"I wonder how the amount of money spent on legal fees compares to the $$ lost from just allowing mod chips? Is this just a principle thing?"
They're pretty much forced to enforce their rights, or risk losing them. If Nintendo were to find that 1 million games shipped and 10 million people have a copy, they wouldn't be able to sue anybody if they just allowed it to happen.
I don't see why they're so afraid, though. The PC has no 'mod chips' to speak of. Yet, the game market on the PC isn't dying due to piracy. It's dying due to lack of interesting games.
One thing that could push me towards modding a GameCube (assuming that is possible, no idea if it is or not) so that I can play downloaded games is that I can't find game demos anywhere for the system. PS2 and XBOX have this, but Nintendon't.
I'd find modding the PS2 or the XBOX to be quite worthless as long as I had demos of games to try out.
" I have however some computer games with MP3 music, but I don't excessively play them. Despite I listen to music only quietly, I have repeatedly tinitus (and thus I also suspect the data reduction in radio and TV broadcasts as a cause)"
This guy seemed intelligent all the way up to the point where he wrote that particular line. If it only took that little of exposure to lossy sound caused him to have tinitus, then why aren't people by the millions complaining of hearing problems? I'm quite surprised he'd attribute his hearing problems to his hypothesis. I think it is far more likely there are other causes of his problems.
I also don't think, from what I've read here, that we're in any real danger of suffering noticable hearing damage from MP3s. The the main reason is that we don't listen to just MP3s 24 hours a day. Not even close! We'll be surrounded by compressed sound for years to come, but it'll never replace the natural every day sounds we hear all the time. Right now, as I write this, I can hear things happening all around me that definitely are not digital. As long as that noise is there, I can't imagine that our brain would focus in on the compressed sound itself.
It's an interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't hold up against real world data.
"In a real Windows FPS, on the other hand, you'd have to drag with the mouse to aim at things, then click on the toolbar buttons when you wanted to move, fire, jump..."
No no no, you're thinking of Mac. Windows gives you a bunch of pulldowns, and all you can do is hit Okay, Apply, or Cancel.
"maybe it's just me, but i don't see how this has anything to do with Lord of the Rings... or even RPGs for that matter, it's a first-person shooter like Doom.. ??????????????"
Actually, I was under a similar impression when I read 'Rise of the Triad', a game I never played. I did a little digging around and realized that that RoTT is not the game I was thinking of.
"With the source code, I wonder how easy to make a Linux port of this game."
It'd be trivial to port, but it'd be a horrible experience to play. Linux's ideas about how interfaces work don't translate well in the game world. Imagine typing 'strlft' to strafe left!
"Do you think it's really a good idea to release such a violent game for free? Totally unregulated? At least if you're selling a game, you can check IDs and make sure the buyer is over 18..."
Society hasn't exactly gone to hell over the release of games like DOOM.
"I'm a little worried about what kind of psychological damage something like this could do to a little kid that stumbles upon this. We don't need another Columbine."
Ah, you're a well behaved media controlled zombie. DOOM wasn't the reason that happened. If anything, DOOM gave those kids an outlet to vent their frustrations. I suggest you read their journals, they had some serious mental stability issues. DOOM didn't cause them to respond that way. They were attracted to DOOM because they had some rather morbid ideas about the futility of life on earth. It's kind of like saying baseball caps cause baldness. Nobody ever assumes that baseball caps are worn BEACUSE of baldness.
"Has it revolutionized the world? I've never used a cell phone in my life and have no intention of ever buying one. There are pay-phones on almost every corner everywhere in the world."
So what you're really saying then is that you're the only person on the whole planet?
"that amounts to say 'there are certainly UFOs looping around the earth'. Whee, one more book I won't read."
The problem is that the UFOs are cloaked. We can't see them until we start building missile launcers.
