Anyone slightly educated in music knows this poster is full of shit.
Hardly, see my other message under the more sensible and not-anonymous reply.
Indian classical music is considered one of the most advanced forms of music on the planet, and they don't really have a concept of harmony.
I implied that all of the elements of music had to be present for music to be "good", and as a general rule I think alot of people would agree. On the other hand, it is possible to be completely devoid of one part or another part, when one of the remaining parts is exceptional.
In the other (not-anonymous) reply, user Sllim (95682) said "Rap is a good example. Got beat. Not much else though. That in itself is a set of rules that need followed. Like binary."
He's spot on there. In fact I was going to make that point myself, but strangely never got to it. But if you're going to stand on your one leg it better be a very strong one. Really good rap (if you're into rap that is) will tend to have a very powerful beat, and normally very perfectly timed (and sometimes difficult to perform) lyrics. Poor rap just kind of sounds like grunting at the same time as a background beat rather than raping with the beat.
When a rapper can string out a long line of words without missing a beat and saying things that the average person would stumble upon then that rapper is considered to be a "good rapper". And this is taking into acount that a large portion of music lovers will say "rap sucks" or "rap isn't music."
Yet, I never made that statement myself. It is possible for someone to understand the rules of music and STILL leave plenty of room for varying tastes.
Quality is subjective.
No, taste is subjective. Quality is (to a degree) definitive. If you think quality isn't, give a drum set (or other loud instrument) to an average 4 year old and tell him to have fun. Your opinion will change.
(Insert favorite obligatory generic joke about kids without talent and pop-music. Worth: +5 funny)
professed a love for pop and that classical was only so-so.
I did not say that. I said "I can even enjoy classical." I made that distinction because a lot of people now days will say "classical sucks". And these are the people I get most annoyed with. True, it might not appeal to their taste, but it hardly sucks as music. It just might not be interesting to some people.
Problem is, this guy is forgetting about the rest of the population.
I'm not forgetting that at all. In fact, I'm pointing out that a great number of the population don't have a good understanding of these points in music. Some people understand them and then still like things that break the rules anyway, but those types are exceptions to the rule, I'm willing to bet.
Rap is a good example. Got beat. Not much else though. That in itself is a set of rules that need followed.
Your right, and some RAP is "better music" than others. A lot of the time the Melody in a rap tune is purely a vocal Melody, but still a Melody. Is it no wonder that most rap only exists temporarily, but yet really catchy pop songs can last 20 years? Is it also no wonder that every now and then one Rap Tune stands out for a long because it is more like music than the rest? Music that lasts for ages almost always AGREES with the rules of music, while music that doesn't agree tends to fade into obscurity. The conclusion could easily be drawn that people have a natural desire to continue listening to a song that is "better music" for much longer than a song that is not good music to begin with.
And that is what this dude is missing.... This guy likes things that follows rules.
Again, not at all. Rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes a musician can create new and interesting sounds by breaking those rules. That is not an invitation to throw out the rules, however. A clever and interesting sound created by breaking the rules is one way of using the rule to your advantage.
One can defend poorly written music as "good by someone's tastes", but in 10 years when nobody else is litening to that song yet there is still a heavy following of 70's rock bands then the point will be illustrated again and again. Just like there IS a reason that classical has survived so long and is still enjoyed today, some music is going to last longer than others and it's easy to see the rules of music tend to endure.
We are a mere step away from a computer writing the music (the hard part) and some pansy adding words.
Yes, and I won't step forward and say I like that idea any more than you do. In my previous post I said I didn't think that a machine filtering out the crap would be a bad thing, but I started thinking about it and I've kind of changed my view on that, but the reason is this:
Would a machine know the difference between a good rule breakage, or would it just chalk it up as crap and dismiss the song? And then, if we knew our music was being "filtered of the talentless" would they have even a better medium by which to mold our "expectations" of what should be popular music?
I don't much care for having someone else pick my music for me. Thanks.
I wouldn't have a problem with that, if they were judging each song independently. Like it or not, music DOES revolve around math. Beat, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Tone are all by definition the elements that make something into music instead of just a bunch of noise.
Today MANY musicians make what is by definition closer to noise than music, because it only has some of these elements. A dripping faucet can have a beat and rhythmn, but it doesn't have a melody.
A lot of top-40 crap is manufactured garbage that is hollow and uninspired, but on the other hand it follows all of the rules of music and thus isn't exactly horrible to listen to (share and enjoy.)
On the other hand, a lot of VERY POPULAR singers completely disregard some of the most basic rules of music. (Did beat go out of style while I was off on another planet or is the entire population of the world go retarded while I was gone?)
A simple test for the quality of music is to compare it to all of the basic elements and see how much of each it has, and how well each one has done.
