More seriously, get some security if you can. Maybe some hotel security (anymore than 100 people and hotel will usually send one with or without you asking) or a police officer if people bring high end computers. You really don't want to handle a pissed off gamer who just found out his $4000+ gaming laptop was stolen while he was on a bathroom run.
The first lawsuits are likely to be filed this summer. "We're going to continue to address this with harsher and harsher means," said Mr. Morris of Universal. "If people are criminals I'm not concerned about alienating them." [nytimes.com]
Lemme get this straight, lawsuits are going to get harder, so obviously people are going to be more angry right? If people are 'criminals' and they don't care about alienating them, what are they left with?
Keeping the two questions I just asked, who here has never, -ever- broken a law in the utmost strictest form? Littering? Going over the speed limit by one mile per hour? Drank liquor, or beer, before reaching the legal age? In the strictest form, I must admit that I fail to pass all of the previous questions.
Defination of 'criminal' according to dictionary.com:
adj.
1. Of, involving, or having the nature of crime: criminal abuse.
2. Relating to the administration of penal law.
3a. Guilty of crime.
3b. Characteristic of a criminal.
4. Shameful; disgraceful: a criminal waste of talent.
First, how are the two going to communicate. I won't go further keeping in mind that keyboards for the consoles aren't out yet and not everyone wants to hear a whiny 9-13 year old kid's voice through their speakers/headphones.
Second and more importantly, how is the user interface going to work? History has shown that computer interfaces are usually overly complex for controllers while console interfaces tend to be unappealing and dull to PC users.
'But it won out and became the the dominant local area networking (LAN) technology for businesses, en route to its place in the Internet, besting a long series of what Metcalfe today calls networking "Godzillas."'
And how much battery-draining power will it take to have an electric motor spin those discs at 11,000rpm?
Pfft, forget measuring it in battery power usage. Take a look at the (majority) of PS1 and PS2 games. Pretty much all of them have a minimum of 1 minute FMV to over 10 minutes of FMV (the final FMV in FF7 was at about 5 minus credits). I'm worried about Sony turning the thing into an interactive portable DVD player. With few exceptions (Contra:Shattered Soldier being one of them) Sony has done a HORRIBLE job at making games that you can pick up for a few minutes, play, and put down. I don't think games like Bust-a-Move or GTA2 on a handheld will catch on.
'For example, in the past year I've bought 30-40 video games, most for $50 a piece. That means that alone I've generated $1,500 or more in video game sales by myself. I'm clearly in the minority, even among gamers, but it gives you an idea of how few people it takes to build up video game numbers.'
A -minority-?! You hold yourself in low esteem. A short walk to my local EBX on a Tuesday evening after I finish work shows an estimated 5 purchases in under 1 hour. Thats $250 on a weekday, one hour period of time. Don't even get me started on the crowds of people that come in and out when a big game is released, or the EBX down at the mall, which is my area's equivalent of the local arcade.
My friend works at the EBX branch outside of the mall so I ask him, 'what is the average amount of income do you guys make per month?' The answer : Donno, but well over $5,000 per month. (Making a total of over $60,000 a year) Reasoning : A big game will sell about 10 pre-orders and another 10-15 walk-ins within the month, thats over $1,000 for one game. Its up to you to decide whether thats true or not.
I think you overestimate the RIAA's abilities since you seem to portary them as borderline geek god intelligent. Load up your favorite online game, lets say Counter Strike since everyone is familiar with that, and look at how many dedicated servers are running at the moment. Lets use the number of game servers as an example of how much force the hackers (in the example, gamers) have.
Counter Strike has an average of 10,000 dedicated servers running during the week. Divide the number by 2 and assume those servers simply won't be used to distribute/share music, thats 5,000. Divide that number again by half and assume those are too outdated and/or lack the bandwidth and/or hardware capabilities to withstand the stress of mass sharing, thats 2,500. Assume the RIAA manages to nail about another half of those down with lawsuits (which is doubtful since in this example we're talking about 1,250 different people), that leaves a remaining 1,250 dedicated servers, with top of the line hardware, excellent bandwidth, that are being used to distribute songs that the RIAA failing to bring down with lawsuits.
Today is no longer the day of Napster with everyone connected to one source. Theres no threat of a virus being on a central server that'll spread to everyone. Theres no magic virus out there that can only be controlled by the RIAA. Theres no niche of geeks out there that are solely responsible for approxmately $3 billion USD in stolen songs. This is a David vs Goliath situation, only instead of 1-on-1, this is a 100+ million Davids-vs-1 Goliath.
There is no set standard for rating games that the (mass/mainstream) public can acknowledge yet. 'Top 100 Games Of All Time'? How are you going to rate that? That I think is the question we need to answer before we read these lists.
