Sorry young man, an Atari will rot your brain, the Tonka's will give you tetnus, and the toy cap guns will get you shot by the cops. Please goto your room where you will be safe.
First off same-screen mutiplayer is way over-rated, except for maybe Mario Kart or any of a number of fighting games. The last FPS I was willing to play that way was Goldeneye, so that falls under the catagory of "hey I'm an adult now , have a job, and can afford my own screen".
A Tv with HDMI/DVI/VGA inputs is not a Tv, but a monitor. A Tv with RCA inputs is a Tv. Playing games on a Tv has always blown goats. 640x480 graphics (480i/480p) is something I stopped doing on computers in something like 1992 so wake up and smell the 21st century. 1266x720 720p is the minimum resolution Tv you want, for gaming or hooking up a PC to your TV, unless you are big fan of eyestrain. I have yet to see either a 720p or 1080p Tv yet that didn't have at least one HDMI/DVI/VGA inputs in the last 5 years. If yours doesn't then well guess what you have a Tv and we already know what my opinion is on Tv's
PC makes have been promoting media machines for a long time, its just your average Joe doesn't have a clue. I've been running one for nearly five years now, and yes you can game with it. If you just have to have a same-screen multi-player control pad experience, I'll put in Lego Star Wars and we'll have a grand ol time. Otherwise you can sit at the Tv with a game pad and I'll walk all the 15 feet feet away to my PC and I'll teach you the meaning of pain with a mouse and keyboard in a little Unreal Tournament.
After windows, powerpoint, youtube You forgot
Skype
Winamp
Zoomplayer
AnyDVD
video editing
photoshop
gmail
Dozens and dozens of games in my Steam account
and damn well anything else I feel like running.
Hit the input button twice and you can fire up the Wii for a little Mario Cart (when it comes out next month)
WoW is a bad example. They specifically targeted the cheap bastard PC owners to get the largest audience possible. They were very smart about it. That game is what 3-5 years old now?
The software is hardly behind. One of the guys at work was talking shit about is unfeatable custom game rig he over paid for. I laughed at him and loaned him Crysis. That managed to shut him up. He was shocked that he could only play it on medium settings.
Like most things twice of something in a PC does not necessarily translate into twice the output. Look at CPU's, raid 0 arrays, networks speed. There's nothing fishy about it, that's just the way it is.
I graduated 15 years ago, and if there is one thing I have learned is that I wish engineering/math/science students were not so dammed arrogant!
That is pretty funny, and accurate, but then again it was hard not to be at times.
When I was studying ChemE I had a journalism student as a room mate. When he wasn't stoned (which wasn't often) he'd talk alot of shit about how superior they were, in their core subjects and in the grand scheme of things, of course when it came time for the assessment exams he'd eat alot of crow when the Engineering school would spank the Journalism school on all portions of the test.
In the end it all doesn't really matter, just being smart has little to do with being good at something.
No, see, that's not it at all. The biggest problem plaguing most PC releases nowadays is that in order to keep up with the high power of most console games, a huge amount of PC horsepower is required; Hell, the X-Box 360 is more powerful than my PC. The Wii probably is, for that matter.
No the biggest problem plaguing most PC releases is that the typical gamer is barely smart enough to hook up a 360 much less set up a proper PC.
PC hardware and software developers are to blame, they've skimmed along for years depending on all the "Hard Core" types to educated their friends, set up their games and machines, and troubleshoot problems. How many times have you bought something only to have to dig through the forums because the Dev's can't be bothered to actually host it in the download section of the games website and their Update function in the game doesn't work, or piece of networking gear that has almost no instructions, and they wonder why people gravitate towards consoles. This type of behavior can be seen in all aspects of the PC industry.
PC gaming isn't dying, its just shrinking back to the niche market its always been since their original core group of gamers have all grown up and have better things to do and the younger generation find the consoles good enough in a McDonalds sort of way and a hell of alot easier to deal with.
RTFA, they mostly agreed that ray tracing produces some very nice graphics, they just are fast enough for games and currently not better enough to justify the extra price for the hardware over what is already available.
Yup, funny that they think that the 24/7 video system in the UK is not big brother esque.
There have to be enough cops to do something about it before it becomes "big brother esque".
I'm not sure what they do all day long around here, but you rarely ever see them (the police). Don't get the wrong idea thinking they're just being stealthy, they paint their vehicles bright ass florecent colors and are somewhat hard to miss.
I've ridden in a few cargo planes, the sad thing is they are typically more comfortable to ride in than coach.
