the forums are full of trolls who are nowhere near as amusing as the ones here...
Thank GOD there is someone else out there who appreciates the slashdot trolls as much as I do. As much as the slashdot crowd seems to pride themselves on thoughtful and serious discussion of "news for nerds", I'm personally more entertained by the creativity of so many of our trolling brothers and sisters. Luckily, I think slashdot keeps a healthy balance of both.
...and to anyone who feels the need to bitch about the trolls, I give an entheusiastic fuck you! I mean come on, slashdot without the trolls is like pizza without sauce: dry and unsatisfying.
Re:The really scary part of Doom 3
on
Life After Doom
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· Score: 1
You know I'm totally going to have to agree with this. Event Horizon wasn't entirely similar to DOOM in plot, but was almost the exact same thing in CONCEPT: Mankind's tinkering with revolutionary and advanced technology opens gateway to hell...IN SPACE! Even the set design and the eviscerations/mutliation all screamed DOOM. I haven't seen the movie since around when it came out, but I actually enjoyed it a LOT not necessarily because I thought it was a good film, but just because it had so much in common with DOOM. As far as I'm concerned, mankind fighting the supernatural in such a visceral method as guns and chainsaws just seems so cool...and unique. At least, it seemed that way to me when DOOM came out. For a game, anyway. I mean, it's so engrained in us as children growing up that "mythical" beasts like demons and devilish minions just can't be killed. The fact that DOOM let you do this... I don't know, it just seems so cool. I still play DOOM to this day. I don't think I can ever tire of that game...
So I'm wondering... I'd like to get some input from some game developers (professional or otherwise), what is the design mentality behind optimizing game content? I mean, after playing DOOM3 this week and seeing how completely immense game information is getting, doesn't it seem to make more sense to try to automate as much as the game as possible, rather than manually creating so much of the contect (art, FMV, etc.)? How much are developers concentrating on actually trying to use LESS space but deliver MORE content? I understand there are certain things that will always take a lot of space (music, voice acting, etc.) but is there any push at all to create games that don't need as much space?
There is a cool little game/experiment called kkrieger that has been able to present some pretty impressive graphics by rendering them dynamically as the game starts, so it CAN be done. But is anyone doing it?
This, my friends, shows the complete warping and distortion of character that is becoming a celebrity. A girl is violated, writes a book about it (hopefully her intent was only to inform and alert, NOT to get famous), and now that the book and her story has become so popular she feels it's time to capitalize on it more. So she starts going after the owner of Katie.com with lawyers? Does anyone see anything totally wrong with this?
I don't know, maybe Tarbox got some bad legal advice or something, but this just seems too fucked up. The publisher messes up, doesn't do any investigating, this "other Katie" gets all these fucked up emails regarding pedophelia all day, and now Tarbox's lawyer is playing hardball to get the domain names? Sick...
It shows a lack of journalistic integrity to completely believe a company for their reasons for going out of business. It could very well be true that the lawsuits seriously put a damper on their plans, but it could ALSO be true that the company was just poorly managed. No one is going to come out and say: "We're going out of business because our managers are a bunch of schmucks and blew all the money on cheap whores and expensive cocaine!"; they're gonna point the finger.
1) What information will the black box be able to provide Big Brother? (Obviously!
I'd assume Big Brother only wants the standard stuff; upon an accident, the car automatically takes from you a blood, urine, semen and stool sample, sends it back to NETWORK, analyzes, and thus determines whether or not your accident requires that you be cryogenically frozen on the spot courtesy of your cars built-in suspended animation system, so that you will be easier for the authorities to haul you off to "automotive reconditioning".
I've personally only read Dune, which I loved, and seen the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi channel miniseries. Both were quite lacking. But then for some reason, after reading your post, a lightbulb sort of went off in my head. I think that the reason most Dune "movies" have sucked so bad is because the world of Dune is open to SO MUCH interpretation. In the case of LOTR, while the books are extremely complex and do have a lot of subtext, the basic structure and story is pretty straightforward. As in the case of Dune, though, it seems that a lot contained in the books isn't completely spelled out, and while the story and world/planet of Arrakis itself is so interesting, a greater majority of the book deals with political intrigue and character development.
