I'm not so sure about that (although it sounds like you have got a number of years on me with computers, so it's likely I'm just inexperienced). Software has gradually been improving for years, including many more features, better graphics, higher resolution. But how many of these really warrant 2 GHz more power? Have typical user applications really hit a point where a 3.0 GHz computer is likely? Other then server applications, processor-intensive programs, media programs, and games, there aren't many products I can think of that the average consumer would need 3.0 Ghz for (other then maybe higher def video, which really needs a specialized processor to run well) . I think we are to a point where instead of CPU manufacturers making a CPU to meet speed demands, we may find them thinking up software to give people reason to upgrade. Computer improvements have been slowing down for the past few years. My 3 year old computer is still kicking strong (Barton 2500+), and I don't see it becoming too old to run most things normal users would use for quite a while (unless Dual-Core becomes a common requirement). Even my older 1 GHz Athlon is keeping my mom quite happy running XP. It seemed like a 3 year old computer 10 years ago would be in pretty bad need of replacing, but now, that isn't the case.
Most adults today that have not had formal training required by their job (or are not young enough to have grown up with computers a bit) probably barely know about spell check, let alone the real reasons to upgrade an operating system. You know what would have happened if XP hadn't been given a new interface and software hadn't dropped support for 98? No normal consumers would have had any interest to upgrade (few do upgrade of course, since most just get a new computer, but that's not my point). And for the people that are still scared as all hell about using a computer (they are out there), a little eye candy that makes it look fun is probably a good thing. Yes, eye maxes out GPU/CPU usage, but At least people's computers will finally be doing something. Useful things can be done with it for normal usage (although most probably not incredibly useful). With adiquate (that keeps them under 65 C) cooling, most processors have no problem with stability (As iBooks have proven). It seems like such a waste that the total average CPU utilization is probably less then 5%, if even. IF it works, no reason to hold it back. People have probably had the argument that more eye candy is a bad thing since TV times, but things seem to have turned out pretty well.
Re:Not THAT surprising...
on
Region-free PS3
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Thus the reason why I think if a DRM type of system is really going to work (Steam for one example), the government needs involvement, or at least a government funded agency. Your argument about backups is just as much rellivent to current DRM ideas as the developer sending you a new disc. As I recall (as in I could very well be wrong in some ways), telcos and other utilites have been given special privlidges in the past and present since they are needed for our typical lifestyle. I think it would be a good idea for the government to sponsor or run an organization that would archive all software, music, and movies, and have that organization act as the distributor for online forms of stuff, so that you wouldn't need to worry about your software that is DRMed or not backed up being lost forever in case of problems. I know 30 years down the road I'll be lucky if I can play HL2 (Although it and the rest of the game industry will probably be swallowed into EA), and although many hate Steam with a passion (I know, you don't need to reply with hatred for Steam), it's probably the closest thing to a good working DRM system we have seen, with the biggest con (other than online activation) being the software on it being unusable 30 years from now possibly.
I've had professors that don't like laptops, and probably a few that have stated no laptops in their syllabi. Why didn't they make the news? I'm in the middle of a class right now (although a 10 minute break), and I can say that this is more distracting then it is useful during a lecture. I typically only use it for notes (except for really boring classes), but I rarely see anyone just using a laptop for just notes, if at all..... If she was saying "blah blah, you can't come in the room with a laptop in your bag. if you do, you are not allowed in class" I could see why this is a story, but this is stupid. Teacher likes students paying attention. Now I will return to class due to the professors glare...
It estimated to cost$700 - $1000. While this may seem like a lot, for something new, this isn't. I remember reading how much a hardrive would have cost for an old IIGS that had maybe 8 disks worth of storage space I think. And although expensive, $700 isn't expensive enough to be out of the reach for consumers. Just expensive enough to be out of the reach for most sane typical consumers.
