The lack of a control group in this study is a Red Herring. If you'll note, this study was compared to previous studies (which would have had control groups, presumably, or they wouldn't have held up to any scrutiny either). Why waste the (British) public's money with redundant testing? They simply used the prior control group data and placed these scores against that (along with athlete and whatever else has been done previously).
Your placement of social class, by the way, is woefully off target. Even the upper fringe of the lower class can afford a console machine these days (although a decent gaming computer is still out of their price range). That's the purpose of the console machines... Basically, anyone who can afford a TV can probably afford a game console and a few games. They may not be the current hot console or the most recent games, but (up until it became a collector's item) you could easily hit a garage sale for something like an old NES, Genesis or SNES and 30 games and end up paying under $30 for the lot.
Now the study may have been done wrong (to your mind), or have looked at the wrong sampling of gamers (those that compete are generally going to be the more socially well-adjusted... They did come out of their hole, after all). All in all, though, I'd keep in mind this is a general news release article, not a technical paper, so it'd be difficult to say exactly what the test methods were. There may well have been a control group in this study and the author didn't think that was important enough to put in... If you find the real paper on the subject, then you can level your accusations appropriately.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Right... And look at all that 3rd Party support Apple has. I suppose the Mac users out there should be happy to have any 3rd party development, though, considering how impossible it used to be to make something as a 3rd party developer for Apple.
On a side note, I'm not sure which part of this is worse... That you think Apple is good for doing the same things as Microsoft does (although it's ok because it isn't a monopoly), that you think Apple is good because it makes mediocre software (allowing 3rd party developers a chance to sell stuff), or that you think Microsoft is bad because they happen to be trying to make reasonably good software such that 3rd party software is unneccesary (thus possibly justifying some portion of the cost... Pay too much for an OS and then go buy what you need, or just pay too much for an OS with a bunch of stuff included...)
The way you attack IE, by the way, could, in theory, be applied to every Mac OS. The remaining libraries are GUI libraries. Unless I missed somethign recently nearly every Mac program is supposed to use the Mac supplied GUI libraries. Since the Mac program uses those libraries in order to display anything, shouldn't they be removed in order to remove that program completely? But wait, that would effect the OS...
Just because IE happens to use what's provided instead of having seperate GUI libraries doesn't make it all that invasive. Those libraries (along with some of the basic web-browser-like functionality inherent in a good single-window graphical file system) happen to be pretty damn important to the system. What you're complaining about would be somewhat similar to running XWindows with no window manager.
If you really want to clean it out, those libraries can be removed or replaced (see Win98Lite for one example, and Window Shades for other poorer attempts).
"Apple gives you enough to get you going, but leaves the best implementation for 3rd Party developers. This is in stark contrast to M$ who" actually attempts to write a good implementation from the start.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Fun point raised in PvP several comics back... You can retun the opened version for an unopened one... And then return the unopened one for a refund. Unless they're paying attention to those things at that particular store.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
People who don't hold doors open when you both arrive at the same time.
Oo, oo, a chance to tell one of my favorite stories to people I don't know...
Somewhere around 6 or 7 years ago while visiting my brother at college I decided to attend one of the classes which had a special speaker (to impress the parents during the family visiting festivities). While walking into the building I heard someone walking behind me, so I politely paused inside and, not turning around, held the door. And held the door. And continued to hold the door. Finally turning, I saw a female student (at least she was the correct age to have been a student there) who gave me a rather cold look. She stated, "I don't need a man to hold the door for me." I replied, "I would have held the door for anyone behind me, man or woman, but since you insist..." and promptly shut the door in her face.
It's always unforunate when people lose sight of common courtesy when in pursuit of a goal, be it Equality in support for OSes or Equality between genders (which, I'd like to note, are different from sexes).
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Most of these posts are nicely redundant and all, but I thought I'd pipe in for a moment here...
Cable modems, phone modems and DSL all share lines, but in different ways. The phone-line modem connection is your own... at least all the way to ISP modem bank. DSL is about the same, I think, though connections may get joined in between... I'm not really certain. Cable modems use (or at least previously used... some may have altered the system) a token-ring network to link together a region. What this ends up meaning is that if your cable company is actually paying any attention to the amount of traffic, the only time you'll feel any sort of slowdown is if the number of users on your ring goes up significantly (percentage-wise, that is). And that slowdown should last for anywhere between a few hours to a week at which point the number of tokens being passed will increase on the ring and you'll be back to your old speeds.
The possibility of Cable dipping below dial-up speeds exists, but is so compeletly unlikely that it might as well not be a possibility. Of course, some cable companies might be worse than others... Thus far Road-Runner hasn't given me any problems in any location I've used it (Syracuse NY, Albany NY and San Diego CA).
Research into the local companies never hurts, though... There are always a few aberrations.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Re:Whoa, there; I think we missed a step
on
Ogg Vorbis Players?
·
· Score: 1
... and on the subject of decoding, WinAMP (with the ogg playback plugin) takes two to four times as much of the CPU (on my Win2k box) with ogg files as compared to mp3 files.
Depending on exactly when you tested this out (meaning whether you were using the WinAMP-official plugin, or the Ogg Vorbis team plugin) the CPU requirements are, in theory, reduced somewhat. Part of the problem (as reported on the WinAMP message boards by one of the WinAMP programmers) was that there was no option to disable bitrate display updates in the Ogg Vorbis team plugin. The actual alteration of bitrates doesn't consume much, but apparently reporting it to the display takes a significant chunk of CPU time. That isn't to say that they are by any means equal in terms of workload yet (although they might be... it's difficult to test anything when all I get is 1-2% CPU usage reported for either type of file). However, it might be worth checking at some point to see if you have the most current version of the (Official Nullsoft) plugin. I'd be interested to know if it still takes up more CPU time.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
At least one or two people here avoided AO, UO and EQ as the sole topic in their post... Only one mention of the original MMOG, MUDs (and related) type text-games (of which, one commercial venture done by Simu remains and at least one of their games (Dragon Realms) has an average population of 800 players (lows around 450, highs well over 2000))
Granted, those games mentioned frequently have received the greatest number of players (even in Beta stages, for AO). I just thought I'd mention a few places where I see MMO-type games really taking off. First, I think Verant's other works, such as Sovereign should be considered instead of just EQ. It looks to be an excellent game in both MMO and RTS catagories. The idea of an RTS where once you've won an area, you can continue to resource in that region to fund later attacks is good (though I think it has been done somewhat in games like Earth 2150)... As is the idea of having an entire planet to fight over rather than a small chunk of ground. Without any map edges to build against, players will finally need to surround their entire base with defenses rather than only 2 sides. Also coming from Verant (and Sony), Planetside should be a good extension of games like Tribes. Where Tribes had some nice versions of games (like Capture and Hold) where out-lying base buildings could hold a tactical advcantage, generally there was little in terms of being able to seriously gain or lose ground. The front-line was in the middle, and it stayed there. With a game like Planetside, you have the capability (I don't know if this will occur, mind you) of having a moving front. One of the previous games to do something similar to this was Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, where they had a server set up that allowed the games which were played to alter a more global map. The matches were just standard battles, but what was happening in theory was that each win allowed the player's side to gain or retain a section of land. Enough wins on one side claimed that territory and moved the fight forward into the next. Eventually one team would conquer the planet and the map would be reset.
