Your post absolutely typifies why Microsoft is smarter - yes, smarter - than the Linux movement when it comes to attracting users. You have two people who, regardless of your precise opinion of their intelligence, are clearly informed enough to know what this discussion is about and to sit down and write about it on./, both telling you that they find Linux distros unintuitive, confusing and hard to use.
Your response is to tell them they are wrong.
Microsoft would have someone looking at why users are having this experience and how it can be improved. Agreed, their response is frequently less than perfect, but as a successful business they would make the critical leap that it is not an issue of users who are having trouble being 'wrong', it is an issue of the OS not adequately catering to the needs of those users.
First class honours in computer science and an award for topping my graduating class, experience working as a software engineer, have worked extensively with distributed and parallel Unix system, generally not an idiot... and yet Linux remains IMMENSELY frustrating and hard to use and configure (installing it has never been a problem for me).
Many people seem to assume that Windows is only 'easy' to use and configure due to familiarity, but I disagree. Windows is easy to use and configure because it is logical and intuitive. Things are where you expect them to be for most common configuration tasks. Don't want that program running at startup? Navigate (*visually*) to the 'startup' folder and remove it, or alternatively uncheck the 'run at startup' box in the programs (*visual*) configuration menu.
Some other things that make Linux a pain are the fact that installed programs are not centrally registered and associated with file types. In Windows, I can just right click on something and choose 'open with' and I'm presented with all of the possible programs that can open that file. In Linux...??? The other big, big problem is the lack of standardised menus and behaviour for ALL PROGRAMS AND OS COMPONENTS. Without the evil empire to tell open source geeks what to do, everyone does their own thing, and rather than every program having either file->options or edit->preferences (or similar, but all much the same) it can be an absolute god-damned mystery how to configure most Linux applications. This is expressed in other behaviours - e.g., what does a right mouse click do in Windows? It always, always brings up a context menu of available actions. In Linux.. something, nothing, who knows.
I know I'm not alone in this - there are many intelligent people who find Linux very difficult and unintuitive. Until this is no longer the case, until someone with general IT/computer competence can sit down never having seen Linux or Unix and figure out how to configure and use the system, it is doomed to be runner up.
2. Wherever you buy CDs, try shopping around. You don't need to pay more than $20-25 for anything that's been out a few months, or $10-20 for anything older unless it's particularly rare.
3. Half my point was that at least with a CD you get something tangible. As you point out digital media files are inherently vulnerable to hard disk failures etc.
Ok, point taken about the licensing, but nevertheless it is somewhat restrictive and there are parts of the Copyright Act that cannot be waived by license (e.g. anti-circumvention technology provisions). And fair use, of course, is not a feature.
Irrespective my main issue is with the pricing of what amounts to a small amount of data. Their costs now amount to the cost of recording and the cost of transferring 3-5MB per song, plus some costs for marketing, yet the price is arguably higher than ever.
The pricing is just ridiculous. $1.69 per track for lossy recordings that, in Australia at least, you cannot necessarily legally burn to a CD or otherwise duplicate is simply outrageous.
The record companies (I don't think this is Apple's fault) need to realise that they are competing with FREE on the Internet, not with each other. They also need to realise that when they have ZERO manufacturing costs they are going to need to reduce their prices accordingly.
This is a perfect example of what a sheltered and monopoly/oligopoly dominated market Australia is. Other examples are air travel (two airlines), print media (one and a half newspaper conglomerates, most major cities have no media competition) and telecommunications (one major telco). The record company execs have obvious sat down and decided that they think Australia is sheltered enough that they can continue to screw us, iTunes or no iTunes.
Send them a message: do not use this service. Buy a physical CD instead - it'll work out about the same price if you shop somewhere decent anyway (10-12 tracks = $17-$21 on iTunes, which is crazy). Alternatively, if you have a UK or US bank account, use the services in those countries to encourage Apple to put more pressure on the record companies in Australia.
Anyone else get the feeling it might be quicker to cut out the middle man (Zonk) and just bookmark 1UP and Gamasutra directly? Although then we would miss out on the oddly-worded summaries...
Totally agree with all of the above, but I feel that I must point out that:
"The output of a machine is NEVER evidence in a trial."...is not entirely accurate, at least in common law jurisdictions (Britain, Australia, Canada etc). For example, in Australia you can typically tender as evidence material produced by a machine, provided that the principles behind its production are clearly explained by a sufficiently qualified person. In other words, once a court understands *how* a machine is producing output that output is relevant evidence and is admissible.
