Q: How are you going to compete against Dell, which has lower costs, and HP, which spends more on research and development?
A: I plan to create a cost structure that is lower. That's going to take some time--it doesn't happen overnight. But it will happen fairly quickly.
Does this mean we're going to see the next big price war? I don't really care either way, but anything that brings component prices down is good for me.
Hey, if you don't mind playing shrub mod (some people can be picky about this) drop on by my regular server at 67.18.55.148:27965. The clan that runs it has forums here if you're interested. We have a pretty good crew, although summer's been slow.
Couple of caveats, though: No panzer, stopwatch and limited lives. But to me, that's the only way to play.
You may be right. But, OTOH, none of the previous actors filling the role ever played a serial killer, let alone as well as Christian Bale did. So at the very least, it should be interesting.
Oh, and he's British too, which I assume marks another first for the Batman franchise.
I want my player to be a big file system in a small box that supports OGG, MP3, FLAC, WAV, SPEEX, and eventually popular video formats, HTML, etc. as well. I want it to be able to record to those formats, too, off the built-in AM/FM radio and from line-in. I want it to support downloadable codec plug-ins.
Then build the damn thing, or find a way to hack your mp3 player of choice, it's the only way. No major manufacturer's going to bother doing all that for you.
They don't call Tech support, they call me! And as its friends and family here, the most I charge is dinner. I"m basically looking for a way to make mine and their life easier (and with less callouts!)
Too true. I try to motivate friends and family to let me build them their machine rather than go with whichever maker hit the lowest price point this week, but even with shopping around as you said, the only benefits are reliable parts and assembly (100% success rate so far!). Trying to beat Dell's or whoevers' prices is still very difficult, and most people can't take their glazed looks away from that sub-$600 price tag.
Nobody outside out of Slashdot (yes I know where we are) gives a crap about this.
geek: OMG! they violated the CD audio specs!!! LMAO!!
joe public: look, shiny disc music thingies!
If these things work in more CD players than not (let's all hope not), then the average comsumer will buy his music in the format offered by his local chain.
He also wouldn't care if it was riddled with spyware, studded with RFID tags and not offered under an Open Source license.
Beowulf is an unknown word to him. He cares not if it runs Linux. He is a sheep.
Why is this important? Because he is one of very, very many. And they dominate the culture, for the most part. Not the small stuff, but the big slow tectonic movements. It's their fault for Hootie & The Blowfish, the Macarena and the Atkins diet, for example. There's not much recourse against such a behemoth of a force.
So instead of telling me for the umpteenth time that something is technically, legally or morally wrong, remember you're preaching to the choir here and tell me what we can do about it instead.
HTML must use CSS dynamic placement and not tables
Didn't work for me, so I went for a CSS/Table route (despite wanting to stay completely in CSS.) At some point you just have to get on with your site however you want, otherwise I'd be tweaking all day, trying to get it right.
I like CSS a lot, though, anhd looking forward to it becoming a little more mature.
Dude, you come here for cutting-edge newsbreaking? That's the job of something like Google News, not Slashdot. I come here for the type of content, not how fast it gets posted.
but I don't think that online play is the be-all-end-all of console gaming or even PC gaming.
No, you're right, it shouldn't be. A well-designed game should stand on its own...
I'd rather have a rock solid single player experience or a great local multiplayer experience
...but Multiplayer is much more fun, and, for me at least, setting up local LAN games is very difficult, so online multiplayer is the way for me to go on the PC (no Xbox live for me, sadly.)
As I mentioned in a reply just above, there are plenty of non-asshole gamers out there, you just have to find them. Thankfully I have, and I spend very little time dealing with them and more time just having fun.
99% of the people playing are absolute morons, assholes, or just plain annoying.
Well yeah, but it's still a lot more fun jerking off by yourself!
I'm lucky though, my PC game of choice right now is Enemy Territory and I've been lucky to find a server I can call home. We have a pretty good bunch (attitude-wise and ability-wise), and I've made a few good personal connections.
So yeah, lots of idiots out there, but there's plenty of people who just want a nice clean game, you just have to put a little time and effort into finding them. Once you do, stick to them like glue.