The expanded nature of these games is a real improvement, IMHO. Instead of having a meaningless battle on planet X over a flag (ok, I'm willing to go further and say that the flag represents data or materials or some other tactical advantage, but the battle remains meaningless as there is no tangible benefit to winning in the subsequent match) the players will be able to achieve a victory that (hopefully) will have other benefits to aid them in later attacks. If a few good commanders appear in Planetside who happen to know where various useful buildings are, coordinated assaults on outposts would be possible, lending to the atmosphere and frankly to the fun factor in the game.
Of course, if winning a section of land in Planetside has no benefit other than more land to retreat over, I'd say it probably isn't worth the effort of making the game function in a MMO fashion... I'd even put forward small benefits gained, like capturing a vehicle factory allows for faster or better or even just more available vehicles for your team would be good enough.
(This is mainly in response to anothr comment) As for Neverwinter Nights being MMO... That's debatable. Some might say something like, "Massively Multiplayer should mean more than a standard Multiplayer. If NWN is MMO, then so is Tribes..." Almost. Tribes allows for an equal number of players on a given server (I believe NWN is currently slated for a maximum of 64 players per server). However, the NWN servers can be linked via portals, which would allow for a set of 10 servers so linked to handle 640 clients. The other complaint leveled is in regards to a persistant world. Nothing in MMO says persistant, though a good NWN server should be able to maintain itself for several months if so desired.
WW2 Online sounded like a good idea gone wrong. Personally, I wouldn't have played it, but I can see how it might've been a good game. Especially if they'd included hooks for other games to be linked in, such that you could have an FPS client, a commander client (available to those who've risen far enough in rank, so only a few get the priveldge is they want it) plotting out attack routes for the FPS people, a flight simulator so you could allow bomber runs and fighter-plane pilots to join in, and a few tanks and such (which I believe were included)... things to take all the fighting aspects and include them.
The only other game I know of in the works that looks interesting is Star Wars: Galaxies... but not for the RPG aspect. Instead, I'm looking at the propsed Space Expansion, which is the only genre I feel is seriously missing from the current MMO arena. A good MMO Space-Sim would be a lot of fun, I think... Having the capability of being a trader, a fighter pilot, a gunner or maybe even a capital ship commander would lend itself to some great gaming opportunities. Especially if space was limited to play-bubbles (here I'm thinking of something like Wing Commander or maybe Terminus, where you might be able to range over a single solar-system in your ship, but interstellar travel would be limited to jump-points) it could be an excellent strategic game as well as a fun Space Sim. Having blockades and blockade runners alone would be something neat...
I think I'll cut this short here and not go on to mention the plethora of other MMOGs that have been announced. I've covered those genres where I think expansion into the MMO arena will be good. I don't think many other game types will be able to make the switch (Sim City Online? Pharoah Online? Maybe some trading or something...)
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Better solution: include all of the above e-mail client PGP packages (or whichever one you happen to like best) to the plain text every time until they catch the hint.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Are you sure that wasn't pure lag killing your frame-rate? I can't speak to any of your other graphic glitches, but the 'frame-rate' problems I experienced early on when I was playing T2 were generally caused by 2 things, 1 of which is probably Windows specific (minor hardware race conditions and conflicts based around the soundcard, ethernet card and video card all being stuck on a single IRQ for some reason). The other one was Packet Loss caused by my campus network. When I switched to Cable (or my friend's DSL) most of that set of problems went away. Resetting my graphics preferences to lower settings (reducing texture quality, reducing distance, lowering model complexity) didn't help much. The only place I still have frame-rate problems is near firing deployable turrets, which is probably also at least somewhat lag related.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
As a (minor) sidenote, I'm going to have to assume you use Win98 (or at least 9x) to play Tribes 2 in. In Win2k I've never had a problem returning to my OS when the game hung. In fact, it hasn't hung totally yet, but rather, it'll error (sometimes returning an error message from the program, which isn't a hang, I'd assume, or no error message directly except Win2k mentioning it's creating an error log about it) and dump you back to the desktop. It's possible I'm just not experiencing the same problems you do, but it could also be that in some OS specific ways, Win2k is just easier to recover in.
If the error and signal handler (or whatever exactly would be involved) can catch the hang in Win2k, it can probably be set up to handle the same problems in Linux without resorting to SSH and kill -9.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Bait and Switch is more accurately seen in credit card spam, where they 'offer' a platinum card with great rates but have (in the fine print usually) a clause saying if you aren't fully approved for the platinum card they will instead issue you a normal card. At the time I was receiving these offers in college, I wasn't even old enough to receive the platinum card in the first place (also in the fine print, required the applicant to be 25).
The computer situation mentioned above isn't bait & switch, per se. It's a simple con. If you actually could buy a good $100 PC upon approval, but will otherwise receive an inferior PC, that'd be bait (the good one) and switch (most people get the crap).
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I stand corrected, then... I don't know the engineering specifics of the engines to any decent degree. I know only what I've heard from various auto-mechanics and my elders on the subject. I do know that the modern engines (Otto-cycle?) are more heavily reinforced against the combustion such that it can withstand the pressure of explosion. Similarly, you can't put jet-fuel in the tank as that's even more refined and would either not run at all, or if it did combust would severely damage your engine. I also know that diesel fuel is less-refined and pollutes more, those being the reasons for the switch away from diesel engines.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
The original question didn't include a location, but I was trying to show that the costs are down and efficiency is going up comparatively. Also wanted to encourage more source citing.
I know Japan has high energy costs, but most regions also have frequent cloud-cover. If you live in Sunny Southern Cal, there's a good chance that solar panels would be in almost constant use. I didn't say my data was flawless, but at least I made mention of where my numbers came from. If you live in Seattle or the Bay Area it probably doesn't make sense to use Solar Panels. But hopefully the questioner already realizes this...
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
There are good number of Windows only people reading/. still. Me, for instance. I consider switching to Linux on occasion, and regular articles like this one keep me posted as to how well the various distros have progressed. If you read 18 different Linux news pages, or read every single article posted here about the various distros then maybe you know this stuff. If you've been ensconced in Linux for years maybe you know this stuff. I don't have time or inclination to read other Linux news pages, nor do I really want to know about every minor revision of Mandrake or RedHat (thus I don't read almost any of the "version x.x.x of y has been released" articles). So to answer your question, this is news for nerds and while it's possible that most of the readership might know some of it, it's good to have as something to point non-Linux people to.