Your main point is essentially correct though - even where machine output is evidence, the court must understand how it's produced. Therefore, the court must be satisfied that a scenario like the one you describe is not actually happening. We had a very similar issue recently in Australia that was actually reported on./ where the police were unable to explain the software operating in speed cameras and were therefore unable to prosecute someone because they couldn't actually prove that they were doing the speed claimed.
Reming me why everyone is so surprised that the rest of the world wants to take control of vital infrastructure like the Internet away from the United States?
I'm not going to lie to you, those are all superior machines.
But people should buy the Carnivale - unlike Sony's products it has a durable outer casing to prevent fallapart. Also featuring two pronged wall plug and pre-molded hand-grip well.
Re:alternative name for product
on
State of the 360
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"when of course it brought sandbox-gameplay to the table"
Hmmmmmmmmm... Syndicate. Syndicate Wars. Theme Park. Populous. Sim City. Any one of a myriad of driving games where you could cruise around and do whatever you want.
And FYI the Dreamcast was actually very good and quite innovative, it was just poorly timed and marketed. I still play my DC more than any other console, mainly for its fantastic arcade ports.
I'm surprised - very surprised - that there's no reference to the recent bombings in Bali in the article post. I mean, an article about instantly detecting explosives, three days after a serious terrorist attack... I can't help but feel that if it had been Hawaii and US citizens killed rather than Bali and Indonesian/Australian citizens killed this link would have been made.
Anyway, this is an interesting development, but should not lead us to stop traditional methods of bomb detection, particularly searches and x-rays. These machines sound wonderful *so long as* you are using an explosive with which they are familiar.
Uh huh. And how many stories in the games section would I get then? 2-3 a week? It is a fairly facile argument to say 'if you don't like it, leave.' I used to like it, and I want to stay.
What else do you expect, it's Zonk. Here we have a news story about another news story about a guy saying something really really obvious. Clearly ideal material for the./ games page....and out come the mods.
I will back you up here, as many others appear content to remain silent in the face of the 'troll' modding onslaught. We shouldn't have to filter out an *entire section* (games) on the basis that we don't like one particular editor. Zonk's constant rambling editorialising (yes I know he's an editor, but it's never interesting), lack of insight and generally mediocre way of doing things should be ringing alarm bells for the people who make the calls behind the scenes, whoever they are.
Example: Taco posts the story about the Revolution controller. Zonk posts his own opinion about the Revolution controller. I wonder which is more significant and worthwhile?
Look, Zonk seems like a sincere guy. He sincerely believes he is a good writer and has something interesting to say. Nevertheless, the quality of his opinion-driven articles is substantially worse than that of many of the posts in the ensuing discussion. His basic literary skills are just not up to par for a site of./'s (former) calibre. And his ability to judge what is actually worth posting is close to zero as far as I can tell. This is all rounded off by an unpleasant air of self-importance, like he's actually a seasoned pro who's been writing about games since the Sinclair or something.
And you people modding down the complaints about Zonk as trolls - shame on you. This is a legitimate discussion and it must be heard. Trolling is saying something just to get a rise out of other people. This is not a troll.
Anyone who has never played X-Com will really not see the attraction - weird low-res graphics, turn based gameplay... but it truly is one of the best games ever written. It combines the addictiveness of a management/strategy game like Civilisation with freakishly atmospheric sci-fi combat sequences. This game running at 320x240 has scared me silly more times than Doom III ever could cranking along in glorious hi-res 3D. I also marvel constantly at how such a phenominal game could weigh in at around 2MB when game companies today routinely crank out 3-4 disc turds of games.
And they've been screwing up X-Com sequels ever since Apocalypse - we don't WANT real time combat, we don't WANT to fly an interceptor or run around in the first person. We want a new, bigger, higher-res, polygon-driven version of X-Com 1 with more alien and UFO types, bigger, more varied levels, and an even more intricately linked and immersive gameworld. Oh, and soldiers with more individual variation.
Deus Ex (ONE, dear god not two) is as close as you'll ever get to a successor to System Shock 1 or 2. Similar themes, though perhaps more cyberpunk, less scifi-horror, and very similar immersive FPS/adventure gameplay. In my opinion nothing has yet bettered DX1 as an all-round great fps adventure, even Half Life 2.
What is it with X-Men 2? By rights it should have been AWFUL, but I agree it was actually really good. As was X-Men 1. And I have never even read the comics.
Definitely the best comic adaptation so far for my money.