Good point, bu this is about more than just money, it's about building an online community, and by all accounts they've done that very well. As Gabe from Penny-Arcade points out, it's a lot more user-friendly than Sony or Nintendo's offerings.
Microsoft should definitely get the credit for doing the job right in the area that's going to matter most for console gaming: online play.
The new.net thing rings a a bell (sorry, just don't use BS with the same frequemcy I used to, so the last time I had to deal with all this was a while ago.)
But my answer's the same. Nothing a firewall and Spybot can't take care of. Tools you should be running anyway if you care about stuff like this. I've really stopped caring about spyware concerns a long time as I take a proactive approach in securing my PC. Not to mention the fact that on a relative scale, Bearshare is hardly worth getting your knickers in a twist. We should be concentrating on programs like MS shose Media Player is geared to send out unique IDs for example.
There's also the consideration that the next Xbox may not be backwards compatible. If that's the case, and Sony manages to put this feature in the PS3, a lot of consumers will be willing to hold off (for maybe a year?)
Confirmed. As an Xbox owner, backwards compatibility will be very important to me. If MS drops this ball, I'll be sitting tight for PS3 and its vast libary of PS1, 2 and 3 titles, quite a few of which I've played and enjoyed on friends' systems.
Hardly qualifies as spyware, IMO.
Save and Weathercast IIRC. Both easily disabled with firewall and a quick trip to the add/remove CP in Windows (although repeat when upgrading).
Not to mention they're pretty upfront about it. Guy's gotta make a few bucks somehow, and Bearshare has been rock solid (thanks Dave). Wouldn't use anything else for general P2P.
How much did IE loose in a recent/. story? 1% wasn't it.
One percent of IE users switching is something upwards of a few hundred thousand right? And it's a growing trend. We can assume alternative browser usage will plateau at some point once MS gets the lead out, but that's not for another couple of years, considering all the visible bad press IE has been getting lately, and the fact that their development team is way behind the curve.
I think the anti-IE backlash (and subsequent switching) will reach critical mass, say when millions (still only a few percent!) switch over. And that will be hard to ignore, for web developers, the press, and the average user worldwide.
Bottom line: Yes, it can be tough to convert, particularly a company of thousands entrenched in their habits. But keep working at it. Every convert is an evangelist to the cause, and we have nowhere to go but up.
Unless I'm missing something here, the Virtual Boy was made by Nintendo.
Correct.
But it had all the hallmarks of shoddy Microsoft R&D, so although designed and manufactured by Nintendo, you could make the argument for Microsoft being its spiritual father, so to speak.
Slashdot Mirror
A: I plan to create a cost structure that is lower. That's going to take some time--it doesn't happen overnight. But it will happen fairly quickly.
Does this mean we're going to see the next big price war? I don't really care either way, but anything that brings component prices down is good for me.
Trailer plays fine on an AMD 2500/512MB DDR RAM/Geforce 4 rig.
Yeah, that does seem to be the most popular mod for capitalism these days!
Hey, if you don't mind playing shrub mod (some people can be picky about this) drop on by my regular server at 67.18.55.148:27965. The clan that runs it has forums here if you're interested. We have a pretty good crew, although summer's been slow. Couple of caveats, though: No panzer, stopwatch and limited lives. But to me, that's the only way to play.
Oh, and he's British too, which I assume marks another first for the Batman franchise.
Then build the damn thing, or find a way to hack your mp3 player of choice, it's the only way. No major manufacturer's going to bother doing all that for you.
...my first FP.
So would the capitalist system if it lost its government subsidies.
They don't call Tech support, they call me! And as its friends and family here, the most I charge is dinner. I"m basically looking for a way to make mine and their life easier (and with less callouts!)
Sure you can. But if you asked the average interweb user (ie, pretty much everybody else) where to go for news, he'd point you to cnn.com or the like.
The slightly more savvy may have their local newspaper or tv station bookmarked, but the majority of them have never even heard of moveon.org.
A quick look at alexa's rankings supports this.
Jesus! Who the hell modded this as troll? Is lack of capitalization all it takes these days? Sheesh!
