Indeed, wouldn't it be terrible if everyone stopped sending their wood chips and grass cuttings to the starving in the third world and started turning them into oil instead.
People won't buy a $399 game console. But they may well buy a $399 device that's a phone, and a text messager, and an email and internet browser, and camera, and music player, and movie player, AND a game player.
Isn't that the same logic that was used to explain why the PS3 was going to sell so many more units than the Wii?
I took my exams at the beginning of the current "downward spiral", I've heard past teacher's opinions on the situation and recently trained to be one myself.
Back in the mid nineties the government decided it needed schools to be more accountable and so began publishing league tables of exam results and judging schools by these. THe gamesmanship rapidly began and many schools began teaching to pass exams rather than to learn - I did not go to one of these schools, when we all reached the town's joint sixth form to take A-levels the pupils from my school with C grades in maths outperformed most of those with A grades from the schools known to be playing the game.
At the same time the government in andother inspired spark of Thatcherism had the wonderful idea of commercialising the examiners boards setting exams. That's right - exam boards made profit based on how many schools took their exams.
The rest is history, we have schools who are judged by how good the grades they produce are and exam boards who profit by being the ones whose exam is most likely to give the highest grade.
I was the part of last year whose maths A-level was judged on two final exams (one pure, one applied) in which you had to know the entire course to pass. Our teacher admitted to us that the school was changing exam boards to keep its results up. It now uses a modular course, there is an exam on each module straight after it (no need to remember the teaching after that) and if you fail you are free to retake that module as many times as you like until you do.
what exactly makes games so special that a chip like this could hinder piracy for games but not for movies?
Games are interactive and need the original files (this technology seems to claim to make running a copied file impossible), movies are not - a recording of what the original files do is sufficient.
There are plenty of people who want to see the latest films and are happy to see it in the form of a video taken over the shoulder of someone in a cinema. How many people who want to play the latest games do you think will settle for watching a video of someone else playing it?
Remember, Nintendo make a profit on each Wii sold so it will matter less to them than it would for other consoles.
Also you can't download the new balance board for Wii Fit or the extra wiimotes you just know you're going to buy sooner or later.
The people who "demonstrate" "cold fusion" never seem to be physicists. This Slashdot story is about someone who works for the Welding Research Institute at Osaka University.
Indeed, if we let these non-specialists in where will it end? Before you know it I bet we'll have Patent Clerks claiming to have revolutionised theoretical physics.
Here in the UK the internet is censored. Most ISPs will block a list of addresses requested by the government - largely this is for sites related to child pornography. I'm pretty sure well over 85% of the population are indeed happy with this situation even if they aren't aware of it.
I'm aware that China block far more than the UK does (at least until ISPs start blocking the BBC to keep their bandwidth down) but it's all in how you ask the question.
I'd like to see those cameras made available to the public to scrutinize at their leisure. They would be effective if they were.
There was a trial of doing just this (in Liverpool I believe). Ironically it was so popular its viewing beat those of the last Big Brother series at some times of the day.
The problem Sega had was that you had to buy the new hardware (Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast in quick succession) to play the latest games. By the time they hit the Dreamcast no one was willing to buy yet another Sega platform.
Any Xbox 360 will run any game written for the system, there is no need for the hard drive just as there is no need for a wireless controller, an HDMI output or whatever HD format you prefer. All these add choices but none are forced upon you if all you want to do is play games.
I'd rather replace my current DVD player with a standalone Bluray player too but I suspect the price saving of adding a drive to a console or PC will outweigh the inconvenience for some time.
And in windows hit Alt+Space then Alt+Shift+M, you can then move the window with the arrow keys until the offending off screen buttons are on screen.
I doubt his girlfriend will know how to do either but I suspect she'd find the windows approach a little more user friendly.
They have proclaimed it the best game of the decade.
I wonder how often IGN proclaim that? I'm sure it's a decent game but I'm sure history will put it far below put it above the likes of World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2.
It's pretty clear why a game where "only one in a hundred" players get to be the kind of powerful character they want to be lost its funding. Alienating 99% of your player base is never a particularly good business move.
The writer of Father's Day (also the Human Nature/Family of Blood story in season three and numerous books and audio plays) is a Christian and married to a Church of England vicar.
