Aids is very dangerous virus that can strike anyone who has sex. A true danger.
But you are on slashdot. You ain't having sex.
Be honest, how many "odd" sites do you visit? How many slutty url's do you follow home?
The danger really depends on what you do. I know people who follow any link, open any email and click on anything in sight. It is amazing what they can do to an innocent virgin computer in just a week.
This bug is already highly overrated, lots of people have tried and so far it only results in crashes. Big whoop.
Most bots are not created by crafty code or even by clever exploits or social engineering. It is just put a file online named Harry Potter The half blood prince.exe online and people will happily download it, install it, click on all security warnings and then wonder why they can't get their movies and complain to their ISP that their movie service sucks (I swear to god, this really happens).
Here is a hint. A movie is more then 10mb. It does NOT have the.exe at the end. WMV is only used people to force a payload via an automatic codec install.
being safe is about using your brain, not relying on some script.
The problem is that he is corrupt to the wrong people.
Geez, you got a story here where there just HAPPENED to be found evidence, a long time AFTER the fact, where the finders have every reason to want to find it and weeks of opportunity of "finding" said information. That the finders happen also to be liked by a big northern neighbour with a long history of meddling in its southern countries politics to tune of killing thousands of women and childeren and lots of experience faking, oops I mean, WITH faking in their own elections...
Well, I just don't know who to believe here.
It rather telling the american press is all algainst a corrupt left leader but supported with money and weapons corrupt right wing leaders who killed thousands. It makes me highly doubtfull of any reports about south america.
I think the "true" story here is that this guy got ousted NOT for being corrupt or a crook or faking elections BUT for listening to the wrong people when in power. His replacement ain't any better, but he does listen to the right people.
Not just everything out at the moment but every song for which a recording still exists and SELL it for a reasonable price. 99 cents ain't resonable to anyone but an Apple fanboy.
The business model is simple, you create a digital copy of your entire catalog and put it on a server. You then sell all your content this way. You pay a trivial amount of money for storage (songs ain't all that big) and save a FORTUNE on CD presses, cover printing, assembling, packaging, shipping, storage, breakage etc etc. Really, the costs should easily be able to come down to a dime per track and still give more profit to tbe artists (oops, I mean record industry).
The "free" sites out there are great if someone with the same taste decided to share the stuff he paid for but for those of us with odd tastes that ain't always easy.
Sony recently ran out of MJ CD's. If they had gone digital they could have sold all the MJ music they wanted at no extra costs to them. No more shipping to many or to few of a CD. iTunes is almost the way but has only what the industry currently wants to push and it is anybodies guess where the cost savings end up (well I got a pretty good guess).
It wouldn't be all that hard to setup a good digital system. The above idea is not from me, it is what Free Record Shop proposed years ago (dutch music retailer). The music industry didn't want it.
They don't just want to continue their old business model of being the only supplier of entertainment, they are even unwilling to change the technology involved.
The problem is both in the players and the game design. Since my most recent MMO is Lotro, I will use that as an example. The game does several things right. It typically lists quests properly as being either solo or group play. It also, later on, tends to make areas that are group only while there is plenty to do were you can go solo.
It also gives enough healing to the non-healing classes to reduce the waiting for main-healer symptom. For instance, humans have a skill to do a near full heal once every hour, not fantastic but enough to buy you a second chance in a wtf situation. While the main healing class is the minstrel (similar to cleric/priest) other classes like captains and lore-masters can if played properly do a decent amount of healing. Have a party that plays together and a burglar led group can also pull of masive healing. An all burglar group is unstoppable. We did a Helegrod raid with all lore-masters and the rift with just burglars. It means the game does allow players to mix and match at will.
Yet many players fail at this. They insist on the tank, healer, dps because they can't get their heads around the fact that other mixes can also work and even be a lot more effective. The sad fact is that most players just don't have what it takes to think outside the box. Why should you come up with intresting hybrid classes or let people select their own skills if everyone is just going to go for tank, healer, dps?
But Lotro also does things worng. Its world is rather spread out and fast travel is a mess with lots of routes taking ages if you even got enough reputation. Most people never bother with the reputation since when you are done with all the quests in an area, you still have nowhere near enough. This means that for some quests, you have a hard time finding help, simply because most people do NOT come online just to spend half an hour travelling. The one clas with summoning skills is a LOT easier to group with. "Hi can you help me with this book quest in Forochel" "Ooops sorry mate, I am in Moria, it would take me ages to get there." "I can summon you, and later my hunter can port you right back to Moria" "Ah no problem, invite me".
Other errors in Lotro are that group quests are all over the place, often seperated by lengthy time wasting solo quests. So you just got a group and voila, half leaf because the next group part takes an hour to get to and they got other obligations. It is annoying. it wouldn't be all that hard to write the story line in such a way that you first spend sometime solo building the story and save the epic battle for the end.
It is not that people don't want to play in a group, but that the game developers put so many obstacles in the way that all the fun is beaten out of it.
Group loot: Do we REALLY need more greed into the world by dropping only 1 item for the entire group? It might SEEM like a way to force the group to play the quest a number of times, but all it really does is create greed and resentment.
Fast travel: Put something like a summoning horn outside every group quest area, so that people can join whereever they are. The costs for this should be trivial. People want to play, not spend ages in slow-fast travel.
Chat channels: Is it REALLY that hard to allow people to quick link to quests and restrict posts to say once per minute?
Less loot: Nothing kills a group faster then constantly having to sort out loot. Not every critter has to drop something. Just give everyone some cash at the end and a copy of the special item at the end. if the game is fun, people will come back for more and if it isn't, they will just quit playing faster if you bore them.
The funny thing is that companies that beat the fun out of group play then claim that people only want solo play and kill group play even more. But in the end you then end up with a game that is a very poor excuse for a single player game, with a monthly fee and 12yr olds.
OLED displays. Electronic ink such as used in the Kindle? All tech that has been reported for years on slashdot, and made it's way into our hands.
Tech happens all the time but we tend not to be as awed anymore when it has actually arrived because... well tech has moved on.
When OLED displays were first announced, they were REALLY amazing because LCD's of that age had problems enough with even lightening let alone doing proper blacks. Their viewing angle was also horrible so OLED's with their 180 degree viewing angle sounded wonderful. The contrast of 10.000:1 was also consider unubtainable.
And now I got an AMOLED on my Cowon s9 mp4 player (odd why it is called an mp4 player when that is the one format it does not actually support) and its display is very nice indeed. BUT no longer the revolution it once was when first announced.