I would think most Linux advocates that knew anything about the OS other then "it's 1337" would be pretty honest about it's shortcomings, and even with Macs, If you talk to someone that knows what they are doing (such as a CS major with a Mac), you'd probably get an honest fairly judgemental answer if Apple's propiganda hasn't gotten to them. Macs are good. Quicktime sucks (horribly). and Apple is an evil company with good products (probably debatable). Linux is good, but still has problems with some new hardware in my opinion (drivers for it are often not out there that quickly (or suck) for a lot of new products that need specialized drivers because companies don't care that much, although I do applaud the developers of open drivers for their effort).
I remember my uncle once told me to never buy revision 1 versions of motherboards because they may often have issues. With the complexity other devices are taking now, it appears that this word of advice may go beyond typical computer hardware.
Re:Strange people are comparing this to video game
on
Playing The Escape
·
· Score: 1
True that it couldn't have been done the same way. But the general idea of live role-play/game isn't new. It wouldn't be as fun, but it would probably still be fairly enjoyable if executed properly. Like those adult mystery games I have heard about when people play through the role of some people in a muder mystery.
Strange people are comparing this to video games..
on
Playing The Escape
·
· Score: 0
Considering this sort of "technology" isn't technology at all. This could have been done a century ago (different plot of course).
Depending on the availability of software, I'd stick with Windows. As much as we'd like to think Linux is going to get big as a desktop OS , it isn't definate, and will probably be a long way down the road, especially in the US. Although if for some reason you don't have the copies of windows that came with these PCs (which is likely the case), and windows-like Linux distro would probably be best. At least that's my 2 cents (as a big Linux/UNIX user).
I always loved the fact that older consoles came with a game (Made playing the original Gameboy with someone rather easy since everyone had Tetris). Even in the newest Generations, I still think they should at least include a demo disc, since when Johnny with his part-time job gets his PS3, he might not be able to afford a game. I think it's not that different in this situation, maybe including a HD-DVD (Or even DVD depending on how many trailers it could hold and if it could support high-def stuff) of teasier trailers and such just so people can say "See? This is what I got... Looks great, eh? You want one, don't you?"
Idk about the XBox 360, but the revolution and the PS3 are clearly different, since the PS3 is a computer and a media server (or at least is supposed to be).
I was rather concerned with how the speaker on the BBC special about Google stepped around the question about retained search history from users by identifyable means (They didn't say what it was, and I'm not very familiar with web technology, so might be IP or MAC (maybe not), Idk). Emails are one thing, but I think most have googled something they are ashamed of or wouldn't want others knowing about. Yes, they know you searched for "ultra-midgest-fetsh" last night, and may use it in the future against you.
I do it more for the original and unique worlds they make (FF 6 and 7). But I would agree lately, they have been becoming stagnent.... I played IV and IX one after the other, and let me tell you, the plot twists are practically identical in the two games.
I'm all for your poor, your tired, and your hungry people having cheap access to broadband.... But am I the only one that thinks this may be a bad idea, since most that want broadband have it? The way I see it, unless our government plans on funding huge sums of money into broadband programs to upgrade systems, the "cheap highspeed broadband" that I belive they want may give broadband to many probably won't be any faster then what we have now, and will probably hold back system upgrades. They said they want cheap high speed affordable broadband to everyone, but I'm hesitant to think they can do anything to actually get telcos and TW to up our speed to be anywhere near what modern Asian countries like Japan and Korea enjoy that is closer to LAN speeds then what we have.
Now instead of Japan having 6m, US having 2m, and rest of the world having 2m sold by March, it will be something like Japan having 3m, Us having 2m, and rest of the world having 2m sold by march (I recall the figures being 7m expected to be shipped by March 2007).... Unless they chop US sales down to like.5m for the first 4 months, then I'll be rather irritated....
Does it run on ATI, specifically the Radeon 9800 Pro? (Any that own this card and have tried getting it to work w/ compositing and OpenGL at the same time in Linux will know what I mean)
Slightly off topic, but still about movies sucking and blowing (thus not sucking). I expected the Oscars to be ruled by holllywood films that sucked, but were in all popular theatres. I was shocked to see the Oscar committee doesn't exist to promote movies. Most of the movies in there from what I heard were lower budget indie-type movies then multi-hundred million hollywood movies. Now if only Theatre's will follow this trend.....