Re:So is this movie actually good?
on
How the Batsuit Works
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· Score: 2, Informative
It's a Patrick Bateman quote from American Psycho, Mr Bales' finest role in my opinion.
Re:So is this movie actually good?
on
How the Batsuit Works
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Easy tiger, no need to get all defensive-American on me.
I believe "Hollywood crap" can be contrasted with "Hollywood non-crap." There are a rare few action movies that are both smart, entertaining and well-made. For example: Ronin, The Matrix (I), The Crow, Aliens, arguably the first Spiderman (though I'm not totally sold on this). As for European action movies, I strongly recommend Enemy At the Gates, a very realistic and gripping war movie about Stalingrad. Watch it instead of assuming that nothing good and exciting comes out of Europe.
If I'm going to pay $15 (Australian) to see a movie I want to make sure it is worth it. I would rather pay to see a well made drama, be it European, American or 'foreign', than a bad action movie. Hence the question.
May as well ask, as we're clearly just discussing new products and services we plan to buy here on./ these days...
After the last few Batman horrors I swore I would never go to another Batman-related movie, but this one seems to be faring well on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert even gave it 4 stars (although he is admittedly something of a teenage boy when it comes to superhero movies). However, I'm sorely tempted to actually pay money to see this. Especially because Christian Bale is so much more interesting than run-of-the-mill action heroes. I had to kill a *lot* of people.
So, would it be worth it, or is this essentially more Hollywood crap? Are the good reviews merely a product of relief a the fact that it's not monumentally awful, or is it actually _good_?
Perhaps you should re-read option 2 of the grandparent. I would say that if I had to choose a religion, genuine Christianity in the Jesus sense, not the Billy Graham/George Bush sense, would be my clear preference. If you really deserve the adjective 'Christian' then I can totally, utterly respect that. It's more dogma that's the problem. The US happens to choose Christian dogma when it chooses at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Your post absolutely typifies why Microsoft is smarter - yes, smarter - than the Linux movement when it comes to attracting users. You have two people who, regardless of your precise opinion of their intelligence, are clearly informed enough to know what this discussion is about and to sit down and write about it on ./, both telling you that they find Linux distros unintuitive, confusing and hard to use.
Your response is to tell them they are wrong.
Microsoft would have someone looking at why users are having this experience and how it can be improved. Agreed, their response is frequently less than perfect, but as a successful business they would make the critical leap that it is not an issue of users who are having trouble being 'wrong', it is an issue of the OS not adequately catering to the needs of those users.
First class honours in computer science and an award for topping my graduating class, experience working as a software engineer, have worked extensively with distributed and parallel Unix system, generally not an idiot... and yet Linux remains IMMENSELY frustrating and hard to use and configure (installing it has never been a problem for me).
Many people seem to assume that Windows is only 'easy' to use and configure due to familiarity, but I disagree. Windows is easy to use and configure because it is logical and intuitive. Things are where you expect them to be for most common configuration tasks. Don't want that program running at startup? Navigate (*visually*) to the 'startup' folder and remove it, or alternatively uncheck the 'run at startup' box in the programs (*visual*) configuration menu.
Some other things that make Linux a pain are the fact that installed programs are not centrally registered and associated with file types. In Windows, I can just right click on something and choose 'open with' and I'm presented with all of the possible programs that can open that file. In Linux...??? The other big, big problem is the lack of standardised menus and behaviour for ALL PROGRAMS AND OS COMPONENTS. Without the evil empire to tell open source geeks what to do, everyone does their own thing, and rather than every program having either file->options or edit->preferences (or similar, but all much the same) it can be an absolute god-damned mystery how to configure most Linux applications. This is expressed in other behaviours - e.g., what does a right mouse click do in Windows? It always, always brings up a context menu of available actions. In Linux.. something, nothing, who knows.
I know I'm not alone in this - there are many intelligent people who find Linux very difficult and unintuitive. Until this is no longer the case, until someone with general IT/computer competence can sit down never having seen Linux or Unix and figure out how to configure and use the system, it is doomed to be runner up.
1. No, I live in Australia and always have.
2. Wherever you buy CDs, try shopping around. You don't need to pay more than $20-25 for anything that's been out a few months, or $10-20 for anything older unless it's particularly rare.
3. Half my point was that at least with a CD you get something tangible. As you point out digital media files are inherently vulnerable to hard disk failures etc.