For example, I just read Dune for the second time a few months ago, and upon finishing it I realized I hated Paul Atriedes. I didn't see his character to be so much a hero as I saw it a vehicle for Herbert to elaborate his feelings on how seriously dangerous it is for someone to gain power based on social structures of family and religion. For me, I saw Paul grow from an uncertain, compassionate and intelligent young man to a completely self-righteous, arrogant and egotistical leader who exploited the religious beliefs of the Fremen in order to futher his own quest for power.
Again, that is just my personal interpretation of the book, and I'm not really sure if that's how the majority of Dune readers feel. Anyway, I think it is this complexity, and sort of gray area around the characters and events in Herberts' stories that haven't lended itself well to movie adaptations. I mean, don't get me wrong, the world is all there; Fremen, sand worms, harvesting, etc. for a very interesting visual experience, but I just don't think anyone in the movie industry has really been able to pin down the plot and character elements that would really tie it all together.
All the speculation and uncertainty on whether Sal is a scammer/family man/ghost should have been a pretty blatant indication that this whole fiasco is simply part of the Halo 2 ARG, Haunted Apiary! I'd think such an "enlightened" group as the slashdot crowd would have caught on by now.
As for me, this whole "Sal Wise" component is the final piece of the puzzle. I've solved the riddle...
Interesting. I didn't mean to bring things down to generalizations and presumptions, but I was just curious if there were any particular trends or "habits" that might be prevalent in Japanese bidness. Furthermore, I didn't mean to imply that it was a Japanese vs. foreigners thing, either. I mean, you could say bidness is bidness, but cultural differences can have pretty profound effects on the way we conduct ourselves in all facets of life. So, I was just wondering...
Yeah, I'm aware that Don Miguel was behind the translation, but I hadn't checked out his site in a while. Thanks for the heads up; I just gave the site a gander and sent out an email to Enterbrain. Here's hoping...
I had problems fitting things into my pocket, too. The trick, see, is to have your penis removed.
In all seriousness, though, I agree. It's a bit larger than I was expecting, but so is the PSP, so I guess we'll just all have to wait and see what kind of library each system is going to boast. Personally, I'm not all that excited for the DS. My Advance SP does me just fine as it is now, and unless I try a DS upon release and it just completely blows me away, I won't be in any rush to buy it anytime soon. I do give props to Nintendo for innovating, even if everyone else claims this is just a technologically souped-up rehash of those horrid Game & Watch things...
Wow. That's pretty dissapointing. I found this program series a few years ago, and I've had a blast playing around making my own RPG creations ever since. I haven't finished anything, but that isn't really the point as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea the program was developed by such an oblivious team. I mean, I knew the version I had to use was pirated, but I'd just assumed soon enough that there would be an English version.
Out of curiousity, can someone a little more familiar with Japanese business sense and marketing strategies tell me if this is a trend with Japanese business culture? (That's culture, jerks, not ETHNICITY, for anyone who wants to try and bite my head off for being racist or some bullshit...) I'd read a brief interview with one of the developers from Tecmo regarding Ninja Gaiden and when asked about the fact that some American gamers complained that the game was too hard, his response was essentially "Fuck 'em...". I've seen it other places, though. It just seems like sometimes Japanese marketing doesn't try to kiss your ass as much as it might here in America; here company talking heads are always babbling about brining the most satisfying product to everyone, but most of the time those claims are just complete nonsense. It's just interesting (but saddening, considering I would LOVE to pay cash and support a program like this) to see a company basically say "You were naughty, now you get NOTHING! NOTHING!". I mean, I'm sure there are some companies that aren't Japanese that pull this kind of shit, too, it's just my personal experience to see more of this attitude coming from Japan. If I'm wrong, don't fucking berate me. Enlighten me...