You can take a lot of music and quickly notice that the singer can not in tune, is off beat, isn't in harmony with the music, the music behind the singer's voice has no real melody (it's just a baseline - a common violation these days), or (very often) it's several of these things.
Again, much top 40 follows the rules. I'd rather hear that than some indi band that doesn't. Much of the top 40 doesn't, and I can do without those. Essentially I'll listen to anything well done, regardless of the type of music or whether or not it's "popular". I can even enjoy classical.
So if someone were to write a program that could simply screen out the "noise" and keep it from getting put on the charts, I don't think that would be a bad thing. Top 40 might not instantly stop being shit, but at least it would be musical shit, and not just a bunch of noise.
You're either going to agree with me on this, or flame me to death. What the hell, I have Karma to burn.
This is probably the best "pro" XBox argument I've ever seen, and the only one I actually agree with.
It's no secret I actually like my GC and PS2 over my XBox, but I will say that I would never get rid of my XBox (though it did die on me and I had to send it in for warrenty work).
Really though it only has a few good games, I do actually LIKE those few games, and I like them quite a bit. So the system does have it's uses.
I personally would not recommend it as someone's sole system, though.
Well sorry, but I get a pile of junk mail every week on my doormat through my post and in my papers - and the senders have had to pay both to print AND send that...
Those senders are also not fraudulent businesses either. They provide you with a REAL way to contact them. You know who you're dealing with. In most cases they are businesses local to you. In the case of spam, most of the time what they are selling is only questionably legal, it may not be what they claim, or it just doesn't exist at all.
I would have a much smaller problem with spam if only legit businesses spammed me. The reasoning being that I can handle 5 or 6 spams a week, but 20 or 30 per day is just plain rediculous. If only legit/respectable businesses could spam you can rest assured the amount of spam you get will be reduced down to almost nothing.
Scientists cloned a little lamb, and Dolly was her name. She was looked on by the media, and give world wide fame. And though she was a carbon copy, she was different just the same. So now she's just a rotting corpse, and poor cloning was to blame.
I wouldnt send software to a client on a MtR disk any sooner than I'd send it on a stack of floppies.
I understand your paranoia about Packet Writing, because most of it has sucked until now. But the whole point behind Mount Rainier is that it actually DOES what its supposed to, and as I understand it higher quality medias will suffer less packet failure, and the format will map out and not use back sectors so that data isn't lost as frequently.
There are many people wanting to see Mount Rainier replace the current CD file systems as there are people willing to see the floppy die forever! Once the Floppy is gone and done for, Mount Rainier will replace it and the CD-RW will be the new standard minimum storage medium. This will NOT be a bad thing by far.
Doesn't this all mean nothing in the end? I mean is Yamaha dropping the CD-RW drive line to move on to something better, or are they dropping out entirely? Isn't the current standard of CD-Burners kind of going to die when Mount Rainier takes off anyway?
It's starting to trickle in now, and when it finally gets a foot-hold CD-Authoring as we know it will no longer rely on proprietary packet-writing formats or cumbersom select and burn proceedures.
I for one have dispised the way CD-RWs have worked for a long time now. Mount Rainier should have been the stardard from the start, and by waiting for so long to establish a standard they (Sony, Philips, Microsoft, etc.) have only hurt the industry.
That's a shame you missed out on Pac Man World and the Donkey Kong Country games. They really are pretty good games.
Frogger was amusing but not excellent, and definately worth playing if you can do so without putting yourself out too much cash (rent or buy used.)
Pac Man World has some mixed reviews, some bashing it saying it's a Donkey Kong Country rip-off and to that I will have to agree.
So let's focus on the DK line. Those games were outright excellent. Some of the best things on the SNES in it's later years and it had a lot of replay value. The games aren't terribly deep but they were fun and had some amusing moments. If you have a SNES, you might want to check out the DK games (DK 2: Diddy Kong's Quest is the better of the three) on ebay or at the local game shop that sells used. If you have a Playstation, you won't be wasting your time to check out Pac Man World. Pac Man World 2 is available for all the systems, and should still be rentable at most video rental chains. The game isn't ground-breaking, but it is worth playing. I picked my copies up used pretty cheap and considered them well worth the price paid. Again, the games aren't groundbreaking, but they were good cheap fun that wasn't terribly deep. The familiar sounds and atmosphere only added to the enjoyment for me.
The Pitfall remake on the other hand is pretty disappointing.
FYI, the first day I brought mine home the thing fried after about 5 minutes. I exchnaged it the same day.
I wish mine had died two months ago, then I could have taken it back to the store where I bought it.
