While I can see your point with disgaea, and tactics; it is the 'few and far between' for consol games; and both are more of a turn based stratagy then an RPG.
As for the final fantasy series- every final fantasy up to 7 was brilliant work- then it all went downhill, and every final fantasy up to 7 closely coincided with the release of a wizardry game (Bane of the cosmic forge, crusaders of the dark savant, and just recently wizardy 8; all amazing games- the earlier ones are so-so).
As for computer RPGS, you mentioned that your sure there are some nice ones out there; but not only are there nice ones, there are some mindblowing ones (Something I have not seen on the consols recently- keeping in mind that I believe disgaea to be a turn based stratagy game, cause that is a mindblowingly good game) Morrowind is visually spectacular, in depth, deep, and highly customizable, and it simply coulden't be done on the consol (they did release an X-box version, it's just not as good; no custom mods, much lower screen resolution); Neverwinter knights is another game in a simmiliar vein (not as good as morrowind in my opinion, but still excelent), as well if your a final fantasy fan (I've lost interest post 7) most of the final fantasies are ported to the compuer (7 and 9 were, I believe).
As for FFXI on the consol- they will port it, but it won't be as good as the compuer version, either it'll get slaughtered in loading times (because there still patching the computer version for balance reasons, or to add new features, and probabally will be doing that for some time) having to download all the patched information and store it in ram (or maby use the PS2 harddrive that hasen't seen an application yet), or the server will have to handle a lot more of the rules- or the consol version of the game will not be patched; which means it'll miss out on balancing and feature additions from the computer version.
And reasons like that are why I think that the CRPGs on computers are better then the ones on the consol. I mean, I like Disgaea, but how many times can I run through the final level of the cave of ordeal with my party that's equiping nothing but testaments that I've stolen from the prinny god? However if it were a well written CRPG, I could go on the website and download the 'custom level of the month', and try that on for size, maby some fan will make a completely new expension that I can download for free- or maby the company will make a 'pay for me' expansion- Maby I want to add a new class to the game. You can do all those things on a computer- it's much harder on a consol, and I really like that kind of extensibility.
As for the cost of a computer; I really have to call you on that one- I can go down to future shop right now, and buy a brand new AMD 2400 system for $350- just slightly more then a consol.
I've really got to ask why on this one... I mean cross compatibility and all- great stuff, but WHY? X allready has a really good, open source, web browser in Safari, it can run a native port of Mozilla, and you can run BSD apps in the downloadable X server- so what possible reason can there be to completely port it- other then perhaps 'look I ported it'?
Re:This may sound like flamebait or a troll...
on
G5 vs Opteron, Finally
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This is only partially true; CRPGs (Computer Role Playing Games) are generally far superior on the computer (Morrowind: need I say more?), as well as FPS (First person shooters) (Alien Vs Predator 2, Return to castle wolfenstien: Enemy Teritory), Adventure games (I can't think of a current one; monkey island?) and RTS (Real Time Stratagy)(Red Alert 2, warcraft 3, Kohan)- and there's a simple reason, the keyboard/mouse/very high def monitor are all but required to play these games and the ability to mod/upgrade these games is easily at least 1/2 the fun.
While it might become easy enough for a thief to start learning how to circumvent the onstar's location based system, most would just as soon pass that vehicle by and find another one.
For instance more cars without anti-theft systems are stolen compared to those that have it, most likely not because the thief dosen't know how to circumvent the system, but because that means more time the theif is going to have to spend in public looking for that system and disabling it. Sometimes deterance is all you need.
Also, the onstar people could move the wiring around a bit on each vehicle to make it nonstandard.
Never reported a bug? Never recomended it to a friend/sister company who might have reported a bug? Never worked on a patch in house and had a developer at the company release it back from there e-mail?
This article is pretty bullox, I think that many companies are making contributions to the OSS movement; just not in the 'money talks' way that the author would like- Bug reports are important, espically if there WELL DOCUMENTED bug reports; Heck you help mozilla just by running there automatic bug report version. As well as is allready mentioned, a lot of times when someone working at a company develops a patch they submit it, because it's there path, they did it on company time, maby, but they wrote it, not the company.
As well not everyone can code, and a lot of houses that have adopted open source, did so because of the $0 pricetag; so what? That dosen't mean they don't contribute to a better OSS software project by reporting bugs. Bug reports are important damnit!
If you think that Will Smith doesn't have the acting calibre to do this, I think you should take a few deep breaths; then go out and rent the following two movies:
1- Six Degrees of Separation
2- Ali
If after seeing those two movies you don't think that Will Smith can pull off virtually any role brilliantly, I think you should watch them again.