Zelda is great, but in terms of technological advances (with the exception of the first game) it gets left in the dust compared to the work of Doom, Half-Life, and Quake.
No, I'm not shitting you because not everyone is as brilliant or as prone to swear as you. Not everyone is as intelligent or open minded as Slashdot readers. Don't be so quick to lash out over less intelligent people, otherwise we'd all be living in caves still trying to invent fire and the wheel.
I've been waiting for the PS2 to drop for a while now, so yes.
But on topic, I think they're forgetting that games are the big motivator not (just) the price. For example : NeoGeo when it first came out in the US. There were easily 3 games that would have done dances around the SNES's and Genesis's lineup (at the time) but the fact that the system cost more than a SNES/Genesis, and 4 games was a HUGE turn off.
I agree, but who knows? Thats like saying stories cannot be told from writing because you can't hear the tone of voice the writer wanted.
I think Hollywood is ready for true 3D, but the public isn't and will never be. Thats the real blocker. $40,000 USD? You can buy yourself a pretty good car with that kind of cash but even thats pennies compared to the cost of buying and building a true 3D movie theater. It'd probably end it being over $4 million USD (thats a huge underestimation considering how new and prototype staged it is right now) not to mention maintenance and merely encouraging movie makers to make 3D movies. (With the vague possibility of an entirely redone Star Wars series using the Final Fantasy The Movie program.)
The cause part of politics is the way it defines/describes/classifies things so generally. The effect is that people going insane picks out little things in the laws that make them look like the worst thing to happen since the invention of fire and the use of it burning people.
At this time, SafeType does not make a mouse that fits this keyboard. However, they do recommend the Quill mouse, [...] It retails for around $100 dollars and is available in right-handed and left-handed versions directly from the manufacturer.
Is a Special Mouse Necessary?
Yes, it's not easy to flip between the SafeType keyboard and a standard mouse because it requires the forearm to swivel from a neutral position to a pronated position very frequently. After a day or two, the wrists can get a little sore.
The cost of the keyboard and special mouse is $329 USD, easily more expensive than some top of the line computer hardware and rivals some high quality monitors as bank breakers. With that considered, not to mention having to get used to games with this setup, few games will ever use this, let alone see or touch it in real life.
I think people are beginning to forget something. 'Fair' is a relative term when both sides are willing to submit to the same rules. Thats why Microsoft and Apple competition is considered 'fair', they are both under the US regulation; when Microsoft was accused of 'cheating' (I never exactly heard the end of that so fill in the blank here) the US government brought them to court and fought them.
The Chinese government in this case, however, is not playing 'fair'. This is like the old railroad monopolies of the 1800's in the US. They basicly said "you don't have to buy our necessity of life product, but if you want to buy someone else's you have to move out of your hometown where you've lived for a century." Sure Chinese people can still use Google after the Chinese government censors it (which it will most likely do) but you'd have to bypass the government blocks (hack) or move out of China (railroad analogy).
The 'scare tactic' of the RIAA isn't effective against its target though. You're talking about a David and Goliath battle with less than 5% of the Davids looking on as the Goliath sneezes on one of them splattering them in the ground.
Ok a little too graphic but the point is this; you're targeting millions, if not billions, of people who download illegal MP3s many of whom have not even heard about this case. Even if it succeeds in scaring people, or even distantly succeeds in having a law passed against these programs, whos going to be insane enough to enforce it? (Using China as an example) China has trouble as it is censoring webpages which it deems illegal, so how is China going to start censoring certain search programs without censoring Windows or web browsers such as Google which has a search programs?
This is the internet, not your hodgepodge hippie group with a bunch of college kids protesting against Vietnam that you can isolate and silence. Unless you want to try and enforce the Internet, which is suicide even if you had a couple trillion dollars and the world smartest programmers working for you, in the long run; this is going to blow over like a hyped up wimpy rain storm.
What about some spare floppy disks? If worse comes to worse and you need to format the computer, you'll probably want to save some of the data on the computer before wiping it.
"The possibilities of networked computers, combined with an increasingly remote-controlled military like the one Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has vowed to build, has spurred interest in adapting the architecture of multiplayer games like Everquest and Ultima to create a "persistent world" for training and perhaps more."
"We do not have to create a world where differences are resolved by war. It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy. We will create a world of peace."
Can you say, utopia? The article is extremely bias and obviously anti-war. It doesn't seem to be able to really understand the human psych either. I will use just -one- line in order to prove how badly thought out the article is.
"Perhaps the best symbol for the second superpower would be a community of ants."
Ants have a queen to guide them. If all the people in this "second worldpower" were mere 'worker ants', as I dub them, then who will be the queen? Obviously not the government since the 'first worldpower' is the US government according to the article. No, this article is calling for the utopian version, or a 'perfect' version, of Marx's Communism where everyone shares the wealth and reaps the benefits of the majority.
