If you bitch/moan/complain about the price that is only because you want it. Starbucks coffee is high. So? I don't want it. They can charge a million for a cup and I wouldn't care.
No you care. That is good. Oh you won't be getting it at 600 but plenty of others will. Then when the early adopters paid the premium the price will go down and the next group can get it. And so on.
It is nothing unusual. Do you want a super fast CPU? Offcourse you do, you are afterall not still on the 33mhz 386 are you? So intel gives you a choice. The most spanking CPU at a premium, a cpu that spanked last year at a good price and one that spanked the year before that at a bargain.
Hell the same is true with games. Want it right now? Buy it a top price, wait a year or two and you can get it for a fraction of the price.
But my point remains, all those kids bitching about the price want the PS3. They just can't have it. Sony loves this. They can't supply everyone with PS3's when they launch, this way they can deal with the limitted supplies by giving those who have to wait a better price.
Yes they may have gone to far but I doubt it. The more people bitch, the more I think Sony has gotten it right.
I remember back when 95 launched and some companies decided to make their game 95 only (rather then dos). When 95 was delayed they had to delay their games and most game companies do not have microsofts reserves.
95 take up was big because it really offered a huge difference between dos/windows 3.11 but still all the big companies stuck with supporting dos for a long time yet.
Vista offers far less and people have become wary of buying newly released microsoft software. How many of you waited when XP was launched to see if it was going to be another ME? Certainly no games were XP only for a very long time.
A game developer making a vista only game now is betting not only on MS actually shipping Vista on time, wich they can only do by redefining the term on time or with a timemachine, but also that it will be taken up by gamers.
The problem is that games nowadays have a very narrow window of hotness. Say a new game is launched, I need to have it but don't have the hardware. A month later I will have cooled off and just decide to get the game when it is on budget and I got the hardware. If I can't play it at launch I can just play it a year later fully patched and with complete walkthroughs.
Will Vista sell? Shall we be honest here? How many gamers have pirated copies? Live is expensive enough as it is and XP ain't cheap. Oh sure lots of people get it free with their machine from Dell but how many gamers buy from Dell? I steal my licenses from machines I free with linux (sorta illegal since they ain't mine but wtf. MS is getting free money for software never used because of their tax system).
If vista improves on the anti-piracy front then many gamers will be faced with the question of buying new hardware, new OS and that new game. With the PS3 and the Wii also shining seductivly in the stores.
Vista will take off on new computers but I think that like XP take off on already existing computers will be slow.
MS seems to agree and is setting artificial reasons for people to upgrade.
I don't think MS is going to be in trouble. XP takeup might not have been what they hoped but they still are earning billions so who cares. Game companies might be in for a shock though. If people don't buy the OS you set as a requirement you ain't getting the cash. MS can afford an ME. What game company can?
I think your in the wrong place. Myspace is that way. This is a place for techies who know what a steaming pile of crap your statement is.
A set of routines for graphics handling are seperate from how the drivers work. Geez, what next, opengl only working on linux if you build the kernel drivers modular?
No my dimwitted marketting receptacle the only reason for DirectX 10 to be tied to Vista is purely to force people to buy Vista. There is no other reason. Offcourse MS will have made sure that DirectX 10 is closely tied to Vista in the same way they made sure that IE was closely tied to 98 and then claimed that the two were inseperable. Because they made sure they were not because it was necesarry for techinal reasons.
Here is me taking the firework by accident out of the container, here is me accidently unsticking the fuse, here I accidently light it. WTF?
Sorry kid but when you put fireworks off inside you are either mentally retarded or criminally insane or trying to start a fire. In any case you belong in jail for live or on the chair.
Not an Al Lowe game but in the same genre and of the same era is Spellcasting 101 and what still makes me smile is the following puzzle.
You are forced to fight a bull and chasing you around the arena is thirsty work. Your inventory contains a bottle of laxative. Ah yes but the really fun part was the sound. In an era when sound was rare hearing that gurgling sound was hilarious.
Sure it ain't sophisticated and proper humor and all but Monty Python never minded some underwear humor and it is a lot better then shooting peoples faces.
By all means bring the funny adventure back. Hell any adventure. They ain't dead yet.
But I guess comedy is not just the hardest genre in movies, books and stage.
MS had several reasons to launch the x-box. First MS is always looking at a way to make itself less depended on its two cash cows windows and office. To achieve this they tried to get into internet, content, web-tv, mobile phones, high performance computing etc etc.
Either they fear something happening to their cash generators or they are just on the quest for more money.
So far perfectly normal business.
But another reason is that they went into consoles to stop Sony. MS fundamentlly believes that the PC on the desk in the study is going to disappear or at least be reduced. The so called living room PC will take over. Wether that is in the form of web-tv or thin clients or the mobile phone MS don't know what they do now is that they don't want anyone else getting their paws on whatever it is going to be.
Enter the PS2. Enter linux. Enter linux on the PS2. When MS learned of this it shit itself. There is only one reason for Sony to mess with Linux and all those evil hacker commies and that is if they want to see if they can have an desktop OS on their millions of consoles. Turning them instantly into living room PC's.
Does Sony want this? Doesn't matter, what matters is what MS thinks Sony wants. There certainly is no love lost between the two or japan tech industry in general and a lot of people would love to see MS loose its hold on the PC market. While it is doubtfull the PS2 or PS3 could ever be a full fledged Linux PC can MS ignore this direct threat to its two cash cows (PS3/Linux won't be running office you can be sure off that)
I think MS partly launched the x-box for the same reasons it went into the browser wars. To stop its competitors from controlling the market.
If you look at the x-box it didn't really do anything new. People complain about the PS3 being not being as innovative as the Wii but the x-box and 360 are just plain carbon copies of the most basic console functions. Except for the bits inherited from the PC, the whole "live" idea. MS certainly did not use its massive resource to outtech Sony, just as with IE it did the minimum that it hoped could disrupt Sony's stranglehold on the console market.
It sorta worked. Remember how IE forced netscape to rush their browser development leading to the dreaded version 4? Is Sony perhaps feeling a little rushed and does this account for the "not ready yet" feel the PS3 gives everyone? On its own the PS2 could have lasted another year at least maybe two. Plenty of time for the PS3 tech to be ready.