Yeah, I generally tend to agree that hardware is luck of the draw, but a good web-search is yielding tons of results of this particular problem. One thread I found that no longer existed was literally hundreds of "ME TOO! SAME PROBLEM!" I was only able to read it through it's Google cache...
I'm glad the warrenty covers this, and I sure hope I have better luck with the replacement. I was so wanting to get into Panzer Dragoon Orta and DOAX.
Nope. Not at all, this issue seems prominant. People who never tamper with their XBox whatsoever seem to have a problem with the "Your Disc is Dirty or Damaged" error. It's not just one disc when it happens, apparently it's any and all discs.
If your NES died back in the day you didn't have the ability to go online and see how many others did. Global community and all that.
That would be a good point if I didn't happen to be involved in retail back in those days and let me tell you that the NES failure rate was very low. You would see a return once in a while, sure, but just as often as not people would just return them because they didn't want them.
But how's this? After talking to some friends on the phone, I found that I have two other friends who experienced this problem. One of them said that the machine just started working again the next day, and the other just took it back to the store and got a new one.
Oh, and the guy at Microsoft that I talked to on the phone acknoledged that this is a common issue, which is exactly why Microsoft is sending me a box to ship the thing back to them in.
Frankly 99.9% of the 'broken xbox' stories involve a 13 year old, no common sense, and traces lifted off the motherboard while installing a modchip.
I tend to think its more likely that 99.9% of the 'broken xbox' stories come from Microsoft trying to cut costs and putting a cheap drive in some of the units. C'mon now, you're actually going to try to tell me you don't actually think Microsoft could possibly have a quality control issue? How funny.
Halo is Great, and Gotham is at least so-so. Fun at least, but only for a short while. Amped did nothing for me, and I'm not into Golf. Morrowind is fine, I guess, but available on the PC.
That's a FEW mediocre to good games. Halo of course being the best of them. And Gotham being pretty much standard stuff as far as racing (though the Kudos were a fun addition.)
Point is, with the FEW (and I mean very few) good games for the XBox, my system has not been played enough for the drive to have actually failed.
Man, I have a friend with a NES that works perfectly. Mine worked perfectly before I sold it to him!:( (A mistake I would not make again)
Anyway, it's what? A million years old now? Give or take an hour?
My XBox died tonight. That stupid DVD-ROM thingie that everybody loves so much about modern day machines went out! It DIED! DEAD! It won't read a CD, it won't read a DVD movie, it won't read a single damned thing!
After doing a web-search I found that this is common on the XBox, and apparently there is a high demand for used DVD mechanisms taken out of broken XBoxes.
So I called Microsoft and much to my shock they were aware of this issue, considered my XBox still under warrenty, and are going to repair the unit.
Now, I would like to point out that this XBox is hardly used because there really just aren't that many great games for it. If I had to guess I'd say the machine has maybe between 60 to 80 hours of use.
Now, that old Nintendo probably has somewhere near thousands of hours of use. LITERALLY Thousands. We figured out long ago that the old "blow on the terminals" trick isn't even necessary. If the game give a flashing red screen or solid black screen we simply turn the machine off, eject, reinsert, power back on (sans blowing) and it is normally fine.
Do you know how many times I ejected that DVD and reinserted it into that XBOX? At least a half dozen. Trying to "Clean it" to make sure the disc wasn't defective probably created more scratches than existed previously and it wasn't until after I tried other games that I realized it was the XBox, and not the discs.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while I actually remember cases of Nintendos breaking down they were the few sad stories, and not an epidemic.
So while people might complain that those 15 year old game machines are a pain in the ass to get running, just remember, they don't build them like they used to. And they don't make the games nearly as fun, either.
Any guesses as to how many of his existing muscular systems will be paralyzed by the tampering?
The brain is super redundant. I'm guessing with enough research it would be possible for the chip to be connected up in such a fashion that it become a true extension, rather than a replacement to already existing motor skills.
Then again, maybe not. But if we have directly wired internet access, who needs motor skills anyway?
I love Metroid Prime and Fusion both... Now that I have completed both games I have tried to make a decision on which I like better, and it's really hard to decide.
In fact, picking a best game from the entire series is really difficult. It's easiest to eliminate the one that I consider to be the least impressive, and that would have to be Metroid II, but that by no means is to imply it wasn't a good game.
Overall if you like any one of the Metroid games you are sure to like all of them. Metroid Prime is certainly different from the rest, but there is just enough of the original flavor to make it worthy while standing on it's own as an excellent game dispite it's departure from 2d. Maru Mari was implimented nearly perfectly, afterall. I just wish there had been a Screw Attack somehow.:(
Re:Get the whistle!
on
NES PC
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I will grant you that Super Mario 3 was an excellent game, but are we forgetting that Super Mario World came along and expanded on everything that was great about Super Mario 3?