"C&C series has always been a a very fascist game. Even fans of the series seem to not like very much Generals."
Not to provoke an argument, but have you even played the single player storyline of the C&C game series? The goal, for the good guys, is to -stop- the evil dictator or communist (the series never used fascists, with the vague possibility of the Nod.) Even if you play as the bad guys, which is to topple the good guys, the sequel (assuming the game has/gets a sequel) continues the storyline with the good guys winning. EA = Pro-fascists? Not if I just destroyed the last Allied base and the Allied Chronosphere in Alaska yet my side, the Soviets, is the loser in the beginning of the sequel.
As for fans not liking Generals, thats more of a balance and traditionalism issue than the game's topic. (Getting hit by 5 or more nuclear missles is pretty humiliating. The loss of real life actors continuing the storyline, which is non-existant in General, is a big blow off for long time fans.)
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, thats a lot of pr0n in a short time.
More seriously, get some security if you can. Maybe some hotel security (anymore than 100 people and hotel will usually send one with or without you asking) or a police officer if people bring high end computers. You really don't want to handle a pissed off gamer who just found out his $4000+ gaming laptop was stolen while he was on a bathroom run.
Lemme get this straight, lawsuits are going to get harder, so obviously people are going to be more angry right? If people are 'criminals' and they don't care about alienating them, what are they left with?
Keeping the two questions I just asked, who here has never, -ever- broken a law in the utmost strictest form? Littering? Going over the speed limit by one mile per hour? Drank liquor, or beer, before reaching the legal age? In the strictest form, I must admit that I fail to pass all of the previous questions.Defination of 'criminal' according to dictionary.com :
adj. 1. Of, involving, or having the nature of crime: criminal abuse. 2. Relating to the administration of penal law. 3a. Guilty of crime. 3b. Characteristic of a criminal. 4. Shameful; disgraceful: a criminal waste of talent.
First, how are the two going to communicate. I won't go further keeping in mind that keyboards for the consoles aren't out yet and not everyone wants to hear a whiny 9-13 year old kid's voice through their speakers/headphones. Second and more importantly, how is the user interface going to work? History has shown that computer interfaces are usually overly complex for controllers while console interfaces tend to be unappealing and dull to PC users.
'But it won out and became the the dominant local area networking (LAN) technology for businesses, en route to its place in the Internet, besting a long series of what Metcalfe today calls networking "Godzillas."'
Why not "King Kongs"?
No taxation without representation?
Pfft, forget measuring it in battery power usage. Take a look at the (majority) of PS1 and PS2 games. Pretty much all of them have a minimum of 1 minute FMV to over 10 minutes of FMV (the final FMV in FF7 was at about 5 minus credits). I'm worried about Sony turning the thing into an interactive portable DVD player. With few exceptions (Contra:Shattered Soldier being one of them) Sony has done a HORRIBLE job at making games that you can pick up for a few minutes, play, and put down. I don't think games like Bust-a-Move or GTA2 on a handheld will catch on.
A -minority-?! You hold yourself in low esteem. A short walk to my local EBX on a Tuesday evening after I finish work shows an estimated 5 purchases in under 1 hour. Thats $250 on a weekday, one hour period of time. Don't even get me started on the crowds of people that come in and out when a big game is released, or the EBX down at the mall, which is my area's equivalent of the local arcade.
My friend works at the EBX branch outside of the mall so I ask him, 'what is the average amount of income do you guys make per month?' The answer : Donno, but well over $5,000 per month. (Making a total of over $60,000 a year) Reasoning : A big game will sell about 10 pre-orders and another 10-15 walk-ins within the month, thats over $1,000 for one game. Its up to you to decide whether thats true or not.
Counter Strike has an average of 10,000 dedicated servers running during the week. Divide the number by 2 and assume those servers simply won't be used to distribute/share music, thats 5,000. Divide that number again by half and assume those are too outdated and/or lack the bandwidth and/or hardware capabilities to withstand the stress of mass sharing, thats 2,500. Assume the RIAA manages to nail about another half of those down with lawsuits (which is doubtful since in this example we're talking about 1,250 different people), that leaves a remaining 1,250 dedicated servers, with top of the line hardware, excellent bandwidth, that are being used to distribute songs that the RIAA failing to bring down with lawsuits.
Today is no longer the day of Napster with everyone connected to one source. Theres no threat of a virus being on a central server that'll spread to everyone. Theres no magic virus out there that can only be controlled by the RIAA. Theres no niche of geeks out there that are solely responsible for approxmately $3 billion USD in stolen songs. This is a David vs Goliath situation, only instead of 1-on-1, this is a 100+ million Davids-vs-1 Goliath.