What they really need to do is work with the makers of the next storage medium (and quit putting games on CD sets in the US. A game that needs 3.0 GHz + Processor will probably have access to a DVD drive...). Movie makers have been teaming with hardware makers since macrovision to deter pirating. The game industry should try a similar approach instead of trying to tweak existing technology to help them.
Although Xenosaga and Xenogears had and will have all the main story fleshed out, their thoughts that they would have more time and funding ot develop the games have caused them to kind of be too slow, then too fast. I won't even get started on the prior parts of the Xenogears saga that were never techincally done. But With Xenogears, the first disc was _slow_, to the point where it stopped many from continuing to play. Then, realizing they couldn't drag the game on any more due to funding, the second disc was _fast_, to the point where cut-scenes of dialogue were used to tell big parts of the story since they couldn't devote any more time to gameplay for those scenes. Fast Forward to Xenosaga, the unofficial prequel (It is, but isn't due to licensing issues). Was suposed to be quite a few games. First game was slow. Second game was faster, but still a bit lax in big story twists compared to single-game RPGs. Now they have decided to cram all the rest (which I'd imagine contains quite a few big events) into one last game since it has been decided there will be no more after this. It's sad and ironic what happened to Xenogears is happening to Xenosaga. Xenosaga is in my opinion what a serialized RPG should be..hack has some fun gameplay, but the story on the first part at least was very lacking.
I do agree. Not to get off topic (which isn't really since it was mentioned in the article), but SC was a great game from what I played. Dreamcast-only killed it's sales and rep for most gamers, but I found it refreshing among a sea of tourney fighters. And am i the only one that sees the author as a bit of a troll? Comments are for opinions, not stories.
Very true. I worked as a sorter operator at a bank in HS, and I knew the same thing that any transactions over x amount were to be reported in a report every x amount of time. It's probably more general knowledge then you make it out to be though considering it affects the entire financial system
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not so sure about that (although it sounds like you have got a number of years on me with computers, so it's likely I'm just inexperienced). Software has gradually been improving for years, including many more features, better graphics, higher resolution. But how many of these really warrant 2 GHz more power? Have typical user applications really hit a point where a 3.0 GHz computer is likely? Other then server applications, processor-intensive programs, media programs, and games, there aren't many products I can think of that the average consumer would need 3.0 Ghz for (other then maybe higher def video, which really needs a specialized processor to run well) . I think we are to a point where instead of CPU manufacturers making a CPU to meet speed demands, we may find them thinking up software to give people reason to upgrade. Computer improvements have been slowing down for the past few years. My 3 year old computer is still kicking strong (Barton 2500+), and I don't see it becoming too old to run most things normal users would use for quite a while (unless Dual-Core becomes a common requirement). Even my older 1 GHz Athlon is keeping my mom quite happy running XP. It seemed like a 3 year old computer 10 years ago would be in pretty bad need of replacing, but now, that isn't the case.
Most adults today that have not had formal training required by their job (or are not young enough to have grown up with computers a bit) probably barely know about spell check, let alone the real reasons to upgrade an operating system. You know what would have happened if XP hadn't been given a new interface and software hadn't dropped support for 98? No normal consumers would have had any interest to upgrade (few do upgrade of course, since most just get a new computer, but that's not my point). And for the people that are still scared as all hell about using a computer (they are out there), a little eye candy that makes it look fun is probably a good thing. Yes, eye maxes out GPU/CPU usage, but At least people's computers will finally be doing something. Useful things can be done with it for normal usage (although most probably not incredibly useful). With adiquate (that keeps them under 65 C) cooling, most processors have no problem with stability (As iBooks have proven). It seems like such a waste that the total average CPU utilization is probably less then 5%, if even. IF it works, no reason to hold it back. People have probably had the argument that more eye candy is a bad thing since TV times, but things seem to have turned out pretty well.