Super Mario World introduced Yoshi, expanded the branching overworld, had more secrets, managed to keep all of the classic gameplay, all the while bringing Mario into a more colorful world with richer sounds, fuller music, and larger enemies.
Super Mario World (and to a lesser extent SMW2:Yoshi's Island) are still what I consider to be the greatest moment's in Mario.
This doesn't mean SBM3 isn't a classic by which most standards should be compared against, because it really is one of the greatest games of all times. And if you're going to only consider the NES Platform, the SMB3 is matched only by the largely different but equally impressive Metroid.
How could you have a friend so mind-numbingly ignorant of technical manners?
What pisses me off is when you try to explain to them why what they've done is such a big deal, they get frustrated and say "Shesh, it's just e-mail, get over it."
Dipshits.
Now I have an e-mail address nobody at all has except for maybe 6 very computer literate people. The rest of the world can blow me.
Anyone else that needs to contact me can contact me through one of the various instant message protocals. I refuse messages from people not on my list, so spam there is non-existant.
Technically, you could come pretty close to running Quake 3 on a single GBA.
Quake 1 has been done, as well as a GTA-3 clone called The World of Crime.
Don't think it's possible? You're underestimating the power of the GBA. I've seen the videos, the machine is more than capable. They've been removed from the developer's site, but TWOC videos are still up.
http://www.pocketeers.com
Don't have a GBA yet? Thought it was crap? Get yourself a GBA SP. You're in for a shock. This isn't the Gameboy we were playing at the end of the 80's.
(Check the site out for yourself. Note I also never claimed the translation from PC to GBA would be PERFECT. It would obviously lose something... I'm just saying it can be done.)
Really, I don't see how Microsoft lowering their prices could be good for anybody but them.
Well, it would save a whole lot of people a whole lot of money, so I guess that IS good, I guess. But really I see Microsoft just strengthening their foothold, which is bad for everyone in the long wrong.
Imagine if Windows cost $25? Instead of Joe-Blow doing cartwheels to get around XP Activation, they'd just buy 3 copies, one for each machine.
Imagine if Windows cost $9.99? People would buy copies for their mothers, friends, families, etc, just to "free them of those stupid problems they have with Windows 98/ME".
The fact is, Microsoft could probably still make some changes internally that would allow them to profit off of Windows if it sold for almost nothing, and THEN what would open source have to bank on? Moral righteousness? HAH. That'll sell.
I would have to agree that Mario Sunshine was a slight disappointment if for no other reason than I expected more innovation. This hardly disqualifies it as an excellent title, though. I would never tell anybody that Mario Sunshine was not a great game. I would just say I did expect more. After all, everyone holds Miyomoto to a higher standard.
Luigi's Mansion was a typical "out of nowhere" launch title. It was fun, and only disappointing because it was so short. I wouldn't dare say it was bad.
Zelda indeed DOES remain to be seen. But at least I can say I'm eagerly awaiting it.
I was not implying Nintendo's first party games were all perfect, but they are certain a better selection than what's available for the XBox. Some of them are very close to perfect. And I don't think Metroid Prime is over-rated at all. It's the first game I've played in a long time that I absolutely could not put down until I finished it.
By the far, the XBox has fewer high quality exclusives than either the Gamecube OR the PS2. If we're going to count which system has the MOST exclusives that are at least worth playing, the PS2 would have to win if for no other reason than it's been out longer. Last year introduced several great games for the PS2, to include some first party titles that recieved almost none of the attention they desereved. (Mark of Kri anyone?)
If I had to be called a Fanboy (which could hardly be the case considering how obsessive I am about all video games), that would probably best be applied to the Dreamcast or Gameboy, but I won't even get into THAT....
At least the GC has tons of Nintendo first party titles, all top notch, and most with really high replay value. Oh, sure, the rest of the trash is the same cross-platform stuff the Xbox and PS/2 has, but in addition to the same stuff the XBox has it ALSO has the Nintendo stuff. And that's something. So, to answer your question, that's how, and that's enough.
I know a lot of people get upset thinking that a good standard coming along will make obsolete similar work done by others, but is this not what's good about open source?
If there are wonderful ideas implimented in existing projects, what's great about them all can be brought together and implimented into a new and accepted standard. Applications that exist to support them all can easily be modified by the community to support the new standard.
If there are 10 different sound servers out there in use, and they're consolidated down into just 1 or 2 using nothing but the best features, this can be a great thing. If one becomes standard and makes sound applications easier to bring to Unix, this is even better.
I personally have a lot of problems with X, but I still think something like this is a very good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone slightly educated in music knows this poster is full of shit.
Hardly, see my other message under the more sensible and not-anonymous reply.
Indian classical music is considered one of the most advanced forms of music on the planet, and they don't really have a concept of harmony.