Viewing angled have gone up on LCD's. With led lightening LCD screens have become better. Contrast has gone up as well. Sure, the OLED display is STILL better (can watch it even in sunlight) but not by the same degree.
Right now, Sony has an OLED display for sale that really looks stunning. But geez god is it tiny. On the other hand, LCD technology paired with led back lightening has come awfully close to matching its capabilities. And that is the way of tech... for a while.
because the first cars didn't go much faster then a horse and were a hell of a lot more trouble to keep running, less reliable and more expensive.
But eventually the tech moved on. Someday OLED displays may make the current LCD offerings look very bad indeed. And by that time you will have been reading about the next advance which seems amazing.
Welcome to life, the older you get, the less wonderful things seem.
Oh well, time for an old trick. Turn the color on your TV all the way down so you see in B&W for an evening.Then tomorrow be amazed at the amazing full colors of your ten year old tv.
You see a lot of kiddies complaining along the lines of "a rave shouldn't be illegal". But in britain, it is. Yes, really. Not concerts or parties, but raves.
The reasons are probably that overtime raves became a problem for some and they wanted something done against them. The other side was not intrested in fighting it and so things got passed into law and voila, you got a specific type of party made illegal.
England, believe it or not is still democracy. More so now then in the last couple of decades because it is no longer ensured who is going to win an election in a region. Safe seats aren't that safe anymore.
If YOU don't fight for your rights, then someone else wins with their rights. The problem with raves is simple, it is the struggle between the neighbours who want a quiet night and the party people who don't. Both have rights but they can't both excersise them fully without restricting the other.
So either the ravers turn down the music or the neighbours give up their quiet night. Ideally, both sides should work this out but as you can see on this side, working things out ain't part of human nature. The anti rave laws have come into being to deal with "illegal" events being held at random location with absolutely no care being given for the consequences. This doesn't just upset the neighbours, it upsets others in the entertainment industry. Not entirely fair is it that a local pub has to spend a fortune on sound isolation but a random group can just hold a rave anywhere, break every law that exists, not pay taxes and get away with it?
The law didn't come into place because YOU played techno in your yard and the neighbour complained. It came into being from 1000+ parties being held in location with no fire safety, no securty, causing serious disturbances. Not just noise, but traffic and things like fights breaking out.
The ravers suffered the public wrath and did NOT regulate themselves to fit into society. Of course, that is not a rebel thing to do but it is the thing to do if you don't want society to turn against you. Because as silly as this story is, the average voter (that is people who actually do vote, not just people who can vote) doesn't give a shit. They just see the tabloids depiction of ravers as crazed druggies, heared from someone at work how a rave is a warzone and are all in favor.
Democracy is just another word for dictatorship of the many. The raves that got out of control created these laws, which weren't oppososed by the ravers themselves and now you got this silly situation.
Most laws are silly, but exist because people are silly. If a lot of rave parties didn't cause such a nuisance (you could hold a rave party the same as any other concert and follow laws of fire safety, drugs laws and noise pollution) then there would be no desire to have them restricted. There are laws that says you can't drill into your wall after or before a specific hour in a building that isn't standalone. Why? Because someone found it neccesary to drill all night in an apartment block. Well not SOMEONE. A LOT of someone's. The apartment block is actually a good example, an old flat might easily have several hundred of apartments and drilling in one sound through the entire building. If a person only drill once every 3 years, it takes less then 1000 people to have drilling going on day in day out.
That is the reason there are rave laws and lots of others. Because without them people just can't be consider the affect their action have on others.
Want to protest that? Then don't say "it shouldn't be illegal". You should made sure when the laws were introduced that it didn't become illegal by doing the same thing the petitioners did. Make your case and show that YOUR case benefits the greater good (gets the most people to vote for you).
The free dutch newspaper "De pers" had an intresting article about music sales yesterday. Or rather not about music sales at all which is probably why the copier (oops sorry journalist) failed to make the connection.
The story? A pension fund was reporting they made 8% profit last year, when the entire economy had collapsed, on their music portfolio. The article told that music rights are big business with a steady reliable revenue stream and that after 10 years you have made enough profit to have paid for the purchase of the rights and from then on its pure profits.
But yeah, music sales are declining.
How can music be an extremely reliable investment for pension funds when the sales are going down? The only similar reliable investment is in things like supermarkets because people always got to eat.
How can you tell someone from the content industry is lying? They got their mouth open.
You make an intresting point. It is not just families but anyone with a shared connection.
But what you fail to understand is that we the citizens are fighting an enemy who does not CARE about rights and laws. Disney is an evil coorperation who used copyright to avoid having to pay royalties on Pinocio but wants royalties on said cartoon to be extended infinitly. They don't want copyright law respected. They want to control all media and the law is just a tool in their arsenal. If they could get away with using gangs to enforce their desire, they would. Their desire is not justice, it is profit.
If in their goal for profit the internet is destroyed then so be it. They don't care and would have prefered for it to never exist in the first place.
The content industry does not care if some innocent bystander has their youtube access removed. Because said innocent bystander by watching the free content they don't own is denying them their profits.
Because that is what this is really about. Do you think that when I download a game or song the economy is hurt? if so, then you suffer from the broken window problem.
Simple example. A teen has an allowance of say 100. He can then spend that money on CD's. That's 100 into the economy.
OR he rips the CD and spends 100 on clothes. That is 100 into the economy.
The difference? Absolutely nothing.
Know this, if piracy is ripped out, then we can have two results:
A: Content sales stay the same because people are spending their money on different things.
B: Content sales increase but all other sales decrease because money can only be spend once.
If you think C: Content sales increase and the content sellers can now buy more other things. then you lack a fundemental understanding of economy.
The economy doesn't care where money is spend, as long as it is spend. the amount of money does not magically increase because it is spend in one area. The economy adjusts. As one shop in the high street closes another will takes it place.
think about it, look at your local highstreet. Less music stores but more mobile phones stores. As young kids have come used to downloading their music, they can now afford to spend their money on mobile phones. The music store clerk was fired and rehired at the mobile phone shop.
The only who care are those at the top because they don't want to find a new line of business. This is like protecting the horse market against those nasty carmakers.
These laws exist for a reason and the reason is simple. To stop the career criminals. The entire point of jail is to STOP you from commiting the crime again.
The idea with the 3 strikes rule is that you had 1 warning and 2nd warning and now it is enough. You had 3 changes to obey the law, now the patience of society is up.