The 360 is not innovative, it doesn't push the tech envelope and doesn't do anything new. Yet it is out and the PS3 is not and Sony surely must know about the first mover advantage.
But we are not talking about the big consoles, we are talking about handhelds.
Well the same logic would apply, MS is always looking for another way to make money but at the moment it is already very busy and the handheld market is not easy.
So would it have the desire to disrupt the current market. Nintendo is the absolute master of the handhelds with the PSP being a worthy contender but with a lot of catching up to do.
Nintendo is so far NOT competing with MS in anyway. The gameboy line, until the opera browser game launches, is 100% a game console and Nintendo is not about to release a linux distro for it. Nintendo knows its place and gets patted on its head by its masters. (At least that seems to be MS vision of the world considering recent statements about people buying the 360 AND the Wii instead of the PS3)
Sony however is with the PSP making more then a game device. It now has a pretty complete web browser and can play movies and music. It doesn't excell at tbis but it could be argued it is comes close to a PC.
Getting into MS turf? Maybe. MS has long toes.
The only reason for MS to go into yet another hardware project bound to loose them money is if they feel that not to do so might loose them a market they don't want to be controlled by their enemy.
First Sony is slammed for making a PS3 light wich drops High Definition but keeps other game essential hardware intact. UNLIKE the 360 light version wich removed the HD wich is essential for some games.
But now Sony is supposed to make the blu-ray optional. Right. Damned if they do and damned if they don't right? If sony had made the blu-ray drive optional this same fucking website would have claimed they were splitting up their marketshare and forcing game developers to adopt to the lowest common denomator and whatever other crap has been spouted about consoles.
Stop trying to second guess Sony. When you run a billion dollar enterprise and are a household name for electronics worldwide THEN you can second guess them. Maybe they are wrong. People point out the beta max failure. Completly forgetting that the pro video market is very profitable for sony. They point out the mini disc failure despite that fact that are still in wide use as an alternative to DAT.
Somehow Sony seems to make a lot of money out things people consider failures.
The PS3 is an expensive console. For it you get something that is pushing a lot of limits. It truly is a next generation system and not just an upgrade like the 360 is.
Will the gamble pay off? I don't know but as far as the discussion about blue-ray is concerned I seem to remember similar discussions about the previous generation and the inclusion of DVD-movie playback capacity.
Can we just fucking fast forward to the future and see what the sales results are so we can end the useless second guessing.
The PS3 specs and price are known take it or leave it. Don't keep bitching about the fucking price because all that shows is that you want the PS3 but are too poor to afford one. If you can't spend 700-800 dollars on electronics then you need to get a better job.
This is a tech site, we all are overpayed pro's. If this was a site for factory workers and cleaners I could understand but not software engineers and other techies. This ain't a place for minimum wage workers.
It may have some value if it is an obvious name that some people might enter directly into their browser. Just ask yourselve how often you do this?
A lesser value might exist if the name is easy to associate. weather.com for instance is easier to remember as a weather site then sfgsjkdhgfksdfk.com It don't matter to find the site via google but in ads or just remembering the site from previous visits weather.com is just a bit easier.
The last case is if you already got a real world brand name and now want to have that same name on the web. Just recently I wanted to visit the vanguard page. It wasn't the first result on google (a game not coming as the first result for its name is pretty rare) and I actually had to scroll down to see vangaurdsoh.com
Does it matter? Well not much as you can see BUT I have in the past just typed in vanguard and gotten the wrong site.
So the question to you is, does the above apply to you? Is that name really worth 1000 dollars? It sounds like it is a lot of money for you. So most likely not. Try finding another name or one from a different domain like say.net.us or whatever.
Most people will either use a search engine to find your site OR find it by being given the URL in some other form. Focus on something that is simple to remember and doesn't cost a 1000 dollars and do some advertising.
Anyone think that MS had plenty of studies done about the x-box (both) and their prospects in japan?
So far both bombed.
Did anyone think that Sony when it went into the console business had a change against the mighty nintendo?
No and they were very wrong.
People just don't seem to be very good at predicting what will happen with consoles.
The more predictions I see for the Wii being a smashhit the more I am feeling that Wii is building up a hype that it can't deliver. Those launch titles better be really good.
You mean like that double decker highway that collapsed during an LA earthquake? Maybe that one that fell apart in a stiff wind?
Ah but most bridges don't fall apart that easily. Well no, most bridges are best on millenia old technology. The more advanced designs are designed to very fine tolerances.
Take that "new" superhigh bridge in france. It cannot support the weight of an ocean liner. Would collapse if you blew up one of the pillars and a nuclear strike within a mile would cause it to fall apart. Hell even a simple typhoon would do it.
Ah, but none of those things are likely to happen so the bridge wasn't designed for it.
That is the big difference between software and hardware. Even the simple thing of user supplied data is different. In software you need to check and check again every bit of data to make sure the user hasn't supplied the wrong kind of data. Hasn't the user put a 1 gigabyte of data in a bool field?
In the real world this is kinda easier to check. I think you would notice if a truck instead of being loaded with 10 tons was loaded with 10.000 tons. A clue might be the way its axels are buried in the asfalt.
So the bridge designer only has to design for the entire roaddeck being filled with trucks filled with lead and that is it. He can work with real world limits. The french bridge was really tested like this. It withstood the test and is in theory designed to withstand 2x the load. That ain't much of a tolerance but in the real world you can easily discount such a heavy load ever being put on the system. Someone driving up with an ocean liner on his trialer would draw attentention.
Not so with software. I can put anything I want in this input form and the software better be designed for it. I am not constrained by real world limits.
That is what makes software engineering so difficult, you need to account for every possibility. If you checked a piece of data and wrote it too storage then you need to check it again when you read it. This would be like a bridge engineer testing the steel, then having to check it every day to see if hasn't turned into porridge by an act of god.
Oh and one final note. A lot of software insecurity only happens under attack. Bridges don't exactly last long under attack. Blowing one up is amazing easily. Any army engineer can do it.
She is working at one of the worst companies when it comes to patching.
Worse she is the one shooting the messenger. Hackers are the messenger and when they hack your software the message is you screwed up. She wants to stop the hackers/messengers NOT get her own act together and build secure software from the start.