Now I'm not going to defend this particular article, as I didn't find it enormously enlightening on the subject, but it was decently well written and did contain most of what I wanted to know. However, I do think this stuff belongs on the/. page every once in a while (for the new readers). Maybe they could stick in a new catagory so old time subscribers or Linux hackers can filter out these types of articles, but that's up to the admins. If you don't want to see these articles in the future, make the suggestion to them directly that you want a way to opt out of 'new-user / beginner-linux' articles the same way I don't see Distro-specific articles.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
This is old news but if you can encourage the development of cars like this instead, you'd be improving things across the board.
Using veggie oil in a diesel isn't big news. Diesel engines are vastly more efficient than modern motors. The problem being that modern refined gasoline is too explosive for them (this is a similar problem to using weapons-grade plutonium in a nuclear reactor). Diesel gas is cheaper per mile in a diesel engine, but also is less pure, and that translates into nastier pollution. I've been told (though I grew up on the waning tide of diesel engines so I never personally witnessed any of this, nor would I know how to do it) that you could run a diesel (very inefficiently) on peanut oil or even diluted peanut butter if absolutely required. Depending on exactly how they refine the veggie oil, this book could be useful or it could just be a minor curiousity that's really not worth doing.
The $.50 / gallon is somewhat hard to swallow unless they mean cost of seeds to oil. Vegetable oil at the store is certainly more expensive than that. The other possible comparison could be $.50 per gallon in comparison to the mileage in a normal gasoline powered car. Without knowing exactly where that figure came from (I didn't scope out the site too deeply), it's hard to justify it in any reasonable way. Also of note is that they describe in that book how to actually grow the oil crops and then refine the oil.
In general, I'd relegate this to the "interesting, but not particularly useful" catagory of information. I'd much rather have a light-weight plastic / carbon-fiber car running on Hydrogen Fuel Cells than an old (or even a new) diesel running on anything.
Side question here, but does anyone know if they've been able to reinforce diesel engines to the point that they could take unleaded gasoline directly? If so, that'd be nearly as useful as veggie oil, since I seem to recall diesels being a fair margin more efficient. Just harder to start in a cold winter.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Of course, you're completely under-researched but I won't hold that against you... What I will do is attempt to show, using a few of your examples and a few others, why the X-box is very likely to annihilate the competition.
The DC's specs were about the same jump over the PSX. The PS2 was a year and a half after that and had even less of a jump comparatively. This is actually a next-gen console to the PS2 the same way the PS2 was over the DC. Sega always caught the downslope of the market with their console releases... X-box should actually come out at the right time to catch the rising wave. The PS2 will not have released the 2nd generation games yet(which is what most people who own the system are waiting for, and several people are waiting for to buy the system), Gamecube will be just released (with very few 'must-buy' games lined up for launch, IMHO) and the DC support will be almost totally drained by then. And as the GameCube will be just released, let's take a look there, since that's what you think it needs to be compared to...
The X-box, as you mentioned, has a 700Mhz Intel processor, a 300 Mhz custom nVidia chip, 64MBs of RAM with 6.4GB/second of bandwidth. It also boasts 4x-DVD media (with normal movie DVD capability), an 8GB scratch drive, 3D audio support, 4 USB controller ports, 100 Mbps ethernet and 1920x1080 HDTV output (which can also be converted to a monitor signal, as HDTV hasn't yet reached that resolution). (from www.planetxbox.com)
The GameCube has a 405 Mhz IBM processor (it sounds as though this 'Gekko' chip actually works faster for gaming purposes, and it's a 64-bit chip rather than a 32-bit chip so the comparison may not be a good one), a 202.5 Mhz graphics chip (with about the same HW T&L and anti-aliasing features), 24 MBs of RAM with 3.2 GB/second bandwidth, and additional 16 MB of RAM with err.. less bandwidth. It also includes 3D audio on par with the Xbox, proprietary mini-DVD disc format with associated drive, 4 controller ports, both a 56k modem and some sort of broadband ethernet support, and both analog and digital TV ouput (monitor cables are expected as well, no word on resolutions). (from www.planetgamecube.com)
So, the Xbox specs are equivalent or possibly slightly better (in graphics) or slightly worse (in main processor and possibly in RAM access) but still close enough for appropriate comparison to the generation you wanted it to be compared to. If the Xbox isn't a big jump, then neither is the GameCube. I don't care which one you choose (big jump or not), but the Xbox compares favorably or at least equitably with the systems people have seen (DC, PS2) and those that have been kept as far out of the public eye as possible (GameCube).
Now for the games... The X-box currently has a a decent number of exclusive games (pure console-style games) announced. It also has several PC and other console system ports announced. The reason ports from console to PC have done poorly is because console programmers can't handle the vast variety of weird configurations people have in their PCs. The sheer number of combinations of graphics, motherboard, audio and video cards (not to mention bizarre peripherals) that could potentially cause a problem is enormous. This is why developers like consoles. On the flipside, developers like PCs because there are few restrictions on what can be done, and the programming is generally greatly simplified over trying to write to the exact hardware requirements. The X-box is the best of both (or so MS hopes)... It has a stable configuration, and a PC-style architecture. It has certainly attracted many developers sick of the PS2's insanely complex SDK.
Now, why don't those ports work? First, they're generally buggy, and look worse on whatever they end up ported to. No problems with that for Windows games going to X-box, since it'll be the same type of system. Don't even neccesarily need to worry about control set reductions, as the Xbox can handle a USB keyboard and mouse. Reverse? Well, the X-box is as good as any initial test-bed for a PC game in development. Console to Console? These generally fare much better, (as Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Tony Hawk 2 show) and should like-wise not be a huge problem for most companies used to much nastier alterations being required to port the games.
Now for the OS... You do realize that the DC can and does run a WinCE OS for some things... It can also rune Linux if you'd like, but that's besides the point. What generally crashes an OS? Hardware conflicts, memory errors or malicious code. If the OS is written to the hardware, you shouldn't have to worry about conflicts occuring. Memory errors and malicious code, if they occur, will be the game developer's fault more than Microsoft's (although I'm not certain MS is doing the rigorous and often insane amount of testing for liscensed games before they get released. The number of hoops a developer has to jump through for most consoles is rather high, and many are centered around making sure the game won't crash ever, though the PS2 seems to crash often enough...)
As a side note, even if ports do poorly, emulation does quite well... Free (as in beer) often does that, though Bleem! did relatively good sales.