Ummm, as far as I know, if it was pronounced "id", they were doing it right. To the best of my knowledge, id Software gets their name from the Freudian concept referred to as the id. A definition from dictionary.com:
id, n; In Freudian theory, the division of the psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.
So, unless id has changed their name over the years, I guess technically the show had it right.
I'm usually not one to listen to popular music (not that I'm knocking it or anything.) Organic instuments never really appealed to me, but U2 is one of the few popular bands that I could always seem to get into. My musical tastes are mostly aggressive electronic music (industrial: Skinny Puppy, Haujobb, yadda yadda), so maybe I'm not the right person to be giving a critique on U2, but as far as I see things they've just totally sold out and shown that they seriosuly have no clue.
For example, take the release of their albumb POP back in 1997 or something. It was an interesting albumn; it sorta picked up where Zooropa had left off. It was a lot more "experimental" (at least for them) and just by listening to it I sort of got the felling that U2 didn't really give a fuck and just wanted to make the music they were inspired to make. Well, the critics and many of the fans totally wrote the album off as too "electronic", and a few years later U2 releases the completely horrid All That You Can't Leave Behind, which I never even had any interest in at all, but the songs I did hear were just so boring and cookie cutter. But the kicker is that the album went on to sell VERY well, not to mention a US tour with people willing to sell their momma's own titty just to get a ticket. Shocking!
Anyway, I think the "threat" of putting their new album on iTunes because it's been stolen just shows how out of touch celebrities get when they hit the big time. And I don't mean just famous; I mean HUGE. U2 has been a big band for nearly 20 years now, if not more, and as far as the politics that they might have been aligning themselves with before that association is obviously completely gone. Personally, I don't believe in that shit anyway, as politics in popular forms of entertainment seems to me to be just another marketing tool, but that's my own take on things.
I thought I was the only one who remembered singing that song in elementary school. I always found it pretty haunting for some reason, and now you've just put those feelings into a new and even more sinister context.
I apologize for calling this post flamebait. It was sort of oddly worded, and my first reaction was that it was simply trying to get a rise, but after respondind and re-reading it I reconsidered.
But THEN, like a complete fool I neglected to go back and remove the flamebait accusation from the post before submitting. My apologies to the original poster; I'm not a loose cannon for accusing someone of flamebait, I just wasn't paying close enough attention.
This is totally flamebait, but I'll bite because it seems to illustrate a trend I've seen spawn from my initial post. The intent of my post was not to insinuate that Apple is an inferior machine or that Apple is doomed because they have a marginal userbase, but rather to try and convey that Apple is a company, that above all else desire to make money. And, theoretically, if making more money required that they abandon their desktop and laptop line and concentrate completely on iTunes and digital music players, I'm sure they would do so.
As much as the "Mac zealots" love to place Jobs and company on a pedestal, the fact remains that he and everyone who works for Apple are human, and no matter how brilliant anybody may think he is, he still has his price. If abandoning the desktop and laptop series of machines meant a great deal more income, I'm sure he'd tell his "loyal" followers in so many words to go fuck themselves. To believe anything else is delusional, and it seems like a lot of the people who responded to my initial post are simply ignoring this fact.
Ah, but here is where your argument falls apart again. If, at the end of the day a user could in fact use an Apple for the exact same tasks they could on a Windows machine, would they even be able to afford it? As it stands now, buying an Apple computer is more often than not a luxury purchase. And, ironically enough, if we take your car analogy into account, I'm sure you could ask anyone what make of car they would rather drive: BMW or Toyota, and chances are most people are going to pick the Beamer. But can all of those people afford it? I seriously doubt that.
Re:Apple becoming a music company
on
Birth of the iPod
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You make some valid points that I failed to consider. Namely, that maybe Apple does rely a lot more upon desktop sales than I had original assumed. I stand corrected.