I implied that all of the elements of music had to be present for music to be "good", and as a general rule I think alot of people would agree. On the other hand, it is possible to be completely devoid of one part or another part, when one of the remaining parts is exceptional.
In the other (not-anonymous) reply, user Sllim (95682) said "Rap is a good example. Got beat. Not much else though. That in itself is a set of rules that need followed. Like binary."
He's spot on there. In fact I was going to make that point myself, but strangely never got to it. But if you're going to stand on your one leg it better be a very strong one. Really good rap (if you're into rap that is) will tend to have a very powerful beat, and normally very perfectly timed (and sometimes difficult to perform) lyrics. Poor rap just kind of sounds like grunting at the same time as a background beat rather than raping with the beat.
When a rapper can string out a long line of words without missing a beat and saying things that the average person would stumble upon then that rapper is considered to be a "good rapper". And this is taking into acount that a large portion of music lovers will say "rap sucks" or "rap isn't music."
Yet, I never made that statement myself. It is possible for someone to understand the rules of music and STILL leave plenty of room for varying tastes.
Quality is subjective.
No, taste is subjective. Quality is (to a degree) definitive. If you think quality isn't, give a drum set (or other loud instrument) to an average 4 year old and tell him to have fun. Your opinion will change.
(Insert favorite obligatory generic joke about kids without talent and pop-music. Worth: +5 funny)
professed a love for pop and that classical was only so-so.
I did not say that. I said "I can even enjoy classical." I made that distinction because a lot of people now days will say "classical sucks". And these are the people I get most annoyed with. True, it might not appeal to their taste, but it hardly sucks as music. It just might not be interesting to some people.
Problem is, this guy is forgetting about the rest of the population.
I'm not forgetting that at all. In fact, I'm pointing out that a great number of the population don't have a good understanding of these points in music. Some people understand them and then still like things that break the rules anyway, but those types are exceptions to the rule, I'm willing to bet.
Rap is a good example. Got beat. Not much else though. That in itself is a set of rules that need followed.
Your right, and some RAP is "better music" than others. A lot of the time the Melody in a rap tune is purely a vocal Melody, but still a Melody. Is it no wonder that most rap only exists temporarily, but yet really catchy pop songs can last 20 years? Is it also no wonder that every now and then one Rap Tune stands out for a long because it is more like music than the rest? Music that lasts for ages almost always AGREES with the rules of music, while music that doesn't agree tends to fade into obscurity. The conclusion could easily be drawn that people have a natural desire to continue listening to a song that is "better music" for much longer than a song that is not good music to begin with.
And that is what this dude is missing....
This guy likes things that follows rules.
Again, not at all. Rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes a musician can create new and interesting sounds by breaking those rules. That is not an invitation to throw out the rules, however. A clever and interesting sound created by breaking the rules is one way of using the rule to your advantage.
One can defend poorly written music as "good by someone's tastes", but in 10 years when nobody else is litening to that song yet there is still a heavy following of 70's rock bands then the point will be illustrated again and again. Just like there IS a reason that classical has survived so long and is still enjoyed today, some music is going to last longer than others and it's easy to see the rules of music tend to endure.
We are a mere step away from a computer writing the music (the hard part) and some pansy adding words.
Yes, and I won't step forward and say I like that idea any more than you do. In my previous post I said I didn't think that a machine filtering out the crap would be a bad thing, but I started thinking about it and I've kind of changed my view on that, but the reason is this:
Would a machine know the difference between a good rule breakage, or would it just chalk it up as crap and dismiss the song? And then, if we knew our music was being "filtered of the talentless" would they have even a better medium by which to mold our "expectations" of what should be popular music?
I don't much care for having someone else pick my music for me. Thanks.
"underlying mathematical patterns"
I wouldn't have a problem with that, if they were judging each song independently. Like it or not, music DOES revolve around math. Beat, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Tone are all by definition the elements that make something into music instead of just a bunch of noise.
Today MANY musicians make what is by definition closer to noise than music, because it only has some of these elements. A dripping faucet can have a beat and rhythmn, but it doesn't have a melody.
A lot of top-40 crap is manufactured garbage that is hollow and uninspired, but on the other hand it follows all of the rules of music and thus isn't exactly horrible to listen to (share and enjoy.)
On the other hand, a lot of VERY POPULAR singers completely disregard some of the most basic rules of music. (Did beat go out of style while I was off on another planet or is the entire population of the world go retarded while I was gone?)
A simple test for the quality of music is to compare it to all of the basic elements and see how much of each it has, and how well each one has done.
You can take a lot of music and quickly notice that the singer can not in tune, is off beat, isn't in harmony with the music, the music behind the singer's voice has no real melody (it's just a baseline - a common violation these days), or (very often) it's several of these things.
