The problem with that GE corn is that it is patented by a corporation that makes sure that they will not lose control of that strain. Smart breeding produces plants that can be shared by everyone.
Which would you rather have or more to the point, which would you rather the poor nations have? GE corn that can grow in a desert, but is infertile so you have to buy seed every year because it's heavily protected by patents or a strain of corn that was bred to survive in a desert, can reproduce and is free to share with other people in other areas?
Not possible? Try reading the article. If you believe what they're claiming, they seem to be having better success from breeding modern strains of plants with their older, wild counterparts and getting the traits they want than the GE groups are.
Heh, if you want to get all cliche'-ish, you could say this was a closed-source VS open-source battle amoung the agriculturists...
Perhaps I'm lucky to have a Fry's in my area... I got UT2004 for $30, Battlefield Vietnam for $30, Sacred for $30, Painkiller for $27, and Ninja Gaiden for $40. With the exception of Battelfield Vietnam, I got all of these the week they were released. I would have purchased Far Cry for $27 as well, but they were sold out.
Admittedly, these were all sale prices and the price went back to normal within a week or two.
Re:Bouncing hardware (and other questions)
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Running for Geeks
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I'm pretty sure that the drive in the mini iPod is actually a CompactFlash Hitachi Microdrive. In otherwords, solid state. You'd have to be bouncing pretty hard to make it skip.
While you are correct that the drive is a Hitachi CompactFlash Microdrive, it is not a solid state device. It is actually a miniature hard drive based on IBM's microdrive technology.
I've had my Karma for around 4 months and no problems... ain't anecdotal evidence great?
I will concur with the 90 day warranty, though... if you really want a Karma (only player with gapless playback that works, plus an ethernet enabled dock), then it's probably best to get it with an extended warranty. 90 days is just a bit too short for modern electronics. Especially portable electronics.
Anyhow, this isn't anything new, just slightly more convenient. You could use iTunes to burn a DRM file to CD and re-rip as mp3 (or aac) since day one.
Why would I pay 99 cents (CD cost) for an already sub-CD quality song and then run it through not one, but two conversion processes?
Maybe this will blow over and iTMS can stay in business... but this certainly isn't going to help.
Actually, it may *increase* sales from iTMS. Now, Rio Karma and a few other DAP player owners can buy tunes from iTMS, crack the encryption and download the raw files right into their own, non-ipod, players.
Of course, while good for iTMS, it's bad for Apple as they don't make much profit, if any, from their music store. People won't have to buy high-margin iPods to play music from iTMS.
In BitTorrent, your download speed is theoretically capped to your upload speed (if you're sharing with a ratio of 1:1).
Generally speaking, the share ratio (eg. 1:1) doesn't refer to the download speed, but the total bytes shared. Typically, you'll get a download speed 3 to 5 times your upload speed and sometimes more than that. The share ratio determines how long you upload after your download is finished (until you've uploaded as much as you've download with a 1:1 ratio).
"A Mighty Spell" Clink! "A Mighty Spell" Clink! "A Mighty Spell" Clink!
For those of you missing the reference, "Record of Lodoss War" for the Dreamcast had a feature where you could buy runes to add to your weapons. You went to a smith, bought the rune, he would exclaim "A mighty spell!" and add it to your sword. Not too bad at the beginning when you could barely afford it, but near the end, when you had the gold to buy 20-30 in a run... and you could literally add hundreds of them. It made a cool RPG quite annoying at the end.
They even sell Minidiscs right there at the checkout:-) Though, I wouldn't call the audio CD's primarily American. At least, not the couple of rental places I visited. They manufacture idol singers on a scale much larger than here in the states.
I mean, if a new game comes out, that is truely new, with a new engine, new graphics, etc, then yeah, its probably worth 50 bucks or so. But a sequal, or a sequal to a sequal, running on the same base code that the original did, with the only real changes being maps, images and avatars, is NOT worth 50 bucks.
Heh. I play the "sale game." I rarely, if ever, buy games when they first come out. I wait until they hit $30 if I'm really interested (and amazingly many games can be purchased for that amount in the first two weeks of release like UT2004 and Battlefield Vietnam). If I'm interested, but not dying to play, I wait for the $20 bin.
I've saved a lot of dough on PC and XBox games with this policy and I end up playing games longer because I'm not buying a crapload of games all the time.
Of course, I occasionally splurge and buy games at $40 (Ninja Gaiden), but I haven't paid $50 for a game in quite some time. It just takes a bit of self control.