However, I have to say outright that I think you're reasoning behind Apple as a "niche" market is completely flawed. You use an example of a high-end/low-end market, but the fact is you are comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges. The example you use of a BMW vs. Toyota might work if we lived in a world with 2 different types of roads, say "performance" and "economical". The performance-minded buyers would be the ones with a large amount of income to spend on a luxury car, while the economical drivers would purchase whatever gets them form point A to point B and be satisfied, and both buyers would drive on their corresponding roads. However, the fact is that we live in a world with one type of road, and you buy what you can afford and what you need to get the job done.
...and then I lead into my final point, which is my criticism of your claim that Apples are "better". This, my friend, is a completely opinionated statement. They might be better, for you. My personal computer is used in majority for gaming, and I think you'd be hard pressed to convince me that gaming support on an Apple is the same as it's going to be on a Windows machine.
This isn't meant to be an attack on your character or personal philosophies, but something I think you need to analyze is the reality that not all people use computers for the same thing. You may use computers to a degree that, for you, they all are capable of the same task. However, some people, such as myself, use computers for reasons that are a little less balanced, and thus have to make choices within a certain set of criteria.
For example, my brother is an aspiring sound engineer/music producer, so when my parents suggested they buy him a laptop for Christmas to assist in his endeavors, they asked for my input. My answer, without hesitation, was to buy him a Powerbook. The software and toolset for recording and audio production are unmatched on an Apple, so I went and ordered the thing myself. He's had it now for six months. He's been completely satisfied, and therefore so am I.
Don't get me wrong, you make some very valid points, but in the end your argument boils down to simply a matter of preference. I know this is slashdot, and I shouldn't care, but I'm actually rather offended that my initial post gets modded "Troll" while a rebuttal that boils down simply to "they're better because I like them" gets modded up as insightful. I have no problem that people enjoy using an Apple because it suits their needs; I'm glad you've found something that gets the job done. But please, spare us the whole "quality" spiel.
Re:Apple becoming a music company
on
Birth of the iPod
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· Score: 0, Troll
Well, as "revolutionary" as you seem to think Apple is, their computer systems have a pretty marginal user base. They've been around for quite some time now, and it doesn't seem like they've made any leaps and bounds in regards to getting more and more people to use their computers. From my experience, there are two types of Apple users; those that use them because they are the best tool for the job, and those that use them out of style. The people who use them out of necessity usually could care less what kind of machine they're using; it's got the tools, fine. The people who use an Apple computer based on style seem to drool all over everything, no matter how trivial, Apple wants to release (computer or otherwise).
The userbase trend seems to only be getting worse, and as far as company longevity goes, it's probably best for Apple to concentrate on music products like the iPod. It seems that often times, people neglect the fact that Apple is a company, and thus wishe to make as much money as possible; Apple could care less about their "loyal" userbase. It's like some Apple users consider their purchase of an Apple a donation or something; Apple, like all other companies, only desire a profit and could care less about their users and their philisophical or moral reasoning for buying their machines.
I think it'd be safe to assume that Miller is talking about things from a gameplay perspective, rather than which franchise came first. While it's true the film The Matrix was released a few years before Max Payne, as far as integrating bullet-time and whatnot into a video game Max Payne did that first. So, I guess technically he's right...
Either way, I get sick of hearing these guys talk; both Broussard and Miller. They credit themselves as innovators every chance they get, and overall just sound like arrogant bastards. To their credit, the only game of theirs I've been extremely impressed with have been Max Payne 2, as I thought Duke3D was a gimmick and just got plain tired of that after a while. And Shadow Warrior, well, that was just Shadow Warrior. I still cannot fathom WHY people are still interested in Duke Nukem Forever; I personally felt Duke's 15 minutes were up a long time ago, and I'm a little puzzled by his continuing appeal.
What stereotype-fostering and biased "study"/editorial are we going to accept next? KKK Grand Dragon Presents Evidence That Aryans Are In Fact Master Race. Or maybe Mormon Scholar Confirms That Alcohol And Vulgarities Will Send You To Hell; non-Mormans fucked.