Ok, point taken about the licensing, but nevertheless it is somewhat restrictive and there are parts of the Copyright Act that cannot be waived by license (e.g. anti-circumvention technology provisions). And fair use, of course, is not a feature.
Irrespective my main issue is with the pricing of what amounts to a small amount of data. Their costs now amount to the cost of recording and the cost of transferring 3-5MB per song, plus some costs for marketing, yet the price is arguably higher than ever.
Precisely - I picked up Origin of Symettry by Muse for $9 the other day at JB HiFi... on iTunes it would presumably cost me double that.
And frankly if CDs are about $5-$10 I am very willing to pay that for a physical object with liner notes etc and lossless sound.
The pricing is just ridiculous. $1.69 per track for lossy recordings that, in Australia at least, you cannot necessarily legally burn to a CD or otherwise duplicate is simply outrageous.
The record companies (I don't think this is Apple's fault) need to realise that they are competing with FREE on the Internet, not with each other. They also need to realise that when they have ZERO manufacturing costs they are going to need to reduce their prices accordingly.
This is a perfect example of what a sheltered and monopoly/oligopoly dominated market Australia is. Other examples are air travel (two airlines), print media (one and a half newspaper conglomerates, most major cities have no media competition) and telecommunications (one major telco). The record company execs have obvious sat down and decided that they think Australia is sheltered enough that they can continue to screw us, iTunes or no iTunes.
Send them a message: do not use this service. Buy a physical CD instead - it'll work out about the same price if you shop somewhere decent anyway (10-12 tracks = $17-$21 on iTunes, which is crazy). Alternatively, if you have a UK or US bank account, use the services in those countries to encourage Apple to put more pressure on the record companies in Australia.
Anyone else get the feeling it might be quicker to cut out the middle man (Zonk) and just bookmark 1UP and Gamasutra directly? Although then we would miss out on the oddly-worded summaries...
Or where Lisa is hallucinating in the sensory deprivation tank and imagines she's homer:
A sandwich...
with Bacon...
Canadian Bacon...
Mexican Bacon...*drools*
Totally agree with all of the above, but I feel that I must point out that:
...is not entirely accurate, at least in common law jurisdictions (Britain, Australia, Canada etc). For example, in Australia you can typically tender as evidence material produced by a machine, provided that the principles behind its production are clearly explained by a sufficiently qualified person. In other words, once a court understands *how* a machine is producing output that output is relevant evidence and is admissible.
./ where the police were unable to explain the software operating in speed cameras and were therefore unable to prosecute someone because they couldn't actually prove that they were doing the speed claimed.
"The output of a machine is NEVER evidence in a trial."
Your main point is essentially correct though - even where machine output is evidence, the court must understand how it's produced. Therefore, the court must be satisfied that a scenario like the one you describe is not actually happening. We had a very similar issue recently in Australia that was actually reported on
Reming me why everyone is so surprised that the rest of the world wants to take control of vital infrastructure like the Internet away from the United States?
I'm not going to lie to you, those are all superior machines.
But people should buy the Carnivale - unlike Sony's products it has a durable outer casing to prevent fallapart. Also featuring two pronged wall plug and pre-molded hand-grip well.
"when of course it brought sandbox-gameplay to the table"
Hmmmmmmmmm... Syndicate. Syndicate Wars. Theme Park. Populous. Sim City. Any one of a myriad of driving games where you could cruise around and do whatever you want.
And FYI the Dreamcast was actually very good and quite innovative, it was just poorly timed and marketed. I still play my DC more than any other console, mainly for its fantastic arcade ports.
I'm surprised - very surprised - that there's no reference to the recent bombings in Bali in the article post. I mean, an article about instantly detecting explosives, three days after a serious terrorist attack... I can't help but feel that if it had been Hawaii and US citizens killed rather than Bali and Indonesian/Australian citizens killed this link would have been made.
Anyway, this is an interesting development, but should not lead us to stop traditional methods of bomb detection, particularly searches and x-rays. These machines sound wonderful *so long as* you are using an explosive with which they are familiar.
Uh huh. And how many stories in the games section would I get then? 2-3 a week? It is a fairly facile argument to say 'if you don't like it, leave.' I used to like it, and I want to stay.
What else do you expect, it's Zonk. Here we have a news story about another news story about a guy saying something really really obvious. Clearly ideal material for the ./ games page. ...and out come the mods.
I will back you up here, as many others appear content to remain silent in the face of the 'troll' modding onslaught. We shouldn't have to filter out an *entire section* (games) on the basis that we don't like one particular editor. Zonk's constant rambling editorialising (yes I know he's an editor, but it's never interesting), lack of insight and generally mediocre way of doing things should be ringing alarm bells for the people who make the calls behind the scenes, whoever they are.