I've heard him talk on the subject and the symbolism involved (it's set in a church and ultimately a father's love leads to a sacrifice which saves everyone) was very much intentional.
My experience of Dell in the UK is that the extras are expensive if you use their web site.
Giving them a phone call and asking them to price up your requirements tends to wind up far closer to what you would expect to be charged. Even better is the "what can you give me for £XXXX" approach which I've bee told by Dell sales people allows them to pull in the best bargains they can offer.
So, on one side we'll have consoles that lack display (as now) but also controls and sound, and graphic cards concentrating almost all the power to run a cutting edge game.
What differentiates those two pieces of hardware?
An X-box 360 bought last year will run the games designed for it three years from now.
A PC graphics card bought at the same time for the same price will barely run Crysis now.
Sadly voting in the UK doesn't work, we effectively have two identical centre right parties to choose from come election time. The Liberals seem to do a decent job of sabotaging their own chances any time they look to be gaining ground and the remainder of the parties are largely groups of crackpots and racists or both (with the possible exception of the green party, your vote for them will never get them elected but might make other parties try a little harder to steal it from them). Add to that a first past the post system that means the present government holds power comfortably with only 35% of the votes or to correct for those that didn't vote at all, only 21% of the elegable population voted for the present Labour government in the UK.
It's a dammed if you do and dammed if you don't situation, you vote and it's taken as a mandate to carry on as is, you don't vote and you are branded apathetic. The only alternative would be a "re-open nominations" type box to vote on, it's been suggested but no one in power would be willing to face the results it produces.
Well I'm sure they'll start out by pointing out that despite providing the public with a cheap drm free legal source for the music (which the/. crowd seem to suggest will eliminate all piracy) the world still decides to illegally download the music in quanities far higher than it buys it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/04/reznor_gift_spurned/
You've obviously missed the new episodes of the Simpsons and that isn't a bad thing.
Sure the classic episodes outclass Family Guy and co but series by series from about season six the simpsons has transfomed itself into complete trash, here is how every single episode now proceeds:
Homer does something crazy, as a result he goes somewhere or becomes something with hilarious consequences (a phrase in comedy which indecates the episode will be in no way funny). In the process Homer will meet a celebrity.
I don't even get a single laugh from most of the latest episodes shown here in the UK. American Dad on the other hand which has just started airing here actually has laughs, a point to the plots and decent heaps of satire that were sadly lost from the simpsons about a decade ago. It will never match the truely great episodes of the early Simpsons but it's up to the average episodes.
Anyway, if you like the Simpsons as much as you say you'll have picked up the early series boxed sets and can watch all the good episodes that are likely ever to be produced.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, wouldn't it be terrible if everyone stopped sending their wood chips and grass cuttings to the starving in the third world and started turning them into oil instead.
And I for one welcome our new in-joking overlords...
I took my exams at the beginning of the current "downward spiral", I've heard past teacher's opinions on the situation and recently trained to be one myself.
Back in the mid nineties the government decided it needed schools to be more accountable and so began publishing league tables of exam results and judging schools by these. THe gamesmanship rapidly began and many schools began teaching to pass exams rather than to learn - I did not go to one of these schools, when we all reached the town's joint sixth form to take A-levels the pupils from my school with C grades in maths outperformed most of those with A grades from the schools known to be playing the game.
At the same time the government in andother inspired spark of Thatcherism had the wonderful idea of commercialising the examiners boards setting exams. That's right - exam boards made profit based on how many schools took their exams.
The rest is history, we have schools who are judged by how good the grades they produce are and exam boards who profit by being the ones whose exam is most likely to give the highest grade.
I was the part of last year whose maths A-level was judged on two final exams (one pure, one applied) in which you had to know the entire course to pass. Our teacher admitted to us that the school was changing exam boards to keep its results up. It now uses a modular course, there is an exam on each module straight after it (no need to remember the teaching after that) and if you fail you are free to retake that module as many times as you like until you do.
There are plenty of people who want to see the latest films and are happy to see it in the form of a video taken over the shoulder of someone in a cinema. How many people who want to play the latest games do you think will settle for watching a video of someone else playing it?
Remember, Nintendo make a profit on each Wii sold so it will matter less to them than it would for other consoles.