Your kind seems to think that people should be able to continue to break the same law all their lifes.
Tell me something, after how many times must a drunk driver be fined before his driving license is revoked? How many times can I break into your house before I should get more then community service?
In the US selling drugs is illegal. You are NOT supposed to do it. So if you do it, you get a sentence. That sentence is NOT payment for your cime. It is not the price for being a drug seller. It is your warning, DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN. How many times should you be told this? American society has decided 2 times. 3rd time is life.
I do not agree with the french law, but the three strikes principle seems an awfully good way to get habitual offenders out of society. The alternative is revolving door criminals.
It is home sickness. If you ever lived abroad you will know just how strong the desire can become to have something familiar.
I have lived abroad in several cultures where I was welcome. Nobody looked overly down on me. Oh they might think I was a crazy foreigner and a bit akward but nobody wanted me deported. And still the desire for even something as simple as a "boterham met pindakaas" can become overwhelming. No, peanut butter is NOT the same thing. That american stuff is disgusting.
It is also sometimes a great relief to read or hear something in your mother tongue. Almost all media to me is english even in Holland but when I am abroad for a while, it is comforting to hear something in dutch. I never follow soccer at home but when I am abroad and read something about Oranje, then it... well it feels like a bit of home.
No greater patriot then those abroad.
If your new enviroment is not accepting you and you are unwilling/incapable of fitting in then this desire can become extreem. People want to belong to something. Gangs work on this principle as does religion (the institution, not the faith). It becomes a downwards spiral. The (often second generation) immigrant (is a second generation still an immigrant?) rejects the new culture he is in by having differently from that culture. His new culture sees this behavior and becomes more resistant. He feels more rejected and starts to rebel more and try to find a group that does welcome him. Voila, an extremist is born.
Both sides are at fault here. Europe has two choices, keep immigrants out or accept them into their culture. You can't want the cheap labor immigrants supply and not give them some space to life their own lives. On the other hand, immigrants should realize that it was their choice to move to a new enviroment and that the price for that is giving up part of your identiy and adopt to a new culture. Naomi Campbell does not walk around in her native costume does she?
The original turkish immigrants were NOT pissed off. But new immigrants are arriving in an enviroment where they are resented for the problems caused by others and there are subcultures willing to accept them and give them a home.
This is similar to the reborn christians with their holier then thou attitude. Alienation is a ripe breeding ground for extremism. Wether that is gangs, religion or politics. White kids who feel alienated by society join extreme enviromental groups or become neo-nazi's. Muslims become members of extremist muslim groups. Simply because those groups give them a home.
This discussion will invariable get out the "free speech or nothing" nutcases who claim that all speech should be free, while they read and post on a moderated forum with an adblocker censoring the slashdot creators.
Americans especially have a serious amount of hypocracy in these cases. Europeans tend to know that free speech does not exist and that true free speech is far to messy to allow. Yet while in holland we recently had proposal to make holocaust (not just THE holocaust but all similar events before and since) denial an actual and specific crime. At the moment it already falls under hate crime laws. Even the liberals (think left of the most left democrat/indepedent you ever witnessed) VVD who recenly proposed that hate crimes should be gotten rid off wanted the distinction between THINKING hate and inciting/causing hate.
The reason was simple, the poor guy who suggested it was INSTANTLY shot down by everyone. Not just the WW2, but the incitement to hatred that occured in Rwanda or even more recent South Africa (where there was violent against black immigrants from native blacks, I add this because you might typical assume that racial trouble in SA would be between black and white).
Europe once again is a powder keg. Parties who have immigrants as part of their agenda (meaning, they don't want them) are on the rise and with the economic downturn it doesn't take a lot to get a sensation of deja-vu. No, this is not 1930 germany. There are a lot of differences with all sides involved but right now NOBODY wishes to allow someone to start spreading hate that might find a fertile breeding ground.
We know from history that hate speech can be a serious danger if the conditions are right. Butt should our freedom to say what we believe be curtailed for the chance that something bad might happen?
I do notice that most of the most fervent supporters of free speech on this site sound and awful lot like white, christian, hetero-sexual, middle class male. What does this group have to fear from hate speech? They control the US. It is easy to say hate speech should be free when it is not targetted against you. I have no problem with americans being allowed to carry heavy weapons. In america. Go right ahead, carry a machine gun to the mall. It doesn't affect me.
But if you are black or a muslim or a jew or a woman or any other group that is the subject of hate groups then it becomes a different story.
The murders in holland on Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn fall under hate crimes. People spoke nasty words about them, saying it would be better if they were gone and someone listened. Wait until YOU are the one under a death treath before you say free speech should be totally unrestricted.
I am fairly willing to bet that the majority of free speech spouters on slashdot would change their tune VERY quickly if they were the subject of a hate attack.
Free speech is important, but being able to say anything at all without any restrictions will be abused.
Almost everything we do is restricted. From travel (I am free to travel across the globe but only with the proper papers), to reproduction (I can only do it with women who agree) our lives are regulared. Why should speech be any different?
And americans, before you try to correct me, how come that on a recent mythbusters I saw they had SO much censorship going on that it took up 50% if the screen and made the subject invisibale (jaw breaker myth). How come there are no boobies on US tv? What is the constant bleeping?
The US, where you can't say fuck, show a boody or a brandname but you should be able to race X should be gassed. Thanks but no thanks. I take holland, where you can say fuck, show full frontal nudity on a childrens program and brandnames can be shown as long as it is not advertising for the product (and I don't think your candy exploding is a very good advertisement). Neither system is perfect.
And before you quote some founder about freedom, find out how many slaves he or his friends owned.
An american recently kidnapped a dutch kid in a custody case. The was an alert out (copied for the american missing child system) that is supposed to make all airports and such look out for the kid across europe. Didn't work.
Borders are leaky as hell where board guards are asked to look at old tech passports and sort out of ten of thousand of passengers those appearing on a list with thousands of others. Exactly how is this supposed to work? It is like expecting a cop to watch 3-4 highways at once and pick out all stolen cars that have been reported.
They commited the crime in the UK, then fled AFTERWARDS to the US.
So you entire rant, which does have a point, becomes silly because it has nothing to do with the facts in this case.
And the above practice is pretty good else places like the netherlands would be flooded with american asylum seekers convicted for smoking pot.
We got enough of them from the rest of the continent thank you very much. Americans are only welcome for a short stay to spend what little money you got left and then bugger OFF! We don't need both french and american drugs tourists. A small country cannot stand so much arrogance.