Ahh the classic chicken and egg scenario, however the solution is simple
It's simple, first you realise that the egg came long before the chicken, since fish were laying eggs melina before the first land bourn creatures even existed.
Then you strangle schrodenger's cat with quantum loop mechanics while it's still in the box without actually observing it, remove the undead kitten, and send it at speeds exceeding the speed of light which will allow you to access the internet without a computer and download your driver!
(excuse brutalization of names, and poor spelling, but it's a joke damnit!)
excelent post; as an add on to your notes on adultry was it justified? Now before I get my throat jumped down about there being no justification for it- I'm going to say 'yes' there is. Alination of affection (IE; one party holding lovemaking ransom) as some sort of barganing chip, in my opinion is 'just' cause for adultry- of course the bigger question is; what is wrong with your relationship/psyce that one party has arrived at the conclusion that to get what they want then will deny themselves and there partner of something they both (presumabally) enjoy.
Note: There is a big difference between alination of affection and just not being the mood, normally measured in monthes.
And as has been mentioned several times, they make all of there kernel changes freely accessable- and that this has nothing to do with Binary-only modules; so much as it has to do with software running on the kernel- like the fancy remote-controller opperated menu you use when setting record times: That was not written under the GPL, it's proprietary software, it's owned by tivo, and it's on the disk image.
I don't think it gets more cut and dry then that?
What writer wants you to believe:
Guy building cool technology sqaushed by his government for doing things they don't approve of.
Reality:
Guy forced into bankrupcy because he neglected to pay taxes for several years while funding assorted high profile expensive projects. Since he's high profile and a flagrant offender, they made an example of him. By the way, one of his projects happened to include a cruise missile, who's plans he could now sell to Iran to dig himself out of cete bankrupcy.
1- Open source will have unforeseen costs (support costs, retraining, or just plain training)
2- So will closed source (Forced upgrades, support costs, training, maybe even retraining)
3-The unforeseen costs for open source will obviously cost more then the software (since it was free)
4-The unforeseen costs for closed source MAY cost more then the software
None of this is news; running software takes money, and the cost you pay for running open source software will be a LOT higher then it's install cost, because it's so cheap to install (there is an install cost because you'll have to pay your IT guy to set it up, or use some of your time to do so yourself).
Tonnes of these articles go over how the 'hidden costs' of open source will cost more then the closed source software, but they rarely compare what the 'hidden costs' of the closed source software.
I'd like to see a comparison of the 'hidden costs' of a closed source package vs an open source package in two comparable divisions of the same company over a 5 year period, but even that wouldn't settle anything, because the technology keeps changing. If I had to hazard a guess though, I'd imagine that the costs of closed source with it's forced paid upgrades outweighs open source which has all the same 'hidden costs' save that one.
Note: support costs include the time wasted contacting free tech support- Frankly if your getting paid $20/hr as a computer tech to fix a problem in an Intergraph product (they do have good free tech support when you buy there very very expensive product), and need to spend a long time on hold: that's company money spent on support. If it's cheaper to pay "OPENSCADA" (made up name) or some other open source program's support fees to get a tech to log on via VNC every now and again to fix the problem; then even though you have to pay for OPENSCADA support and not for Intergraph, it still cost you less for support because your tech didn't have to wait on hold for 2 hours and then have to go through the very same steps the OPENCAD guy did on your machine via remote with 2 hours less time spent.
Actually; it's probably even brighter then that, even in the horrid world where the RIAA gets it's way and black boxes are implemented (in the united states)- don't expect them to be implemented across the world: Someone in some country that has greater freedoms (In this respect, I'd hardly call china a bastion of freedom, but there notoriously lax when it comes to copyright infringement so they'd be an example) will crack the black box encryption, make a non-black box version, and sell to a market literally salivating for the product.
So why dose it have to be now? I mean, this is the buy season; consume consume consume; sales will be non-existent, except on things that you don't need, and prices have been slowly bubbling to get to this great season all year. If you wait until AFTER Christmas, you may find a deal, or one that someone got for Christmas but didn't want (Got two, got one of the non I-pod MP3/OGG players and likes it more) for sale in your local paper or on E-bay.
and
Why dose it have to be an I-pod, I mean, if a 10% discount on a ~$500 dollar item is enough to sway you from buying it entirely, why not buy one of the near equivalents which can be more then 50% less expensive? (I won't reprint those equivalents, because I don't pretend to know which ones are best- but they've been all over slashdot in previous articles, read, research and decide what's best for you). If it's name recognition (Maybe you have hopes that some hot girl will come up to you on a run and jack into your pod to hear what your listening to?); why not get one of the smaller ones, and put it in a broken-I-pod-that-you-got-off-of-E-bay-for-$5's case; only the trained and genuinely curious observer would notice that the buttons don't work and the headphone jack has been routered out to get at the device inside.