How about some better discretion when posting articles? The article author is an elitist hack, and the question he poses is one that shouldn't even be given any serious consideration. It's too absurd to even be funny, and everyone knows it's only going to start a bunch of silly flamewar and bitching here on slashdot...
Slashdot Mirror
...taking it OT...
...and to anyone who feels the need to bitch about the trolls, I give an entheusiastic fuck you! I mean come on, slashdot without the trolls is like pizza without sauce: dry and unsatisfying.
the forums are full of trolls who are nowhere near as amusing as the ones here...
Thank GOD there is someone else out there who appreciates the slashdot trolls as much as I do. As much as the slashdot crowd seems to pride themselves on thoughtful and serious discussion of "news for nerds", I'm personally more entertained by the creativity of so many of our trolling brothers and sisters. Luckily, I think slashdot keeps a healthy balance of both.
You know I'm totally going to have to agree with this. Event Horizon wasn't entirely similar to DOOM in plot, but was almost the exact same thing in CONCEPT: Mankind's tinkering with revolutionary and advanced technology opens gateway to hell...IN SPACE! Even the set design and the eviscerations/mutliation all screamed DOOM. I haven't seen the movie since around when it came out, but I actually enjoyed it a LOT not necessarily because I thought it was a good film, but just because it had so much in common with DOOM. As far as I'm concerned, mankind fighting the supernatural in such a visceral method as guns and chainsaws just seems so cool...and unique. At least, it seemed that way to me when DOOM came out. For a game, anyway. I mean, it's so engrained in us as children growing up that "mythical" beasts like demons and devilish minions just can't be killed. The fact that DOOM let you do this... I don't know, it just seems so cool. I still play DOOM to this day. I don't think I can ever tire of that game...
This is horribly written rant AND critique...
I am going to try posting a link to this article on slashdot so...people can read this and agree with me.
Just come clean and tell us it's you. I'm sure "he" appreciated you posting the link just fine...
Fine, you play a game and deliver babies. I'll play a game where I get to dish out some serious penile augmentations.
So I'm wondering... I'd like to get some input from some game developers (professional or otherwise), what is the design mentality behind optimizing game content? I mean, after playing DOOM3 this week and seeing how completely immense game information is getting, doesn't it seem to make more sense to try to automate as much as the game as possible, rather than manually creating so much of the contect (art, FMV, etc.)? How much are developers concentrating on actually trying to use LESS space but deliver MORE content? I understand there are certain things that will always take a lot of space (music, voice acting, etc.) but is there any push at all to create games that don't need as much space?
There is a cool little game/experiment called kkrieger that has been able to present some pretty impressive graphics by rendering them dynamically as the game starts, so it CAN be done. But is anyone doing it?
This, my friends, shows the complete warping and distortion of character that is becoming a celebrity. A girl is violated, writes a book about it (hopefully her intent was only to inform and alert, NOT to get famous), and now that the book and her story has become so popular she feels it's time to capitalize on it more. So she starts going after the owner of Katie.com with lawyers? Does anyone see anything totally wrong with this?
I don't know, maybe Tarbox got some bad legal advice or something, but this just seems too fucked up. The publisher messes up, doesn't do any investigating, this "other Katie" gets all these fucked up emails regarding pedophelia all day, and now Tarbox's lawyer is playing hardball to get the domain names? Sick...
It shows a lack of journalistic integrity to completely believe a company for their reasons for going out of business. It could very well be true that the lawsuits seriously put a damper on their plans, but it could ALSO be true that the company was just poorly managed. No one is going to come out and say: "We're going out of business because our managers are a bunch of schmucks and blew all the money on cheap whores and expensive cocaine!"; they're gonna point the finger.
1) What information will the black box be able to provide Big Brother? (Obviously!
I'd assume Big Brother only wants the standard stuff; upon an accident, the car automatically takes from you a blood, urine, semen and stool sample, sends it back to NETWORK, analyzes, and thus determines whether or not your accident requires that you be cryogenically frozen on the spot courtesy of your cars built-in suspended animation system, so that you will be easier for the authorities to haul you off to "automotive reconditioning".