Also you can't download the new balance board for Wii Fit or the extra wiimotes you just know you're going to buy sooner or later.
Here in the UK the internet is censored. Most ISPs will block a list of addresses requested by the government - largely this is for sites related to child pornography. I'm pretty sure well over 85% of the population are indeed happy with this situation even if they aren't aware of it.
I'm aware that China block far more than the UK does (at least until ISPs start blocking the BBC to keep their bandwidth down) but it's all in how you ask the question.
Ironically it was so popular its viewing beat those of the last Big Brother series at some times of the day.
The problem Sega had was that you had to buy the new hardware (Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast in quick succession) to play the latest games. By the time they hit the Dreamcast no one was willing to buy yet another Sega platform.
Any Xbox 360 will run any game written for the system, there is no need for the hard drive just as there is no need for a wireless controller, an HDMI output or whatever HD format you prefer. All these add choices but none are forced upon you if all you want to do is play games.
I'd rather replace my current DVD player with a standalone Bluray player too but I suspect the price saving of adding a drive to a console or PC will outweigh the inconvenience for some time.
And in windows hit Alt+Space then Alt+Shift+M, you can then move the window with the arrow keys until the offending off screen buttons are on screen.
I doubt his girlfriend will know how to do either but I suspect she'd find the windows approach a little more user friendly.
Compared to the budget per hour of gameplay for a lot of recent AAA console games that's pretty cheap.
It's pretty clear why a game where "only one in a hundred" players get to be the kind of powerful character they want to be lost its funding. Alienating 99% of your player base is never a particularly good business move.
The writer of Father's Day (also the Human Nature/Family of Blood story in season three and numerous books and audio plays) is a Christian and married to a Church of England vicar.
I've heard him talk on the subject and the symbolism involved (it's set in a church and ultimately a father's love leads to a sacrifice which saves everyone) was very much intentional.
My experience of Dell in the UK is that the extras are expensive if you use their web site.
Giving them a phone call and asking them to price up your requirements tends to wind up far closer to what you would expect to be charged. Even better is the "what can you give me for £XXXX" approach which I've bee told by Dell sales people allows them to pull in the best bargains they can offer.
It will also be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.
Is this the first time in /. history that a link to goatse might be relevant to the topic discussed?
If you target DirectX you can quickly port to the Xbox 360. There are more of those than PS3's....
A PC graphics card bought at the same time for the same price will barely run Crysis now.
Sadly voting in the UK doesn't work, we effectively have two identical centre right parties to choose from come election time. The Liberals seem to do a decent job of sabotaging their own chances any time they look to be gaining ground and the remainder of the parties are largely groups of crackpots and racists or both (with the possible exception of the green party, your vote for them will never get them elected but might make other parties try a little harder to steal it from them).
Add to that a first past the post system that means the present government holds power comfortably with only 35% of the votes or to correct for those that didn't vote at all, only 21% of the elegable population voted for the present Labour government in the UK.
It's a dammed if you do and dammed if you don't situation, you vote and it's taken as a mandate to carry on as is, you don't vote and you are branded apathetic. The only alternative would be a "re-open nominations" type box to vote on, it's been suggested but no one in power would be willing to face the results it produces.
Well I'm sure they'll start out by pointing out that despite providing the public with a cheap drm free legal source for the music (which the /. crowd seem to suggest will eliminate all piracy) the world still decides to illegally download the music in quanities far higher than it buys it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/04/reznor_gift_spurned/
You've obviously missed the new episodes of the Simpsons and that isn't a bad thing.
Sure the classic episodes outclass Family Guy and co but series by series from about season six the simpsons has transfomed itself into complete trash, here is how every single episode now proceeds:
Homer does something crazy, as a result he goes somewhere or becomes something with hilarious consequences (a phrase in comedy which indecates the episode will be in no way funny). In the process Homer will meet a celebrity.
I don't even get a single laugh from most of the latest episodes shown here in the UK. American Dad on the other hand which has just started airing here actually has laughs, a point to the plots and decent heaps of satire that were sadly lost from the simpsons about a decade ago. It will never match the truely great episodes of the early Simpsons but it's up to the average episodes.
Anyway, if you like the Simpsons as much as you say you'll have picked up the early series boxed sets and can watch all the good episodes that are likely ever to be produced.