Thus the reason why I think if a DRM type of system is really going to work (Steam for one example), the government needs involvement, or at least a government funded agency. Your argument about backups is just as much rellivent to current DRM ideas as the developer sending you a new disc. As I recall (as in I could very well be wrong in some ways), telcos and other utilites have been given special privlidges in the past and present since they are needed for our typical lifestyle. I think it would be a good idea for the government to sponsor or run an organization that would archive all software, music, and movies, and have that organization act as the distributor for online forms of stuff, so that you wouldn't need to worry about your software that is DRMed or not backed up being lost forever in case of problems. I know 30 years down the road I'll be lucky if I can play HL2 (Although it and the rest of the game industry will probably be swallowed into EA), and although many hate Steam with a passion (I know, you don't need to reply with hatred for Steam), it's probably the closest thing to a good working DRM system we have seen, with the biggest con (other than online activation) being the software on it being unusable 30 years from now possibly.
I've had professors that don't like laptops, and probably a few that have stated no laptops in their syllabi. Why didn't they make the news? I'm in the middle of a class right now (although a 10 minute break), and I can say that this is more distracting then it is useful during a lecture. I typically only use it for notes (except for really boring classes), but I rarely see anyone just using a laptop for just notes, if at all..... If she was saying "blah blah, you can't come in the room with a laptop in your bag. if you do, you are not allowed in class" I could see why this is a story, but this is stupid. Teacher likes students paying attention. Now I will return to class due to the professors glare...
It estimated to cost$700 - $1000. While this may seem like a lot, for something new, this isn't. I remember reading how much a hardrive would have cost for an old IIGS that had maybe 8 disks worth of storage space I think. And although expensive, $700 isn't expensive enough to be out of the reach for consumers. Just expensive enough to be out of the reach for most sane typical consumers.
I would think most Linux advocates that knew anything about the OS other then "it's 1337" would be pretty honest about it's shortcomings, and even with Macs, If you talk to someone that knows what they are doing (such as a CS major with a Mac), you'd probably get an honest fairly judgemental answer if Apple's propiganda hasn't gotten to them. Macs are good. Quicktime sucks (horribly). and Apple is an evil company with good products (probably debatable). Linux is good, but still has problems with some new hardware in my opinion (drivers for it are often not out there that quickly (or suck) for a lot of new products that need specialized drivers because companies don't care that much, although I do applaud the developers of open drivers for their effort).
I remember my uncle once told me to never buy revision 1 versions of motherboards because they may often have issues. With the complexity other devices are taking now, it appears that this word of advice may go beyond typical computer hardware.
True that it couldn't have been done the same way. But the general idea of live role-play/game isn't new. It wouldn't be as fun, but it would probably still be fairly enjoyable if executed properly. Like those adult mystery games I have heard about when people play through the role of some people in a muder mystery.
Considering this sort of "technology" isn't technology at all. This could have been done a century ago (different plot of course).
Depending on the availability of software, I'd stick with Windows. As much as we'd like to think Linux is going to get big as a desktop OS , it isn't definate, and will probably be a long way down the road, especially in the US. Although if for some reason you don't have the copies of windows that came with these PCs (which is likely the case), and windows-like Linux distro would probably be best. At least that's my 2 cents (as a big Linux/UNIX user).
HEH. Good job. It's my default "you don't want them to know about this" expression.
I always loved the fact that older consoles came with a game (Made playing the original Gameboy with someone rather easy since everyone had Tetris). Even in the newest Generations, I still think they should at least include a demo disc, since when Johnny with his part-time job gets his PS3, he might not be able to afford a game. I think it's not that different in this situation, maybe including a HD-DVD (Or even DVD depending on how many trailers it could hold and if it could support high-def stuff) of teasier trailers and such just so people can say "See? This is what I got... Looks great, eh? You want one, don't you?"
Idk about the XBox 360, but the revolution and the PS3 are clearly different, since the PS3 is a computer and a media server (or at least is supposed to be).
