Yes the admins did screw up, because IT's THERE JOB to apply patches and secure their systems. Everyone rights insecure software.
I'll agree insofar as local exploits go -- it's quite easy to do so. However, I think that it's unforgivable to put buffer overflows in code that can be exploited remotely. If you're reading data from a socket, you should be validating that data, plain and simple, and have invariants on that data. It's irresponsible not to do so.
I'll grant that there are a number of pieces of software that did *not* do so for some time (*cough* sshd). However, that doesn't mean that it's good or acceptable.
It particularly does not exonerate the vendor from responsibility for a bug. A patch is a small atonement for putting a remotely exploitable bug in software in the first place -- hardly full repayment. Every time I see a vendor with a bug being exploited get interviewed, I see the PR flacks quickly spin it -- "It isn't our fault, because we had a patch out two weeks ago." It damn well *is* their fault -- they sold a defective product in the first place. Is the admin somewhat at fault too? Sure. But certainly not on the level of the software vendor.
Every time I work with a string in C, especially if it's in one of the servers I've worked on, I keep in mind the goddamn length of the thing. It's not *that* hard -- it's just lazy developers not doing so.
Except the admin cannot know where the windows are until the contractor tells him where they are. Then, suddenly, the contractor tells him that it's *his* fault if he doesn't keep closing the windows within a day after the contractor tells him about the window.
Firewalls are not a panacea. Software still has to be secure -- trojans getting in through mail, IIS exploits, exploits through SOAP or over VPNs from a remotely exploited location let one zip right past a firewall.
IT admins tend to think "I'm firewalled -- I'm secure." I'd argue that firewalls have literally *worsened* security, because it makes admins take a casual approach to ensuring that their *software* is secure -- and software developers. The fact that MS doesn't trust their high-end database software to be secure from remote attacks (as they say in their advisory) makes a certain statement.
The problem is a lack of secure server software (particularly on the part of MS), unrealistic expectations of admins, and a security industry that would rather push easy-to-sell "solutions" like firewalls.
Having used Orcle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL, I'm wondering... why use anything other than PostgreSQL?
Because if you're using PostgreSQL, you don't have the satisfaction of saying "I have so much power than I can waste N hundred thousand dollars of company funds on Oracle." It's a status thing.
Are these the same people that leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition?
If this were a fair analogy, the *auto maker* would be at fault for leaving spare sets of keys attached to the outside of the car...and you'd simply be (much less) at fault for not having removed the latest set of spare keys the auto maker decided to tell you about.
Because MS takes this line: "It isn't *our* fault for writing insecure, buggy software. *We've* had a patch out for N days/weeks/months. *You admins* screwed up.
Should the admin have patched it? Sure. Are they as much at fault as the people that introduced the original vulnerability? Heck, no.
mplayer -- doesn't like the UI gstreamer -- doesn't want to install the required libs xine -- doesn't know how to use a file browser (or pass args on the CL) ogle -- doesn't do what he wants, even though it makes no claims that it does
Let's see how Windows stacks up: Real Player -- UI *sucks* and is very slow in its latest incarnation, plus has spyware. Tons of *crap* all over -- people who have used it know what I mean. Can't play all types of media. Quicktime -- Floating menu bar, dumb brushed metal interface, favorites are a bunch of thumbnails (usually black) with a "knob" volume and a "pull out favorites drawer". Can't play all types of media. Windows Media Player -- enormous set of buttons and other stuff, forming a huge frame around the edge. New look downright blah. All the Windows DVD players I've seen -- awful, pixmapped interface, usually similar to a VCR. Sonique -- even worse for finding controls than xine. Way too much glitz cutting into utility. WinAmp -- same as Sonique, these days.
Dead-on accurate. This is *precisely* what I was thinking when I saw his criticism.
Why the *hell* are almost all (and all mainstream) video and audio players on all platforms always bitmapped and nonstandard in UI? It doesn't add a damn thing, and it's annoying as hell.
The Simpsons was funny in the pre-Homer-absolute-idiot era. Incredibly funny. Now it's pretty bad, and the only reason it's still on is because of the niche that it carved for itself back in the day.
I'm not saying that the state of video on Linux is perfect (ease of use ain't what it is on Windows), but it's a hell of a lot better than he makes out. Let's break it down:
I finally found RPMs of mplayer that would consent to install themselves on a Red Hat 7.2 machine, and actually got it to play some videos. Amazing.
Yup. The mplayer guys also complain about binary distribution, because mplayer really isn't meant to be distributed in binary form. There's a reason.