If it's because you LOVE apple, and you must have apple products, then the $50 difference shoulden't be anything too much to cough down over the $200 extra your already paying for it to be by apple instead of someone else.
Are you trying to say that Mercury mail arbitrarily executes Javascript; because it doesn't, only a company with a complete disregard for security would arbitrarily execute ANY code in an e-mail.
The Writer's program (Part of Pegasus mail) dose not. He's just saying that 'my filter deletes all e-mail that has javascript'.
I think you jumped the gun a bit on your microsoft bashing in insinuating that this writer disserves his spam.
Re:Oh Well, there not the first, there not the las
on
Kazaa-lite Shut Down
·
· Score: 1
Well, in Canada, the wording of our CD-R tax is that it is for the compensation of the authors for the copying of there music while removing the distribution medium, or something to that effect after translated from leagalees.
Which according to some lawyers means that it's completely legal to download music in canada, as long as you burn it to a CD that you paid the tax on; IE the $15 is the cost of the distribution, and the $.30 is the ammount of compensation when that is removed
Don't forget this is also about accountability.
My cousin living just outside of New York was nearly hit by a plough and just barely managed to jump out of the way, the plough then took off the grill on the front of his truck and he got sprayed with rocks as the thing went screaming past; he sent the bill to the city, the city had to pay it, but he was told that the city was very upset with this because it happened all over and all the plough operators were blaming the independent plough operators, and all the independent plough operators were blaming the company plough operators- ultimately the city had to swallow the bill itself without being able to pass it on to the guilty party despite the fact that my cousin had an accurate time for when the incident happened.
With GPS tracking that won't happen again, they'll simply look up who was where, determine wither or not they were actually there, and present the bill to the proper party. I can see how many people would not like this accountability, but I'm surprised that there aren't any Plough operators who are all for this- since it will let those who are good at there job shine, and keep there job while those who are lazy/sloppy will finally get there's and be fired.
Slashdot Mirror
While I can see your point with disgaea, and tactics; it is the 'few and far between' for consol games; and both are more of a turn based stratagy then an RPG.
As for the final fantasy series- every final fantasy up to 7 was brilliant work- then it all went downhill, and every final fantasy up to 7 closely coincided with the release of a wizardry game (Bane of the cosmic forge, crusaders of the dark savant, and just recently wizardy 8; all amazing games- the earlier ones are so-so).
As for computer RPGS, you mentioned that your sure there are some nice ones out there; but not only are there nice ones, there are some mindblowing ones (Something I have not seen on the consols recently- keeping in mind that I believe disgaea to be a turn based stratagy game, cause that is a mindblowingly good game) Morrowind is visually spectacular, in depth, deep, and highly customizable, and it simply coulden't be done on the consol (they did release an X-box version, it's just not as good; no custom mods, much lower screen resolution); Neverwinter knights is another game in a simmiliar vein (not as good as morrowind in my opinion, but still excelent), as well if your a final fantasy fan (I've lost interest post 7) most of the final fantasies are ported to the compuer (7 and 9 were, I believe).
As for FFXI on the consol- they will port it, but it won't be as good as the compuer version, either it'll get slaughtered in loading times (because there still patching the computer version for balance reasons, or to add new features, and probabally will be doing that for some time) having to download all the patched information and store it in ram (or maby use the PS2 harddrive that hasen't seen an application yet), or the server will have to handle a lot more of the rules- or the consol version of the game will not be patched; which means it'll miss out on balancing and feature additions from the computer version.
And reasons like that are why I think that the CRPGs on computers are better then the ones on the consol. I mean, I like Disgaea, but how many times can I run through the final level of the cave of ordeal with my party that's equiping nothing but testaments that I've stolen from the prinny god? However if it were a well written CRPG, I could go on the website and download the 'custom level of the month', and try that on for size, maby some fan will make a completely new expension that I can download for free- or maby the company will make a 'pay for me' expansion- Maby I want to add a new class to the game. You can do all those things on a computer- it's much harder on a consol, and I really like that kind of extensibility.
As for the cost of a computer; I really have to call you on that one- I can go down to future shop right now, and buy a brand new AMD 2400 system for $350- just slightly more then a consol.