I can well imagine that Oracle wants regulation against all those nasty people who just give them 1 month notice before publishing yet another security hole. SHUT UP so we can continue peddling software with holes in it that we have known of for years. MS feels very much the same.
Patches are like bandaids being against them is silly. Be against people getting wounded in the first place.
If you are against patches you need to design your software better.
She doesn't want that, she just wants the hackers to go away. This is like banning doctors to make sickness go away.
No this woman is a clueless shill wanting to make sure her company can peddle the same crap protected by security through obscurity. You know like worked so well for software in the past.
Sony used to be worth it. You simply could rely on them to provide a reasonable quality product for a slight increase in money. Oh sure there were cheaper brands out there but you would get korean/chinese instead of japanese quality (yeah oldies I know, japanese quality, who would ever have thought to hear those two words together)
Then something changed and Sony just started loosing it. Perhaps japan is just finding that korea is now the new japan (Korean quality? or for a bigger laugh Chinese quality?).
Sony kept prices to high while it lowered quality and the competition got better. On their own the effects where not to big but the combination is proving lethal.
So far I agree with you. But consoles are different.
The PS2 continues to be the most expensive console. AND the biggest seller. At least in the home console market so far people seem prepared to pay the sony premium in exchange for the perceived extra quality.
Yes I think Sony is having troubles. The PSP and its screen problems show that Sony is no longer as concerned about as quality as they once seemed to be (all my previous sony stuff just died of sheer old age and overuse).
Will the PS3 be another PSP or another PS2?
The entire move to push its own media format for selling movies for the content doesn't exactly fill me with cheer.
But I think it is too soon to judge. Soon the three consoles will be in the stores and we will see wich has the better demos to lure us in.
Geez, you might as well point out that 600 dollars would buy you 1/4th of a quad sli setup. Buy you the CPU of a top gaming rig. Is about half the price of a video iPod (wich by the way is more expensive AND less powerfull AND has a smaller screen AND supports fewer codecs then its rivals).
There is a great desire among slashdotters to see Sony fail. They can't really fault the hardware so they got to focus on the price and common sense be damned.
The PS3 not having as innovative a controller as the Wii. Neither does the 360. You don't hear people about that.
The cell is actually a really powefull piece of tech so you can't make claims that it is underpowered or something.
The PS3 will fail or succeed based on wether it can have games that are worth the price. Can the hardware be put to real use and can we get games that blast anything on the 360/PC away? So far nothing is showing up that impresses me but then none of the consoles impress me.
The games don't really have to innovative. Give me F.E.A.R and just use that massive CPU to put 60 ai's in the game at the same time. That would sell me. Well if I can use a mouse with it.
Oh just give me a PS3 with linux and an open spec to the hardware.
Halo did do something very nice that every FPS game should copy. Give grenades their own controls so you can throw them with your main weapon equipped. Brilliant.
Everything else about the game was a distinct case of Meh on the PC. It just didn't compete with PC born titles. Part of it may have been due to its age (the x-box conversion took ages) and part was that it never delivered on its original promises.
I just never got the idea that Halo PC had a big impact.
As for coupling it to vista. Well that is just taking the piss. A 2.5 year old game + time until vista launches having such a minimum requirement can't be anything but fake.At least pull such a stunt with a more recent game, say the upcoming Halo 3.
MS really could set it self up for a gigantic fall with vista. Have they forgotten Windows ME? Or are they remembering ME and are this time determined to ensure people can't just skip an upgrade?
The game companies making their game Vista only must really be certain of MS success. Not only are they tying their game to an OS that keeps getting delayed but one that might not be picked up. Remember Vista is launching at a bad time. Gamers will have the PS3 and Wii competing for their dollars. Can you afford to buy the consoles AND a new PC?
Why is bungie still called bungie? Shouldn't they just be called MS game division?
Ofcourse not, they are going to outsource it
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· Score: 2, Funny
That martian labor is dead cheap you know and you hardly notice the language barrier.
First off you are talking about consoles being sold at a loss. NOT their components.
IF IBM was the maker of the chip they would most certainly not sell them at a loss. Why should they? Sony might sell the console at a loss to recoup the loss from game sales but IBM has no way to recoup any losses.
Then again IBM is in a parnetship with Sony and Toshiba so the chip is probaly owned by this partnership and Sony will just be making the chips it needs itself.
So any idea that IBM is selling Cells at a loss is insane.
Then the cost of the PS3 is mostly claimed to be in the Blu-ray drive tech. Not going to be off much intrest to a science setup is it? Even if they want to use a blu-ray drive they need just 1 in a 1000 cell rig. Not going to break the bank.
No the cell will be cheap because when you run an order of millions of identical cpu's prices drop rapidly. There might even be a very real market for cheap cells. Regular CPU's always have lesser quality versions. Not a problem for an intel or AMD who just badge them celeron or whatever but you can't do that with a console processor. All cell processors destined for the PS3 must be off similar spec.
So what to do with a cell chip that has one of the cores defective? Throw it away OR rebadge it and sell it for blade servers? That is were celerons come from (defective cache)
We already know that the cell processor is going to be sold for other purposes then the PS3. IBM has a line of blade servers coming up that will use the cell.
No I am afraid that it will be perfectly possible to buy Cells and they will be sold at a profit just like any other cpu. Nothing special about it. they will however benefit greatly from the fact that they already got a large customer lined up. Regular CPU's need to recover their costs as quickly as possible because their success will be uncertain. This is why regular top end cpu's are so fucking expensive. But the Cell allready has an order for millions, meaning the costs can be spread out in advance over all those units.
It is a choice by the student. There is a test (cito) done in that last year of elementary school (age 12) that gives a recommendation but that is all it is.
This is however not that big a deal. Yes some kids will learn they have what it takes to become doctors or engineers (first is theory, second is trade) and other will learn they are barely fit for special needs schools (retards)
But the largest group will fall somewhere in between and will just go to the school that fits the proffesion they want to be in the future.
Trade schools are by no means lightweight. They just focus more on practice but in a way this forces kids to learn the theory in fewer hours.
In practice it seemed to me that kids who knew what they wanted to be ended up getting the education they needed while kids with no future plan could go get the type of education that fitted best with their personality.
Yes it does sounds like your father in law benefitted from being forced into theory BUT the sad daily effect is that while forcing everyone to learn theory may work for the rare exception for a lot of kids it means they cannot keep up or dropout.