Final word, X-box has the game developers under it. This is what makes or breaks a console, no matter what anyone else says. The PSX flew high because Sony attracted those all important third-party game developers. MS is doing the same with X-box. They have several good games lined up: Oddworld- Munch's Oddysee, Black&White, Crash Bandicoot X, Dead or Alive 3, Halo, Metal Gear Solid X, and several others, games that have a past and will attract gamers who liked the originals, or the developers. Looks like at least Halo and Oddworld will be launch titles, giving the system a relatively good base as well.
Price... PS2 set the line with their initial $400 tag. PS2 is currently down to $300 itself, so X-box's launch price sounds pretty darn good for an integrated CD/DVD player. All in all, It looks like the X-box is set up for success in the console market, not failure. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
To stick in a few 'facts,' with appropriate citations...
Energy Payback Time on PV cells is well within the lifetime of the cell. Amorphous Silicon Cells payback in about a year, Normal high-temperature crstal melted cells take 4 years. The high-yield single crystal cells might not be able to pay themselves back, I'm not entirely sure. I'm not exactly a PV engineer or anything...
The current high-yield, ultra-expensive cells get 23% conversion, other cheaper ones get between 12% and 18%
I thought Ogg was getting adopted by some hardware places? Of course, that might've been the flash-ROM / RAM-style players rather than the MP3CD players... ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Microsoft could guarantee OS penetration with pre-loading when PC sales were going like crazy, but that's simply not the case anymore. For example, there are a lot more people using Windows 95 still than Windows ME, and these two OSes are basically compatible with each other. Meaning that it was perfectly safe for the Windows 9X user to purchase a computer with Windows ME on it and expect that his software would still run.
This isn't the case with Windows XP, and it is going to cause Microsoft more than its share of fits. Unless Microsoft discontinues Windows ME completely there are still going to be some people who will prefer it. Especially if it allows them to buy a less expensive computer.
Where'd you get your misinformation? Windows XP will be the most backwards compatible version of Windows ever (including Win9x in terms of DOS backwards compatibility). If it worked in any previous WinXX OS (95, 98, NT, 2000, ME) it should work without a hassle in WinXP. Last I checked the progress on their site, they were around 80% compatible and climbing rapidly. Pieces remaining seemed to be mostly DOS legacy products that worked with glitches in Win95 that they want to work perfectly in WinXP. The previews I've seen posted seem to indicate about the same. If it was designed for Windows, it works. If it was designed for DOS, it probably works, with a few weird exceptions.
To wit: "For software compatibility, Windows XP lets you run an older program under a Compatibility mode that emulates Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. If a program runs under one of these modes, Windows XP saves the settings so you can easily run the application in the future. Windows XP integrates the Microsoft AppCompat database of compatibility problems, which contains fixes and workarounds that are automatically applied to programs running on the OS. The database is updated automatically through Microsoft's Windows Update feature." from ZDnet article on WinXP
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Ok, a few notes here...
MS is actually improving backwards compatibility with Windows XP. Things that worked in Win95 or Win98 or WinNT or Win2000 should work in WinXP. In fact, DOS programs that Win95 broke have a chance at working in WinXP. Backwards compatibility was one of the top priorities of WinXP. Second, MP3 is doomed of its own volition (well, the Frauenhofer's volition, anyways). MS is avoiding putting in a decent MP3 encoder because it'd cost them a bundle to do so. They may say it was done for other reasons, but I've little doubt that they did it because they didn't want to pay Frauenhofer's fees. It would be bad PR to say that, however, so they put a spin on it, although it'd probably be easier to simply not include the MP3-encode system in the first place. Linux won't get anythign big out of this. The only Free-Software likely to get a boost here is Ogg Vorbis, which is already comparable to MP3 and is also already free and available for use in commercial products (BSD liscense now, I think). ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
If they release the music online in a liscensed system, then they are not destroying 'fair-use' per se. Fair Use applies to creating a back-up copy of destrucible media for personal usage (make one copy only, in case the original is damaged beyond repair to avoid loss). You can still copy the music (to zip disk or a second HD or another computer) and listen to it there. However, if by 'Fair Use' you mean you want to copy it and send it to your friends, then by all means they want to stop you. Of course, that isn't Fair Use, either. I've yet to see something actually stop the act of copying. If it won't play elsewhere, that's different, but also makes perfect sense in the twisted software liscense world we live in. You can copy it all you want, but you can only listen to it on one machine (the same way most EULAs for commercial software read). Point is, it isn't breaking Fair Use. And I'm surprised so many people here care, considering MP3 isn't an 'open' format either now that Frauenhofer is charging for encoders. I'd expect people to just take this as a chance to tout Ogg Vorbis... Oh well. ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
They have a trademark on all movies named solely "Diablo". IANAL, but as I see it, if New Line called the movie "Diablo: Wolfenstein's Syndicate Master of Doom" there wouldn't be any trademark infringment occuring, though I'm not sure about trademark dilution. The problem is using the single word name. Blizzard has already filed for the name to use in conjunction with the game series. If someone were to come out with a movie called "Magic: the Gathering" about some drug called magic which causes mind control and causes people to gather into one spot, I'm sure Wizards of the Coast would be rather upset. If they own the movie trademark, they'd even have full legal recourse on the case. Also similarly, if someone were to make a movie called "Blow" (which is a movie by New Line Cinema coming out April 6th and I know absolutely nothing about other than the name), New Line could sue them for trademark infringement although Blow is obviously a common word and even if the new movie was completely different from theirs.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
<< Uh..a reasonable person wouldn't blow up an oil tank and expect to find *anything* useful left behind! >>
But a reasonable person might blow it up to, say, clear a room out of enemies. The oil barrel shouldn't contain anything except oil (or water or whatever else would make sense for a barrel to contain in the real world). He doesn't say that the oil barrel being blown up should leave anything except char (or whatever an explosion like that yields). The line above makes more sense... Don't put items where they wouldn't logically occur, don't leave items that wouldn't survive an explosion behind after causing an explosion.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I agree with the stuff on Compaq and Gateway. I've never heard anything but problems from people with Copaqs, while the Gateway people only have praise for the Customer support. This is a Good Thing... they seem to need it a lot, since their computers frequently have problems. If you want a trouble free computer, I'd avoid both Compaq and Gateway (though it seems most of the Gateway problems were in relation to shipping, so if you get it at a local store, it might be better. I haven't checked on that yet...)
On to the main question... I've had good luck with my Dell Optiplex system. Not a single hardware problem with it (except for a whine in my monitor in certain resolutions on occasion). ((Side-note: I was told by a friend when I got it that I'd made a mistake, since the entire system is on the motherboard (no cards). He said I'd burn out one component in a year and the whole system would be unusable, but that hasn't happened yet (2 years now). I think he said that from a bad previous experience with overclocking a system like this, which I don't do.)) I've gotten updates on all the components in my system directly from the Dell website, which had them almost as soon as they were out from the individual parts manufacturers. All in all, it's been a good deal. I'm not sure on the quality of parts in the Dimension systems (those are made from the least expensive at production time parts as opposed to well-tested standard parts) but the customer support looks like it's there for those machines too.