My favorite trip was flying back across Europe in the back of a MH53 Pavelow. No seat being reclined in your face and no fat bastard smelling of cheese oozing into your seat. The down side is it does get a little chilly since there's no back door, but when the heater works (it can be hit or miss at times) you just find a good spot underneath it and then pass right out.
Now, ir we can turn these robots into good civil use, then it will help. In particular, if we really want to settle on Mars and perhaps the moon
Once we build a robot army and then turn it loose, there'll be plenty of empty (freshly cleared), dirt cheap property here on planet Earth, no need to goto the moon or Mars.
Actually that not true all three aircraft can fire cruise missiles, the only thing that keeps the B1 from doing so is a treaty with the former Soviet Union (Russia).
It is as bad as I think because I've worked on all three bombers. The B-52 is robust much in the way an old pick-up truck is, things work because they're old school electronics. The only problem is that they're just like working on an old truck. If you need a replacement part alot of the time it meens a trip to the junk yard. I also got real sick real quick trying to trace down wiring problems on 50 year old wire bundles that are not necessarily wired the same on every aircraft. Of course while the newer digital aircraft are easier to fix, they can be nightmares when things don't show up on the diagnostics or don't hard break but fail erratically. That'll even have the engineers scraching their heads. Space wise I've only run into a few times where things were too cramped to work on. Typically of things that I'm sure some dumb ass design engineer said "They'll never need to get to that the plane is only going to be used for 20 years then replaced" Even the "brand new" B2 is over twenty years old
To say the B-52 has extra space is an understatement since most electronics these days are hundreth the size they were in the sixties, but again most of the Buff's problems are not lack of space or the inability to be upgraded, it's just the simple fact they are freakin ancient.
With the new weapon systems & munitions you don't need a specialized military aircraft to deliver them anymore. You just need something reliable that has a long endurance and can fly high.
My ideal B-52 replacement would be a B-747-8, (New Boeing 747 model coming out
out). It's a well vetted design, with commonly available off the shelf commercial parts. It could carry 105,000lbs of cargo (bombs) and a full load of fuel with an 8000 mile range. For those keeping count that's 210 Mk 82 bombs compared to the B-52's 51. Park two or three of those in a race track pattern at high altitude along with two extra flight crews each and you could keep them up there 24/7.
Throw in a little air refueling and they'd stay on station until either they ran out of bombs or out of hot pockets and little debbies, which ever comes first.
Operation wise a B-52 costs 2 1/2 time the hourly rate that a B2 costs to keep in the air.
The only reason there are B52 still in service is because they built over 1000 of them orginally. It's not a particularyly good aircraft (maintenance wise), but by the shear number of airframes and spare parts it continues to serve.
A B-52 replacement would only need to satisfy a "dump truck" roll. There are plenty of modern airframes that could be modified to fill that role at a considerably cheaper cost than keeping the B52's flying.
AnyDVD HD
I think the latest version of BR is causing some difficulties, but generally these guys respond with a patch within a month and everyone is good to go once again.
Software has two modes, play and rip. For play it sidesteps the HDCP requirements so you can play it on non-compliant hardware (what I mostly use it for), or rip which will copy the whole movie with or without menues onto your machine. This is of limited value since they are around 25gb each. I think once we get up to double digit TB sized harddrives it won't take such a painful bite out of my server space.
If I could crop them down to 720p they'd still look good and be of a more manageable size. This is what I don't understand about the whole HD thing. 720p is a very nice resoultion and look pretty damn good, but they just stampeded right on past it and went for 1080p. Kind goes against their standard planned obsolecence. 720p would have just fit on a DVD, unless of course the whole point was to jump to a "secure" format.
Heh, the laugh is on them now isn't it.
The software is also a very straight forward DVD ripper as well.
I find it amazing how spoiled people have become in a little over a generation.
Well a generation ago a candy bar was only a nickel and the movie industry wasn't gouging its customers while trying to tie up every piece of media indefinately.
We just want people have always wanted:
When costs drop to make a product then the customers should get a little love too.
If costs are going to stay the same then we expect to get more for our dollar. (DVD extras are not "more")
When we as customers come up with a new way of doing business we expect the corps sell us what we want, not fight us tooth and nail with lawsuits and anti-customer hardware.
And finally electronic file transfers have been around for more than 20 years, how exactly are we being impatient when we demand the industry to get off it's ass and live in the now.
The DRM is a non issue. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DRM was sidestepped last year. Simple 1 button ripping has been available for a while now.
The only thing Blu-Ray had going for it was its data density. I would hardly call it a supperior format when it costs 2-3x as much for the media and the hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry young man, an Atari will rot your brain, the Tonka's will give you tetnus, and the toy cap guns will get you shot by the cops. Please goto your room where you will be safe.