The holocaust is not a crime to you? Most would call that a hate crime but obviously you disagree. You think spreading hate is perfectly fine because you are a white rich boy who has an extremely large army to keep him safe from hate.
You do NOT live in a free society. The many people locked up in cuba on your behalf proof that. You just life in a society that leaves you free. Not exactly the same thing.
Hate crimes exist in europe because in europe we have seen far to closely what happens if hatred is left unchecked.
Mind you, the americans think the KKK has a right to exist. In europe it is forbidden to be a member of a nazi group. Neither method seems to work in keeping people from being killed because of what race/sex/orientation they are.
But this is the UK and if the UK people want a system where racists can be locked up for spreading hatred then you that is their freedom.
The brits and most of europe choose different.
And you can THINK what you want. it is spreading what you think that is restricted.
It used to have REAL documentaries about serious subjects. Nowadays I amazed between the endless blowing things up stuff to find a tiny morsel of information I already knew when I was 10.
Take the slashdot population. Most are drooling over the mythbusters especially since they added tits for ratings. But the series has REALLY gone down. Gone is any sense of serious myths, or getting experts to explain the background. Now it is all about blowing things up to the point where a lot of the stuff they do becomes very bad science.
The world is dumbing down because we allowed marketing to control what is on TV and marketing always seeks the easiest path to the largest audience. If a marketeer has 9 people: 3 get it, 3 barely get it, 3 will NEVER get it. Then the marketeer will aim for the bottom 3, thinking that the result will include the top 3. Nope, they will hangup in disgust.
The BBC is experiencing this. It once had excellent programs but it has been a LONG time since a new BBC show was a guaranteed sale across the world. There is a reason we report a new season of Red Dwarf with such fervor. Because there has been NOTHING like it since. Reality programs... sure. They are a dime a dozen and if you really have no clue whatsoever about how a building is blown up, one might be intresting to watch. But after the 6th season, I think I know how a bike is build thank you very much. I know that all american bikers are openly gay (ever seen any of them with a woman?) and applaud them for their confidence in expressing their sexuality in the heartland of the US but can we PLEASE get some real information back on the Discovery Channel?
And no, real information is NOT 3 sentences endlessly repeated time and time again in a serious voice.
You are against religion. In a purely philosophical context it would be called faith or believe system. Religion is the institution. Which religious people should all be put in.
There is a HUGE difference between KILLING someone with a disease and make someone with a disease better. I would have thought this would have been obvious to anyone with the morals of a rat. Apperently not.
Hard time filtering a constantly on connection to the big satan when any mechanic can just plugin a headset and hear nothing but the noises modems make and no voices.
Iran is a dictatorship, it doesn't have to obey laws or niceties. Anyone who follows your advice is risking death if the iran goverment is really doing what people here are claiming it is doing.
The first victim of dictatorship is plausible deniability.
That is one option, it is however that of a completly mad dictator. A more human answer is that the goverment is afraid. Afraid that a closer more realistic faked result would spark revolution. Its soldiers might be willing to shoot on citizens if they think they represent a minority. If the are a majority, then things could be different. Think China vs Russia. The russian soldiers sided with the people recently, the chinese soldiers with their leaders. The reason? Simple, the russian soldiers knew the truth of who was winning the popularity contest.
They claim to want to make a cinematic experience, hundreds of hours long. A story that you create. Where you are in charge of your own Star Wars Saga.
A lofty goal, but this is Bioware and they NEVER done this.
In fact, the newer the Bioware game, the more it has been on rails, with little reflection on what your actions meant in the world at large. Fallout was the game were you changed the world.
Knight of the Old Republic really only had two paths both of which you could switch from instantly at the end. The planescape:torment team would be better. The Fallout team would be best but Bioware? Unless they had a massive rethink, this ain't going to work. I hope it does, but got serious doubts.
If few companies are already capable of making a user created story in just a few hours of gameplay how are they going to do it with hundreds of hours?
And just what are they going to do with the WoW kiddies who only care about the path that gives them the phat loot and are going to spam every chat channel with "which has better stats, killing my father or not?".
Ambitious project, but so far, I see only concept art that look intresting, while the actual game mechanics are still the same old MMO. The cinematic trailer is amazing, but the motion capture so far doesn't look anything like it.
You can rant all day long about how simple can be fun, please then go and play a printer based game. Oh okay, hercules graphics then.
Even the so called simple games have moved on. How many would still play an LCD game today?
Take even simple Chess games. Used to be that a chess game only had a "calculator" on the side, that forced you to enter the moves you made on a keypad. More modern ones registered the moves and the chess board and showed you on the board the computers moves. Even more advancement and the computer becomes a robot capable of making its own moves. Does this change the game? No, but it makes it more fun.
Simple platform games are better if the number of colors is enough to not hurt your eyes, if the amount of memory is large enough the game doesn't need to spend 10 minutes reading tape to load the next screen, if the interface can register more then one button being pressed at the time. All of these things were once true. When people talk about the NES and retro gaming, they are just showing hor terribly young they are.
The Wii stood in place. Nintendo lost the previous generation but has managed to find an odd space where their console is "good" enough. The PS2 after all still gets games released as well, so how bad can it be? But the low costs comes as a high price. Games that thrive on advances in tech can't run on it. You just can't do GTA4 on the Wii. You can do GTA2 on the Wii, but GTA is a game that is essentially the same just made better, more enjoybale by ever advancing hardware that cane make the world you play in richer and more involving. A sidescrolling platform game does not require to much horsepower, but a racer where the roads have only two angles (flat and 45 degrees) (A simcity inspired racer did this) is just not going to be as fun as a game where the roads are smooth curves. The sims is more fun with more realistic looking humans, with angled walls, with better AI. Doesn't mean the original game wasn't fun, but time moves on. Once the T-Ford was a good car, by today's standards, it isn't. Nostaligia is good but there is a reason for progress.
I don't think the Wii is holding back gaming however. The Wii has its own market of casual gamers who only buy the occasional game. The so called hardcore market just doesn't sell on the Wii and has no buyers that own a Wii. The next Rockstar game will be for the big consoles only because if you want an endless desert and realistic horses, then the Wii just doesn't deliver.
The Wii holds gaming back in the same way that the Smart holds back super-cars. Different market.
Slashdot Mirror
Aids is very dangerous virus that can strike anyone who has sex. A true danger.
But you are on slashdot. You ain't having sex.