If I ever get a new pre-packaged machine, it'll probably be a Dell. I didn't like my HP as much, and the customer support on it wasn't as good. Most of my older computers were made by smaller companies that no longer exist. Good thing those ones haven't needed any real support. ^_^
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron) "Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Slashdot Mirror
The lack of a control group in this study is a Red Herring. If you'll note, this study was compared to previous studies (which would have had control groups, presumably, or they wouldn't have held up to any scrutiny either). Why waste the (British) public's money with redundant testing? They simply used the prior control group data and placed these scores against that (along with athlete and whatever else has been done previously).
Your placement of social class, by the way, is woefully off target. Even the upper fringe of the lower class can afford a console machine these days (although a decent gaming computer is still out of their price range). That's the purpose of the console machines... Basically, anyone who can afford a TV can probably afford a game console and a few games. They may not be the current hot console or the most recent games, but (up until it became a collector's item) you could easily hit a garage sale for something like an old NES, Genesis or SNES and 30 games and end up paying under $30 for the lot.
Now the study may have been done wrong (to your mind), or have looked at the wrong sampling of gamers (those that compete are generally going to be the more socially well-adjusted... They did come out of their hole, after all). All in all, though, I'd keep in mind this is a general news release article, not a technical paper, so it'd be difficult to say exactly what the test methods were. There may well have been a control group in this study and the author didn't think that was important enough to put in... If you find the real paper on the subject, then you can level your accusations appropriately.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Right... And look at all that 3rd Party support Apple has. I suppose the Mac users out there should be happy to have any 3rd party development, though, considering how impossible it used to be to make something as a 3rd party developer for Apple.
On a side note, I'm not sure which part of this is worse... That you think Apple is good for doing the same things as Microsoft does (although it's ok because it isn't a monopoly), that you think Apple is good because it makes mediocre software (allowing 3rd party developers a chance to sell stuff), or that you think Microsoft is bad because they happen to be trying to make reasonably good software such that 3rd party software is unneccesary (thus possibly justifying some portion of the cost... Pay too much for an OS and then go buy what you need, or just pay too much for an OS with a bunch of stuff included...)
The way you attack IE, by the way, could, in theory, be applied to every Mac OS. The remaining libraries are GUI libraries. Unless I missed somethign recently nearly every Mac program is supposed to use the Mac supplied GUI libraries. Since the Mac program uses those libraries in order to display anything, shouldn't they be removed in order to remove that program completely? But wait, that would effect the OS...
Just because IE happens to use what's provided instead of having seperate GUI libraries doesn't make it all that invasive. Those libraries (along with some of the basic web-browser-like functionality inherent in a good single-window graphical file system) happen to be pretty damn important to the system. What you're complaining about would be somewhat similar to running XWindows with no window manager.
If you really want to clean it out, those libraries can be removed or replaced (see Win98Lite for one example, and Window Shades for other poorer attempts).
"Apple gives you enough to get you going, but leaves the best implementation for 3rd Party developers. This is in stark contrast to M$ who" actually attempts to write a good implementation from the start.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Fun point raised in PvP several comics back... You can retun the opened version for an unopened one... And then return the unopened one for a refund. Unless they're paying attention to those things at that particular store.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Somewhere around 6 or 7 years ago while visiting my brother at college I decided to attend one of the classes which had a special speaker (to impress the parents during the family visiting festivities). While walking into the building I heard someone walking behind me, so I politely paused inside and, not turning around, held the door. And held the door. And continued to hold the door. Finally turning, I saw a female student (at least she was the correct age to have been a student there) who gave me a rather cold look. She stated, "I don't need a man to hold the door for me." I replied, "I would have held the door for anyone behind me, man or woman, but since you insist..." and promptly shut the door in her face.
It's always unforunate when people lose sight of common courtesy when in pursuit of a goal, be it Equality in support for OSes or Equality between genders (which, I'd like to note, are different from sexes).
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Most of these posts are nicely redundant and all, but I thought I'd pipe in for a moment here...
Cable modems, phone modems and DSL all share lines, but in different ways. The phone-line modem connection is your own... at least all the way to ISP modem bank. DSL is about the same, I think, though connections may get joined in between... I'm not really certain. Cable modems use (or at least previously used... some may have altered the system) a token-ring network to link together a region. What this ends up meaning is that if your cable company is actually paying any attention to the amount of traffic, the only time you'll feel any sort of slowdown is if the number of users on your ring goes up significantly (percentage-wise, that is). And that slowdown should last for anywhere between a few hours to a week at which point the number of tokens being passed will increase on the ring and you'll be back to your old speeds.
The possibility of Cable dipping below dial-up speeds exists, but is so compeletly unlikely that it might as well not be a possibility. Of course, some cable companies might be worse than others... Thus far Road-Runner hasn't given me any problems in any location I've used it (Syracuse NY, Albany NY and San Diego CA).
Research into the local companies never hurts, though... There are always a few aberrations.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Depending on exactly when you tested this out (meaning whether you were using the WinAMP-official plugin, or the Ogg Vorbis team plugin) the CPU requirements are, in theory, reduced somewhat. Part of the problem (as reported on the WinAMP message boards by one of the WinAMP programmers) was that there was no option to disable bitrate display updates in the Ogg Vorbis team plugin. The actual alteration of bitrates doesn't consume much, but apparently reporting it to the display takes a significant chunk of CPU time. That isn't to say that they are by any means equal in terms of workload yet (although they might be... it's difficult to test anything when all I get is 1-2% CPU usage reported for either type of file). However, it might be worth checking at some point to see if you have the most current version of the (Official Nullsoft) plugin. I'd be interested to know if it still takes up more CPU time.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
At least one or two people here avoided AO, UO and EQ as the sole topic in their post... Only one mention of the original MMOG, MUDs (and related) type text-games (of which, one commercial venture done by Simu remains and at least one of their games (Dragon Realms) has an average population of 800 players (lows around 450, highs well over 2000))
Granted, those games mentioned frequently have received the greatest number of players (even in Beta stages, for AO). I just thought I'd mention a few places where I see MMO-type games really taking off. First, I think Verant's other works, such as Sovereign should be considered instead of just EQ. It looks to be an excellent game in both MMO and RTS catagories. The idea of an RTS where once you've won an area, you can continue to resource in that region to fund later attacks is good (though I think it has been done somewhat in games like Earth 2150)... As is the idea of having an entire planet to fight over rather than a small chunk of ground. Without any map edges to build against, players will finally need to surround their entire base with defenses rather than only 2 sides. Also coming from Verant (and Sony), Planetside should be a good extension of games like Tribes. Where Tribes had some nice versions of games (like Capture and Hold) where out-lying base buildings could hold a tactical advcantage, generally there was little in terms of being able to seriously gain or lose ground. The front-line was in the middle, and it stayed there. With a game like Planetside, you have the capability (I don't know if this will occur, mind you) of having a moving front. One of the previous games to do something similar to this was Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, where they had a server set up that allowed the games which were played to alter a more global map. The matches were just standard battles, but what was happening in theory was that each win allowed the player's side to gain or retain a section of land. Enough wins on one side claimed that territory and moved the fight forward into the next. Eventually one team would conquer the planet and the map would be reset.