I was rather concerned with how the speaker on the BBC special about Google stepped around the question about retained search history from users by identifyable means (They didn't say what it was, and I'm not very familiar with web technology, so might be IP or MAC (maybe not), Idk). Emails are one thing, but I think most have googled something they are ashamed of or wouldn't want others knowing about. Yes, they know you searched for "ultra-midgest-fetsh" last night, and may use it in the future against you.
Joe Shmoe: "I saw an ad for this on TV. It's supposed to be really good, like that Dolby Digital stuff. I gotta make sure to get VIIV"
I do it more for the original and unique worlds they make (FF 6 and 7). But I would agree lately, they have been becoming stagnent.... I played IV and IX one after the other, and let me tell you, the plot twists are practically identical in the two games.
I'm all for your poor, your tired, and your hungry people having cheap access to broadband.... But am I the only one that thinks this may be a bad idea, since most that want broadband have it? The way I see it, unless our government plans on funding huge sums of money into broadband programs to upgrade systems, the "cheap highspeed broadband" that I belive they want may give broadband to many probably won't be any faster then what we have now, and will probably hold back system upgrades. They said they want cheap high speed affordable broadband to everyone, but I'm hesitant to think they can do anything to actually get telcos and TW to up our speed to be anywhere near what modern Asian countries like Japan and Korea enjoy that is closer to LAN speeds then what we have.
Now instead of Japan having 6m, US having 2m, and rest of the world having 2m sold by March, it will be something like Japan having 3m, Us having 2m, and rest of the world having 2m sold by march (I recall the figures being 7m expected to be shipped by March 2007).... Unless they chop US sales down to like .5m for the first 4 months, then I'll be rather irritated....
Anything that could cause future slashdot readers to get bullied more can't be a good thing.......
Does it run on ATI, specifically the Radeon 9800 Pro? (Any that own this card and have tried getting it to work w/ compositing and OpenGL at the same time in Linux will know what I mean)
Slightly off topic, but still about movies sucking and blowing (thus not sucking). I expected the Oscars to be ruled by holllywood films that sucked, but were in all popular theatres. I was shocked to see the Oscar committee doesn't exist to promote movies. Most of the movies in there from what I heard were lower budget indie-type movies then multi-hundred million hollywood movies. Now if only Theatre's will follow this trend.....
What they really need to do is work with the makers of the next storage medium (and quit putting games on CD sets in the US. A game that needs 3.0 GHz + Processor will probably have access to a DVD drive...). Movie makers have been teaming with hardware makers since macrovision to deter pirating. The game industry should try a similar approach instead of trying to tweak existing technology to help them.
Although Xenosaga and Xenogears had and will have all the main story fleshed out, their thoughts that they would have more time and funding ot develop the games have caused them to kind of be too slow, then too fast. I won't even get started on the prior parts of the Xenogears saga that were never techincally done. But With Xenogears, the first disc was _slow_, to the point where it stopped many from continuing to play. Then, realizing they couldn't drag the game on any more due to funding, the second disc was _fast_, to the point where cut-scenes of dialogue were used to tell big parts of the story since they couldn't devote any more time to gameplay for those scenes. Fast Forward to Xenosaga, the unofficial prequel (It is, but isn't due to licensing issues). Was suposed to be quite a few games. First game was slow. Second game was faster, but still a bit lax in big story twists compared to single-game RPGs. Now they have decided to cram all the rest (which I'd imagine contains quite a few big events) into one last game since it has been decided there will be no more after this. It's sad and ironic what happened to Xenogears is happening to Xenosaga. Xenosaga is in my opinion what a serialized RPG should be. .hack has some fun gameplay, but the story on the first part at least was very lacking.
I do agree. Not to get off topic (which isn't really since it was mentioned in the article), but SC was a great game from what I played. Dreamcast-only killed it's sales and rep for most gamers, but I found it refreshing among a sea of tourney fighters. And am i the only one that sees the author as a bit of a troll? Comments are for opinions, not stories.
Very true. I worked as a sorter operator at a bank in HS, and I knew the same thing that any transactions over x amount were to be reported in a report every x amount of time. It's probably more general knowledge then you make it out to be though considering it affects the entire financial system