Be honest, how many "odd" sites do you visit? How many slutty url's do you follow home?
The danger really depends on what you do. I know people who follow any link, open any email and click on anything in sight. It is amazing what they can do to an innocent virgin computer in just a week.
This bug is already highly overrated, lots of people have tried and so far it only results in crashes. Big whoop.
Most bots are not created by crafty code or even by clever exploits or social engineering. It is just put a file online named Harry Potter The half blood prince.exe online and people will happily download it, install it, click on all security warnings and then wonder why they can't get their movies and complain to their ISP that their movie service sucks (I swear to god, this really happens).
Here is a hint. A movie is more then 10mb. It does NOT have the .exe at the end. WMV is only used people to force a payload via an automatic codec install.
being safe is about using your brain, not relying on some script.
The problem is that he is corrupt to the wrong people.
Geez, you got a story here where there just HAPPENED to be found evidence, a long time AFTER the fact, where the finders have every reason to want to find it and weeks of opportunity of "finding" said information. That the finders happen also to be liked by a big northern neighbour with a long history of meddling in its southern countries politics to tune of killing thousands of women and childeren and lots of experience faking, oops I mean, WITH faking in their own elections...
Well, I just don't know who to believe here.
It rather telling the american press is all algainst a corrupt left leader but supported with money and weapons corrupt right wing leaders who killed thousands. It makes me highly doubtfull of any reports about south america.
I think the "true" story here is that this guy got ousted NOT for being corrupt or a crook or faking elections BUT for listening to the wrong people when in power. His replacement ain't any better, but he does listen to the right people.
The answer? PUBLISH EVERYTHING
Not just everything out at the moment but every song for which a recording still exists and SELL it for a reasonable price. 99 cents ain't resonable to anyone but an Apple fanboy.
The business model is simple, you create a digital copy of your entire catalog and put it on a server. You then sell all your content this way. You pay a trivial amount of money for storage (songs ain't all that big) and save a FORTUNE on CD presses, cover printing, assembling, packaging, shipping, storage, breakage etc etc. Really, the costs should easily be able to come down to a dime per track and still give more profit to tbe artists (oops, I mean record industry).
The "free" sites out there are great if someone with the same taste decided to share the stuff he paid for but for those of us with odd tastes that ain't always easy.
Sony recently ran out of MJ CD's. If they had gone digital they could have sold all the MJ music they wanted at no extra costs to them. No more shipping to many or to few of a CD. iTunes is almost the way but has only what the industry currently wants to push and it is anybodies guess where the cost savings end up (well I got a pretty good guess).
It wouldn't be all that hard to setup a good digital system. The above idea is not from me, it is what Free Record Shop proposed years ago (dutch music retailer). The music industry didn't want it.
They don't just want to continue their old business model of being the only supplier of entertainment, they are even unwilling to change the technology involved.
The problem is both in the players and the game design. Since my most recent MMO is Lotro, I will use that as an example. The game does several things right. It typically lists quests properly as being either solo or group play. It also, later on, tends to make areas that are group only while there is plenty to do were you can go solo.
It also gives enough healing to the non-healing classes to reduce the waiting for main-healer symptom. For instance, humans have a skill to do a near full heal once every hour, not fantastic but enough to buy you a second chance in a wtf situation. While the main healing class is the minstrel (similar to cleric/priest) other classes like captains and lore-masters can if played properly do a decent amount of healing. Have a party that plays together and a burglar led group can also pull of masive healing. An all burglar group is unstoppable. We did a Helegrod raid with all lore-masters and the rift with just burglars. It means the game does allow players to mix and match at will.
Yet many players fail at this. They insist on the tank, healer, dps because they can't get their heads around the fact that other mixes can also work and even be a lot more effective. The sad fact is that most players just don't have what it takes to think outside the box. Why should you come up with intresting hybrid classes or let people select their own skills if everyone is just going to go for tank, healer, dps?
But Lotro also does things worng. Its world is rather spread out and fast travel is a mess with lots of routes taking ages if you even got enough reputation. Most people never bother with the reputation since when you are done with all the quests in an area, you still have nowhere near enough. This means that for some quests, you have a hard time finding help, simply because most people do NOT come online just to spend half an hour travelling. The one clas with summoning skills is a LOT easier to group with. "Hi can you help me with this book quest in Forochel" "Ooops sorry mate, I am in Moria, it would take me ages to get there." "I can summon you, and later my hunter can port you right back to Moria" "Ah no problem, invite me".
Other errors in Lotro are that group quests are all over the place, often seperated by lengthy time wasting solo quests. So you just got a group and voila, half leaf because the next group part takes an hour to get to and they got other obligations. It is annoying. it wouldn't be all that hard to write the story line in such a way that you first spend sometime solo building the story and save the epic battle for the end.
It is not that people don't want to play in a group, but that the game developers put so many obstacles in the way that all the fun is beaten out of it.
Group loot: Do we REALLY need more greed into the world by dropping only 1 item for the entire group? It might SEEM like a way to force the group to play the quest a number of times, but all it really does is create greed and resentment.
Fast travel: Put something like a summoning horn outside every group quest area, so that people can join whereever they are. The costs for this should be trivial. People want to play, not spend ages in slow-fast travel.
Chat channels: Is it REALLY that hard to allow people to quick link to quests and restrict posts to say once per minute?
Less loot: Nothing kills a group faster then constantly having to sort out loot. Not every critter has to drop something. Just give everyone some cash at the end and a copy of the special item at the end. if the game is fun, people will come back for more and if it isn't, they will just quit playing faster if you bore them.
The funny thing is that companies that beat the fun out of group play then claim that people only want solo play and kill group play even more. But in the end you then end up with a game that is a very poor excuse for a single player game, with a monthly fee and 12yr olds.
OLED displays. Electronic ink such as used in the Kindle? All tech that has been reported for years on slashdot, and made it's way into our hands.
Tech happens all the time but we tend not to be as awed anymore when it has actually arrived because... well tech has moved on.
When OLED displays were first announced, they were REALLY amazing because LCD's of that age had problems enough with even lightening let alone doing proper blacks. Their viewing angle was also horrible so OLED's with their 180 degree viewing angle sounded wonderful. The contrast of 10.000:1 was also consider unubtainable.
And now I got an AMOLED on my Cowon s9 mp4 player (odd why it is called an mp4 player when that is the one format it does not actually support) and its display is very nice indeed. BUT no longer the revolution it once was when first announced.
