PLEASE stop with the inane, pointless, content-free rhetorical questions at the end of submissions. They're annoying, biased, and make Slashdot look like amateur hour. The conversations would flow just as well, if not better, without the obvious "here's what you should think about this story" cues. Too bad the editors keep falling for them
SlashDot used to be amateur hour, but these days it's mostly warmed over PR pieces from large "tech" corporations. (30% Google PR pieces, 15% Apple PR pieces, 15% game company PR pieces, 10% Microsoft FUD pieces, etc.)
If you're depending on SlashDot for anything more than entertainment value, you're probably getting duped right now.
The annoying questions at the end are basically added at the end of each PR piece to make it sound like each piece wasn't just copied straight from the related company's (or competitor's) PR department.
Yes, Apple's got you by the short-and-curlies. That's the beauty of Apple's business model: they get you (and millions of other well-trained consumers like you) to go proprietary all the way by convincing you that stylish components are cool. Just like in the computer world, you're starting to wake up and realize that an all-proprietary solution has disadvantages, which is why it's fun to see second- (or third-) generation competitors trying to open the field.
I still think a Holy Grail for desktops would be an open-source iTunes replacement that snaps off the Apple DRM...anyone know of such a thing yet?
"Apple" is first and foremost a brand that suggests "cutting edge, stylish and user friendly" to most consumers. Apple earned this reputation with their iPod and to a lesser extent, with their proprietary computer OS on proprietary computer hardware. Apple reaps big profits from this reputation by charging premium prices to the consumers to mentally apply Apple's reputation to other Apple products. If the Apple TV damages Apple's reputation by being junk (even if it is "version 1.0"), it hurts other Apple products too. In other words, Apple can't really afford "1.0" stumbles if it wants to hang on to its current reputation.
Does this sign you up for phone spam?
on
1-800-Google Launches
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You can send the listing details to your mobile phone via SMS.
The main plaintiff here is a front for a group of for-profit biotech companies in California that want to avoid patent fees and spend more of their contributed capital on hookers and blow.
According to a source, the only leaks are the ones Reznor approved himself. And whether he realizes it or not, Reznor may be building a new option for presenting music that augments the existing CD/tour scenario.
Um...you really think Rez's leaking songs for something other than to augment his gravy train (CD/tour)? No, like most people trying to make a living in entertainment, he's picked up some marketing savvy along the way, and is using the same "try before you buy" technique that also works when selling software, illegal drugs and laundry detergent.
The story about dropping USBs in the shitter is just a brilliant way to get even more free press: a band putting their B-sides on its web site is already quite common and won't get its story...
Y2k isn't on the list because it was a success!
on
The Top 21 Tech Flops
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· Score: 2, Funny
Strangely, Y2K didn't make the list.
Y2k isn't on the list because it was a HUGE success for the consulting firms that flogged it. (That, and it was the COBOL programmer full employment act for a few years.)
...the type of music you put on would determine how the level played. Some music might create a more chilled level, whereas heavy metal and heavy techno might be more intense.
Doesn't it work better the other way around, where the pros sync the music to the action?
Microsoft's Chris Satchell stated in an interview with the website that the company is still cool on the idea. Says Satchell, "There's no point building the hardware if nobody really wants it..." This is at odds with statements from Peter Moore from earlier this year, who stated that the company does have motion control plans in the works.
To not have any plans would be foolish, but to rush into a project like this would also be silly. So...I don't see the contradiction.
Microsoft's classic business strategy has always been to extend the best ideas of the first wave and sell an improved version of the idea to the masses anyway. (Just ask the first generation of Macs, Netscape, Lotus, etc.)
I can't believe it's still going...jumped the shark around the sixth or seventh episode.
Then again, I thought The Simpsons has been going downhill since they started doing celebrity episodes...and that was probably about fifteen years ago.
Is "PopSci" the old Popular Science mag? The one with the futuristic scramjets and flying cars on the cover and pages filled with useless gadgets? (I think half its readers went to Wired and the other half went to SlashDot.)
I'm not sure why Google or anyone else is still flogging third-party desktop search tools. Desktop search is already well-integrated into both Mac and Vista. You can make an argument that you don't want Apple or Microsoft "monopolizing" their own platform's search, but as the developers of those operating systems I'm inclined to think they know their own stuff best.
Third-party search toolbars also seem like a major step back in terms of security: you have yet another thing with access to your local filesystem that insists it needs to "dial out" to exchange information with something on the Internet. Not for me, thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't waste my time with dups...
0 4/10/011220
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/
Sorry, Psygnosis games sucked donkey balls.
Sure, Shadow of the Beast looked cool in the shop in demo mode, but the play of the game was worse than Atari's PitFall from ten years before. If anything, Psygnosis's legacy is "games that look better in the screenshots and demos than they do in normal play". (Oh, they also had annoyingly long cut scenes that you couldn't click through.)
And ALL of Psygnosis games had the reputation of copy protection vampires: they wouldn't launch from Workbench, wouldn't copy easily (in case your Amiga ate the originals) and they were touchy as hell (couldn't run on A1200s or A500s or visa versa).
And yes, I read the titles on the Wikipedia page...I still own a few of these, but thank God I got them for free, because Psygnosis games aren't the ones that made my Amiga computing a positive experience.
I still own two Amigas, but were there really ANY "influential" Amiga games? I mean, games that were unique to the Amiga platform that anyone outside Amiga cared about? I think the marketplace has spoken pretty loudly on this topic: if there HAD been any influential games, Amiga wouldn't have been extinguished. (Do you know anyone who bought an Amiga just to play game X? Neither do I.)
Innovative sound? Sorry, but I got my Amiga in part to play with music and the 8-bit stuff is what eventually kicked me over the PC world (and then soon into Linux).