The expanded nature of these games is a real improvement, IMHO. Instead of having a meaningless battle on planet X over a flag (ok, I'm willing to go further and say that the flag represents data or materials or some other tactical advantage, but the battle remains meaningless as there is no tangible benefit to winning in the subsequent match) the players will be able to achieve a victory that (hopefully) will have other benefits to aid them in later attacks. If a few good commanders appear in Planetside who happen to know where various useful buildings are, coordinated assaults on outposts would be possible, lending to the atmosphere and frankly to the fun factor in the game.
Of course, if winning a section of land in Planetside has no benefit other than more land to retreat over, I'd say it probably isn't worth the effort of making the game function in a MMO fashion... I'd even put forward small benefits gained, like capturing a vehicle factory allows for faster or better or even just more available vehicles for your team would be good enough.
(This is mainly in response to anothr comment) As for Neverwinter Nights being MMO... That's debatable. Some might say something like, "Massively Multiplayer should mean more than a standard Multiplayer. If NWN is MMO, then so is Tribes..." Almost. Tribes allows for an equal number of players on a given server (I believe NWN is currently slated for a maximum of 64 players per server). However, the NWN servers can be linked via portals, which would allow for a set of 10 servers so linked to handle 640 clients. The other complaint leveled is in regards to a persistant world. Nothing in MMO says persistant, though a good NWN server should be able to maintain itself for several months if so desired.
WW2 Online sounded like a good idea gone wrong. Personally, I wouldn't have played it, but I can see how it might've been a good game. Especially if they'd included hooks for other games to be linked in, such that you could have an FPS client, a commander client (available to those who've risen far enough in rank, so only a few get the priveldge is they want it) plotting out attack routes for the FPS people, a flight simulator so you could allow bomber runs and fighter-plane pilots to join in, and a few tanks and such (which I believe were included)... things to take all the fighting aspects and include them.
The only other game I know of in the works that looks interesting is Star Wars: Galaxies... but not for the RPG aspect. Instead, I'm looking at the propsed Space Expansion, which is the only genre I feel is seriously missing from the current MMO arena. A good MMO Space-Sim would be a lot of fun, I think... Having the capability of being a trader, a fighter pilot, a gunner or maybe even a capital ship commander would lend itself to some great gaming opportunities. Especially if space was limited to play-bubbles (here I'm thinking of something like Wing Commander or maybe Terminus, where you might be able to range over a single solar-system in your ship, but interstellar travel would be limited to jump-points) it could be an excellent strategic game as well as a fun Space Sim. Having blockades and blockade runners alone would be something neat...
I think I'll cut this short here and not go on to mention the plethora of other MMOGs that have been announced. I've covered those genres where I think expansion into the MMO arena will be good. I don't think many other game types will be able to make the switch (Sim City Online? Pharoah Online? Maybe some trading or something...)
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
>
Better solution: include all of the above e-mail client PGP packages (or whichever one you happen to like best) to the plain text every time until they catch the hint.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Are you sure that wasn't pure lag killing your frame-rate? I can't speak to any of your other graphic glitches, but the 'frame-rate' problems I experienced early on when I was playing T2 were generally caused by 2 things, 1 of which is probably Windows specific (minor hardware race conditions and conflicts based around the soundcard, ethernet card and video card all being stuck on a single IRQ for some reason). The other one was Packet Loss caused by my campus network. When I switched to Cable (or my friend's DSL) most of that set of problems went away. Resetting my graphics preferences to lower settings (reducing texture quality, reducing distance, lowering model complexity) didn't help much. The only place I still have frame-rate problems is near firing deployable turrets, which is probably also at least somewhat lag related.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
As a (minor) sidenote, I'm going to have to assume you use Win98 (or at least 9x) to play Tribes 2 in. In Win2k I've never had a problem returning to my OS when the game hung. In fact, it hasn't hung totally yet, but rather, it'll error (sometimes returning an error message from the program, which isn't a hang, I'd assume, or no error message directly except Win2k mentioning it's creating an error log about it) and dump you back to the desktop. It's possible I'm just not experiencing the same problems you do, but it could also be that in some OS specific ways, Win2k is just easier to recover in.
If the error and signal handler (or whatever exactly would be involved) can catch the hang in Win2k, it can probably be set up to handle the same problems in Linux without resorting to SSH and kill -9.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Bait and Switch is more accurately seen in credit card spam, where they 'offer' a platinum card with great rates but have (in the fine print usually) a clause saying if you aren't fully approved for the platinum card they will instead issue you a normal card. At the time I was receiving these offers in college, I wasn't even old enough to receive the platinum card in the first place (also in the fine print, required the applicant to be 25).
The computer situation mentioned above isn't bait & switch, per se. It's a simple con. If you actually could buy a good $100 PC upon approval, but will otherwise receive an inferior PC, that'd be bait (the good one) and switch (most people get the crap).
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I stand corrected, then... I don't know the engineering specifics of the engines to any decent degree. I know only what I've heard from various auto-mechanics and my elders on the subject. I do know that the modern engines (Otto-cycle?) are more heavily reinforced against the combustion such that it can withstand the pressure of explosion. Similarly, you can't put jet-fuel in the tank as that's even more refined and would either not run at all, or if it did combust would severely damage your engine. I also know that diesel fuel is less-refined and pollutes more, those being the reasons for the switch away from diesel engines.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
The original question didn't include a location, but I was trying to show that the costs are down and efficiency is going up comparatively. Also wanted to encourage more source citing.
I know Japan has high energy costs, but most regions also have frequent cloud-cover. If you live in Sunny Southern Cal, there's a good chance that solar panels would be in almost constant use. I didn't say my data was flawless, but at least I made mention of where my numbers came from. If you live in Seattle or the Bay Area it probably doesn't make sense to use Solar Panels. But hopefully the questioner already realizes this...
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
There are good number of Windows only people reading /. still. Me, for instance. I consider switching to Linux on occasion, and regular articles like this one keep me posted as to how well the various distros have progressed. If you read 18 different Linux news pages, or read every single article posted here about the various distros then maybe you know this stuff. If you've been ensconced in Linux for years maybe you know this stuff. I don't have time or inclination to read other Linux news pages, nor do I really want to know about every minor revision of Mandrake or RedHat (thus I don't read almost any of the "version x.x.x of y has been released" articles). So to answer your question, this is news for nerds and while it's possible that most of the readership might know some of it, it's good to have as something to point non-Linux people to.