But it's a total pain in the ass to use due to rampant "themeing." Why do people do this? They map this stupid shaped window with no titlebar (oh, sorry, your choice of a dozen stupidly-shaped windows without titlebars) all of which use fonts that are way too small to read. But, here's the best part, there's no way to raise the window to the top. So if another window ever gets on top of it, well, sorry, you're out of luck. And half of the themes always map the window at the very bottom of the screen -- conveniently under my panel where I can't reach it.
Yup. *Exactly* like most Windows media players. I don't like it either. Which is why I use the non-GUI mplayer (granted, then you don't get a draggable progress bar).
It moves the mouse to the upper left corner of every dialog box it creates! Which is great, because that means that when it gets into this cute little state of popping up a blank dialog that says "Error" five times a second, you can't even move the mouse over to another window to kill the program, you have to log in from another machine.
This is new to me. I've never seen a program do this.
Fucking morons.
Yeah...I was thinking the same thing about JWZ.
So I gave up on that, and tried to install gstreamer. Get this. Their propose ``solution'' for distributing binaries on Red Hat systems? They point you at an RPM that installs apt, the Debian package system!
No. apt is just an auto-downloading front end. It works with both dpkg (the Debian packaging system, which is *NOT* apt) and RPM. It also makes Red Hat about ten thousand times more palatable, because up2date (Red Hat's own equivalent of apt) sucks very very very much.
Well, I found some RPMs for Red Hat 7.2, but apparently they expect you to have already rectally inserted Gnome2 on that 7.2 system first. Uh, no.
You *couldn't* manage to compile it yourself? Have you ever heard of checkinstall?
I've seen the horror of Red Hat 8.0, and there's no fucking way I'm putting Gnome2 on any more of my machines for at least another six months, maybe a year.
I think that you're being a bit silly -- lots of people are very happy with RH 8, but whatever floats your boat.
Ok, no gstreamer. Let's try Xine. I found RPMs, and it sucks about the same as mplayer, and in about the same ways, though slightly less bad: it doesn't screw the aspect ratio when you resize the window; and at least its stupidly-shaped window is always forced to be on top. I don't like that either, but it's better than never being on top. It took me ten minutes to figure out where the "Open File" dialog was. It's on the button labeled "://" whose tooltip says "MRL Browser". Then you get to select file names from an oh-so-cute window that I guess is supposed to look like a tty, or maybe an LCD screen. It conveniently centers the file names in the list, and truncates them at about 30 characters. The scrollbar is also composed of "characters": it's an underscore.
Again -- I don't like themed, pixmapped crap interfaces either, but the Windows world is exactly the same. For some reason, people designing media players have it stuck in their heads that anyone who wants to watch a movie wants a non-standard, hard-to-use pixmapped interface.
Oh, and even though I have libdvdcss installed (as evidenced by the fact that Ogle actually works) Xine won't play the same disc that Ogle will play. It seems to be claiming that the CSS stuff isn't installed, which it clearly is.
What the hell do your expect? You grab a bunch of random RPMs (not from Red Hat) which you didn't compile yourself (and ignored the fact that there are *two* DVD CSS libraries) and now you're bitching that things don't work. Either get it from RH (or FreshRPMs) or compile it yourself, laddie buck.
It's because people who paid out tons of money for Oracle are like people who paid out tons of money for a Ferrari or Scientology -- they feel vaguely unsure that they made the right decision and need to keep vocally defending it to everyone within range.
I'd say there's little reason for 98% of Oracle licenses.
So maybe he doesn't work in a DNS-related job, you know?
Like, I expect there are plenty of your own comments that are wrong or stupid because you haven't read every single TLD.
*Maybe* your complaining would be legitimate (though still not polite) on a DNS mailing list. It's out of line on Slashdot, however, which is at best a general tech forum.
Hmm. I haven't seen anyone watching Pokemon, Digimon, or Yu-Gi-Oh particularly much or owning merchandise for them (with the exception of a Pokemon Game Boy cartridge), but I guess that they could be popular among children. I've seen people watching DBZ...I just thought of Eva because it's what most of the "anime people" I know of universally like.
OTOH, I have to say that Invader Zim is of higher quality than the top three...
Which garners the obligatory first post in nearly every anime thread for no apparent reason other than its existence.
They don't have to. They just rely on someone yelping "HENTAI!" every time anime is mentioned and passively allow the association to emerge on its own.
And whenever people talk about downloading pictures from the Internet, the first few posts are usually about porn. It's not a conspiracy aimed at discrediting anime. It's just the way people are.