The old Batmobile as in the one pimped by Adam West, or the one in which Bruce Wayne tried getting some action off of Vicki Vale?
I've personally only read Dune, which I loved, and seen the David Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi channel miniseries. Both were quite lacking. But then for some reason, after reading your post, a lightbulb sort of went off in my head. I think that the reason most Dune "movies" have sucked so bad is because the world of Dune is open to SO MUCH interpretation. In the case of LOTR, while the books are extremely complex and do have a lot of subtext, the basic structure and story is pretty straightforward. As in the case of Dune, though, it seems that a lot contained in the books isn't completely spelled out, and while the story and world/planet of Arrakis itself is so interesting, a greater majority of the book deals with political intrigue and character development.
For example, I just read Dune for the second time a few months ago, and upon finishing it I realized I hated Paul Atriedes. I didn't see his character to be so much a hero as I saw it a vehicle for Herbert to elaborate his feelings on how seriously dangerous it is for someone to gain power based on social structures of family and religion. For me, I saw Paul grow from an uncertain, compassionate and intelligent young man to a completely self-righteous, arrogant and egotistical leader who exploited the religious beliefs of the Fremen in order to futher his own quest for power.
Again, that is just my personal interpretation of the book, and I'm not really sure if that's how the majority of Dune readers feel. Anyway, I think it is this complexity, and sort of gray area around the characters and events in Herberts' stories that haven't lended itself well to movie adaptations. I mean, don't get me wrong, the world is all there; Fremen, sand worms, harvesting, etc. for a very interesting visual experience, but I just don't think anyone in the movie industry has really been able to pin down the plot and character elements that would really tie it all together.
People! People! Listen here!
All the speculation and uncertainty on whether Sal is a scammer/family man/ghost should have been a pretty blatant indication that this whole fiasco is simply part of the Halo 2 ARG, Haunted Apiary! I'd think such an "enlightened" group as the slashdot crowd would have caught on by now.
As for me, this whole "Sal Wise" component is the final piece of the puzzle. I've solved the riddle...
Have YOU?
Interesting. I didn't mean to bring things down to generalizations and presumptions, but I was just curious if there were any particular trends or "habits" that might be prevalent in Japanese bidness. Furthermore, I didn't mean to imply that it was a Japanese vs. foreigners thing, either. I mean, you could say bidness is bidness, but cultural differences can have pretty profound effects on the way we conduct ourselves in all facets of life. So, I was just wondering...
Yeah, I'm aware that Don Miguel was behind the translation, but I hadn't checked out his site in a while. Thanks for the heads up; I just gave the site a gander and sent out an email to Enterbrain. Here's hoping...
I had problems fitting things into my pocket, too. The trick, see, is to have your penis removed.
In all seriousness, though, I agree. It's a bit larger than I was expecting, but so is the PSP, so I guess we'll just all have to wait and see what kind of library each system is going to boast. Personally, I'm not all that excited for the DS. My Advance SP does me just fine as it is now, and unless I try a DS upon release and it just completely blows me away, I won't be in any rush to buy it anytime soon. I do give props to Nintendo for innovating, even if everyone else claims this is just a technologically souped-up rehash of those horrid Game & Watch things...
Wow. That's pretty dissapointing. I found this program series a few years ago, and I've had a blast playing around making my own RPG creations ever since. I haven't finished anything, but that isn't really the point as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea the program was developed by such an oblivious team. I mean, I knew the version I had to use was pirated, but I'd just assumed soon enough that there would be an English version.