Didn't you hear? Adulthood has been moved up to 41.
A Tv with HDMI/DVI/VGA inputs is not a Tv, but a monitor. A Tv with RCA inputs is a Tv. Playing games on a Tv has always blown goats. 640x480 graphics (480i/480p) is something I stopped doing on computers in something like 1992 so wake up and smell the 21st century. 1266x720 720p is the minimum resolution Tv you want, for gaming or hooking up a PC to your TV, unless you are big fan of eyestrain. I have yet to see either a 720p or 1080p Tv yet that didn't have at least one HDMI/DVI/VGA inputs in the last 5 years. If yours doesn't then well guess what you have a Tv and we already know what my opinion is on Tv's
PC makes have been promoting media machines for a long time, its just your average Joe doesn't have a clue. I've been running one for nearly five years now, and yes you can game with it. If you just have to have a same-screen multi-player control pad experience, I'll put in Lego Star Wars and we'll have a grand ol time. Otherwise you can sit at the Tv with a game pad and I'll walk all the 15 feet feet away to my PC and I'll teach you the meaning of pain with a mouse and keyboard in a little Unreal Tournament.
After windows, powerpoint, youtube You forgot
Skype
Winamp
Zoomplayer
AnyDVD
video editing
photoshop
gmail
Dozens and dozens of games in my Steam account
and damn well anything else I feel like running.
Hit the input button twice and you can fire up the Wii for a little Mario Cart (when it comes out next month)
(Yawn) So what was your point again?
The software is hardly behind. One of the guys at work was talking shit about is unfeatable custom game rig he over paid for. I laughed at him and loaned him Crysis. That managed to shut him up. He was shocked that he could only play it on medium settings.
Like most things twice of something in a PC does not necessarily translate into twice the output. Look at CPU's, raid 0 arrays, networks speed. There's nothing fishy about it, that's just the way it is.
Step one buy a TV
Step two buy a PC
Step three look at the back of the TV and then the PC
Step four buy the appropriate cable (HDMI, DVI, VGA, or SVGA)
Step five hook cable to TV & PC, right click and then adjust screen resolution to native res of TV
Step six give console fanboy boy a tired look.
That is pretty funny, and accurate, but then again it was hard not to be at times.
When I was studying ChemE I had a journalism student as a room mate. When he wasn't stoned (which wasn't often) he'd talk alot of shit about how superior they were, in their core subjects and in the grand scheme of things, of course when it came time for the assessment exams he'd eat alot of crow when the Engineering school would spank the Journalism school on all portions of the test.
In the end it all doesn't really matter, just being smart has little to do with being good at something.
All the crying and moaning is just MS bashing. Vista works just fine on both my machines.
I want one of those bulbs in a tac-flashlight, though at 6000K it might be a little hard to hold onto.
iTunes is a garbage program, why would you want something so invasive installed on your machine? Its just like Realplayer only it crashes more often.
No the biggest problem plaguing most PC releases is that the typical gamer is barely smart enough to hook up a 360 much less set up a proper PC.
PC hardware and software developers are to blame, they've skimmed along for years depending on all the "Hard Core" types to educated their friends, set up their games and machines, and troubleshoot problems. How many times have you bought something only to have to dig through the forums because the Dev's can't be bothered to actually host it in the download section of the games website and their Update function in the game doesn't work, or piece of networking gear that has almost no instructions, and they wonder why people gravitate towards consoles. This type of behavior can be seen in all aspects of the PC industry.
PC gaming isn't dying, its just shrinking back to the niche market its always been since their original core group of gamers have all grown up and have better things to do and the younger generation find the consoles good enough in a McDonalds sort of way and a hell of alot easier to deal with.
RTFA, they mostly agreed that ray tracing produces some very nice graphics, they just are fast enough for games and currently not better enough to justify the extra price for the hardware over what is already available.
From my old housing driving to LAX during the day, 4-6 hours, driving to LAX at 2am, 47 minutes.
If the cities started putting pressure on companies to do most of their business at night, traffic congestion would not be an issue.
Of course having the UPS guy ringing the doorbell at 3am might piss you off, unless he's bringing your latest order from Newegg.
There have to be enough cops to do something about it before it becomes "big brother esque".
I'm not sure what they do all day long around here, but you rarely ever see them (the police). Don't get the wrong idea thinking they're just being stealthy, they paint their vehicles bright ass florecent colors and are somewhat hard to miss.