Re:Now that everyone has a camcorder
on
Starcraft
·
· Score: 2
"What makes us so fucking special that someone would pack the whole brood into the starcruiser and trudge all the hell way over to this 'hood to gawk at a bunch of monkeys?"
They want to learn about the human emotion known as love.
" Chess is like Langston's Ant [samskivert.com], where just a few rather trivial rules are pitted against each other, yet the tree of possible outcomes and strategies is absolutely insanely difficult to calculate. "
Are you kidding? Chess is BORING. At least it was until the modding community got a hold of it. Chess Rally Capture the Duck is awesome!
" They're doing it because it helps them in some way, not because it'll help others. And there's actually nothing wrong with that. They're in business to protect shareholder value, after all. "
I think you're sort of on the right track. You have to remember that MS is branching out to other platforms like Pocket PC. Text is very easy to get around and is quite mobile. (Hence HTML's popularity...)
I agree there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. I have no doubt that people'll have to sift their way through it to make sense of it, so what? If it's really that important, it'll happen.
From the article: " It has yet to disclose the underlying XML dialect. Could this be grounds for another anti-trust suit against Microsoft?"
Um no. At best, that comment was menat to stir up the trolls. Everybody acts like Microsoft owes them everything. All I can say is, grow up. MS is in the business of making money and it will always be like that. They're not required to explain their dialect. Nobody is. You wouldn't be saying that if Sun did that with Star Office.
Re:Build your own computer....
on
Build Your Own Mac
·
· Score: 2, Funny
"I made my own but found I kept dropping the transistors on the carpet and losing them."
I'm still waiting for my Macintosh to grow. Portland doesn't get a lot of sunlight.
Umm he's right. Sony originally called the SuperNES CD a 'Playstation'. Part of the falling out was that Sony wanted it to be a 'Sony Machine' that was compatible with Super NES games. Nintendo didn't want to lose their brand name.
I'd suggest you do a little more searching. It really isn't hard to find that info.
"I know you're going to get modded down for being ot, troll or whatever, but I think you've got a damn good point. Does every damn crappy new movie need to get press on/.? "
You should get modded down as a troll. I'm not convinced you put any real thought into what you're saying. Let me point out a few things to you:
a.) It's well known that most/. visitors love sci-fi and/or fantasy. b.) It's well known that every movie reviewed on/. fits into category A. By definition, this is not 'every damn crappy new movie'. c.) It's well known that it is common for Hollywood to make a highly anticipated movie, and turn it into a big steamy pile-o-poo(tm). d.) If a movie's bad, we'd like to know if it's worth avoiding.
Why do you even care? It's not like this article took the place of a story like "Microsoft Destroyed in Earthquake". I guess what I'm really trying to say is "Quitcherbitchen and STFU." You can very easily filter out stories about movies.
"Has Slashdot become an outlet for Hollywood? I thought we were against these people..."
I'm not sure if you noticed this or not, but the movies that Slashdot covers are, coincidentally, scifi/fantasy and are of interest to the vast majority of the people who visit this site.
"Opera just made a mistake, in my opinion, with that. I liked how they kept the browser streamlined and stripped down; this new feature is, possibly, a sign of creeping featurism and surrender to the forces of software bloat."
I'm running an earlier beta of it right now, and I had similar concerns. I can tell you, though, that I really like how you can drag anything to just about anywhere else. I'm looking forward to sitting down and really tweaking this interface.
Slashdot Mirror
"I wonder how the amount of money spent on legal fees compares to the $$ lost from just allowing mod chips? Is this just a principle thing?"
They're pretty much forced to enforce their rights, or risk losing them. If Nintendo were to find that 1 million games shipped and 10 million people have a copy, they wouldn't be able to sue anybody if they just allowed it to happen.
I don't see why they're so afraid, though. The PC has no 'mod chips' to speak of. Yet, the game market on the PC isn't dying due to piracy. It's dying due to lack of interesting games.