Saying everyone should study social sciences to be a fully rounded human being sounds nasty. As if somehow you can't be a proper member of society unless you can quote shakespeare. That sounds Elitist to me. Not accepting that people want to do different things with their lives.
Go to public transport and find a spot where you can observe a door. Doesn't really matter what kind just a door people have to do a minimum of interaction with.
My favorite is an out of order one on the subway. Always makes a boring commute a lot more fun when you get some standup comedy.
To show they are out of order they got a big red sticker at eye height. Now guess how many people see it? We get up out of their chair as the train nears the station and then stand ready in front of the door? Then press the button, and again, and again and again only to then finally realize something is wrong and then run for another door?
Ah but they are the smart ones. You then got the people that stand behind them and then still go towards the broken door and press the button because obviously the person in front of them didn't press it right.
Yet these people still are intellectual giants compared to the last group. You now got a group of people rapidly trying to reach the other exit. One person will get up, knuckles dragging across the floor, make their way against the traffic to the out of order door.
People are idiots. If you make an idiots proof interface then all you done is challenge the world to come up with a bigger idiot and the world always wins.
The simple fact is that you can still get those phones with zero extras. They are called old phones and all you have to do to get them is not throw your old phone away. If yours is broken buy a second hand one.
But no people are lured by the gadgets and then attempt to use them without reading the manual with an IQ that is baffled by the concept of a closed door.
Phones ain't too complex. People are too stupid. By all means make an idiot proof phone. That means only idiots will buy it. A massive market to be sure. Just one small problem. Idiots are idiots who don't buy idiot proof stuff. If they only bought phones they could operate they wouldn't be idiots.
An idiot proof phone will never be bought by idiots.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is not like you will be away for long periods.
Offcourse it all depends on your relationship and both your personality. Can you deal with being alone. Some people actually prefer this lifestyle.
Basically is she willing/can she run the house on her own. Are you willing to let her do that. You will become far more of a guest in your own house if you are away half the time.
What can really bum people out is maintenance of all kinds. You will only be home on your days off and you are going to get pretty fed up if you would then have to do all the little chores you would normally do during an entire week.
On the other hand if she is doing all the chores in maintaining the house and then you come home with a bag of dirty laundry you will find that your wife is not your mother.
But hey, she might just love it. Allows her to have her session with the grocerie boy in peace, maybe invite the poolboy without having to rush because you will be home from the office.
Get the job, allow her her freedom to get some good sex while you are away earning the big bucks. And don't worry, it is perfectly normal for the baby to look nothing like the father. Happens all the time.
The world seems to lack them, they aren't politically correct. I went to a trade school (my original proffesion is a baker/pastry cheff) because I didn't have the patience to sit in schoolbanks and just take in 8 hours of theory.
I have an above average intellige (nothing special, half the world has that) and was in the top classes at the trade schools (for dutch people, lts and then mts). Yet while still focusing on some theory it also had plenty of practice sessions. LTS first two years were "general" meaning I got more DIY skills then are healthy for a person. I am not talking about knowing how to use a hammer here. I can draw and read blueprints and actually put up a wall. One that remains standing.
I would never have finished school if I had been forced to attend an all theory school (for dutch mavo/havo) as the 2 days 8 hours practice lesssons allowed me to get the energy out. Theory was not a problem for me but I know for kids who didn't do well in them the practice was also a place where they could do well.
It was good for the economy too. The world can always use another bricklayer, welder, painter. Craftsman are in short supply and lts/mts yes even hts (this is just one step below university) turned them out by the bucketload. Ask yourselve this, what is more usefull, a kid with an american highschool diploma or a kid who you can hand a blueprint and he will build it for you?
This whole system was changed and now we got classes that seem far closer to what you got in america. 100% theory with only faggot shop sessions where nothing real is learned.
Since the change school dropout rates have soared in holland (while industry complains that kids with diploma's ain't worth shit anymore).
So how does this relate to this game article? Well I get the distinct impression that these kids who escape into a gaming world are being pressured into going to theory schools for wich they are just not suited. If you try to fit everyone into the same mold you are going to get people that just don't fit.
With the dutch system there was a choice. Tradeschools were not lower. In fact they rated slightly higher then the administrative schools of the same level. Hell HTS gives you an engineering degree, whole HAVO just makes you eh, fit to be a clerk.
I think gaming addiction may be a real problem but it is merely the sympthom of a far larger problem.
Stop trying to force everyone to fit into the same schooling system and do well. The world doesn't need yet another manager. It does need people that can actually do things with their hands and be good at them. No a cheff or a welder will never rule the world but neither will 99.9% of kids with a theory diploma. But I am willing to put some serious money down that people in practical proffesions are a lot happier.
Okay, first off if the ZDnet story is the true account these kids must surely get somekind of "dumbest criminals" award.
However if you google for other news stories there seems to be more going on.
First of they are not teens. 18 and 19 makes them adult in america doesn't it?
Second is that they apparently ran a website http://myspaceplus.com/ (wich is still up but empty of content, and horribly laid out on opera/linux). Before this it apparently was a site for some software to hack myspace.
This "first" hack was discovered and plugged. They then apparently tried to extort myspace into paying 150.000 (or get paid to be consultants) and were then trapped by law enforcement officials at a meeting.
A lot of the explenation by the lawyer of the young idiots sound like typical lawyer crap "anything to get my clients off".
The real question is, what was myspaceplus.com about? Is this just a story of two idiots who were to greedy and now can learn a bit about the real world. Or did myspace step over the line in trying to get rid of a couple of hackers by appealing to their greed.
Either way the young aduls are stupid but you can wonder if they really need to spend several years in a federal jail because of it, oh who am I kidding. Fry the suckers.
It just is fucking hilarious. If their attorny is claiming the truth (HA) then you got to admire their lack of common sense. Ooh, yeah we publish a tool to hack myspace. Oh look they are sending us a job offer to advise them for 150.000 dollars. Lets travel across the country to get rich!
By the way doesn't the fact that they travelled across the state border (LA and New York are different parts of america right? You yanks ain't got a monopoly on bad education you know) make it a federal crime?
Oh well, since they are geeks they will at least soon loose their virginity. Squeel piggy, squeel!