Viewing angled have gone up on LCD's. With led lightening LCD screens have become better. Contrast has gone up as well. Sure, the OLED display is STILL better (can watch it even in sunlight) but not by the same degree.
Right now, Sony has an OLED display for sale that really looks stunning. But geez god is it tiny. On the other hand, LCD technology paired with led back lightening has come awfully close to matching its capabilities. And that is the way of tech... for a while.
because the first cars didn't go much faster then a horse and were a hell of a lot more trouble to keep running, less reliable and more expensive.
But eventually the tech moved on. Someday OLED displays may make the current LCD offerings look very bad indeed. And by that time you will have been reading about the next advance which seems amazing.
Welcome to life, the older you get, the less wonderful things seem.
Oh well, time for an old trick. Turn the color on your TV all the way down so you see in B&W for an evening.Then tomorrow be amazed at the amazing full colors of your ten year old tv.
You see a lot of kiddies complaining along the lines of "a rave shouldn't be illegal". But in britain, it is. Yes, really. Not concerts or parties, but raves.
The reasons are probably that overtime raves became a problem for some and they wanted something done against them. The other side was not intrested in fighting it and so things got passed into law and voila, you got a specific type of party made illegal.
England, believe it or not is still democracy. More so now then in the last couple of decades because it is no longer ensured who is going to win an election in a region. Safe seats aren't that safe anymore.
If YOU don't fight for your rights, then someone else wins with their rights. The problem with raves is simple, it is the struggle between the neighbours who want a quiet night and the party people who don't. Both have rights but they can't both excersise them fully without restricting the other.
So either the ravers turn down the music or the neighbours give up their quiet night. Ideally, both sides should work this out but as you can see on this side, working things out ain't part of human nature. The anti rave laws have come into being to deal with "illegal" events being held at random location with absolutely no care being given for the consequences. This doesn't just upset the neighbours, it upsets others in the entertainment industry. Not entirely fair is it that a local pub has to spend a fortune on sound isolation but a random group can just hold a rave anywhere, break every law that exists, not pay taxes and get away with it?
The law didn't come into place because YOU played techno in your yard and the neighbour complained. It came into being from 1000+ parties being held in location with no fire safety, no securty, causing serious disturbances. Not just noise, but traffic and things like fights breaking out.
The ravers suffered the public wrath and did NOT regulate themselves to fit into society. Of course, that is not a rebel thing to do but it is the thing to do if you don't want society to turn against you. Because as silly as this story is, the average voter (that is people who actually do vote, not just people who can vote) doesn't give a shit. They just see the tabloids depiction of ravers as crazed druggies, heared from someone at work how a rave is a warzone and are all in favor.
Democracy is just another word for dictatorship of the many. The raves that got out of control created these laws, which weren't oppososed by the ravers themselves and now you got this silly situation.
Most laws are silly, but exist because people are silly. If a lot of rave parties didn't cause such a nuisance (you could hold a rave party the same as any other concert and follow laws of fire safety, drugs laws and noise pollution) then there would be no desire to have them restricted. There are laws that says you can't drill into your wall after or before a specific hour in a building that isn't standalone. Why? Because someone found it neccesary to drill all night in an apartment block. Well not SOMEONE. A LOT of someone's. The apartment block is actually a good example, an old flat might easily have several hundred of apartments and drilling in one sound through the entire building. If a person only drill once every 3 years, it takes less then 1000 people to have drilling going on day in day out.
That is the reason there are rave laws and lots of others. Because without them people just can't be consider the affect their action have on others.
Want to protest that? Then don't say "it shouldn't be illegal". You should made sure when the laws were introduced that it didn't become illegal by doing the same thing the petitioners did. Make your case and show that YOUR case benefits the greater good (gets the most people to vote for you).
No person send to the chair ever re-offended. 0% recidivism compared to 70% and higher for all other forms of punishment.
The free dutch newspaper "De pers" had an intresting article about music sales yesterday. Or rather not about music sales at all which is probably why the copier (oops sorry journalist) failed to make the connection.
The story? A pension fund was reporting they made 8% profit last year, when the entire economy had collapsed, on their music portfolio. The article told that music rights are big business with a steady reliable revenue stream and that after 10 years you have made enough profit to have paid for the purchase of the rights and from then on its pure profits.
But yeah, music sales are declining.
How can music be an extremely reliable investment for pension funds when the sales are going down? The only similar reliable investment is in things like supermarkets because people always got to eat.
How can you tell someone from the content industry is lying? They got their mouth open.
Just for this story we should be able to mod ourselves :)
You make an intresting point. It is not just families but anyone with a shared connection.
But what you fail to understand is that we the citizens are fighting an enemy who does not CARE about rights and laws. Disney is an evil coorperation who used copyright to avoid having to pay royalties on Pinocio but wants royalties on said cartoon to be extended infinitly. They don't want copyright law respected. They want to control all media and the law is just a tool in their arsenal. If they could get away with using gangs to enforce their desire, they would. Their desire is not justice, it is profit.
If in their goal for profit the internet is destroyed then so be it. They don't care and would have prefered for it to never exist in the first place.
The content industry does not care if some innocent bystander has their youtube access removed. Because said innocent bystander by watching the free content they don't own is denying them their profits.
Because that is what this is really about. Do you think that when I download a game or song the economy is hurt? if so, then you suffer from the broken window problem.
Simple example. A teen has an allowance of say 100. He can then spend that money on CD's. That's 100 into the economy.
OR he rips the CD and spends 100 on clothes. That is 100 into the economy.
The difference? Absolutely nothing.
Know this, if piracy is ripped out, then we can have two results:
A: Content sales stay the same because people are spending their money on different things.
B: Content sales increase but all other sales decrease because money can only be spend once.
If you think C: Content sales increase and the content sellers can now buy more other things. then you lack a fundemental understanding of economy.
The economy doesn't care where money is spend, as long as it is spend. the amount of money does not magically increase because it is spend in one area. The economy adjusts. As one shop in the high street closes another will takes it place.
think about it, look at your local highstreet. Less music stores but more mobile phones stores. As young kids have come used to downloading their music, they can now afford to spend their money on mobile phones. The music store clerk was fired and rehired at the mobile phone shop.
The only who care are those at the top because they don't want to find a new line of business. This is like protecting the horse market against those nasty carmakers.
These laws exist for a reason and the reason is simple. To stop the career criminals. The entire point of jail is to STOP you from commiting the crime again.