I've really got to ask why on this one... I mean cross compatibility and all- great stuff, but WHY? X allready has a really good, open source, web browser in Safari, it can run a native port of Mozilla, and you can run BSD apps in the downloadable X server- so what possible reason can there be to completely port it- other then perhaps 'look I ported it'?
This is only partially true; CRPGs (Computer Role Playing Games) are generally far superior on the computer (Morrowind: need I say more?), as well as FPS (First person shooters) (Alien Vs Predator 2, Return to castle wolfenstien: Enemy Teritory), Adventure games (I can't think of a current one; monkey island?) and RTS (Real Time Stratagy)(Red Alert 2, warcraft 3, Kohan)- and there's a simple reason, the keyboard/mouse/very high def monitor are all but required to play these games and the ability to mod/upgrade these games is easily at least 1/2 the fun.
yes, and no.
While it might become easy enough for a thief to start learning how to circumvent the onstar's location based system, most would just as soon pass that vehicle by and find another one.
For instance more cars without anti-theft systems are stolen compared to those that have it, most likely not because the thief dosen't know how to circumvent the system, but because that means more time the theif is going to have to spend in public looking for that system and disabling it. Sometimes deterance is all you need.
Also, the onstar people could move the wiring around a bit on each vehicle to make it nonstandard.
The companies don't give anything back, ever?
Never reported a bug? Never recomended it to a friend/sister company who might have reported a bug? Never worked on a patch in house and had a developer at the company release it back from there e-mail?
This article is pretty bullox, I think that many companies are making contributions to the OSS movement; just not in the 'money talks' way that the author would like- Bug reports are important, espically if there WELL DOCUMENTED bug reports; Heck you help mozilla just by running there automatic bug report version. As well as is allready mentioned, a lot of times when someone working at a company develops a patch they submit it, because it's there path, they did it on company time, maby, but they wrote it, not the company.
As well not everyone can code, and a lot of houses that have adopted open source, did so because of the $0 pricetag; so what? That dosen't mean they don't contribute to a better OSS software project by reporting bugs. Bug reports are important damnit!
If you think that Will Smith doesn't have the acting calibre to do this, I think you should take a few deep breaths; then go out and rent the following two movies:
1- Six Degrees of Separation
2- Ali
If after seeing those two movies you don't think that Will Smith can pull off virtually any role brilliantly, I think you should watch them again.
Ahh the classic chicken and egg scenario, however the solution is simple It's simple, first you realise that the egg came long before the chicken, since fish were laying eggs melina before the first land bourn creatures even existed. Then you strangle schrodenger's cat with quantum loop mechanics while it's still in the box without actually observing it, remove the undead kitten, and send it at speeds exceeding the speed of light which will allow you to access the internet without a computer and download your driver! (excuse brutalization of names, and poor spelling, but it's a joke damnit!)
excelent post; as an add on to your notes on adultry was it justified? Now before I get my throat jumped down about there being no justification for it- I'm going to say 'yes' there is. Alination of affection (IE; one party holding lovemaking ransom) as some sort of barganing chip, in my opinion is 'just' cause for adultry- of course the bigger question is; what is wrong with your relationship/psyce that one party has arrived at the conclusion that to get what they want then will deny themselves and there partner of something they both (presumabally) enjoy. Note: There is a big difference between alination of affection and just not being the mood, normally measured in monthes.
And as has been mentioned several times, they make all of there kernel changes freely accessable- and that this has nothing to do with Binary-only modules; so much as it has to do with software running on the kernel- like the fancy remote-controller opperated menu you use when setting record times: That was not written under the GPL, it's proprietary software, it's owned by tivo, and it's on the disk image. I don't think it gets more cut and dry then that?
What writer wants you to believe:
Guy building cool technology sqaushed by his government for doing things they don't approve of.
Reality:
Guy forced into bankrupcy because he neglected to pay taxes for several years while funding assorted high profile expensive projects. Since he's high profile and a flagrant offender, they made an example of him.
By the way, one of his projects happened to include a cruise missile, who's plans he could now sell to Iran to dig himself out of cete bankrupcy.
OK, let us establish some facts;
1- Open source will have unforeseen costs (support costs, retraining, or just plain training)
2- So will closed source (Forced upgrades, support costs, training, maybe even retraining)
3-The unforeseen costs for open source will obviously cost more then the software (since it was free)
4-The unforeseen costs for closed source MAY cost more then the software
None of this is news; running software takes money, and the cost you pay for running open source software will be a LOT higher then it's install cost, because it's so cheap to install (there is an install cost because you'll have to pay your IT guy to set it up, or use some of your time to do so yourself).