One thing that could push me towards modding a GameCube (assuming that is possible, no idea if it is or not) so that I can play downloaded games is that I can't find game demos anywhere for the system. PS2 and XBOX have this, but Nintendon't.
I'd find modding the PS2 or the XBOX to be quite worthless as long as I had demos of games to try out.
"My eyes! They burn, they burn!!"
My eyes! The goggles! They do nothing!
"I assume you're not familiar with the concept of operant conditioning."
Hardly relevant. If it were as simple as that the world would be a much different place in recent years.
" I have however some computer games with MP3 music, but I don't excessively play them. Despite I listen to music only quietly, I have repeatedly tinitus (and thus I also suspect the data reduction in radio and TV broadcasts as a cause)"
This guy seemed intelligent all the way up to the point where he wrote that particular line. If it only took that little of exposure to lossy sound caused him to have tinitus, then why aren't people by the millions complaining of hearing problems? I'm quite surprised he'd attribute his hearing problems to his hypothesis. I think it is far more likely there are other causes of his problems.
I also don't think, from what I've read here, that we're in any real danger of suffering noticable hearing damage from MP3s. The the main reason is that we don't listen to just MP3s 24 hours a day. Not even close! We'll be surrounded by compressed sound for years to come, but it'll never replace the natural every day sounds we hear all the time. Right now, as I write this, I can hear things happening all around me that definitely are not digital. As long as that noise is there, I can't imagine that our brain would focus in on the compressed sound itself.
It's an interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't hold up against real world data.
"In a real Windows FPS, on the other hand, you'd have to drag with the mouse to aim at things, then click on the toolbar buttons when you wanted to move, fire, jump..."
No no no, you're thinking of Mac. Windows gives you a bunch of pulldowns, and all you can do is hit Okay, Apply, or Cancel.
"Looks like we've given them a severe slashdotting in return. Any mirrors out there?"
Sure! Here you go.
"maybe it's just me, but i don't see how this has anything to do with Lord of the Rings... or even RPGs for that matter, it's a first-person shooter like Doom.. ??????????????"
Actually, I was under a similar impression when I read 'Rise of the Triad', a game I never played. I did a little digging around and realized that that RoTT is not the game I was thinking of.
Didn't 3D Realms do an RPG game at some point?
"for instance, I was always very disturbed by Carmageddon 1 when I would run someone over and 10 eyeballs would end up scattered in the street."
Who the hell did you hit? That guy from Last Action Hero??
"With the source code, I wonder how easy to make a Linux port of this game."
It'd be trivial to port, but it'd be a horrible experience to play. Linux's ideas about how interfaces work don't translate well in the game world. Imagine typing 'strlft' to strafe left!
"Do you think it's really a good idea to release such a violent game for free? Totally unregulated? At least if you're selling a game, you can check IDs and make sure the buyer is over 18..."
Society hasn't exactly gone to hell over the release of games like DOOM.
"I'm a little worried about what kind of psychological damage something like this could do to a little kid that stumbles upon this. We don't need another Columbine."
Ah, you're a well behaved media controlled zombie. DOOM wasn't the reason that happened. If anything, DOOM gave those kids an outlet to vent their frustrations. I suggest you read their journals, they had some serious mental stability issues. DOOM didn't cause them to respond that way. They were attracted to DOOM because they had some rather morbid ideas about the futility of life on earth. It's kind of like saying baseball caps cause baldness. Nobody ever assumes that baseball caps are worn BEACUSE of baldness.
"So a man dies, and the secrets of his work get released to the world.
How does this benefit him again?"
Out of curiosity, do you understand the idea behind grave stones?
"Have you ever called a cell phone? I bet you have, unless you really do have no friends."
Psst: It wasn't me that said that. Heh.
"Has it revolutionized the world? I've never used a cell phone in my life and have no intention of ever buying one. There are pay-phones on almost every corner everywhere in the world."
So what you're really saying then is that you're the only person on the whole planet?