My favorite trip was flying back across Europe in the back of a MH53 Pavelow. No seat being reclined in your face and no fat bastard smelling of cheese oozing into your seat. The down side is it does get a little chilly since there's no back door, but when the heater works (it can be hit or miss at times) you just find a good spot underneath it and then pass right out.
I wont need any food because I'll most likely be crushed during the crash by the lard ass behind me in seat 26A.
If they want "smaller" delays they need to keep the "bigger" ones off the damn plane. I can't stand flying with fat people.
Once we build a robot army and then turn it loose, there'll be plenty of empty (freshly cleared), dirt cheap property here on planet Earth, no need to goto the moon or Mars.
It is as bad as I think because I've worked on all three bombers. The B-52 is robust much in the way an old pick-up truck is, things work because they're old school electronics. The only problem is that they're just like working on an old truck. If you need a replacement part alot of the time it meens a trip to the junk yard. I also got real sick real quick trying to trace down wiring problems on 50 year old wire bundles that are not necessarily wired the same on every aircraft. Of course while the newer digital aircraft are easier to fix, they can be nightmares when things don't show up on the diagnostics or don't hard break but fail erratically. That'll even have the engineers scraching their heads. Space wise I've only run into a few times where things were too cramped to work on. Typically of things that I'm sure some dumb ass design engineer said "They'll never need to get to that the plane is only going to be used for 20 years then replaced" Even the "brand new" B2 is over twenty years old
To say the B-52 has extra space is an understatement since most electronics these days are hundreth the size they were in the sixties, but again most of the Buff's problems are not lack of space or the inability to be upgraded, it's just the simple fact they are freakin ancient.
With the new weapon systems & munitions you don't need a specialized military aircraft to deliver them anymore. You just need something reliable that has a long endurance and can fly high.
My ideal B-52 replacement would be a B-747-8, (New Boeing 747 model coming out out). It's a well vetted design, with commonly available off the shelf commercial parts. It could carry 105,000lbs of cargo (bombs) and a full load of fuel with an 8000 mile range. For those keeping count that's 210 Mk 82 bombs compared to the B-52's 51. Park two or three of those in a race track pattern at high altitude along with two extra flight crews each and you could keep them up there 24/7. Throw in a little air refueling and they'd stay on station until either they ran out of bombs or out of hot pockets and little debbies, which ever comes first.
The only reason there are B52 still in service is because they built over 1000 of them orginally. It's not a particularyly good aircraft (maintenance wise), but by the shear number of airframes and spare parts it continues to serve.
A B-52 replacement would only need to satisfy a "dump truck" roll. There are plenty of modern airframes that could be modified to fill that role at a considerably cheaper cost than keeping the B52's flying.
AnyDVD HD I think the latest version of BR is causing some difficulties, but generally these guys respond with a patch within a month and everyone is good to go once again.
Software has two modes, play and rip. For play it sidesteps the HDCP requirements so you can play it on non-compliant hardware (what I mostly use it for), or rip which will copy the whole movie with or without menues onto your machine. This is of limited value since they are around 25gb each. I think once we get up to double digit TB sized harddrives it won't take such a painful bite out of my server space.
If I could crop them down to 720p they'd still look good and be of a more manageable size. This is what I don't understand about the whole HD thing. 720p is a very nice resoultion and look pretty damn good, but they just stampeded right on past it and went for 1080p. Kind goes against their standard planned obsolecence. 720p would have just fit on a DVD, unless of course the whole point was to jump to a "secure" format.
Heh, the laugh is on them now isn't it.
The software is also a very straight forward DVD ripper as well.
DRM of any type has about the shelf time of milk these days, and what ever they are currently using isn't stopping anyone from ripping the movies.
Well a generation ago a candy bar was only a nickel and the movie industry wasn't gouging its customers while trying to tie up every piece of media indefinately.
We just want people have always wanted:
When costs drop to make a product then the customers should get a little love too.
If costs are going to stay the same then we expect to get more for our dollar. (DVD extras are not "more")
When we as customers come up with a new way of doing business we expect the corps sell us what we want, not fight us tooth and nail with lawsuits and anti-customer hardware.
And finally electronic file transfers have been around for more than 20 years, how exactly are we being impatient when we demand the industry to get off it's ass and live in the now.
The only thing Blu-Ray had going for it was its data density. I would hardly call it a supperior format when it costs 2-3x as much for the media and the hardware.
Your horse lost, now you want your money back? That seems a bit silly.
The only thing Congress should do is laugh at you.
I got caught picking the loosing side too, but all my HD DVD's are safely ripped to my server where they'll live for some time to come.