How many times have we seen articles that claim that Linux is too complex to learn? That is should be simpler so the average joe can use it?
If you dare to suggest that Linux is only for people willing to spend time learning an OS then you are an Elitist.
The same is true in schools. No kids left behind CANNOT work unless you are willing to lower the passing grade so people with IQ's in the double digits can pass.
Linux is a center of excellence. Windows is no user left behind.
But saying this is elitist, your an asshole for suggesting some people just aren't smart enough to graduate. In holland we had a system for this. It seperarted schools into theory and trade. Kids who didn't want/couldn't study theory could learn a trade instead. This went so well that trade schools were actually rated higher then theory schools. Higher Trade School was a lot thougher then Higher Administrative School. The same was true for mid level and lower level. Basically you could go from MTS to HAVO but not from MAVO to MTS.
But no, we had to make everyone the same and so tradeschools were cancelled. Dropout rates have never been higher as the kids who could get rid of their energy in practice now are forced to spend all their time in theory. Those kids that get their diploma find they haven't learned anything usefull and business can no longer get qualified personel.
But hey, no kid is left behind. Well except for the dropouts. And the kids who wanted to learn a trade. But who cares about them.
Have you ever been in contact with a person of average intelligence. Wasn't pretty was it. Now realize this. Half the people in this world rank below that person.
Slashdot Mirror
No you care. That is good. Oh you won't be getting it at 600 but plenty of others will. Then when the early adopters paid the premium the price will go down and the next group can get it. And so on.
It is nothing unusual. Do you want a super fast CPU? Offcourse you do, you are afterall not still on the 33mhz 386 are you? So intel gives you a choice. The most spanking CPU at a premium, a cpu that spanked last year at a good price and one that spanked the year before that at a bargain.
Hell the same is true with games. Want it right now? Buy it a top price, wait a year or two and you can get it for a fraction of the price.
But my point remains, all those kids bitching about the price want the PS3. They just can't have it. Sony loves this. They can't supply everyone with PS3's when they launch, this way they can deal with the limitted supplies by giving those who have to wait a better price.
Yes they may have gone to far but I doubt it. The more people bitch, the more I think Sony has gotten it right.
95 take up was big because it really offered a huge difference between dos/windows 3.11 but still all the big companies stuck with supporting dos for a long time yet.
Vista offers far less and people have become wary of buying newly released microsoft software. How many of you waited when XP was launched to see if it was going to be another ME? Certainly no games were XP only for a very long time.
A game developer making a vista only game now is betting not only on MS actually shipping Vista on time, wich they can only do by redefining the term on time or with a timemachine, but also that it will be taken up by gamers.
The problem is that games nowadays have a very narrow window of hotness. Say a new game is launched, I need to have it but don't have the hardware. A month later I will have cooled off and just decide to get the game when it is on budget and I got the hardware. If I can't play it at launch I can just play it a year later fully patched and with complete walkthroughs.
Will Vista sell? Shall we be honest here? How many gamers have pirated copies? Live is expensive enough as it is and XP ain't cheap. Oh sure lots of people get it free with their machine from Dell but how many gamers buy from Dell? I steal my licenses from machines I free with linux (sorta illegal since they ain't mine but wtf. MS is getting free money for software never used because of their tax system).
If vista improves on the anti-piracy front then many gamers will be faced with the question of buying new hardware, new OS and that new game. With the PS3 and the Wii also shining seductivly in the stores.
Vista will take off on new computers but I think that like XP take off on already existing computers will be slow.
MS seems to agree and is setting artificial reasons for people to upgrade.
I don't think MS is going to be in trouble. XP takeup might not have been what they hoped but they still are earning billions so who cares. Game companies might be in for a shock though. If people don't buy the OS you set as a requirement you ain't getting the cash. MS can afford an ME. What game company can?
A set of routines for graphics handling are seperate from how the drivers work. Geez, what next, opengl only working on linux if you build the kernel drivers modular?
No my dimwitted marketting receptacle the only reason for DirectX 10 to be tied to Vista is purely to force people to buy Vista. There is no other reason. Offcourse MS will have made sure that DirectX 10 is closely tied to Vista in the same way they made sure that IE was closely tied to 98 and then claimed that the two were inseperable. Because they made sure they were not because it was necesarry for techinal reasons.
Sorry kid but when you put fireworks off inside you are either mentally retarded or criminally insane or trying to start a fire. In any case you belong in jail for live or on the chair.
You are forced to fight a bull and chasing you around the arena is thirsty work. Your inventory contains a bottle of laxative. Ah yes but the really fun part was the sound. In an era when sound was rare hearing that gurgling sound was hilarious.
Sure it ain't sophisticated and proper humor and all but Monty Python never minded some underwear humor and it is a lot better then shooting peoples faces.
By all means bring the funny adventure back. Hell any adventure. They ain't dead yet.
But I guess comedy is not just the hardest genre in movies, books and stage.
Either they fear something happening to their cash generators or they are just on the quest for more money.
So far perfectly normal business.
But another reason is that they went into consoles to stop Sony. MS fundamentlly believes that the PC on the desk in the study is going to disappear or at least be reduced. The so called living room PC will take over. Wether that is in the form of web-tv or thin clients or the mobile phone MS don't know what they do now is that they don't want anyone else getting their paws on whatever it is going to be.
Enter the PS2. Enter linux. Enter linux on the PS2. When MS learned of this it shit itself. There is only one reason for Sony to mess with Linux and all those evil hacker commies and that is if they want to see if they can have an desktop OS on their millions of consoles. Turning them instantly into living room PC's.
Does Sony want this? Doesn't matter, what matters is what MS thinks Sony wants. There certainly is no love lost between the two or japan tech industry in general and a lot of people would love to see MS loose its hold on the PC market. While it is doubtfull the PS2 or PS3 could ever be a full fledged Linux PC can MS ignore this direct threat to its two cash cows (PS3/Linux won't be running office you can be sure off that)
I think MS partly launched the x-box for the same reasons it went into the browser wars. To stop its competitors from controlling the market.
If you look at the x-box it didn't really do anything new. People complain about the PS3 being not being as innovative as the Wii but the x-box and 360 are just plain carbon copies of the most basic console functions. Except for the bits inherited from the PC, the whole "live" idea. MS certainly did not use its massive resource to outtech Sony, just as with IE it did the minimum that it hoped could disrupt Sony's stranglehold on the console market.