Too true. I try to motivate friends and family to let me build them their machine rather than go with whichever maker hit the lowest price point this week, but even with shopping around as you said, the only benefits are reliable parts and assembly (100% success rate so far!). Trying to beat Dell's or whoevers' prices is still very difficult, and most people can't take their glazed looks away from that sub-$600 price tag.
Nobody outside out of Slashdot (yes I know where we are) gives a crap about this.
geek: OMG! they violated the CD audio specs!!! LMAO!!
joe public: look, shiny disc music thingies!
If these things work in more CD players than not (let's all hope not), then the average comsumer will buy his music in the format offered by his local chain.
He also wouldn't care if it was riddled with spyware, studded with RFID tags and not offered under an Open Source license.
Beowulf is an unknown word to him. He cares not if it runs Linux. He is a sheep.
Why is this important? Because he is one of very, very many. And they dominate the culture, for the most part. Not the small stuff, but the big slow tectonic movements. It's their fault for Hootie & The Blowfish, the Macarena and the Atkins diet, for example. There's not much recourse against such a behemoth of a force.
So instead of telling me for the umpteenth time that something is technically, legally or morally wrong, remember you're preaching to the choir here and tell me what we can do about it instead.
Didn't work for me, so I went for a CSS/Table route (despite wanting to stay completely in CSS.) At some point you just have to get on with your site however you want, otherwise I'd be tweaking all day, trying to get it right.
I like CSS a lot, though, anhd looking forward to it becoming a little more mature.
Dude, you come here for cutting-edge newsbreaking? That's the job of something like Google News, not Slashdot. I come here for the type of content, not how fast it gets posted.
I meant to say more fun than jerking off by yourself...
No, you're right, it shouldn't be. A well-designed game should stand on its own...
I'd rather have a rock solid single player experience or a great local multiplayer experience
As I mentioned in a reply just above, there are plenty of non-asshole gamers out there, you just have to find them. Thankfully I have, and I spend very little time dealing with them and more time just having fun.
Well yeah, but it's still a lot more fun jerking off by yourself!
I'm lucky though, my PC game of choice right now is Enemy Territory and I've been lucky to find a server I can call home. We have a pretty good bunch (attitude-wise and ability-wise), and I've made a few good personal connections.
So yeah, lots of idiots out there, but there's plenty of people who just want a nice clean game, you just have to put a little time and effort into finding them. Once you do, stick to them like glue.
Microsoft should definitely get the credit for doing the job right in the area that's going to matter most for console gaming: online play.
But my answer's the same. Nothing a firewall and Spybot can't take care of. Tools you should be running anyway if you care about stuff like this. I've really stopped caring about spyware concerns a long time as I take a proactive approach in securing my PC. Not to mention the fact that on a relative scale, Bearshare is hardly worth getting your knickers in a twist. We should be concentrating on programs like MS shose Media Player is geared to send out unique IDs for example.
Confirmed. As an Xbox owner, backwards compatibility will be very important to me. If MS drops this ball, I'll be sitting tight for PS3 and its vast libary of PS1, 2 and 3 titles, quite a few of which I've played and enjoyed on friends' systems.
Either way, I get to play Halo 2. Can't wait!
Not to mention they're pretty upfront about it. Guy's gotta make a few bucks somehow, and Bearshare has been rock solid (thanks Dave). Wouldn't use anything else for general P2P.
One percent of IE users switching is something upwards of a few hundred thousand right? And it's a growing trend. We can assume alternative browser usage will plateau at some point once MS gets the lead out, but that's not for another couple of years, considering all the visible bad press IE has been getting lately, and the fact that their development team is way behind the curve.
I think the anti-IE backlash (and subsequent switching) will reach critical mass, say when millions (still only a few percent!) switch over. And that will be hard to ignore, for web developers, the press, and the average user worldwide.
Bottom line: Yes, it can be tough to convert, particularly a company of thousands entrenched in their habits. But keep working at it. Every convert is an evangelist to the cause, and we have nowhere to go but up.
Correct.
But it had all the hallmarks of shoddy Microsoft R&D, so although designed and manufactured by Nintendo, you could make the argument for Microsoft being its spiritual father, so to speak.