Nice. Reductio ad absurdum is the technical name for that logical fallacy. Got anything else besides Mickey, which has been around for what, EIGHTY YEARS? No? How long has Evangelion been around? Oh look, your argument is turning into shit, isn't it? Shame.
I chose the most popular, most franchised US-based cartoon and the most popular, most franchised anime I could think of. Hmm...I suppose that Dragon Ball might have supplanted it, since it's probably more popular among non-anime types.
...in the Netherlands, that would be part of what they call a "pretpakket": basically something like a university degree in macrame. It's stupidly silly.
I heard education in the US sucked, but it's another thing to see it confirmed.
Yeah, we're all about to pack up and move to the Netherlands for university. Yup.
I submit that any reference to hentai or tentacles in an anime thread has now reached the redundancy level of hot grits, beowulf clusters, et al. It is not now, nor has it ever been funny.
I'd say that one of the primary reasons grits and beowulf *are* funny is because of redundancy.
There is a phenomenal amount of anime that is not only prescient, but superior, in a literary sense, to just about any mainstream entertainment this sorry-ass culture can muster.
Yes, and there's also hentai -- the US has very few adult cartoons, so it's at least as unusual and conversation-worthy. No one claimed that all anime was hentai -- they just felt like mentioning that rather than whatever lofty Shakespearean anime you wanted them to talk about.
Oh, and for you capitalist types,...from a communist type?
there are anime franchises that have financially beaten domestic animation beyond recognition so many times, accurate records were rendered impossible decades ago. Think ELEVEN FIGURES. Think fan bases in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.
Yes, Rei and Shinji certainly have quite a bit of brand recognition relative to Mickey. [rolls eyes]
Is there an import tax on things being shipped by a single-package shipping company? Like, if I buy something mail-order from Japan, is there a tax the US imposes on the postal service to bring the box across the border?
Because if not, it seems that all this does is put US e-retailers at a disadvantage to sell to the best market (US consumers) in the world in an increasingly competitive time.
I mean, why not sell to the US from Toronto, and to Canada from New York?
I think what people keep obsessing over is the surface of the game. Mario Sunshine is bright and colorful, and looks like something for an eight-year-old. GTA or DOA have tons of skin, and look like something for a fifteen-year-old.
But what really makes the greatest difference is going to be what the actual gameplay is like.
I like both Tetris and Carmageddon, though they have wildly different surfaces. The gameplay in each is fun.
I'll grant that not everything that they release is fantastic, but I and most of the people I spent time with really enjoy Disney films. The films really do appeal to both children and adults. The stories are generally pretty simple (and when Disney's retelling a complicated story, they tend to smooth it out a bit), but I don't see someone not being able to enjoy them because they aren't eight years old.
What's worse is that with GBA they don't even bother having the appearance of the game being changed. Really, how many exact replica's of F-Zero do you need for your 4 different Nintendo consoles?
Well...you can also say that if someone really enjoys a game and wants more, why not give it to them?
I've never liked the Mario series much, but at the end of the original Zelda for the Game Boy, I thought "wow, I really wish there was more content here". It wasn't all that *short* of a game, but I really wanted to play more. Same goes for Super Metroid (sadly, Metroid Fusion's sound doesn't really compare).
There's a reason people make series. Close Combat is up to 5, Half-Life has had two expansion packs, etc.
It's because they're a lot of fun.
I'll grant you that Nintendo could use Sony's lineup of RPGs...
The reason Nintendo fans buy their systems is for the Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon type games. These are just geared for all ages. Nintendo tries to capture the largest market and make truely enjoyable products for ALL gamers. I would hate to see big bouncing breast volleyball games with medicore ratings instead of a damn good Mario game.
I can trust Nintendo to come out with a good, wholesome game. None of this trash where you have large-breasted female characters stripping down to progressively skimpier outfits to reward you for better gaming performance. Not on Nintendo, no-siree-bob. Guess I'll just go waste some clean, wholesome Metroids...:-)
Buggy code that is shipped as soon as it compiles ("Don't worry, we'll patch it later!")
This is true.
Huge amounts of hard drive real estate wasted.
Uh...so?
Two genres! Quake, or Warcraft! Oh yeah, and flight sims.
What, you *nuts*? Sure, those are the most popular genres. Due to the lower barrier to entry, though, you generally see new types of games being tried out on the PC, not on the console. I'd say the reverse -- more interesting things come out on the PC than the console.