It sorta worked. Remember how IE forced netscape to rush their browser development leading to the dreaded version 4? Is Sony perhaps feeling a little rushed and does this account for the "not ready yet" feel the PS3 gives everyone? On its own the PS2 could have lasted another year at least maybe two. Plenty of time for the PS3 tech to be ready.
The 360 is not innovative, it doesn't push the tech envelope and doesn't do anything new. Yet it is out and the PS3 is not and Sony surely must know about the first mover advantage.
But we are not talking about the big consoles, we are talking about handhelds.
Well the same logic would apply, MS is always looking for another way to make money but at the moment it is already very busy and the handheld market is not easy.
So would it have the desire to disrupt the current market. Nintendo is the absolute master of the handhelds with the PSP being a worthy contender but with a lot of catching up to do.
Nintendo is so far NOT competing with MS in anyway. The gameboy line, until the opera browser game launches, is 100% a game console and Nintendo is not about to release a linux distro for it. Nintendo knows its place and gets patted on its head by its masters. (At least that seems to be MS vision of the world considering recent statements about people buying the 360 AND the Wii instead of the PS3)
Sony however is with the PSP making more then a game device. It now has a pretty complete web browser and can play movies and music. It doesn't excell at tbis but it could be argued it is comes close to a PC.
Getting into MS turf? Maybe. MS has long toes.
The only reason for MS to go into yet another hardware project bound to loose them money is if they feel that not to do so might loose them a market they don't want to be controlled by their enemy.
And Sony is ver
But now Sony is supposed to make the blu-ray optional. Right. Damned if they do and damned if they don't right? If sony had made the blu-ray drive optional this same fucking website would have claimed they were splitting up their marketshare and forcing game developers to adopt to the lowest common denomator and whatever other crap has been spouted about consoles.
Stop trying to second guess Sony. When you run a billion dollar enterprise and are a household name for electronics worldwide THEN you can second guess them. Maybe they are wrong. People point out the beta max failure. Completly forgetting that the pro video market is very profitable for sony. They point out the mini disc failure despite that fact that are still in wide use as an alternative to DAT.
Somehow Sony seems to make a lot of money out things people consider failures.
The PS3 is an expensive console. For it you get something that is pushing a lot of limits. It truly is a next generation system and not just an upgrade like the 360 is.
Will the gamble pay off? I don't know but as far as the discussion about blue-ray is concerned I seem to remember similar discussions about the previous generation and the inclusion of DVD-movie playback capacity.
Can we just fucking fast forward to the future and see what the sales results are so we can end the useless second guessing.
The PS3 specs and price are known take it or leave it. Don't keep bitching about the fucking price because all that shows is that you want the PS3 but are too poor to afford one. If you can't spend 700-800 dollars on electronics then you need to get a better job.
This is a tech site, we all are overpayed pro's. If this was a site for factory workers and cleaners I could understand but not software engineers and other techies. This ain't a place for minimum wage workers.
A lesser value might exist if the name is easy to associate. weather.com for instance is easier to remember as a weather site then sfgsjkdhgfksdfk.com It don't matter to find the site via google but in ads or just remembering the site from previous visits weather.com is just a bit easier.
The last case is if you already got a real world brand name and now want to have that same name on the web. Just recently I wanted to visit the vanguard page. It wasn't the first result on google (a game not coming as the first result for its name is pretty rare) and I actually had to scroll down to see vangaurdsoh.com
Does it matter? Well not much as you can see BUT I have in the past just typed in vanguard and gotten the wrong site.
So the question to you is, does the above apply to you? Is that name really worth 1000 dollars? It sounds like it is a lot of money for you. So most likely not. Try finding another name or one from a different domain like say .net .us or whatever.
Most people will either use a search engine to find your site OR find it by being given the URL in some other form. Focus on something that is simple to remember and doesn't cost a 1000 dollars and do some advertising.
So far both bombed.
Did anyone think that Sony when it went into the console business had a change against the mighty nintendo?
No and they were very wrong.
People just don't seem to be very good at predicting what will happen with consoles.
The more predictions I see for the Wii being a smashhit the more I am feeling that Wii is building up a hype that it can't deliver. Those launch titles better be really good.
Ah but most bridges don't fall apart that easily. Well no, most bridges are best on millenia old technology. The more advanced designs are designed to very fine tolerances.
Take that "new" superhigh bridge in france. It cannot support the weight of an ocean liner. Would collapse if you blew up one of the pillars and a nuclear strike within a mile would cause it to fall apart. Hell even a simple typhoon would do it.
Ah, but none of those things are likely to happen so the bridge wasn't designed for it.
That is the big difference between software and hardware. Even the simple thing of user supplied data is different. In software you need to check and check again every bit of data to make sure the user hasn't supplied the wrong kind of data. Hasn't the user put a 1 gigabyte of data in a bool field?
In the real world this is kinda easier to check. I think you would notice if a truck instead of being loaded with 10 tons was loaded with 10.000 tons. A clue might be the way its axels are buried in the asfalt.
So the bridge designer only has to design for the entire roaddeck being filled with trucks filled with lead and that is it. He can work with real world limits. The french bridge was really tested like this. It withstood the test and is in theory designed to withstand 2x the load. That ain't much of a tolerance but in the real world you can easily discount such a heavy load ever being put on the system. Someone driving up with an ocean liner on his trialer would draw attentention.
Not so with software. I can put anything I want in this input form and the software better be designed for it. I am not constrained by real world limits.
That is what makes software engineering so difficult, you need to account for every possibility. If you checked a piece of data and wrote it too storage then you need to check it again when you read it. This would be like a bridge engineer testing the steel, then having to check it every day to see if hasn't turned into porridge by an act of god.
Oh and one final note. A lot of software insecurity only happens under attack. Bridges don't exactly last long under attack. Blowing one up is amazing easily. Any army engineer can do it.
Worse she is the one shooting the messenger. Hackers are the messenger and when they hack your software the message is you screwed up. She wants to stop the hackers/messengers NOT get her own act together and build secure software from the start.