/. page every once in a while (for the new readers). Maybe they could stick in a new catagory so old time subscribers or Linux hackers can filter out these types of articles, but that's up to the admins. If you don't want to see these articles in the future, make the suggestion to them directly that you want a way to opt out of 'new-user / beginner-linux' articles the same way I don't see Distro-specific articles.
Now I'm not going to defend this particular article, as I didn't find it enormously enlightening on the subject, but it was decently well written and did contain most of what I wanted to know. However, I do think this stuff belongs on the
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
This is old news but if you can encourage the development of cars like this instead, you'd be improving things across the board.
Using veggie oil in a diesel isn't big news. Diesel engines are vastly more efficient than modern motors. The problem being that modern refined gasoline is too explosive for them (this is a similar problem to using weapons-grade plutonium in a nuclear reactor). Diesel gas is cheaper per mile in a diesel engine, but also is less pure, and that translates into nastier pollution. I've been told (though I grew up on the waning tide of diesel engines so I never personally witnessed any of this, nor would I know how to do it) that you could run a diesel (very inefficiently) on peanut oil or even diluted peanut butter if absolutely required. Depending on exactly how they refine the veggie oil, this book could be useful or it could just be a minor curiousity that's really not worth doing.
The $.50 / gallon is somewhat hard to swallow unless they mean cost of seeds to oil. Vegetable oil at the store is certainly more expensive than that. The other possible comparison could be $.50 per gallon in comparison to the mileage in a normal gasoline powered car. Without knowing exactly where that figure came from (I didn't scope out the site too deeply), it's hard to justify it in any reasonable way. Also of note is that they describe in that book how to actually grow the oil crops and then refine the oil.
In general, I'd relegate this to the "interesting, but not particularly useful" catagory of information. I'd much rather have a light-weight plastic / carbon-fiber car running on Hydrogen Fuel Cells than an old (or even a new) diesel running on anything.
Side question here, but does anyone know if they've been able to reinforce diesel engines to the point that they could take unleaded gasoline directly? If so, that'd be nearly as useful as veggie oil, since I seem to recall diesels being a fair margin more efficient. Just harder to start in a cold winter.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Of course, you're completely under-researched but I won't hold that against you... What I will do is attempt to show, using a few of your examples and a few others, why the X-box is very likely to annihilate the competition.
The DC's specs were about the same jump over the PSX. The PS2 was a year and a half after that and had even less of a jump comparatively. This is actually a next-gen console to the PS2 the same way the PS2 was over the DC. Sega always caught the downslope of the market with their console releases... X-box should actually come out at the right time to catch the rising wave. The PS2 will not have released the 2nd generation games yet(which is what most people who own the system are waiting for, and several people are waiting for to buy the system), Gamecube will be just released (with very few 'must-buy' games lined up for launch, IMHO) and the DC support will be almost totally drained by then. And as the GameCube will be just released, let's take a look there, since that's what you think it needs to be compared to...
The X-box, as you mentioned, has a 700Mhz Intel processor, a 300 Mhz custom nVidia chip, 64MBs of RAM with 6.4GB/second of bandwidth. It also boasts 4x-DVD media (with normal movie DVD capability), an 8GB scratch drive, 3D audio support, 4 USB controller ports, 100 Mbps ethernet and 1920x1080 HDTV output (which can also be converted to a monitor signal, as HDTV hasn't yet reached that resolution). (from www.planetxbox.com)
The GameCube has a 405 Mhz IBM processor (it sounds as though this 'Gekko' chip actually works faster for gaming purposes, and it's a 64-bit chip rather than a 32-bit chip so the comparison may not be a good one), a 202.5 Mhz graphics chip (with about the same HW T&L and anti-aliasing features), 24 MBs of RAM with 3.2 GB/second bandwidth, and additional 16 MB of RAM with err.. less bandwidth. It also includes 3D audio on par with the Xbox, proprietary mini-DVD disc format with associated drive, 4 controller ports, both a 56k modem and some sort of broadband ethernet support, and both analog and digital TV ouput (monitor cables are expected as well, no word on resolutions). (from www.planetgamecube.com)
So, the Xbox specs are equivalent or possibly slightly better (in graphics) or slightly worse (in main processor and possibly in RAM access) but still close enough for appropriate comparison to the generation you wanted it to be compared to. If the Xbox isn't a big jump, then neither is the GameCube. I don't care which one you choose (big jump or not), but the Xbox compares favorably or at least equitably with the systems people have seen (DC, PS2) and those that have been kept as far out of the public eye as possible (GameCube).
Now for the games... The X-box currently has a a decent number of exclusive games (pure console-style games) announced. It also has several PC and other console system ports announced. The reason ports from console to PC have done poorly is because console programmers can't handle the vast variety of weird configurations people have in their PCs. The sheer number of combinations of graphics, motherboard, audio and video cards (not to mention bizarre peripherals) that could potentially cause a problem is enormous. This is why developers like consoles. On the flipside, developers like PCs because there are few restrictions on what can be done, and the programming is generally greatly simplified over trying to write to the exact hardware requirements. The X-box is the best of both (or so MS hopes)... It has a stable configuration, and a PC-style architecture. It has certainly attracted many developers sick of the PS2's insanely complex SDK.
Now, why don't those ports work? First, they're generally buggy, and look worse on whatever they end up ported to. No problems with that for Windows games going to X-box, since it'll be the same type of system. Don't even neccesarily need to worry about control set reductions, as the Xbox can handle a USB keyboard and mouse. Reverse? Well, the X-box is as good as any initial test-bed for a PC game in development. Console to Console? These generally fare much better, (as Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Tony Hawk 2 show) and should like-wise not be a huge problem for most companies used to much nastier alterations being required to port the games.
Now for the OS... You do realize that the DC can and does run a WinCE OS for some things... It can also rune Linux if you'd like, but that's besides the point. What generally crashes an OS? Hardware conflicts, memory errors or malicious code. If the OS is written to the hardware, you shouldn't have to worry about conflicts occuring. Memory errors and malicious code, if they occur, will be the game developer's fault more than Microsoft's (although I'm not certain MS is doing the rigorous and often insane amount of testing for liscensed games before they get released. The number of hoops a developer has to jump through for most consoles is rather high, and many are centered around making sure the game won't crash ever, though the PS2 seems to crash often enough...)
As a side note, even if ports do poorly, emulation does quite well... Free (as in beer) often does that, though Bleem! did relatively good sales.
Final word, X-box has the game developers under it. This is what makes or breaks a console, no matter what anyone else says. The PSX flew high because Sony attracted those all important third-party game developers. MS is doing the same with X-box. They have several good games lined up: Oddworld- Munch's Oddysee, Black&White, Crash Bandicoot X, Dead or Alive 3, Halo, Metal Gear Solid X, and several others, games that have a past and will attract gamers who liked the originals, or the developers. Looks like at least Halo and Oddworld will be launch titles, giving the system a relatively good base as well.