While I don't disagree with you (PS2 being crap), I think this generation of PS2 games is finally starting to take advantage of the hardware. I went back and played Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast while a friend was playing Soul Calibur 2 on the PS2 and there is definately a difference in the two games (PS2 is better).
Of course, Soul Calibur 1 came out on Dreamcast as a *launch* title 1 year before the PS2 launched and Soul Calibur 2 is a 3rd gen (4th?) PS2 game...
Overall, the PS2 really is a tad more powerful than the Dreamcast, but not by the degree most Sony marketers would have you believe.
P.S. - Halo PC ran SO horribly on my system (Athlon 2500+, 1GB ram, 256MB Radeon Pro video), that I invoked MS' 30-day money-back guarantee. They were prompt with the refund so, apparently they are good for something.:-P
I've got a Athlon 2400+, 1.5GB ram and a softmodded Radeon 9500->9700. I ran it at 1024x768 wihtout FSAA and for the most part it ran just fine with all of the details turned up. It stuttered occasionally on "level" changes, but then so did the X-Box version.
It is good to see at least one vendor offering a 30-day money-back gaurantee, though... that's been my biggest complaint about software for several years -- you can't return it if it doesn't do what you want
Unless the consoles can make mod'ing (especially on advanced level like on Operation Flashpoint, mmm I love that stuff) as easy as on PC, PC definitely won't die.
In the latest X-Box magazine, they've claimed that a future version of X-Box Live will include map-making abilities. They mentioned storing the maps online and being able to share them with friends.
Rumor? Vaporware? Who knows. In fact, they didn't even mention *when* these features would be available (though I'm guessing X-Box 2 not X-Box). It's not unfeasable, though, so I wouldn't rule it out completely.
Dell did not have to sign any contract with Microsoft, even now. They CHOSE to -- and by choosing to they grant Microsoft even more market share.
I think many have forgotten just what a 'monopoly' is. Per Webster's:
Last I checked, lawyers and judges generally don't go to dictionaries to reference laws. Microsoft has been convicted of being a Monopoly in their market.
Again, I don't agree with MS's business practices AT ALL. However, I believe that all the claims you have made would take away the priveleges of the way MS does their business. It is their right to put whatever clauses in their contracts they want, and it is Dell's right to refuse it and find another OS.
If Microsoft were not convicted of being a monopoly, then you would be correct. It would be MS's right to do whatever they wanted with their OS, including exclusionary contracts, bundling, etc. They have, however, been *CONVICTED* of being a monopoly and are no longer allowed to leverage that monopoly in new markets.
Who's to classify a work as "abandonware?" If the author doesn't want the work released, he should have the right to keep it that way. The burden should rest on the publisher, even if that means tracking down the current copyright holder and begging for permission.
Just because you can't find it easily doesn't mean that it should be free for the taking.
The constitution originally provided that all works had to apply for copyright to be copyrighted and that these copyrights had to apply for a renewal at some point to maintain copyright. A recent law changed these requirements.
"Abandonware" would be a copyrighted work that was not renewed.
(The Patlabor series has the same problem as sci-fi, IMO - you have one or two areas of amazingly high technology advancement, and the rest of the world is completely unchanged, really. So bizarrely unimaginative.)
Strange how a show that is set in 1998 is so similar to our own times...
Caching to HDD was a great idea for the DVD-Rom drives that were available when the X-Box was new. Today (or more specifically 2005/2006), it may not be nearly as important as DVD-Rom speeds increase.
IBM and Novell are quietly behind the scenes, very professionally making their case. It is like a masterful game of chess, you see piece after piece being moved into place, for a final checkmate. Really a pleasure to watch.
Yeah, if you like watching Kasparov playing chess against a 3-year old who doesn't know what the pieces are for.
Then again, the kid is a cheaky brat that's been trash talking everyone... maybe that would be enjoyable:-)
Actually it's not particularly innovative gameplay wise, as it fits perfectly into the classic Zelda mould. Unfortunatly Ubi seemed to forget to tell anyone this, with the result that no-one really knew what it was.
That was my problem with it. I picked it up at the store and looked over the box. I couldn't tell what style of gameplay it was. RPG? Action/Adventure? Mindless FPS? Tetris? Well, probably not tetris, but you get the idea. I could tell what the *story* was like, but nothing about the *gameplay*. It doesn't help that you can only download the free demo on IE...