And why do we still care in 2007, 15 years after Amiga's peak?
gwb43.com? WTF is that - his IQ?
(Sorry, a little too easy.)
BYOC = Bring Your Own Clothespin (WOW'ers don't generally smell very good.)
1) Price - $100 - holy crap!
2) I hope they have a better answer than this in 2007:
"Will there be wireless internet access for attendees to bring their own computers? BlizzCon will include a LAN area with over 300+ computers, but there will be no wireless internet access. Attendees cannot bring their own computers into the show, but some of the local hotels offer internet capabilities in their hotel rooms if you choose to bring your own computer."
3) "Artist and developer signings..." What could they possibly sign?
Wake me up if they ever publish another RTS; I'll lay the $25 to play it once it hits the discount bin.
Is this "story" a dup? Or just part of a normal 5-year cycle of whining?
3 4
Windows 2000 - Nine Months to Live
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/08/12362
The key word in my post was "cheap". Linus's little hobby may not have taken off it wasn't easy for college-age folks like me to buy the components for a cheap PC and run either Linux or Windows on it in the early 1990s. A lot of the people who helped Linux (and its programs) get going couldn't afford a second PC, or were happy a second PC was cheap when they did get one.
So...although Windows may not have helped the creation of Linux as a hobby, it certainly helped make Linux accessible to more people by making PC hardware cheap.
Let me know if you need more help...
The beauty of Microsoft OS's is that it turns all the hardware vendors who run it into commodity vendors*. This is happening to Palm today as well: as Microsoft's handheld OS is run by more and more handhelds, the value of "Palm" devices and its brand name is also decreased. Apple won't let anyone license its proprietary OS, so Linux is the only major OS name (that means anything to consumers) left for Palm to pursue if they want to remain a viable (and independent) handheld producer.
* There would have been no cheap Linux today if Microsoft hadn't flattened/commoditized the computer hardware market by the start of the 1990's.
SlashDot used to be amateur hour, but these days it's mostly warmed over PR pieces from large "tech" corporations. (30% Google PR pieces, 15% Apple PR pieces, 15% game company PR pieces, 10% Microsoft FUD pieces, etc.)
If you're depending on SlashDot for anything more than entertainment value, you're probably getting duped right now.
The annoying questions at the end are basically added at the end of each PR piece to make it sound like each piece wasn't just copied straight from the related company's (or competitor's) PR department.
Yes, Apple's got you by the short-and-curlies. That's the beauty of Apple's business model: they get you (and millions of other well-trained consumers like you) to go proprietary all the way by convincing you that stylish components are cool. Just like in the computer world, you're starting to wake up and realize that an all-proprietary solution has disadvantages, which is why it's fun to see second- (or third-) generation competitors trying to open the field.
I still think a Holy Grail for desktops would be an open-source iTunes replacement that snaps off the Apple DRM...anyone know of such a thing yet?
The nice thing about articles like this is that they give us a handy way to figure out who should go up on the wall first when the revolution comes.
"Apple" is first and foremost a brand that suggests "cutting edge, stylish and user friendly" to most consumers. Apple earned this reputation with their iPod and to a lesser extent, with their proprietary computer OS on proprietary computer hardware. Apple reaps big profits from this reputation by charging premium prices to the consumers to mentally apply Apple's reputation to other Apple products. If the Apple TV damages Apple's reputation by being junk (even if it is "version 1.0"), it hurts other Apple products too. In other words, Apple can't really afford "1.0" stumbles if it wants to hang on to its current reputation.
Does this sign you up for phone spam?
The main plaintiff here is a front for a group of for-profit biotech companies in California that want to avoid patent fees and spend more of their contributed capital on hookers and blow.
Um...you really think Rez's leaking songs for something other than to augment his gravy train (CD/tour)? No, like most people trying to make a living in entertainment, he's picked up some marketing savvy along the way, and is using the same "try before you buy" technique that also works when selling software, illegal drugs and laundry detergent.
The story about dropping USBs in the shitter is just a brilliant way to get even more free press: a band putting their B-sides on its web site is already quite common and won't get its story...
Y2k isn't on the list because it was a HUGE success for the consulting firms that flogged it. (That, and it was the COBOL programmer full employment act for a few years.)
Cue voice of Jeff Foxworthy...
"If you exchange good old fashioned American dollars for Lindens, you might be a moron."
Doesn't it work better the other way around, where the pros sync the music to the action?
To not have any plans would be foolish, but to rush into a project like this would also be silly. So...I don't see the contradiction.
Microsoft's classic business strategy has always been to extend the best ideas of the first wave and sell an improved version of the idea to the masses anyway. (Just ask the first generation of Macs, Netscape, Lotus, etc.)
I can't believe it's still going...jumped the shark around the sixth or seventh episode.
Then again, I thought The Simpsons has been going downhill since they started doing celebrity episodes...and that was probably about fifteen years ago.
They'll add fire and smog for you.
Is "PopSci" the old Popular Science mag? The one with the futuristic scramjets and flying cars on the cover and pages filled with useless gadgets? (I think half its readers went to Wired and the other half went to SlashDot.)
This looks like something vendors could fix without a "hotfix" from MS.
I'm not sure why Google or anyone else is still flogging third-party desktop search tools. Desktop search is already well-integrated into both Mac and Vista. You can make an argument that you don't want Apple or Microsoft "monopolizing" their own platform's search, but as the developers of those operating systems I'm inclined to think they know their own stuff best.
Third-party search toolbars also seem like a major step back in terms of security: you have yet another thing with access to your local filesystem that insists it needs to "dial out" to exchange information with something on the Internet. Not for me, thanks.
Tam and Fong are out of the porn industry too? I guess that leaves only one legal avenue: FPS coding (shudder).