Price... PS2 set the line with their initial $400 tag. PS2 is currently down to $300 itself, so X-box's launch price sounds pretty darn good for an integrated CD/DVD player. All in all, It looks like the X-box is set up for success in the console market, not failure.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
To stick in a few 'facts,' with appropriate citations...
/ atip97.030r.html
Energy Payback Time on PV cells is well within the lifetime of the cell. Amorphous Silicon Cells payback in about a year, Normal high-temperature crstal melted cells take 4 years. The high-yield single crystal cells might not be able to pay themselves back, I'm not entirely sure. I'm not exactly a PV engineer or anything...
The current high-yield, ultra-expensive cells get 23% conversion, other cheaper ones get between 12% and 18%
And the citation...
http://www.atip.or.jp/ATIP/public/atip.reports.97
Section 3 in there has most of the info I paraphrased here.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I thought Ogg was getting adopted by some hardware places? Of course, that might've been the flash-ROM / RAM-style players rather than the MP3CD players...
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Where'd you get your misinformation? Windows XP will be the most backwards compatible version of Windows ever (including Win9x in terms of DOS backwards compatibility). If it worked in any previous WinXX OS (95, 98, NT, 2000, ME) it should work without a hassle in WinXP. Last I checked the progress on their site, they were around 80% compatible and climbing rapidly. Pieces remaining seemed to be mostly DOS legacy products that worked with glitches in Win95 that they want to work perfectly in WinXP. The previews I've seen posted seem to indicate about the same. If it was designed for Windows, it works. If it was designed for DOS, it probably works, with a few weird exceptions.
To wit: "For software compatibility, Windows XP lets you run an older program under a Compatibility mode that emulates Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. If a program runs under one of these modes, Windows XP saves the settings so you can easily run the application in the future. Windows XP integrates the Microsoft AppCompat database of compatibility problems, which contains fixes and workarounds that are automatically applied to programs running on the OS. The database is updated automatically through Microsoft's Windows Update feature." from ZDnet article on WinXP
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Ok, a few notes here...
MS is actually improving backwards compatibility with Windows XP. Things that worked in Win95 or Win98 or WinNT or Win2000 should work in WinXP. In fact, DOS programs that Win95 broke have a chance at working in WinXP. Backwards compatibility was one of the top priorities of WinXP. Second, MP3 is doomed of its own volition (well, the Frauenhofer's volition, anyways). MS is avoiding putting in a decent MP3 encoder because it'd cost them a bundle to do so. They may say it was done for other reasons, but I've little doubt that they did it because they didn't want to pay Frauenhofer's fees. It would be bad PR to say that, however, so they put a spin on it, although it'd probably be easier to simply not include the MP3-encode system in the first place. Linux won't get anythign big out of this. The only Free-Software likely to get a boost here is Ogg Vorbis, which is already comparable to MP3 and is also already free and available for use in commercial products (BSD liscense now, I think).
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
If they release the music online in a liscensed system, then they are not destroying 'fair-use' per se. Fair Use applies to creating a back-up copy of destrucible media for personal usage (make one copy only, in case the original is damaged beyond repair to avoid loss). You can still copy the music (to zip disk or a second HD or another computer) and listen to it there. However, if by 'Fair Use' you mean you want to copy it and send it to your friends, then by all means they want to stop you. Of course, that isn't Fair Use, either. I've yet to see something actually stop the act of copying. If it won't play elsewhere, that's different, but also makes perfect sense in the twisted software liscense world we live in. You can copy it all you want, but you can only listen to it on one machine (the same way most EULAs for commercial software read). Point is, it isn't breaking Fair Use. And I'm surprised so many people here care, considering MP3 isn't an 'open' format either now that Frauenhofer is charging for encoders. I'd expect people to just take this as a chance to tout Ogg Vorbis... Oh well.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
As you mentioned, you're also listening to the file while encoding, not just encoding.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
They have a trademark on all movies named solely "Diablo". IANAL, but as I see it, if New Line called the movie "Diablo: Wolfenstein's Syndicate Master of Doom" there wouldn't be any trademark infringment occuring, though I'm not sure about trademark dilution. The problem is using the single word name. Blizzard has already filed for the name to use in conjunction with the game series. If someone were to come out with a movie called "Magic: the Gathering" about some drug called magic which causes mind control and causes people to gather into one spot, I'm sure Wizards of the Coast would be rather upset. If they own the movie trademark, they'd even have full legal recourse on the case. Also similarly, if someone were to make a movie called "Blow" (which is a movie by New Line Cinema coming out April 6th and I know absolutely nothing about other than the name), New Line could sue them for trademark infringement although Blow is obviously a common word and even if the new movie was completely different from theirs.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
<< Uh..a reasonable person wouldn't blow up an oil tank and expect to find *anything* useful left behind! >>
But a reasonable person might blow it up to, say, clear a room out of enemies. The oil barrel shouldn't contain anything except oil (or water or whatever else would make sense for a barrel to contain in the real world). He doesn't say that the oil barrel being blown up should leave anything except char (or whatever an explosion like that yields). The line above makes more sense... Don't put items where they wouldn't logically occur, don't leave items that wouldn't survive an explosion behind after causing an explosion.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
I agree with the stuff on Compaq and Gateway. I've never heard anything but problems from people with Copaqs, while the Gateway people only have praise for the Customer support. This is a Good Thing... they seem to need it a lot, since their computers frequently have problems. If you want a trouble free computer, I'd avoid both Compaq and Gateway (though it seems most of the Gateway problems were in relation to shipping, so if you get it at a local store, it might be better. I haven't checked on that yet...)
On to the main question... I've had good luck with my Dell Optiplex system. Not a single hardware problem with it (except for a whine in my monitor in certain resolutions on occasion). ((Side-note: I was told by a friend when I got it that I'd made a mistake, since the entire system is on the motherboard (no cards). He said I'd burn out one component in a year and the whole system would be unusable, but that hasn't happened yet (2 years now). I think he said that from a bad previous experience with overclocking a system like this, which I don't do.)) I've gotten updates on all the components in my system directly from the Dell website, which had them almost as soon as they were out from the individual parts manufacturers. All in all, it's been a good deal. I'm not sure on the quality of parts in the Dimension systems (those are made from the least expensive at production time parts as opposed to well-tested standard parts) but the customer support looks like it's there for those machines too.
If I ever get a new pre-packaged machine, it'll probably be a Dell. I didn't like my HP as much, and the customer support on it wasn't as good. Most of my older computers were made by smaller companies that no longer exist. Good thing those ones haven't needed any real support. ^_^
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"