"that amounts to say 'there are certainly UFOs looping around the earth'. Whee, one more book I won't read."
The problem is that the UFOs are cloaked. We can't see them until we start building missile launcers.
"What makes us so fucking special that someone would pack the whole brood into the starcruiser and trudge all the hell way over to this 'hood to gawk at a bunch of monkeys?"
They want to learn about the human emotion known as love.
"It's spelled Skylarov."
Um No, you're wrong. Do a Google search for 'Skylarov' and you get "Did you mean Sklyarov?'
" Chess is like Langston's Ant [samskivert.com], where just a few rather trivial rules are pitted against each other, yet the tree of possible outcomes and strategies is absolutely insanely difficult to calculate. "
Are you kidding? Chess is BORING. At least it was until the modding community got a hold of it. Chess Rally Capture the Duck is awesome!
"I hear from my friends in Portland that growlights and hydroponic irrigation systems are plentiful."
Ha! hehe. That made me laugh. Heh heh that was cool.
" They're doing it because it helps them in some way, not because it'll help others. And there's actually nothing wrong with that. They're in business to protect shareholder value, after all. "
I think you're sort of on the right track. You have to remember that MS is branching out to other platforms like Pocket PC. Text is very easy to get around and is quite mobile. (Hence HTML's popularity...)
I agree there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. I have no doubt that people'll have to sift their way through it to make sense of it, so what? If it's really that important, it'll happen.
From the article: " It has yet to disclose the underlying XML dialect. Could this be grounds for another anti-trust suit against Microsoft?"
Um no. At best, that comment was menat to stir up the trolls. Everybody acts like Microsoft owes them everything. All I can say is, grow up. MS is in the business of making money and it will always be like that. They're not required to explain their dialect. Nobody is. You wouldn't be saying that if Sun did that with Star Office.
"I made my own but found I kept dropping the transistors on the carpet and losing them."
I'm still waiting for my Macintosh to grow. Portland doesn't get a lot of sunlight.
"Click, ponder, drag, click again?
Click, click... pirouette, double-click, sashay?
Triple-click, behind the back, no-look double-pump click?"
Nothin but Net!
Umm he's right. Sony originally called the SuperNES CD a 'Playstation'. Part of the falling out was that Sony wanted it to be a 'Sony Machine' that was compatible with Super NES games. Nintendo didn't want to lose their brand name.
I'd suggest you do a little more searching. It really isn't hard to find that info.
"I know you're going to get modded down for being ot, troll or whatever, but I think you've got a damn good point. Does every damn crappy new movie need to get press on /.? "
/. visitors love sci-fi and/or fantasy. /. fits into category A. By definition, this is not 'every damn crappy new movie'.
You should get modded down as a troll. I'm not convinced you put any real thought into what you're saying. Let me point out a few things to you:
a.) It's well known that most
b.) It's well known that every movie reviewed on
c.) It's well known that it is common for Hollywood to make a highly anticipated movie, and turn it into a big steamy pile-o-poo(tm).
d.) If a movie's bad, we'd like to know if it's worth avoiding.
Why do you even care? It's not like this article took the place of a story like "Microsoft Destroyed in Earthquake". I guess what I'm really trying to say is "Quitcherbitchen and STFU." You can very easily filter out stories about movies.
"Has Slashdot become an outlet for Hollywood? I thought we were against these people..."
I'm not sure if you noticed this or not, but the movies that Slashdot covers are, coincidentally, scifi/fantasy and are of interest to the vast majority of the people who visit this site.
"Opera just made a mistake, in my opinion, with that. I liked how they kept the browser streamlined and stripped down; this new feature is, possibly, a sign of creeping featurism and surrender to the forces of software bloat."
I'm running an earlier beta of it right now, and I had similar concerns. I can tell you, though, that I really like how you can drag anything to just about anywhere else. I'm looking forward to sitting down and really tweaking this interface.