I can well imagine that Oracle wants regulation against all those nasty people who just give them 1 month notice before publishing yet another security hole. SHUT UP so we can continue peddling software with holes in it that we have known of for years. MS feels very much the same.
Patches are like bandaids being against them is silly. Be against people getting wounded in the first place.
If you are against patches you need to design your software better.
She doesn't want that, she just wants the hackers to go away. This is like banning doctors to make sickness go away.
No this woman is a clueless shill wanting to make sure her company can peddle the same crap protected by security through obscurity. You know like worked so well for software in the past.
I think we may see HD adoption go a lot faster because of the move to digital.
Then something changed and Sony just started loosing it. Perhaps japan is just finding that korea is now the new japan (Korean quality? or for a bigger laugh Chinese quality?).
Sony kept prices to high while it lowered quality and the competition got better. On their own the effects where not to big but the combination is proving lethal.
So far I agree with you. But consoles are different.
The PS2 continues to be the most expensive console. AND the biggest seller. At least in the home console market so far people seem prepared to pay the sony premium in exchange for the perceived extra quality.
Yes I think Sony is having troubles. The PSP and its screen problems show that Sony is no longer as concerned about as quality as they once seemed to be (all my previous sony stuff just died of sheer old age and overuse).
Will the PS3 be another PSP or another PS2?
The entire move to push its own media format for selling movies for the content doesn't exactly fill me with cheer.
But I think it is too soon to judge. Soon the three consoles will be in the stores and we will see wich has the better demos to lure us in.
There is a great desire among slashdotters to see Sony fail. They can't really fault the hardware so they got to focus on the price and common sense be damned.
The PS3 not having as innovative a controller as the Wii. Neither does the 360. You don't hear people about that.
The cell is actually a really powefull piece of tech so you can't make claims that it is underpowered or something.
The PS3 will fail or succeed based on wether it can have games that are worth the price. Can the hardware be put to real use and can we get games that blast anything on the 360/PC away? So far nothing is showing up that impresses me but then none of the consoles impress me.
The games don't really have to innovative. Give me F.E.A.R and just use that massive CPU to put 60 ai's in the game at the same time. That would sell me. Well if I can use a mouse with it.
Oh just give me a PS3 with linux and an open spec to the hardware.
Everything else about the game was a distinct case of Meh on the PC. It just didn't compete with PC born titles. Part of it may have been due to its age (the x-box conversion took ages) and part was that it never delivered on its original promises.
I just never got the idea that Halo PC had a big impact.
As for coupling it to vista. Well that is just taking the piss. A 2.5 year old game + time until vista launches having such a minimum requirement can't be anything but fake.At least pull such a stunt with a more recent game, say the upcoming Halo 3.
MS really could set it self up for a gigantic fall with vista. Have they forgotten Windows ME? Or are they remembering ME and are this time determined to ensure people can't just skip an upgrade?
The game companies making their game Vista only must really be certain of MS success. Not only are they tying their game to an OS that keeps getting delayed but one that might not be picked up. Remember Vista is launching at a bad time. Gamers will have the PS3 and Wii competing for their dollars. Can you afford to buy the consoles AND a new PC?
Why is bungie still called bungie? Shouldn't they just be called MS game division?
That martian labor is dead cheap you know and you hardly notice the language barrier.
IF IBM was the maker of the chip they would most certainly not sell them at a loss. Why should they? Sony might sell the console at a loss to recoup the loss from game sales but IBM has no way to recoup any losses.
Then again IBM is in a parnetship with Sony and Toshiba so the chip is probaly owned by this partnership and Sony will just be making the chips it needs itself.
So any idea that IBM is selling Cells at a loss is insane.
Then the cost of the PS3 is mostly claimed to be in the Blu-ray drive tech. Not going to be off much intrest to a science setup is it? Even if they want to use a blu-ray drive they need just 1 in a 1000 cell rig. Not going to break the bank.
No the cell will be cheap because when you run an order of millions of identical cpu's prices drop rapidly. There might even be a very real market for cheap cells. Regular CPU's always have lesser quality versions. Not a problem for an intel or AMD who just badge them celeron or whatever but you can't do that with a console processor. All cell processors destined for the PS3 must be off similar spec.
So what to do with a cell chip that has one of the cores defective? Throw it away OR rebadge it and sell it for blade servers? That is were celerons come from (defective cache)
We already know that the cell processor is going to be sold for other purposes then the PS3. IBM has a line of blade servers coming up that will use the cell.
No I am afraid that it will be perfectly possible to buy Cells and they will be sold at a profit just like any other cpu. Nothing special about it. they will however benefit greatly from the fact that they already got a large customer lined up. Regular CPU's need to recover their costs as quickly as possible because their success will be uncertain. This is why regular top end cpu's are so fucking expensive. But the Cell allready has an order for millions, meaning the costs can be spread out in advance over all those units.
This is however not that big a deal. Yes some kids will learn they have what it takes to become doctors or engineers (first is theory, second is trade) and other will learn they are barely fit for special needs schools (retards)
But the largest group will fall somewhere in between and will just go to the school that fits the proffesion they want to be in the future.
Trade schools are by no means lightweight. They just focus more on practice but in a way this forces kids to learn the theory in fewer hours.
In practice it seemed to me that kids who knew what they wanted to be ended up getting the education they needed while kids with no future plan could go get the type of education that fitted best with their personality.
Yes it does sounds like your father in law benefitted from being forced into theory BUT the sad daily effect is that while forcing everyone to learn theory may work for the rare exception for a lot of kids it means they cannot keep up or dropout.
Saying everyone should study social sciences to be a fully rounded human being sounds nasty. As if somehow you can't be a proper member of society unless you can quote shakespeare. That sounds Elitist to me. Not accepting that people want to do different things with their lives.
My favorite is an out of order one on the subway. Always makes a boring commute a lot more fun when you get some standup comedy.
To show they are out of order they got a big red sticker at eye height. Now guess how many people see it? We get up out of their chair as the train nears the station and then stand ready in front of the door? Then press the button, and again, and again and again only to then finally realize something is wrong and then run for another door?
Ah but they are the smart ones. You then got the people that stand behind them and then still go towards the broken door and press the button because obviously the person in front of them didn't press it right.