Heck, of the games I've played and had a blast with...Close Combat doesn't fit in those genres, Total Annihilation is an RTS, Half Life is Quake, ToME isn't like any of the listed genres...
And consoles are at least as guilty of a limited set of genres. In the very early 80s, everyone played above-view shooters, then platform games. Now those two genres are mostly gone. Console-style RPGs entered. Then, racing games, 3d platformers and 3d street fighting games came along...this makes up the bulk of console games out there.
The three genres (flight sims, FPS, RTS) you just listed are generally very poorly implemented on the console. Turn-based strategy and war sims usually don't exist or are pretty badly done for the console (Turn-based strategy just plain cries out for a mouse, and most console games don't support mice).
Plus, over the course of a year or so, you get to watch your "screamin gaming rig" get slooower and slooooower as PC programmers forget about you.
So don't buy whatever *just* came out. The PC game market just gives you a broader spectrum to choose from. Buy year-old games -- problem solved.
PC games are a ghetto of crappy shareware,
Um...yes, some PC games *are* shareware. Doesn't mean you have to play a single shareware game if you don't want to.
super-violent FPS's
Frankly, I'd call Nintendo's draconian censorship rules a point to criticize Nintendo on, not the PC world.
, and studies in obsessive resource micromanagement (Warcraft)
So don't *play* RTSes. When was the last time you *played* a PC game? '95? There were a bunch of RTSes that came out then, yes. Even RTSes these days are quite different -- take a look at things like Hostile Waters.
PC gamers have to develop "mods" just to keep the games remotely interesting.
Could also (and, IMHO, should) be read "console gamers *cannot* develop mods".
You'll never see creative gaming approaches like Crazy Taxi, Rez, or Frequency on a PC...and quite frankly, it's because PC gamers don't demand anything other than an excuse to drop big money on the latest CPUs and video cards.
Crazy Taxi? An urban racing game with checkpoints? WTF are you talking about? I'm hardly a gaming affecianado, and even I've played Carmageddon years and years ago. Which, incidently, I find rather more fun.
As for Rez or Frequency, I know there *have* been music-based games in the past, but I really wasn't interested -- not a genre that I like -- so I can't give their names off the top of my head.
Sites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are group therapy for spendthrifts who attach their masculinity to their Quake framerates.
Again, you don't have to buy the latest and the greatest to play games. Just because there's a new roofing material out doesn't mean I reshingle the house every year. The most demanding game I play is probably Close Combat II...and the library of games that can play on even an old computer is far, far more than I have time to play through.
I have a total investment in my PS2 and games of around $1200. I have an investment in my computer of around $4000.
Nothing personal, but for most people, that's *far* more than they're going to spend on either. I use my computer a huge amount of the time, and I spent a fraction of that on it.
You'd have to have something like 20 PS2 games, too...
How is that better price to performance?
The thing is, most people have to have a computer *anyway*, and get side benefits from most of the machine, letting them justify (or at least rationalize) the additional cost. It's nice to have a big monitor, nice to have lots of RAM, nice to have a fast processor, nice to have a feature-filled sound card. Sure, a fancy 3d card doesn't have that much non-game benefit, but the rest does.
There are a lot of better games available for my PS2 than there are for my computer.
[shrug] all depends on the type of the game you like to play. Console games tend to be much less flexible than PC-based games. I end up feeling bored and limited playing most console games. Of all the PC games I've played, I think I've modified/patched the majority of the Linux games, and poked at the guts of most of the Windows ones. Some people prefer a more movie-like experience -- the game designer designed the game experience to be just so, and it shouldn't be modified. I just tend not to follow that point of view.
They also work right out of the box
Well, *that* just takes *all* the fun out of a game.:-)
and the first computer you purchase will cost much more because you have nothing to start with and to compare price to performance, you need a decent gaming computer, not the Wally-World special.
And the solution is not the buy the damn bleeding-edge games. The game industry provides a whole spectrum of games, to appeal to people with a wide range of computers. You can play a game with lower system requirements, or a year-old game, and be fine. Just because a game *exists* doesn't mean you have to play it right now, just like a faster car existing doesn't mean that you have to get it instead of your current one.
Their hard-nosed stance on emulation is hypocritical, actually. Nintendo representatives have gone on record as saying that emulation is illegal, period, offering no qualifiers. Oddly, the recent hit Metroid Prime offers a full version of the NES Metroid, played via an emulator on the Gamecube.
Probably the majority of things that people say are unconsciously hypocritical to some degree.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes the admins did screw up, because IT's THERE JOB to apply patches and secure their systems. Everyone rights insecure software.