Tonnes of these articles go over how the 'hidden costs' of open source will cost more then the closed source software, but they rarely compare what the 'hidden costs' of the closed source software.
I'd like to see a comparison of the 'hidden costs' of a closed source package vs an open source package in two comparable divisions of the same company over a 5 year period, but even that wouldn't settle anything, because the technology keeps changing. If I had to hazard a guess though, I'd imagine that the costs of closed source with it's forced paid upgrades outweighs open source which has all the same 'hidden costs' save that one.
Note: support costs include the time wasted contacting free tech support- Frankly if your getting paid $20/hr as a computer tech to fix a problem in an Intergraph product (they do have good free tech support when you buy there very very expensive product), and need to spend a long time on hold: that's company money spent on support. If it's cheaper to pay "OPENSCADA" (made up name) or some other open source program's support fees to get a tech to log on via VNC every now and again to fix the problem; then even though you have to pay for OPENSCADA support and not for Intergraph, it still cost you less for support because your tech didn't have to wait on hold for 2 hours and then have to go through the very same steps the OPENCAD guy did on your machine via remote with 2 hours less time spent.
Actually; it's probably even brighter then that, even in the horrid world where the RIAA gets it's way and black boxes are implemented (in the united states)- don't expect them to be implemented across the world: Someone in some country that has greater freedoms (In this respect, I'd hardly call china a bastion of freedom, but there notoriously lax when it comes to copyright infringement so they'd be an example) will crack the black box encryption, make a non-black box version, and sell to a market literally salivating for the product.
So why dose it have to be now? I mean, this is the buy season; consume consume consume; sales will be non-existent, except on things that you don't need, and prices have been slowly bubbling to get to this great season all year. If you wait until AFTER Christmas, you may find a deal, or one that someone got for Christmas but didn't want (Got two, got one of the non I-pod MP3/OGG players and likes it more) for sale in your local paper or on E-bay.
and
Why dose it have to be an I-pod, I mean, if a 10% discount on a ~$500 dollar item is enough to sway you from buying it entirely, why not buy one of the near equivalents which can be more then 50% less expensive? (I won't reprint those equivalents, because I don't pretend to know which ones are best- but they've been all over slashdot in previous articles, read, research and decide what's best for you). If it's name recognition (Maybe you have hopes that some hot girl will come up to you on a run and jack into your pod to hear what your listening to?); why not get one of the smaller ones, and put it in a broken-I-pod-that-you-got-off-of-E-bay-for-$5's case; only the trained and genuinely curious observer would notice that the buttons don't work and the headphone jack has been routered out to get at the device inside.
If it's because you LOVE apple, and you must have apple products, then the $50 difference shoulden't be anything too much to cough down over the $200 extra your already paying for it to be by apple instead of someone else.
Are you trying to say that Mercury mail arbitrarily executes Javascript; because it doesn't, only a company with a complete disregard for security would arbitrarily execute ANY code in an e-mail.
The Writer's program (Part of Pegasus mail) dose not. He's just saying that 'my filter deletes all e-mail that has javascript'.
I think you jumped the gun a bit on your microsoft bashing in insinuating that this writer disserves his spam.
Well, in Canada, the wording of our CD-R tax is that it is for the compensation of the authors for the copying of there music while removing the distribution medium, or something to that effect after translated from leagalees. Which according to some lawyers means that it's completely legal to download music in canada, as long as you burn it to a CD that you paid the tax on; IE the $15 is the cost of the distribution, and the $.30 is the ammount of compensation when that is removed
Don't forget this is also about accountability. My cousin living just outside of New York was nearly hit by a plough and just barely managed to jump out of the way, the plough then took off the grill on the front of his truck and he got sprayed with rocks as the thing went screaming past; he sent the bill to the city, the city had to pay it, but he was told that the city was very upset with this because it happened all over and all the plough operators were blaming the independent plough operators, and all the independent plough operators were blaming the company plough operators- ultimately the city had to swallow the bill itself without being able to pass it on to the guilty party despite the fact that my cousin had an accurate time for when the incident happened. With GPS tracking that won't happen again, they'll simply look up who was where, determine wither or not they were actually there, and present the bill to the proper party. I can see how many people would not like this accountability, but I'm surprised that there aren't any Plough operators who are all for this- since it will let those who are good at there job shine, and keep there job while those who are lazy/sloppy will finally get there's and be fired.