Yet these people still are intellectual giants compared to the last group. You now got a group of people rapidly trying to reach the other exit. One person will get up, knuckles dragging across the floor, make their way against the traffic to the out of order door.
People are idiots. If you make an idiots proof interface then all you done is challenge the world to come up with a bigger idiot and the world always wins.
The simple fact is that you can still get those phones with zero extras. They are called old phones and all you have to do to get them is not throw your old phone away. If yours is broken buy a second hand one.
But no people are lured by the gadgets and then attempt to use them without reading the manual with an IQ that is baffled by the concept of a closed door.
Phones ain't too complex. People are too stupid. By all means make an idiot proof phone. That means only idiots will buy it. A massive market to be sure. Just one small problem. Idiots are idiots who don't buy idiot proof stuff. If they only bought phones they could operate they wouldn't be idiots.
An idiot proof phone will never be bought by idiots.
Offcourse it all depends on your relationship and both your personality. Can you deal with being alone. Some people actually prefer this lifestyle.
Basically is she willing/can she run the house on her own. Are you willing to let her do that. You will become far more of a guest in your own house if you are away half the time.
What can really bum people out is maintenance of all kinds. You will only be home on your days off and you are going to get pretty fed up if you would then have to do all the little chores you would normally do during an entire week.
On the other hand if she is doing all the chores in maintaining the house and then you come home with a bag of dirty laundry you will find that your wife is not your mother.
But hey, she might just love it. Allows her to have her session with the grocerie boy in peace, maybe invite the poolboy without having to rush because you will be home from the office.
Get the job, allow her her freedom to get some good sex while you are away earning the big bucks. And don't worry, it is perfectly normal for the baby to look nothing like the father. Happens all the time.
I have an above average intellige (nothing special, half the world has that) and was in the top classes at the trade schools (for dutch people, lts and then mts). Yet while still focusing on some theory it also had plenty of practice sessions. LTS first two years were "general" meaning I got more DIY skills then are healthy for a person. I am not talking about knowing how to use a hammer here. I can draw and read blueprints and actually put up a wall. One that remains standing.
I would never have finished school if I had been forced to attend an all theory school (for dutch mavo/havo) as the 2 days 8 hours practice lesssons allowed me to get the energy out. Theory was not a problem for me but I know for kids who didn't do well in them the practice was also a place where they could do well.
It was good for the economy too. The world can always use another bricklayer, welder, painter. Craftsman are in short supply and lts/mts yes even hts (this is just one step below university) turned them out by the bucketload. Ask yourselve this, what is more usefull, a kid with an american highschool diploma or a kid who you can hand a blueprint and he will build it for you?
This whole system was changed and now we got classes that seem far closer to what you got in america. 100% theory with only faggot shop sessions where nothing real is learned.
Since the change school dropout rates have soared in holland (while industry complains that kids with diploma's ain't worth shit anymore).
So how does this relate to this game article? Well I get the distinct impression that these kids who escape into a gaming world are being pressured into going to theory schools for wich they are just not suited. If you try to fit everyone into the same mold you are going to get people that just don't fit.
With the dutch system there was a choice. Tradeschools were not lower. In fact they rated slightly higher then the administrative schools of the same level. Hell HTS gives you an engineering degree, whole HAVO just makes you eh, fit to be a clerk.
I think gaming addiction may be a real problem but it is merely the sympthom of a far larger problem.
Stop trying to force everyone to fit into the same schooling system and do well. The world doesn't need yet another manager. It does need people that can actually do things with their hands and be good at them. No a cheff or a welder will never rule the world but neither will 99.9% of kids with a theory diploma. But I am willing to put some serious money down that people in practical proffesions are a lot happier.
How many office workers snap vs craftsman?
Ah, young love. Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.
However if you google for other news stories there seems to be more going on.
First of they are not teens. 18 and 19 makes them adult in america doesn't it?
Second is that they apparently ran a website http://myspaceplus.com/ (wich is still up but empty of content, and horribly laid out on opera/linux). Before this it apparently was a site for some software to hack myspace.
This "first" hack was discovered and plugged. They then apparently tried to extort myspace into paying 150.000 (or get paid to be consultants) and were then trapped by law enforcement officials at a meeting.
A lot of the explenation by the lawyer of the young idiots sound like typical lawyer crap "anything to get my clients off".
The real question is, what was myspaceplus.com about? Is this just a story of two idiots who were to greedy and now can learn a bit about the real world. Or did myspace step over the line in trying to get rid of a couple of hackers by appealing to their greed.
Either way the young aduls are stupid but you can wonder if they really need to spend several years in a federal jail because of it, oh who am I kidding. Fry the suckers.
It just is fucking hilarious. If their attorny is claiming the truth (HA) then you got to admire their lack of common sense. Ooh, yeah we publish a tool to hack myspace. Oh look they are sending us a job offer to advise them for 150.000 dollars. Lets travel across the country to get rich!
By the way doesn't the fact that they travelled across the state border (LA and New York are different parts of america right? You yanks ain't got a monopoly on bad education you know) make it a federal crime?
Oh well, since they are geeks they will at least soon loose their virginity. Squeel piggy, squeel!
If you dare to suggest that Linux is only for people willing to spend time learning an OS then you are an Elitist.
The same is true in schools. No kids left behind CANNOT work unless you are willing to lower the passing grade so people with IQ's in the double digits can pass.
Linux is a center of excellence. Windows is no user left behind.
But saying this is elitist, your an asshole for suggesting some people just aren't smart enough to graduate. In holland we had a system for this. It seperarted schools into theory and trade. Kids who didn't want/couldn't study theory could learn a trade instead. This went so well that trade schools were actually rated higher then theory schools. Higher Trade School was a lot thougher then Higher Administrative School. The same was true for mid level and lower level. Basically you could go from MTS to HAVO but not from MAVO to MTS.
But no, we had to make everyone the same and so tradeschools were cancelled. Dropout rates have never been higher as the kids who could get rid of their energy in practice now are forced to spend all their time in theory. Those kids that get their diploma find they haven't learned anything usefull and business can no longer get qualified personel.
But hey, no kid is left behind. Well except for the dropouts. And the kids who wanted to learn a trade. But who cares about them.
Have you ever been in contact with a person of average intelligence. Wasn't pretty was it. Now realize this. Half the people in this world rank below that person.