I'll agree insofar as local exploits go -- it's quite easy to do so. However, I think that it's unforgivable to put buffer overflows in code that can be exploited remotely. If you're reading data from a socket, you should be validating that data, plain and simple, and have invariants on that data. It's irresponsible not to do so.
I'll grant that there are a number of pieces of software that did *not* do so for some time (*cough* sshd). However, that doesn't mean that it's good or acceptable.
It particularly does not exonerate the vendor from responsibility for a bug. A patch is a small atonement for putting a remotely exploitable bug in software in the first place -- hardly full repayment. Every time I see a vendor with a bug being exploited get interviewed, I see the PR flacks quickly spin it -- "It isn't our fault, because we had a patch out two weeks ago." It damn well *is* their fault -- they sold a defective product in the first place. Is the admin somewhat at fault too? Sure. But certainly not on the level of the software vendor.
Every time I work with a string in C, especially if it's in one of the servers I've worked on, I keep in mind the goddamn length of the thing. It's not *that* hard -- it's just lazy developers not doing so.
Except the admin cannot know where the windows are until the contractor tells him where they are. Then, suddenly, the contractor tells him that it's *his* fault if he doesn't keep closing the windows within a day after the contractor tells him about the window.
Firewalls are not a panacea. Software still has to be secure -- trojans getting in through mail, IIS exploits, exploits through SOAP or over VPNs from a remotely exploited location let one zip right past a firewall.
IT admins tend to think "I'm firewalled -- I'm secure." I'd argue that firewalls have literally *worsened* security, because it makes admins take a casual approach to ensuring that their *software* is secure -- and software developers. The fact that MS doesn't trust their high-end database software to be secure from remote attacks (as they say in their advisory) makes a certain statement.
The problem is a lack of secure server software (particularly on the part of MS), unrealistic expectations of admins, and a security industry that would rather push easy-to-sell "solutions" like firewalls.
Having used Orcle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL, I'm wondering... why use anything other than PostgreSQL?
Because if you're using PostgreSQL, you don't have the satisfaction of saying "I have so much power than I can waste N hundred thousand dollars of company funds on Oracle." It's a status thing.
This is the same server that's had worms on a regular basis for the past few years?
Are these the same people that leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition?
If this were a fair analogy, the *auto maker* would be at fault for leaving spare sets of keys attached to the outside of the car...and you'd simply be (much less) at fault for not having removed the latest set of spare keys the auto maker decided to tell you about.
Because MS takes this line: "It isn't *our* fault for writing insecure, buggy software. *We've* had a patch out for N days/weeks/months. *You admins* screwed up.
Should the admin have patched it? Sure. Are they as much at fault as the people that introduced the original vulnerability? Heck, no.
mplayer -- doesn't like the UI
gstreamer -- doesn't want to install the required libs
xine -- doesn't know how to use a file browser (or pass args on the CL)
ogle -- doesn't do what he wants, even though it makes no claims that it does
Let's see how Windows stacks up:
Real Player -- UI *sucks* and is very slow in its latest incarnation, plus has spyware. Tons of *crap* all over -- people who have used it know what I mean. Can't play all types of media.
Quicktime -- Floating menu bar, dumb brushed metal interface, favorites are a bunch of thumbnails (usually black) with a "knob" volume and a "pull out favorites drawer". Can't play all types of media.
Windows Media Player -- enormous set of buttons and other stuff, forming a huge frame around the edge. New look downright blah.
All the Windows DVD players I've seen -- awful, pixmapped interface, usually similar to a VCR.
Sonique -- even worse for finding controls than xine. Way too much glitz cutting into utility.
WinAmp -- same as Sonique, these days.
Dead-on accurate. This is *precisely* what I was thinking when I saw his criticism.
Why the *hell* are almost all (and all mainstream) video and audio players on all platforms always bitmapped and nonstandard in UI? It doesn't add a damn thing, and it's annoying as hell.
The Simpsons was funny in the pre-Homer-absolute-idiot era. Incredibly funny. Now it's pretty bad, and the only reason it's still on is because of the niche that it carved for itself back in the day.
No, he made a lot of errors.
I'm not saying that the state of video on Linux is perfect (ease of use ain't what it is on Windows), but it's a hell of a lot better than he makes out. Let's break it down:
I finally found RPMs of mplayer that would consent to install themselves on a Red Hat 7.2 machine, and actually got it to play some videos. Amazing.