Out of curiousity, can someone a little more familiar with Japanese business sense and marketing strategies tell me if this is a trend with Japanese business culture? (That's culture, jerks, not ETHNICITY, for anyone who wants to try and bite my head off for being racist or some bullshit...) I'd read a brief interview with one of the developers from Tecmo regarding Ninja Gaiden and when asked about the fact that some American gamers complained that the game was too hard, his response was essentially "Fuck 'em...". I've seen it other places, though. It just seems like sometimes Japanese marketing doesn't try to kiss your ass as much as it might here in America; here company talking heads are always babbling about brining the most satisfying product to everyone, but most of the time those claims are just complete nonsense. It's just interesting (but saddening, considering I would LOVE to pay cash and support a program like this) to see a company basically say "You were naughty, now you get NOTHING! NOTHING!". I mean, I'm sure there are some companies that aren't Japanese that pull this kind of shit, too, it's just my personal experience to see more of this attitude coming from Japan. If I'm wrong, don't fucking berate me. Enlighten me...
Ummm, as far as I know, if it was pronounced "id", they were doing it right. To the best of my knowledge, id Software gets their name from the Freudian concept referred to as the id. A definition from dictionary.com:
id, n; In Freudian theory, the division of the psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.
So, unless id has changed their name over the years, I guess technically the show had it right.
I'm usually not one to listen to popular music (not that I'm knocking it or anything.) Organic instuments never really appealed to me, but U2 is one of the few popular bands that I could always seem to get into. My musical tastes are mostly aggressive electronic music (industrial: Skinny Puppy, Haujobb, yadda yadda), so maybe I'm not the right person to be giving a critique on U2, but as far as I see things they've just totally sold out and shown that they seriosuly have no clue.
For example, take the release of their albumb POP back in 1997 or something. It was an interesting albumn; it sorta picked up where Zooropa had left off. It was a lot more "experimental" (at least for them) and just by listening to it I sort of got the felling that U2 didn't really give a fuck and just wanted to make the music they were inspired to make. Well, the critics and many of the fans totally wrote the album off as too "electronic", and a few years later U2 releases the completely horrid All That You Can't Leave Behind, which I never even had any interest in at all, but the songs I did hear were just so boring and cookie cutter. But the kicker is that the album went on to sell VERY well, not to mention a US tour with people willing to sell their momma's own titty just to get a ticket. Shocking!
Anyway, I think the "threat" of putting their new album on iTunes because it's been stolen just shows how out of touch celebrities get when they hit the big time. And I don't mean just famous; I mean HUGE. U2 has been a big band for nearly 20 years now, if not more, and as far as the politics that they might have been aligning themselves with before that association is obviously completely gone. Personally, I don't believe in that shit anyway, as politics in popular forms of entertainment seems to me to be just another marketing tool, but that's my own take on things.
Actually, it is pretty funny.
I thought I was the only one who remembered singing that song in elementary school. I always found it pretty haunting for some reason, and now you've just put those feelings into a new and even more sinister context.
Good Job!
I apologize for calling this post flamebait. It was sort of oddly worded, and my first reaction was that it was simply trying to get a rise, but after respondind and re-reading it I reconsidered.
But THEN, like a complete fool I neglected to go back and remove the flamebait accusation from the post before submitting. My apologies to the original poster; I'm not a loose cannon for accusing someone of flamebait, I just wasn't paying close enough attention.
This is totally flamebait, but I'll bite because it seems to illustrate a trend I've seen spawn from my initial post. The intent of my post was not to insinuate that Apple is an inferior machine or that Apple is doomed because they have a marginal userbase, but rather to try and convey that Apple is a company, that above all else desire to make money. And, theoretically, if making more money required that they abandon their desktop and laptop line and concentrate completely on iTunes and digital music players, I'm sure they would do so.
As much as the "Mac zealots" love to place Jobs and company on a pedestal, the fact remains that he and everyone who works for Apple are human, and no matter how brilliant anybody may think he is, he still has his price. If abandoning the desktop and laptop series of machines meant a great deal more income, I'm sure he'd tell his "loyal" followers in so many words to go fuck themselves. To believe anything else is delusional, and it seems like a lot of the people who responded to my initial post are simply ignoring this fact.
