Before Grand Theft Auto came out, Doom and Mortal Kombat got blamed for everything. There aren't any high school kids around today that have played the originals of either of them.
They busted a guy here at work who was doing it. By they, I mean the FBI and Customs officers. By doing it, I mean trading child pornography.
Investigators have said Jeffs and two mid-Michigan men were members of an Internet club that produced child pornographic photographs, videos and live broadcasts and shared the images with other group members on their buddy lists.
Some of the "buddies" face charges that they performed sex acts with minors. Many of the victims are the suspects' own children.
What happens is, they bust one guy by meeting up with him in real life, posing as a young child. Once they've got him, they can go on his computer and see who he's got on his buddy lists, address books, they just get everyone else.
The best thing about the non-Adobe readers, is that there's no document protection. You can print pages which have printing disabled in the Windows/Mac version.
That said, before saying how limiting the PS2 hardware is, you should read up on how the PS2 hardware design is supposed to be used. The emotion engine opens up some insane possibilities...the problem is with developers and not with the hardware. Look at games like Gran Turismo. Disgustingly beautiful, disgustingly smooth. The X-Box can't touch that, even if MS has guides to programming for it. The problem is that the technology is too complicated for most American (and in many cases European) developers to truly comprehend and utilize without trying to hack together.
I won't even comment on half the blabbering you've just done.
If you knew anything about game development, much less programming...
Just because you drive in Grand Turismo, and you can drive in GTA, doesn't mean you can compare them.
Ever heard of a trade-off? Game programmers have limited resources to work with and make some decisions. GTA has better graphics because of many reasons.
You don't have a 'city simulation' running while you play Grand Turismo. You can't jump out of your car and blow stuff up. You can't pick items up on the road. You can't go in buildings. There's no 'mission' going on in the backround. Not to mention how big the city is in GTA and how detailed it is. There's no helicopters in Grand Turismo or cop cars that shoot at you. Hell, you can't even damage your car in Grand Turismo.
The bottom line is you only have so many CPU cycles and so much memory to work with in a game. I'm sure there are American programmers that are every bit as adept at using the hardware as the Japanese, unlike what you're implying. Then you bash the Europeans. Europeans as bad programmers, especially game programmers? You honestly know nothing.
Stop me when you've heard of a game company:
Argonaut Probe Rare Codemasters Eurocom Vir gin Interactive Criterion Eidos Rage Cavedog Bitm ap Brothers Peter Molyneux
That's just the UK! I'm not even getting into Finland, Russia, Croatia, and all the other places that some genius stuff has come out of.
Hell, Rockstar North is based in the UK, and thats where the game was developed! Another popular UK-developed game that you might have heard of was Metal Gear Solid 2!
Everyone knows the XBOX hardware is much more powerful that the PS2. It came out later, of course it should be. Have you taken a look at RalliSport Challenge 2 for XBOX?
Leaps and bounds ahead of the Rally cars and track of Gran Turismo. Again, you've got a slightly more specialized case of game programming/optimisation.
It still exists today but it's not the same. I used to use it to make free calls back home all the time. It worked great for calling relatives, long distance relationships...j
Basically you signed up for free, then dialed the number with your mouse, and used your microphone/headphone to talk in full duplex. Very good sound quality, even with a 56k modem. You'd hear a "thank you for using dialpad.com" and it would call your destination. Completely transparent, no operators involved. The other party had no idea.
It was also great for prank calls. The calls seemed to get routed to a local number, so they couldn't call you back with *69 or caller ID. I'm sure a subpoena could though...
Nothing like stalking an ex-girlfriend anonymously, without having to buy a pre-paid cellular phone.
After a while, DialPad started limiting calls to ten minutes, then they started charging...
I work at a large computer retailer in a college town, and I've finally convinced the powers-that-be to sell PCs with Linux pre-installed. The catch is, it will only be installed on Micro ATX machines, which require half-height everything, and we can't find a source of half-height Linux compatible PCI modems.
This sounds like a Dilbert comic. Marketing getting way ahead of research/development.
On a related note, I've convinced my local pizza joint to buy pizza boxes from me that keep the pie warm. I just have to invent it.
I pay 52$ right now for a Comcast cable connection, and they do not give me enough upstream bandwidth for my website. I would like to buy DSL for a chepper price, but would have lower downstream (DSL from these guys is 1 megabit down IIRC and comcast gives me 3 down).
Charter cable starts at $29.99 a month, but mail and web server ports are blocked. Upstream on cable/DSL stinks anyway, you've gotta shell the big bucks out for a T1 or other line if you want quality uploads. It's cheaper for them to sell fast downloads, anyway.
I was doing some consulting for a lawyer in 1999, and he showed me some 'new' HP scanner he just got for some outrageous price. He told me they didn't even have it in the stores/catalogs. It was a very 'James Bond' device, you could swipe it over a large page, and the image was automatically stitched together. You could store/view pages on the scanner, or send them to an HP printer or a laptop via IR. Very cool.