Yup. The mplayer guys also complain about binary distribution, because mplayer really isn't meant to be distributed in binary form. There's a reason.
But it's a total pain in the ass to use due to rampant "themeing." Why do people do this? They map this stupid shaped window with no titlebar (oh, sorry, your choice of a dozen stupidly-shaped windows without titlebars) all of which use fonts that are way too small to read. But, here's the best part, there's no way to raise the window to the top. So if another window ever gets on top of it, well, sorry, you're out of luck. And half of the themes always map the window at the very bottom of the screen -- conveniently under my panel where I can't reach it.
Yup. *Exactly* like most Windows media players. I don't like it either. Which is why I use the non-GUI mplayer (granted, then you don't get a draggable progress bar).
It moves the mouse to the upper left corner of every dialog box it creates! Which is great, because that means that when it gets into this cute little state of popping up a blank dialog that says "Error" five times a second, you can't even move the mouse over to another window to kill the program, you have to log in from another machine.
This is new to me. I've never seen a program do this.
Fucking morons.
Yeah...I was thinking the same thing about JWZ.
So I gave up on that, and tried to install gstreamer. Get this. Their propose ``solution'' for distributing binaries on Red Hat systems? They point you at an RPM that installs apt, the Debian package system!
No. apt is just an auto-downloading front end. It works with both dpkg (the Debian packaging system, which is *NOT* apt) and RPM. It also makes Red Hat about ten thousand times more palatable, because up2date (Red Hat's own equivalent of apt) sucks very very very much.
Well, I found some RPMs for Red Hat 7.2, but apparently they expect you to have already rectally inserted Gnome2 on that 7.2 system first. Uh, no.
You *couldn't* manage to compile it yourself? Have you ever heard of checkinstall?
I've seen the horror of Red Hat 8.0, and there's no fucking way I'm putting Gnome2 on any more of my machines for at least another six months, maybe a year.
I think that you're being a bit silly -- lots of people are very happy with RH 8, but whatever floats your boat.
Ok, no gstreamer. Let's try Xine. I found RPMs, and it sucks about the same as mplayer, and in about the same ways, though slightly less bad: it doesn't screw the aspect ratio when you resize the window; and at least its stupidly-shaped window is always forced to be on top. I don't like that either, but it's better than never being on top. It took me ten minutes to figure out where the "Open File" dialog was. It's on the button labeled "://" whose tooltip says "MRL Browser". Then you get to select file names from an oh-so-cute window that I guess is supposed to look like a tty, or maybe an LCD screen. It conveniently centers the file names in the list, and truncates them at about 30 characters. The scrollbar is also composed of "characters": it's an underscore.
Again -- I don't like themed, pixmapped crap interfaces either, but the Windows world is exactly the same. For some reason, people designing media players have it stuck in their heads that anyone who wants to watch a movie wants a non-standard, hard-to-use pixmapped interface.
Oh, and even though I have libdvdcss installed (as evidenced by the fact that Ogle actually works) Xine won't play the same disc that Ogle will play. It seems to be claiming that the CSS stuff isn't installed, which it clearly is.
What the hell do your expect? You grab a bunch of random RPMs (not from Red Hat) which you didn't compile yourself (and ignored the fact that there are *two* DVD CSS libraries) and now you're bitching that things don't work. Either get it from RH (or FreshRPMs) or compile it yourself, laddie buck.
It's because people who paid out tons of money for Oracle are like people who paid out tons of money for a Ferrari or Scientology -- they feel vaguely unsure that they made the right decision and need to keep vocally defending it to everyone within range.
I'd say there's little reason for 98% of Oracle licenses.
So maybe he doesn't work in a DNS-related job, you know?
Like, I expect there are plenty of your own comments that are wrong or stupid because you haven't read every single TLD.
*Maybe* your complaining would be legitimate (though still not polite) on a DNS mailing list. It's out of line on Slashdot, however, which is at best a general tech forum.
Hmm. I haven't seen anyone watching Pokemon, Digimon, or Yu-Gi-Oh particularly much or owning merchandise for them (with the exception of a Pokemon Game Boy cartridge), but I guess that they could be popular among children. I've seen people watching DBZ...I just thought of Eva because it's what most of the "anime people" I know of universally like.
OTOH, I have to say that Invader Zim is of higher quality than the top three...
Which garners the obligatory first post in nearly every anime thread for no apparent reason other than its existence.
They don't have to. They just rely on someone yelping "HENTAI!" every time anime is mentioned and passively allow the association to emerge on its own.