The idea with the 3 strikes rule is that you had 1 warning and 2nd warning and now it is enough. You had 3 changes to obey the law, now the patience of society is up.
Your kind seems to think that people should be able to continue to break the same law all their lifes.
Tell me something, after how many times must a drunk driver be fined before his driving license is revoked? How many times can I break into your house before I should get more then community service?
In the US selling drugs is illegal. You are NOT supposed to do it. So if you do it, you get a sentence. That sentence is NOT payment for your cime. It is not the price for being a drug seller. It is your warning, DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN. How many times should you be told this? American society has decided 2 times. 3rd time is life.
I do not agree with the french law, but the three strikes principle seems an awfully good way to get habitual offenders out of society. The alternative is revolving door criminals.
It is home sickness. If you ever lived abroad you will know just how strong the desire can become to have something familiar.
I have lived abroad in several cultures where I was welcome. Nobody looked overly down on me. Oh they might think I was a crazy foreigner and a bit akward but nobody wanted me deported. And still the desire for even something as simple as a "boterham met pindakaas" can become overwhelming. No, peanut butter is NOT the same thing. That american stuff is disgusting.
It is also sometimes a great relief to read or hear something in your mother tongue. Almost all media to me is english even in Holland but when I am abroad for a while, it is comforting to hear something in dutch. I never follow soccer at home but when I am abroad and read something about Oranje, then it... well it feels like a bit of home.
No greater patriot then those abroad.
If your new enviroment is not accepting you and you are unwilling/incapable of fitting in then this desire can become extreem. People want to belong to something. Gangs work on this principle as does religion (the institution, not the faith). It becomes a downwards spiral. The (often second generation) immigrant (is a second generation still an immigrant?) rejects the new culture he is in by having differently from that culture. His new culture sees this behavior and becomes more resistant. He feels more rejected and starts to rebel more and try to find a group that does welcome him. Voila, an extremist is born.
Both sides are at fault here. Europe has two choices, keep immigrants out or accept them into their culture. You can't want the cheap labor immigrants supply and not give them some space to life their own lives. On the other hand, immigrants should realize that it was their choice to move to a new enviroment and that the price for that is giving up part of your identiy and adopt to a new culture. Naomi Campbell does not walk around in her native costume does she?
The original turkish immigrants were NOT pissed off. But new immigrants are arriving in an enviroment where they are resented for the problems caused by others and there are subcultures willing to accept them and give them a home.
This is similar to the reborn christians with their holier then thou attitude. Alienation is a ripe breeding ground for extremism. Wether that is gangs, religion or politics. White kids who feel alienated by society join extreme enviromental groups or become neo-nazi's. Muslims become members of extremist muslim groups. Simply because those groups give them a home.
This discussion will invariable get out the "free speech or nothing" nutcases who claim that all speech should be free, while they read and post on a moderated forum with an adblocker censoring the slashdot creators.
Americans especially have a serious amount of hypocracy in these cases. Europeans tend to know that free speech does not exist and that true free speech is far to messy to allow. Yet while in holland we recently had proposal to make holocaust (not just THE holocaust but all similar events before and since) denial an actual and specific crime. At the moment it already falls under hate crime laws. Even the liberals (think left of the most left democrat/indepedent you ever witnessed) VVD who recenly proposed that hate crimes should be gotten rid off wanted the distinction between THINKING hate and inciting/causing hate.
The reason was simple, the poor guy who suggested it was INSTANTLY shot down by everyone. Not just the WW2, but the incitement to hatred that occured in Rwanda or even more recent South Africa (where there was violent against black immigrants from native blacks, I add this because you might typical assume that racial trouble in SA would be between black and white).
Europe once again is a powder keg. Parties who have immigrants as part of their agenda (meaning, they don't want them) are on the rise and with the economic downturn it doesn't take a lot to get a sensation of deja-vu. No, this is not 1930 germany. There are a lot of differences with all sides involved but right now NOBODY wishes to allow someone to start spreading hate that might find a fertile breeding ground.
We know from history that hate speech can be a serious danger if the conditions are right. Butt should our freedom to say what we believe be curtailed for the chance that something bad might happen?
I do notice that most of the most fervent supporters of free speech on this site sound and awful lot like white, christian, hetero-sexual, middle class male. What does this group have to fear from hate speech? They control the US. It is easy to say hate speech should be free when it is not targetted against you. I have no problem with americans being allowed to carry heavy weapons. In america. Go right ahead, carry a machine gun to the mall. It doesn't affect me.
But if you are black or a muslim or a jew or a woman or any other group that is the subject of hate groups then it becomes a different story.
The murders in holland on Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn fall under hate crimes. People spoke nasty words about them, saying it would be better if they were gone and someone listened. Wait until YOU are the one under a death treath before you say free speech should be totally unrestricted.
I am fairly willing to bet that the majority of free speech spouters on slashdot would change their tune VERY quickly if they were the subject of a hate attack.
Free speech is important, but being able to say anything at all without any restrictions will be abused.
Almost everything we do is restricted. From travel (I am free to travel across the globe but only with the proper papers), to reproduction (I can only do it with women who agree) our lives are regulared. Why should speech be any different?
And americans, before you try to correct me, how come that on a recent mythbusters I saw they had SO much censorship going on that it took up 50% if the screen and made the subject invisibale (jaw breaker myth). How come there are no boobies on US tv? What is the constant bleeping?
The US, where you can't say fuck, show a boody or a brandname but you should be able to race X should be gassed. Thanks but no thanks. I take holland, where you can say fuck, show full frontal nudity on a childrens program and brandnames can be shown as long as it is not advertising for the product (and I don't think your candy exploding is a very good advertisement). Neither system is perfect.
And before you quote some founder about freedom, find out how many slaves he or his friends owned.
An american recently kidnapped a dutch kid in a custody case. The was an alert out (copied for the american missing child system) that is supposed to make all airports and such look out for the kid across europe. Didn't work.
Borders are leaky as hell where board guards are asked to look at old tech passports and sort out of ten of thousand of passengers those appearing on a list with thousands of others. Exactly how is this supposed to work? It is like expecting a cop to watch 3-4 highways at once and pick out all stolen cars that have been reported.
They commited the crime in the UK, then fled AFTERWARDS to the US.
So you entire rant, which does have a point, becomes silly because it has nothing to do with the facts in this case.
And the above practice is pretty good else places like the netherlands would be flooded with american asylum seekers convicted for smoking pot.