Today everyone is concerned with transparent windows and skins and other eye candy, and not features that make things like file managers easier to use.
Posted by Cliff on Tue Nov 03, '98 07:09 AM from the more-monitors-are-good-than-one dept. A whole bunch of you have written in about multiple monitor (multi-headed) support in Linux. Is it possible? What's involved? Who supports it? These are all interesting questions, and one person made a point of noting that Windows could do it, and couldn't find out how to do it on Linux. There's also a nifty project in the works involving Linux and a "video wall"! Click below for more...
Done this a few times, works best if you have 19" monitors, roomate got seasick playing it. But he couldn't play Descent without getting nauseas either.
Just sit back and laugh. Journalists can't cover this stuff. It's a joke.
Now, think about how off-center computer-related articles are. Anything that deals with technology.
Have you ever had first-hand experience with a story your local paper covered? And while reading the story, you think to yourself, "Where the hell did they get their (mis)information??"
Apply that to EVERY story in the news. Scary, isn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing bad about cartridges are the cost. CD's were insanely cheap at the time of the PSX/N64 compared to ROM's.
Remember the 16Mbit and 32MBit SNES games that came out and were $70?
Plus, Nintendo won't let someone use an open standard such as a CDROM. You can still see this with their Gamecube discs.
RAM is insanely cheap now, what are ROM prices like? Maybe it's time to switch back.
Sweet. File-Print-Canon Copier
At 80ppm, it'll be done printing at the same time I can go down to the supply closet and get some 3 ring binders.
On a more serious note, you can get a high school kid to sell you his math books (or history, science, english) for some beer or pot.
Before Grand Theft Auto came out, Doom and Mortal Kombat got blamed for everything. There aren't any high school kids around today that have played the originals of either of them.
Child pornography rings.
They busted a guy here at work who was doing it. By they, I mean the FBI and Customs officers. By doing it, I mean trading child pornography.
Investigators have said Jeffs and two mid-Michigan men were members of an Internet club that produced child pornographic photographs, videos and live broadcasts and shared the images with other group members on their buddy lists.
Some of the "buddies" face charges that they performed sex acts with minors. Many of the victims are the suspects' own children.
What happens is, they bust one guy by meeting up with him in real life, posing as a young child. Once they've got him, they can go on his computer and see who he's got on his buddy lists, address books, they just get everyone else.
The best thing about the non-Adobe readers, is that there's no document protection. You can print pages which have printing disabled in the Windows/Mac version.
iD has always said the XBOX version will be equal to the PC version (even at half the cpu/gfx capability) and released simultaneously.
Maybe this has something to do with it, due to the XBOX having an NVIDIA GPU and not an ATI.
That said, before saying how limiting the PS2 hardware is, you should read up on how the PS2 hardware design is supposed to be used. The emotion engine opens up some insane possibilities...the problem is with developers and not with the hardware. Look at games like Gran Turismo. Disgustingly beautiful, disgustingly smooth. The X-Box can't touch that, even if MS has guides to programming for it. The problem is that the technology is too complicated for most American (and in many cases European) developers to truly comprehend and utilize without trying to hack together.
r gin Interactivem ap Brothers
I won't even comment on half the blabbering you've just done.
If you knew anything about game development, much less programming...
Just because you drive in Grand Turismo, and you can drive in GTA, doesn't mean you can compare them.
Ever heard of a trade-off? Game programmers have limited resources to work with and make some decisions. GTA has better graphics because of many reasons.
You don't have a 'city simulation' running while you play Grand Turismo. You can't jump out of your car and blow stuff up. You can't pick items up on the road. You can't go in buildings. There's no 'mission' going on in the backround. Not to mention how big the city is in GTA and how detailed it is. There's no helicopters in Grand Turismo or cop cars that shoot at you. Hell, you can't even damage your car in Grand Turismo.
The bottom line is you only have so many CPU cycles and so much memory to work with in a game. I'm sure there are American programmers that are every bit as adept at using the hardware as the Japanese, unlike what you're implying. Then you bash the Europeans. Europeans as bad programmers, especially game programmers? You honestly know nothing.
Stop me when you've heard of a game company:
Argonaut
Probe
Rare
Codemasters
Eurocom
Vi
Criterion
Eidos
Rage
Cavedog
Bit
Peter Molyneux
That's just the UK! I'm not even getting into Finland, Russia, Croatia, and all the other places that some genius stuff has come out of.
Hell, Rockstar North is based in the UK, and thats where the game was developed! Another popular UK-developed game that you might have heard of was Metal Gear Solid 2!
Everyone knows the XBOX hardware is much more powerful that the PS2. It came out later, of course it should be. Have you taken a look at RalliSport Challenge 2 for XBOX?
Leaps and bounds ahead of the Rally cars and track of Gran Turismo. Again, you've got a slightly more specialized case of game programming/optimisation.
But this one better not suck.
Vice City was a huge dissappointment.