And whenever people talk about downloading pictures from the Internet, the first few posts are usually about porn. It's not a conspiracy aimed at discrediting anime. It's just the way people are.
Nice. Reductio ad absurdum is the technical name for that logical fallacy. Got anything else besides Mickey, which has been around for what, EIGHTY YEARS? No? How long has Evangelion been around? Oh look, your argument is turning into shit, isn't it? Shame.
I chose the most popular, most franchised US-based cartoon and the most popular, most franchised anime I could think of. Hmm...I suppose that Dragon Ball might have supplanted it, since it's probably more popular among non-anime types.
I heard education in the US sucked, but it's another thing to see it confirmed.
Yeah, we're all about to pack up and move to the Netherlands for university. Yup.
I submit that any reference to hentai or tentacles in an anime thread has now reached the redundancy level of hot grits, beowulf clusters, et al. It is not now, nor has it ever been funny.
...from a communist type?
I'd say that one of the primary reasons grits and beowulf *are* funny is because of redundancy.
There is a phenomenal amount of anime that is not only prescient, but superior, in a literary sense, to just about any mainstream entertainment this sorry-ass culture can muster.
Yes, and there's also hentai -- the US has very few adult cartoons, so it's at least as unusual and conversation-worthy. No one claimed that all anime was hentai -- they just felt like mentioning that rather than whatever lofty Shakespearean anime you wanted them to talk about.
Oh, and for you capitalist types,
there are anime franchises that have financially beaten domestic animation beyond recognition so many times, accurate records were rendered impossible decades ago. Think ELEVEN FIGURES. Think fan bases in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.
Yes, Rei and Shinji certainly have quite a bit of brand recognition relative to Mickey. [rolls eyes]
Is there an import tax on things being shipped by a single-package shipping company? Like, if I buy something mail-order from Japan, is there a tax the US imposes on the postal service to bring the box across the border?
Because if not, it seems that all this does is put US e-retailers at a disadvantage to sell to the best market (US consumers) in the world in an increasingly competitive time.
I mean, why not sell to the US from Toronto, and to Canada from New York?
I think what people keep obsessing over is the surface of the game. Mario Sunshine is bright and colorful, and looks like something for an eight-year-old. GTA or DOA have tons of skin, and look like something for a fifteen-year-old.
But what really makes the greatest difference is going to be what the actual gameplay is like.
I like both Tetris and Carmageddon, though they have wildly different surfaces. The gameplay in each is fun.
I'll grant that not everything that they release is fantastic, but I and most of the people I spent time with really enjoy Disney films. The films really do appeal to both children and adults. The stories are generally pretty simple (and when Disney's retelling a complicated story, they tend to smooth it out a bit), but I don't see someone not being able to enjoy them because they aren't eight years old.
What's worse is that with GBA they don't even bother having the appearance of the game being changed. Really, how many exact replica's of F-Zero do you need for your 4 different Nintendo consoles?
Well...you can also say that if someone really enjoys a game and wants more, why not give it to them?
I've never liked the Mario series much, but at the end of the original Zelda for the Game Boy, I thought "wow, I really wish there was more content here". It wasn't all that *short* of a game, but I really wanted to play more. Same goes for Super Metroid (sadly, Metroid Fusion's sound doesn't really compare).
There's a reason people make series. Close Combat is up to 5, Half-Life has had two expansion packs, etc.
It's because they're a lot of fun.
I'll grant you that Nintendo could use Sony's lineup of RPGs...
I figured maybe they meant Metroid Fusion, but that's set right after Metroid III.
The reason Nintendo fans buy their systems is for the Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon type games. These are just geared for all ages. Nintendo tries to capture the largest market and make truely enjoyable products for ALL gamers. I would hate to see big bouncing breast volleyball games with medicore ratings instead of a damn good Mario game.
:-)
I can trust Nintendo to come out with a good, wholesome game. None of this trash where you have large-breasted female characters stripping down to progressively skimpier outfits to reward you for better gaming performance. Not on Nintendo, no-siree-bob. Guess I'll just go waste some clean, wholesome Metroids...
Buggy code that is shipped as soon as it compiles ("Don't worry, we'll patch it later!")
This is true.
Huge amounts of hard drive real estate wasted.
Uh...so?
Two genres! Quake, or Warcraft! Oh yeah, and flight sims.
What, you *nuts*? Sure, those are the most popular genres. Due to the lower barrier to entry, though, you generally see new types of games being tried out on the PC, not on the console. I'd say the reverse -- more interesting things come out on the PC than the console.