Again, much top 40 follows the rules. I'd rather hear that than some indi band that doesn't. Much of the top 40 doesn't, and I can do without those. Essentially I'll listen to anything well done, regardless of the type of music or whether or not it's "popular". I can even enjoy classical.
So if someone were to write a program that could simply screen out the "noise" and keep it from getting put on the charts, I don't think that would be a bad thing. Top 40 might not instantly stop being shit, but at least it would be musical shit, and not just a bunch of noise.
You're either going to agree with me on this, or flame me to death. What the hell, I have Karma to burn.
My favorite quote from the article...
The A.I. establishment has for more than a decade put more energy into explaining why the Turing test is irrelevant than it has into passing it.
I would add my two cents on the subject, but instead I now owe them to Amazon.
OH! I get it!
He modded it to make the case smaller, right?
This is probably the best "pro" XBox argument I've ever seen, and the only one I actually agree with.
It's no secret I actually like my GC and PS2 over my XBox, but I will say that I would never get rid of my XBox (though it did die on me and I had to send it in for warrenty work).
Really though it only has a few good games, I do actually LIKE those few games, and I like them quite a bit. So the system does have it's uses.
I personally would not recommend it as someone's sole system, though.
Well sorry, but I get a pile of junk mail every week on my doormat through my post and in my papers - and the senders have had to pay both to print AND send that...
Those senders are also not fraudulent businesses either. They provide you with a REAL way to contact them. You know who you're dealing with. In most cases they are businesses local to you. In the case of spam, most of the time what they are selling is only questionably legal, it may not be what they claim, or it just doesn't exist at all.
I would have a much smaller problem with spam if only legit businesses spammed me. The reasoning being that I can handle 5 or 6 spams a week, but 20 or 30 per day is just plain rediculous. If only legit/respectable businesses could spam you can rest assured the amount of spam you get will be reduced down to almost nothing.
Scientists cloned a little lamb,
and Dolly was her name.
She was looked on by the media,
and give world wide fame.
And though she was a carbon copy,
she was different just the same.
So now she's just a rotting corpse,
and poor cloning was to blame.
I wouldnt send software to a client on a MtR disk any sooner than I'd send it on a stack of floppies.
I understand your paranoia about Packet Writing, because most of it has sucked until now. But the whole point behind Mount Rainier is that it actually DOES what its supposed to, and as I understand it higher quality medias will suffer less packet failure, and the format will map out and not use back sectors so that data isn't lost as frequently.
There are many people wanting to see Mount Rainier replace the current CD file systems as there are people willing to see the floppy die forever! Once the Floppy is gone and done for, Mount Rainier will replace it and the CD-RW will be the new standard minimum storage medium. This will NOT be a bad thing by far.
Doesn't this all mean nothing in the end? I mean is Yamaha dropping the CD-RW drive line to move on to something better, or are they dropping out entirely? Isn't the current standard of CD-Burners kind of going to die when Mount Rainier takes off anyway?
It's starting to trickle in now, and when it finally gets a foot-hold CD-Authoring as we know it will no longer rely on proprietary packet-writing formats or cumbersom select and burn proceedures.
I for one have dispised the way CD-RWs have worked for a long time now. Mount Rainier should have been the stardard from the start, and by waiting for so long to establish a standard they (Sony, Philips, Microsoft, etc.) have only hurt the industry.
That's a shame you missed out on Pac Man World and the Donkey Kong Country games. They really are pretty good games.
Frogger was amusing but not excellent, and definately worth playing if you can do so without putting yourself out too much cash (rent or buy used.)
Pac Man World has some mixed reviews, some bashing it saying it's a Donkey Kong Country rip-off and to that I will have to agree.
So let's focus on the DK line. Those games were outright excellent. Some of the best things on the SNES in it's later years and it had a lot of replay value. The games aren't terribly deep but they were fun and had some amusing moments. If you have a SNES, you might want to check out the DK games (DK 2: Diddy Kong's Quest is the better of the three) on ebay or at the local game shop that sells used. If you have a Playstation, you won't be wasting your time to check out Pac Man World. Pac Man World 2 is available for all the systems, and should still be rentable at most video rental chains. The game isn't ground-breaking, but it is worth playing. I picked my copies up used pretty cheap and considered them well worth the price paid. Again, the games aren't groundbreaking, but they were good cheap fun that wasn't terribly deep. The familiar sounds and atmosphere only added to the enjoyment for me.
The Pitfall remake on the other hand is pretty disappointing.
FYI, the first day I brought mine home the thing fried after about 5 minutes. I exchnaged it the same day.
I wish mine had died two months ago, then I could have taken it back to the store where I bought it.