And the PS2 hardware is becoming very limiting. Look at the XBOX version of GTA.
Too bad they're locked into a contract with Sony.
But, even if it totally blows, it will sell a million copies.
That would never happen in the PC world. If you produce a shit sequel, you are done.
It still exists today but it's not the same. I used to use it to make free calls back home all the time. It worked great for calling relatives, long distance relationships...j
Basically you signed up for free, then dialed the number with your mouse, and used your microphone/headphone to talk in full duplex. Very good sound quality, even with a 56k modem. You'd hear a "thank you for using dialpad.com" and it would call your destination. Completely transparent, no operators involved. The other party had no idea.
It was also great for prank calls. The calls seemed to get routed to a local number, so they couldn't call you back with *69 or caller ID. I'm sure a subpoena could though...
Nothing like stalking an ex-girlfriend anonymously, without having to buy a pre-paid cellular phone.
After a while, DialPad started limiting calls to ten minutes, then they started charging...
I work at a large computer retailer in a college town, and I've finally convinced the powers-that-be to sell PCs with Linux pre-installed. The catch is, it will only be installed on Micro ATX machines, which require half-height everything, and we can't find a source of half-height Linux compatible PCI modems.
This sounds like a Dilbert comic. Marketing getting way ahead of research/development.
On a related note, I've convinced my local pizza joint to buy pizza boxes from me that keep the pie warm. I just have to invent it.
One feature not included is the "Call the FBI when you scan in a $20" feature.
I pay 52$ right now for a Comcast cable connection, and they do not give me enough upstream bandwidth for my website. I would like to buy DSL for a chepper price, but would have lower downstream (DSL from these guys is 1 megabit down IIRC and comcast gives me 3 down).
Charter cable starts at $29.99 a month, but mail and web server ports are blocked. Upstream on cable/DSL stinks anyway, you've gotta shell the big bucks out for a T1 or other line if you want quality uploads. It's cheaper for them to sell fast downloads, anyway.
Back in my Win32 days, I was a very frequent user of RAR archives.
Bablefish translation: I was a huge warez kiddie.
On a related noted, were there any wide-spread, legitimate uses of
I can't believe nobody's mentioned the HP CapShare.
Link
Picture
I was doing some consulting for a lawyer in 1999, and he showed me some 'new' HP scanner he just got for some outrageous price. He told me they didn't even have it in the stores/catalogs. It was a very 'James Bond' device, you could swipe it over a large page, and the image was automatically stitched together. You could store/view pages on the scanner, or send them to an HP printer or a laptop via IR. Very cool.
eBay has a couple of them for sale.
The latest sports games from EA stink. They're full of bugs, and are just a roster update.
Back in the SNES/Genesis days, they really came out with some great stuff. NHLPA Hockey, Madden, Bulls vs Blazers...
Now it's just the same thing over, and over again.
Innovation well before it's time.
Today everyone is concerned with transparent windows and skins and other eye candy, and not features that make things like file managers easier to use.
Link
Ask Slashdot: Multiple Monitor Fun
Posted by Cliff on Tue Nov 03, '98 07:09 AM
from the more-monitors-are-good-than-one dept.
A whole bunch of you have written in about multiple monitor (multi-headed) support in Linux. Is it possible? What's involved? Who supports it? These are all interesting questions, and one person made a point of noting that Windows could do it, and couldn't find out how to do it on Linux. There's also a nifty project in the works involving Linux and a "video wall"! Click below for more...
doom -devparm -net 3 -left
doom -devparm -net 3
doom -devparm -net 3 -right
Done this a few times, works best if you have 19" monitors, roomate got seasick playing it. But he couldn't play Descent without getting nauseas either.
This would work great for a game if you had a touch screen on one of the monitors.
Think MMORPG
One screen is first person view
The other is your inventory and chat screen
It's too hard to actively use 2 screens with one mouse.
It better not be ultra-wide, either
Maybe there should be a Tetris section
History of Tetris
Tetris related to dreams
Tetris AI webcam system
Micro-tetris
Tetris is hard
Microsoft is building it into Windows as we speak.
Sadly we'll never see the return of shareware, like we did in the late 80's early 90's
a 1 or 2 man team can't make games anymore
My neighbor is from Iran, I live in the United States.
He brought his wife here about 3 years ago, and he thought it would be a cool gift for her.
He can watch soccer games, news, and she can watch soap operas and many of the Arabic 'MTV' channels. It looks like any other Dish/DirectTV setup.
He bought it for $250 with some accessories at the Arab market in Dearborn. We set it up outside, ran a new cable to his TV, turned on the reciever...
Just sit back and laugh. Journalists can't cover this stuff. It's a joke.
Now, think about how off-center computer-related articles are. Anything that deals with technology.
Have you ever had first-hand experience with a story your local paper covered? And while reading the story, you think to yourself, "Where the hell did they get their (mis)information??"
Apply that to EVERY story in the news. Scary, isn't it?