Heck, of the games I've played and had a blast with...Close Combat doesn't fit in those genres, Total Annihilation is an RTS, Half Life is Quake, ToME isn't like any of the listed genres...
And consoles are at least as guilty of a limited set of genres. In the very early 80s, everyone played above-view shooters, then platform games. Now those two genres are mostly gone. Console-style RPGs entered. Then, racing games, 3d platformers and 3d street fighting games came along...this makes up the bulk of console games out there.
The three genres (flight sims, FPS, RTS) you just listed are generally very poorly implemented on the console. Turn-based strategy and war sims usually don't exist or are pretty badly done for the console (Turn-based strategy just plain cries out for a mouse, and most console games don't support mice).
Plus, over the course of a year or so, you get to watch your "screamin gaming rig" get slooower and slooooower as PC programmers forget about you.
So don't buy whatever *just* came out. The PC game market just gives you a broader spectrum to choose from. Buy year-old games -- problem solved.
PC games are a ghetto of crappy shareware,
Um...yes, some PC games *are* shareware. Doesn't mean you have to play a single shareware game if you don't want to.
super-violent FPS's
Frankly, I'd call Nintendo's draconian censorship rules a point to criticize Nintendo on, not the PC world.
, and studies in obsessive resource micromanagement (Warcraft)
So don't *play* RTSes. When was the last time you *played* a PC game? '95? There were a bunch of RTSes that came out then, yes. Even RTSes these days are quite different -- take a look at things like Hostile Waters.
PC gamers have to develop "mods" just to keep the games remotely interesting.
Could also (and, IMHO, should) be read "console gamers *cannot* develop mods".
You'll never see creative gaming approaches like Crazy Taxi, Rez, or Frequency on a PC...and quite frankly, it's because PC gamers don't demand anything other than an excuse to drop big money on the latest CPUs and video cards.
Crazy Taxi? An urban racing game with checkpoints? WTF are you talking about? I'm hardly a gaming affecianado, and even I've played Carmageddon years and years ago. Which, incidently, I find rather more fun.
As for Rez or Frequency, I know there *have* been music-based games in the past, but I really wasn't interested -- not a genre that I like -- so I can't give their names off the top of my head.
Sites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are group therapy for spendthrifts who attach their masculinity to their Quake framerates.
Again, you don't have to buy the latest and the greatest to play games. Just because there's a new roofing material out doesn't mean I reshingle the house every year. The most demanding game I play is probably Close Combat II...and the library of games that can play on even an old computer is far, far more than I have time to play through.
I have a total investment in my PS2 and games of around $1200. I have an investment in my computer of around $4000.
:-)
Nothing personal, but for most people, that's *far* more than they're going to spend on either. I use my computer a huge amount of the time, and I spent a fraction of that on it.
You'd have to have something like 20 PS2 games, too...
How is that better price to performance?
The thing is, most people have to have a computer *anyway*, and get side benefits from most of the machine, letting them justify (or at least rationalize) the additional cost. It's nice to have a big monitor, nice to have lots of RAM, nice to have a fast processor, nice to have a feature-filled sound card. Sure, a fancy 3d card doesn't have that much non-game benefit, but the rest does.
There are a lot of better games available for my PS2 than there are for my computer.
[shrug] all depends on the type of the game you like to play. Console games tend to be much less flexible than PC-based games. I end up feeling bored and limited playing most console games. Of all the PC games I've played, I think I've modified/patched the majority of the Linux games, and poked at the guts of most of the Windows ones. Some people prefer a more movie-like experience -- the game designer designed the game experience to be just so, and it shouldn't be modified. I just tend not to follow that point of view.
They also work right out of the box
Well, *that* just takes *all* the fun out of a game.
and the first computer you purchase will cost much more because you have nothing to start with and to compare price to performance, you need a decent gaming computer, not the Wally-World special.
And the solution is not the buy the damn bleeding-edge games. The game industry provides a whole spectrum of games, to appeal to people with a wide range of computers. You can play a game with lower system requirements, or a year-old game, and be fine. Just because a game *exists* doesn't mean you have to play it right now, just like a faster car existing doesn't mean that you have to get it instead of your current one.
Their hard-nosed stance on emulation is hypocritical, actually. Nintendo representatives have gone on record as saying that emulation is illegal, period, offering no qualifiers. Oddly, the recent hit Metroid Prime offers a full version of the NES Metroid, played via an emulator on the Gamecube.
Probably the majority of things that people say are unconsciously hypocritical to some degree.
We all know what they mean, though.