Yeah, I generally tend to agree that hardware is luck of the draw, but a good web-search is yielding tons of results of this particular problem. One thread I found that no longer existed was literally hundreds of "ME TOO! SAME PROBLEM!" I was only able to read it through it's Google cache...
I'm glad the warrenty covers this, and I sure hope I have better luck with the replacement. I was so wanting to get into Panzer Dragoon Orta and DOAX.
Nope. Not at all, this issue seems prominant. People who never tamper with their XBox whatsoever seem to have a problem with the "Your Disc is Dirty or Damaged" error. It's not just one disc when it happens, apparently it's any and all discs.
If your NES died back in the day you didn't have the ability to go online and see how many others did. Global community and all that.
That would be a good point if I didn't happen to be involved in retail back in those days and let me tell you that the NES failure rate was very low. You would see a return once in a while, sure, but just as often as not people would just return them because they didn't want them.
But how's this? After talking to some friends on the phone, I found that I have two other friends who experienced this problem. One of them said that the machine just started working again the next day, and the other just took it back to the store and got a new one.
Oh, and the guy at Microsoft that I talked to on the phone acknoledged that this is a common issue, which is exactly why Microsoft is sending me a box to ship the thing back to them in.
Frankly 99.9% of the 'broken xbox' stories involve a 13 year old, no common sense, and traces lifted off the motherboard while installing a modchip.
I tend to think its more likely that 99.9% of the 'broken xbox' stories come from Microsoft trying to cut costs and putting a cheap drive in some of the units. C'mon now, you're actually going to try to tell me you don't actually think Microsoft could possibly have a quality control issue? How funny.
Halo is Great, and Gotham is at least so-so. Fun at least, but only for a short while. Amped did nothing for me, and I'm not into Golf. Morrowind is fine, I guess, but available on the PC.
That's a FEW mediocre to good games. Halo of course being the best of them. And Gotham being pretty much standard stuff as far as racing (though the Kudos were a fun addition.)
Point is, with the FEW (and I mean very few) good games for the XBox, my system has not been played enough for the drive to have actually failed.
Man, I have a friend with a NES that works perfectly. Mine worked perfectly before I sold it to him! :( (A mistake I would not make again)
Anyway, it's what? A million years old now? Give or take an hour?
My XBox died tonight. That stupid DVD-ROM thingie that everybody loves so much about modern day machines went out! It DIED! DEAD! It won't read a CD, it won't read a DVD movie, it won't read a single damned thing!
After doing a web-search I found that this is common on the XBox, and apparently there is a high demand for used DVD mechanisms taken out of broken XBoxes.
So I called Microsoft and much to my shock they were aware of this issue, considered my XBox still under warrenty, and are going to repair the unit.
Now, I would like to point out that this XBox is hardly used because there really just aren't that many great games for it. If I had to guess I'd say the machine has maybe between 60 to 80 hours of use.
Now, that old Nintendo probably has somewhere near thousands of hours of use. LITERALLY Thousands. We figured out long ago that the old "blow on the terminals" trick isn't even necessary. If the game give a flashing red screen or solid black screen we simply turn the machine off, eject, reinsert, power back on (sans blowing) and it is normally fine.
Do you know how many times I ejected that DVD and reinserted it into that XBOX? At least a half dozen. Trying to "Clean it" to make sure the disc wasn't defective probably created more scratches than existed previously and it wasn't until after I tried other games that I realized it was the XBox, and not the discs.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while I actually remember cases of Nintendos breaking down they were the few sad stories, and not an epidemic.
So while people might complain that those 15 year old game machines are a pain in the ass to get running, just remember, they don't build them like they used to. And they don't make the games nearly as fun, either.
Any guesses as to how many of his existing muscular systems will be paralyzed by the tampering?
The brain is super redundant. I'm guessing with enough research it would be possible for the chip to be connected up in such a fashion that it become a true extension, rather than a replacement to already existing motor skills.
Then again, maybe not. But if we have directly wired internet access, who needs motor skills anyway?
I love Metroid Prime and Fusion both... Now that I have completed both games I have tried to make a decision on which I like better, and it's really hard to decide.
:(
In fact, picking a best game from the entire series is really difficult. It's easiest to eliminate the one that I consider to be the least impressive, and that would have to be Metroid II, but that by no means is to imply it wasn't a good game.
Overall if you like any one of the Metroid games you are sure to like all of them. Metroid Prime is certainly different from the rest, but there is just enough of the original flavor to make it worthy while standing on it's own as an excellent game dispite it's departure from 2d. Maru Mari was implimented nearly perfectly, afterall. I just wish there had been a Screw Attack somehow.