Since we know that XBOX++ will not contain an Nvidia GPU (they're going with ATI instead), it is pretty safe to say that using binaries compiled for the current XBOX will not work. If they did, then that would mean that the graphics chips would have to be functionally identical (or at least close enough) to the Nvidia part. Nvidia probably holds a bunch of patents surrounding the chip which currently preclude this unless MS and/or ATI wants to get sued to oblivion.
Sort of the way the NVidia's drivers do shader replacements on games and benchmarks? If NVidia can do shader replacements on ATI/Microsoft code, I can't see why they couldn't go the other direction. They could probably write a general instruction mapping translator that recompiled NVidia shaders to ATI shaders then do specific replacements for games that this doesn't work very well for. Of course, without a hard drive, that may not be very practical, but it's certainly possible.
I agree, flash memory is faster and more than sufficient.
Actually, flash memory is much, much slower than a HD. It would probably do the job for standard point-saves, however. Seeing as most X-Box games are point-save types and not PC style save anywhere, it wouldn't be a great loss.
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Which would you rather have or more to the point, which would you rather the poor nations have? GE corn that can grow in a desert, but is infertile so you have to buy seed every year because it's heavily protected by patents or a strain of corn that was bred to survive in a desert, can reproduce and is free to share with other people in other areas?
Not possible? Try reading the article. If you believe what they're claiming, they seem to be having better success from breeding modern strains of plants with their older, wild counterparts and getting the traits they want than the GE groups are.
Heh, if you want to get all cliche'-ish, you could say this was a closed-source VS open-source battle amoung the agriculturists...
Admittedly, these were all sale prices and the price went back to normal within a week or two.
I will concur with the 90 day warranty, though... if you really want a Karma (only player with gapless playback that works, plus an ethernet enabled dock), then it's probably best to get it with an extended warranty. 90 days is just a bit too short for modern electronics. Especially portable electronics.
Of course, while good for iTMS, it's bad for Apple as they don't make much profit, if any, from their music store. People won't have to buy high-margin iPods to play music from iTMS.
They even sell Minidiscs right there at the checkout :-) Though, I wouldn't call the audio CD's primarily American. At least, not the couple of rental places I visited. They manufacture idol singers on a scale much larger than here in the states.
I've saved a lot of dough on PC and XBox games with this policy and I end up playing games longer because I'm not buying a crapload of games all the time.
Of course, I occasionally splurge and buy games at $40 (Ninja Gaiden), but I haven't paid $50 for a game in quite some time. It just takes a bit of self control.
Of course, Soul Calibur 1 came out on Dreamcast as a *launch* title 1 year before the PS2 launched and Soul Calibur 2 is a 3rd gen (4th?) PS2 game...
Overall, the PS2 really is a tad more powerful than the Dreamcast, but not by the degree most Sony marketers would have you believe.
It is good to see at least one vendor offering a 30-day money-back gaurantee, though... that's been my biggest complaint about software for several years -- you can't return it if it doesn't do what you want
Rumor? Vaporware? Who knows. In fact, they didn't even mention *when* these features would be available (though I'm guessing X-Box 2 not X-Box). It's not unfeasable, though, so I wouldn't rule it out completely.
"Abandonware" would be a copyrighted work that was not renewed.
Yes, it's true, I am a nerd
As mentioned above, this is a myth.. Snopes link to the real story
Yeah, if you like watching Kasparov playing chess against a 3-year old who doesn't know what the pieces are for.
Then again, the kid is a cheaky brat that's been trash talking everyone... maybe that would be enjoyable :-)
That was my problem with it. I picked it up at the store and looked over the box. I couldn't tell what style of gameplay it was. RPG? Action/Adventure? Mindless FPS? Tetris? Well, probably not tetris, but you get the idea. I could tell what the *story* was like, but nothing about the *gameplay*. It doesn't help that you can only download the free demo on IE...
Sort of the way the NVidia's drivers do shader replacements on games and benchmarks? If NVidia can do shader replacements on ATI/Microsoft code, I can't see why they couldn't go the other direction. They could probably write a general instruction mapping translator that recompiled NVidia shaders to ATI shaders then do specific replacements for games that this doesn't work very well for. Of course, without a hard drive, that may not be very practical, but it's certainly possible.
Actually, flash memory is much, much slower than a HD. It would probably do the job for standard point-saves, however. Seeing as most X-Box games are point-save types and not PC style save anywhere, it wouldn't be a great loss.