./'s (former) calibre. And his ability to judge what is actually worth posting is close to zero as far as I can tell. This is all rounded off by an unpleasant air of self-importance, like he's actually a seasoned pro who's been writing about games since the Sinclair or something.
Example: Taco posts the story about the Revolution controller. Zonk posts his own opinion about the Revolution controller. I wonder which is more significant and worthwhile?
Look, Zonk seems like a sincere guy. He sincerely believes he is a good writer and has something interesting to say. Nevertheless, the quality of his opinion-driven articles is substantially worse than that of many of the posts in the ensuing discussion. His basic literary skills are just not up to par for a site of
And you people modding down the complaints about Zonk as trolls - shame on you. This is a legitimate discussion and it must be heard. Trolling is saying something just to get a rise out of other people. This is not a troll.
Zonk now posts 98% of the gaming news on the site.
And if the quality is bad, why should it just be ignored, anyway?
More accurate but having the same problem as saying 'the player' would be: "To some means of determining if he or she is in danger of losing the game.
We have an indefinite pronoun, 'one'. But it would sound frightfully English if it were used widely in publications about gaming:
"To have some means of determining if one is in danger of losing the game."
Correct, elegant. But too subtle and antiquated for the average person.
Anyone who has never played X-Com will really not see the attraction - weird low-res graphics, turn based gameplay... but it truly is one of the best games ever written. It combines the addictiveness of a management/strategy game like Civilisation with freakishly atmospheric sci-fi combat sequences. This game running at 320x240 has scared me silly more times than Doom III ever could cranking along in glorious hi-res 3D. I also marvel constantly at how such a phenominal game could weigh in at around 2MB when game companies today routinely crank out 3-4 disc turds of games.
And they've been screwing up X-Com sequels ever since Apocalypse - we don't WANT real time combat, we don't WANT to fly an interceptor or run around in the first person. We want a new, bigger, higher-res, polygon-driven version of X-Com 1 with more alien and UFO types, bigger, more varied levels, and an even more intricately linked and immersive gameworld. Oh, and soldiers with more individual variation.
Deus Ex (ONE, dear god not two) is as close as you'll ever get to a successor to System Shock 1 or 2. Similar themes, though perhaps more cyberpunk, less scifi-horror, and very similar immersive FPS/adventure gameplay. In my opinion nothing has yet bettered DX1 as an all-round great fps adventure, even Half Life 2.
What is it with X-Men 2? By rights it should have been AWFUL, but I agree it was actually really good. As was X-Men 1. And I have never even read the comics.
Definitely the best comic adaptation so far for my money.
It's a Patrick Bateman quote from American Psycho, Mr Bales' finest role in my opinion.
Easy tiger, no need to get all defensive-American on me.
I believe "Hollywood crap" can be contrasted with "Hollywood non-crap." There are a rare few action movies that are both smart, entertaining and well-made. For example: Ronin, The Matrix (I), The Crow, Aliens, arguably the first Spiderman (though I'm not totally sold on this). As for European action movies, I strongly recommend Enemy At the Gates, a very realistic and gripping war movie about Stalingrad. Watch it instead of assuming that nothing good and exciting comes out of Europe.
If I'm going to pay $15 (Australian) to see a movie I want to make sure it is worth it. I would rather pay to see a well made drama, be it European, American or 'foreign', than a bad action movie. Hence the question.
May as well ask, as we're clearly just discussing new products and services we plan to buy here on ./ these days...
After the last few Batman horrors I swore I would never go to another Batman-related movie, but this one seems to be faring well on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert even gave it 4 stars (although he is admittedly something of a teenage boy when it comes to superhero movies). However, I'm sorely tempted to actually pay money to see this. Especially because Christian Bale is so much more interesting than run-of-the-mill action heroes. I had to kill a *lot* of people.
So, would it be worth it, or is this essentially more Hollywood crap? Are the good reviews merely a product of relief a the fact that it's not monumentally awful, or is it actually _good_?
Perhaps you should re-read option 2 of the grandparent. I would say that if I had to choose a religion, genuine Christianity in the Jesus sense, not the Billy Graham/George Bush sense, would be my clear preference. If you really deserve the adjective 'Christian' then I can totally, utterly respect that. It's more dogma that's the problem. The US happens to choose Christian dogma when it chooses at all.