Zelda is great, but in terms of technological advances (with the exception of the first game) it gets left in the dust compared to the work of Doom, Half-Life, and Quake.
No, I'm not shitting you because not everyone is as brilliant or as prone to swear as you. Not everyone is as intelligent or open minded as Slashdot readers. Don't be so quick to lash out over less intelligent people, otherwise we'd all be living in caves still trying to invent fire and the wheel.
Only when we see Chewie shaved bald.
I've been waiting for the PS2 to drop for a while now, so yes. But on topic, I think they're forgetting that games are the big motivator not (just) the price. For example : NeoGeo when it first came out in the US. There were easily 3 games that would have done dances around the SNES's and Genesis's lineup (at the time) but the fact that the system cost more than a SNES/Genesis, and 4 games was a HUGE turn off.
I think Hollywood is ready for true 3D, but the public isn't and will never be. Thats the real blocker. $40,000 USD? You can buy yourself a pretty good car with that kind of cash but even thats pennies compared to the cost of buying and building a true 3D movie theater. It'd probably end it being over $4 million USD (thats a huge underestimation considering how new and prototype staged it is right now) not to mention maintenance and merely encouraging movie makers to make 3D movies. (With the vague possibility of an entirely redone Star Wars series using the Final Fantasy The Movie program.)
So will Slimjims because the new data sticks for these hard drives?
The cause part of politics is the way it defines/describes/classifies things so generally. The effect is that people going insane picks out little things in the laws that make them look like the worst thing to happen since the invention of fire and the use of it burning people.
Is a Special Mouse Necessary? Yes, it's not easy to flip between the SafeType keyboard and a standard mouse because it requires the forearm to swivel from a neutral position to a pronated position very frequently. After a day or two, the wrists can get a little sore.
The cost of the keyboard and special mouse is $329 USD, easily more expensive than some top of the line computer hardware and rivals some high quality monitors as bank breakers. With that considered, not to mention having to get used to games with this setup, few games will ever use this, let alone see or touch it in real life.
The Chinese government in this case, however, is not playing 'fair'. This is like the old railroad monopolies of the 1800's in the US. They basicly said "you don't have to buy our necessity of life product, but if you want to buy someone else's you have to move out of your hometown where you've lived for a century." Sure Chinese people can still use Google after the Chinese government censors it (which it will most likely do) but you'd have to bypass the government blocks (hack) or move out of China (railroad analogy).
Ok a little too graphic but the point is this; you're targeting millions, if not billions, of people who download illegal MP3s many of whom have not even heard about this case. Even if it succeeds in scaring people, or even distantly succeeds in having a law passed against these programs, whos going to be insane enough to enforce it? (Using China as an example) China has trouble as it is censoring webpages which it deems illegal, so how is China going to start censoring certain search programs without censoring Windows or web browsers such as Google which has a search programs?
This is the internet, not your hodgepodge hippie group with a bunch of college kids protesting against Vietnam that you can isolate and silence. Unless you want to try and enforce the Internet, which is suicide even if you had a couple trillion dollars and the world smartest programmers working for you, in the long run; this is going to blow over like a hyped up wimpy rain storm.
What about some spare floppy disks? If worse comes to worse and you need to format the computer, you'll probably want to save some of the data on the computer before wiping it.
A MMOFPS with real life settings and physics?
Can you say, utopia? The article is extremely bias and obviously anti-war. It doesn't seem to be able to really understand the human psych either. I will use just -one- line in order to prove how badly thought out the article is.
"Perhaps the best symbol for the second superpower would be a community of ants."
Ants have a queen to guide them. If all the people in this "second worldpower" were mere 'worker ants', as I dub them, then who will be the queen? Obviously not the government since the 'first worldpower' is the US government according to the article. No, this article is calling for the utopian version, or a 'perfect' version, of Marx's Communism where everyone shares the wealth and reaps the benefits of the majority.
I donno, this is Microsoft we're talking about. If push comes to shove, Microsoft might start a money fight and leave Google buried in green dough.
What kind of a cake would a computer program want? Strawberry flavor?
Not to provoke an argument, but have you even played the single player storyline of the C&C game series? The goal, for the good guys, is to -stop- the evil dictator or communist (the series never used fascists, with the vague possibility of the Nod.) Even if you play as the bad guys, which is to topple the good guys, the sequel (assuming the game has/gets a sequel) continues the storyline with the good guys winning. EA = Pro-fascists? Not if I just destroyed the last Allied base and the Allied Chronosphere in Alaska yet my side, the Soviets, is the loser in the beginning of the sequel.
As for fans not liking Generals, thats more of a balance and traditionalism issue than the game's topic. (Getting hit by 5 or more nuclear missles is pretty humiliating. The loss of real life actors continuing the storyline, which is non-existant in General, is a big blow off for long time fans.)