I will grant you that Super Mario 3 was an excellent game, but are we forgetting that Super Mario World came along and expanded on everything that was great about Super Mario 3?
Super Mario World introduced Yoshi, expanded the branching overworld, had more secrets, managed to keep all of the classic gameplay, all the while bringing Mario into a more colorful world with richer sounds, fuller music, and larger enemies.
Super Mario World (and to a lesser extent SMW2:Yoshi's Island) are still what I consider to be the greatest moment's in Mario.
This doesn't mean SBM3 isn't a classic by which most standards should be compared against, because it really is one of the greatest games of all times. And if you're going to only consider the NES Platform, the SMB3 is matched only by the largely different but equally impressive Metroid.
How could you have a friend so mind-numbingly ignorant of technical manners?
What pisses me off is when you try to explain to them why what they've done is such a big deal, they get frustrated and say "Shesh, it's just e-mail, get over it."
Dipshits.
Now I have an e-mail address nobody at all has except for maybe 6 very computer literate people. The rest of the world can blow me.
Anyone else that needs to contact me can contact me through one of the various instant message protocals. I refuse messages from people not on my list, so spam there is non-existant.
Technically, you could come pretty close to running Quake 3 on a single GBA.
Quake 1 has been done, as well as a GTA-3 clone called The World of Crime.
Don't think it's possible? You're underestimating the power of the GBA. I've seen the videos, the machine is more than capable. They've been removed from the developer's site, but TWOC videos are still up.
http://www.pocketeers.com
Don't have a GBA yet? Thought it was crap? Get yourself a GBA SP. You're in for a shock. This isn't the Gameboy we were playing at the end of the 80's.
(Check the site out for yourself. Note I also never claimed the translation from PC to GBA would be PERFECT. It would obviously lose something... I'm just saying it can be done.)
Really, I don't see how Microsoft lowering their prices could be good for anybody but them.
Well, it would save a whole lot of people a whole lot of money, so I guess that IS good, I guess. But really I see Microsoft just strengthening their foothold, which is bad for everyone in the long wrong.
Imagine if Windows cost $25? Instead of Joe-Blow doing cartwheels to get around XP Activation, they'd just buy 3 copies, one for each machine.
Imagine if Windows cost $9.99? People would buy copies for their mothers, friends, families, etc, just to "free them of those stupid problems they have with Windows 98/ME".
The fact is, Microsoft could probably still make some changes internally that would allow them to profit off of Windows if it sold for almost nothing, and THEN what would open source have to bank on? Moral righteousness? HAH. That'll sell.
I would have to agree that Mario Sunshine was a slight disappointment if for no other reason than I expected more innovation. This hardly disqualifies it as an excellent title, though. I would never tell anybody that Mario Sunshine was not a great game. I would just say I did expect more. After all, everyone holds Miyomoto to a higher standard.
Luigi's Mansion was a typical "out of nowhere" launch title. It was fun, and only disappointing because it was so short. I wouldn't dare say it was bad.
Zelda indeed DOES remain to be seen. But at least I can say I'm eagerly awaiting it.
I was not implying Nintendo's first party games were all perfect, but they are certain a better selection than what's available for the XBox. Some of them are very close to perfect. And I don't think Metroid Prime is over-rated at all. It's the first game I've played in a long time that I absolutely could not put down until I finished it.
By the far, the XBox has fewer high quality exclusives than either the Gamecube OR the PS2. If we're going to count which system has the MOST exclusives that are at least worth playing, the PS2 would have to win if for no other reason than it's been out longer. Last year introduced several great games for the PS2, to include some first party titles that recieved almost none of the attention they desereved. (Mark of Kri anyone?)
If I had to be called a Fanboy (which could hardly be the case considering how obsessive I am about all video games), that would probably best be applied to the Dreamcast or Gameboy, but I won't even get into THAT....
And the GameCube is better how?
At least the GC has tons of Nintendo first party titles, all top notch, and most with really high replay value. Oh, sure, the rest of the trash is the same cross-platform stuff the Xbox and PS/2 has, but in addition to the same stuff the XBox has it ALSO has the Nintendo stuff. And that's something. So, to answer your question, that's how, and that's enough.
You don't play many video games, do you?
Troll better next time.
I know a lot of people get upset thinking that a good standard coming along will make obsolete similar work done by others, but is this not what's good about open source?
If there are wonderful ideas implimented in existing projects, what's great about them all can be brought together and implimented into a new and accepted standard. Applications that exist to support them all can easily be modified by the community to support the new standard.
If there are 10 different sound servers out there in use, and they're consolidated down into just 1 or 2 using nothing but the best features, this can be a great thing. If one becomes standard and makes sound applications easier to bring to Unix, this is even better.
I personally have a lot of problems with X, but I still think something like this is a very good thing.