We got enough of them from the rest of the continent thank you very much. Americans are only welcome for a short stay to spend what little money you got left and then bugger OFF! We don't need both french and american drugs tourists. A small country cannot stand so much arrogance.
and sex really mellows you out. So I heard. Not that I would know.
The holocaust is not a crime to you? Most would call that a hate crime but obviously you disagree. You think spreading hate is perfectly fine because you are a white rich boy who has an extremely large army to keep him safe from hate.
You do NOT live in a free society. The many people locked up in cuba on your behalf proof that. You just life in a society that leaves you free. Not exactly the same thing.
Hate crimes exist in europe because in europe we have seen far to closely what happens if hatred is left unchecked.
Mind you, the americans think the KKK has a right to exist. In europe it is forbidden to be a member of a nazi group. Neither method seems to work in keeping people from being killed because of what race/sex/orientation they are.
But this is the UK and if the UK people want a system where racists can be locked up for spreading hatred then you that is their freedom.
The brits and most of europe choose different.
And you can THINK what you want. it is spreading what you think that is restricted.
It used to have REAL documentaries about serious subjects. Nowadays I amazed between the endless blowing things up stuff to find a tiny morsel of information I already knew when I was 10.
Take the slashdot population. Most are drooling over the mythbusters especially since they added tits for ratings. But the series has REALLY gone down. Gone is any sense of serious myths, or getting experts to explain the background. Now it is all about blowing things up to the point where a lot of the stuff they do becomes very bad science.
The world is dumbing down because we allowed marketing to control what is on TV and marketing always seeks the easiest path to the largest audience. If a marketeer has 9 people: 3 get it, 3 barely get it, 3 will NEVER get it. Then the marketeer will aim for the bottom 3, thinking that the result will include the top 3. Nope, they will hangup in disgust.
The BBC is experiencing this. It once had excellent programs but it has been a LONG time since a new BBC show was a guaranteed sale across the world. There is a reason we report a new season of Red Dwarf with such fervor. Because there has been NOTHING like it since. Reality programs... sure. They are a dime a dozen and if you really have no clue whatsoever about how a building is blown up, one might be intresting to watch. But after the 6th season, I think I know how a bike is build thank you very much. I know that all american bikers are openly gay (ever seen any of them with a woman?) and applaud them for their confidence in expressing their sexuality in the heartland of the US but can we PLEASE get some real information back on the Discovery Channel?
And no, real information is NOT 3 sentences endlessly repeated time and time again in a serious voice.
You are against religion. In a purely philosophical context it would be called faith or believe system. Religion is the institution. Which religious people should all be put in.
There is a HUGE difference between KILLING someone with a disease and make someone with a disease better. I would have thought this would have been obvious to anyone with the morals of a rat. Apperently not.
Hard time filtering a constantly on connection to the big satan when any mechanic can just plugin a headset and hear nothing but the noises modems make and no voices.
Iran is a dictatorship, it doesn't have to obey laws or niceties. Anyone who follows your advice is risking death if the iran goverment is really doing what people here are claiming it is doing.
The first victim of dictatorship is plausible deniability.
That is one option, it is however that of a completly mad dictator. A more human answer is that the goverment is afraid. Afraid that a closer more realistic faked result would spark revolution. Its soldiers might be willing to shoot on citizens if they think they represent a minority. If the are a majority, then things could be different. Think China vs Russia. The russian soldiers sided with the people recently, the chinese soldiers with their leaders. The reason? Simple, the russian soldiers knew the truth of who was winning the popularity contest.
They claim to want to make a cinematic experience, hundreds of hours long. A story that you create. Where you are in charge of your own Star Wars Saga.
A lofty goal, but this is Bioware and they NEVER done this.
In fact, the newer the Bioware game, the more it has been on rails, with little reflection on what your actions meant in the world at large. Fallout was the game were you changed the world.
Knight of the Old Republic really only had two paths both of which you could switch from instantly at the end. The planescape:torment team would be better. The Fallout team would be best but Bioware? Unless they had a massive rethink, this ain't going to work. I hope it does, but got serious doubts.
If few companies are already capable of making a user created story in just a few hours of gameplay how are they going to do it with hundreds of hours?
And just what are they going to do with the WoW kiddies who only care about the path that gives them the phat loot and are going to spam every chat channel with "which has better stats, killing my father or not?".
Ambitious project, but so far, I see only concept art that look intresting, while the actual game mechanics are still the same old MMO. The cinematic trailer is amazing, but the motion capture so far doesn't look anything like it.
I always knew it.
You can rant all day long about how simple can be fun, please then go and play a printer based game. Oh okay, hercules graphics then.
Even the so called simple games have moved on. How many would still play an LCD game today?
Take even simple Chess games. Used to be that a chess game only had a "calculator" on the side, that forced you to enter the moves you made on a keypad. More modern ones registered the moves and the chess board and showed you on the board the computers moves. Even more advancement and the computer becomes a robot capable of making its own moves. Does this change the game? No, but it makes it more fun.
Simple platform games are better if the number of colors is enough to not hurt your eyes, if the amount of memory is large enough the game doesn't need to spend 10 minutes reading tape to load the next screen, if the interface can register more then one button being pressed at the time. All of these things were once true. When people talk about the NES and retro gaming, they are just showing hor terribly young they are.
The Wii stood in place. Nintendo lost the previous generation but has managed to find an odd space where their console is "good" enough. The PS2 after all still gets games released as well, so how bad can it be? But the low costs comes as a high price. Games that thrive on advances in tech can't run on it. You just can't do GTA4 on the Wii. You can do GTA2 on the Wii, but GTA is a game that is essentially the same just made better, more enjoybale by ever advancing hardware that cane make the world you play in richer and more involving. A sidescrolling platform game does not require to much horsepower, but a racer where the roads have only two angles (flat and 45 degrees) (A simcity inspired racer did this) is just not going to be as fun as a game where the roads are smooth curves. The sims is more fun with more realistic looking humans, with angled walls, with better AI. Doesn't mean the original game wasn't fun, but time moves on. Once the T-Ford was a good car, by today's standards, it isn't. Nostaligia is good but there is a reason for progress.
I don't think the Wii is holding back gaming however. The Wii has its own market of casual gamers who only buy the occasional game. The so called hardcore market just doesn't sell on the Wii and has no buyers that own a Wii. The next Rockstar game will be for the big consoles only because if you want an endless desert and realistic horses, then the Wii just doesn't deliver.
The Wii holds gaming back in the same way that the Smart holds back super-cars. Different market.