Ah, but here is where your argument falls apart again. If, at the end of the day a user could in fact use an Apple for the exact same tasks they could on a Windows machine, would they even be able to afford it? As it stands now, buying an Apple computer is more often than not a luxury purchase. And, ironically enough, if we take your car analogy into account, I'm sure you could ask anyone what make of car they would rather drive: BMW or Toyota, and chances are most people are going to pick the Beamer. But can all of those people afford it? I seriously doubt that.
You make some valid points that I failed to consider. Namely, that maybe Apple does rely a lot more upon desktop sales than I had original assumed. I stand corrected.
...and then I lead into my final point, which is my criticism of your claim that Apples are "better". This, my friend, is a completely opinionated statement. They might be better, for you. My personal computer is used in majority for gaming, and I think you'd be hard pressed to convince me that gaming support on an Apple is the same as it's going to be on a Windows machine.
However, I have to say outright that I think you're reasoning behind Apple as a "niche" market is completely flawed. You use an example of a high-end/low-end market, but the fact is you are comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges. The example you use of a BMW vs. Toyota might work if we lived in a world with 2 different types of roads, say "performance" and "economical". The performance-minded buyers would be the ones with a large amount of income to spend on a luxury car, while the economical drivers would purchase whatever gets them form point A to point B and be satisfied, and both buyers would drive on their corresponding roads. However, the fact is that we live in a world with one type of road, and you buy what you can afford and what you need to get the job done.
This isn't meant to be an attack on your character or personal philosophies, but something I think you need to analyze is the reality that not all people use computers for the same thing. You may use computers to a degree that, for you, they all are capable of the same task. However, some people, such as myself, use computers for reasons that are a little less balanced, and thus have to make choices within a certain set of criteria.
For example, my brother is an aspiring sound engineer/music producer, so when my parents suggested they buy him a laptop for Christmas to assist in his endeavors, they asked for my input. My answer, without hesitation, was to buy him a Powerbook. The software and toolset for recording and audio production are unmatched on an Apple, so I went and ordered the thing myself. He's had it now for six months. He's been completely satisfied, and therefore so am I.
Don't get me wrong, you make some very valid points, but in the end your argument boils down to simply a matter of preference. I know this is slashdot, and I shouldn't care, but I'm actually rather offended that my initial post gets modded "Troll" while a rebuttal that boils down simply to "they're better because I like them" gets modded up as insightful. I have no problem that people enjoy using an Apple because it suits their needs; I'm glad you've found something that gets the job done. But please, spare us the whole "quality" spiel.
Well, as "revolutionary" as you seem to think Apple is, their computer systems have a pretty marginal user base. They've been around for quite some time now, and it doesn't seem like they've made any leaps and bounds in regards to getting more and more people to use their computers. From my experience, there are two types of Apple users; those that use them because they are the best tool for the job, and those that use them out of style. The people who use them out of necessity usually could care less what kind of machine they're using; it's got the tools, fine. The people who use an Apple computer based on style seem to drool all over everything, no matter how trivial, Apple wants to release (computer or otherwise).
The userbase trend seems to only be getting worse, and as far as company longevity goes, it's probably best for Apple to concentrate on music products like the iPod. It seems that often times, people neglect the fact that Apple is a company, and thus wishe to make as much money as possible; Apple could care less about their "loyal" userbase. It's like some Apple users consider their purchase of an Apple a donation or something; Apple, like all other companies, only desire a profit and could care less about their users and their philisophical or moral reasoning for buying their machines.
I think it'd be safe to assume that Miller is talking about things from a gameplay perspective, rather than which franchise came first. While it's true the film The Matrix was released a few years before Max Payne, as far as integrating bullet-time and whatnot into a video game Max Payne did that first. So, I guess technically he's right...
Either way, I get sick of hearing these guys talk; both Broussard and Miller. They credit themselves as innovators every chance they get, and overall just sound like arrogant bastards. To their credit, the only game of theirs I've been extremely impressed with have been Max Payne 2, as I thought Duke3D was a gimmick and just got plain tired of that after a while. And Shadow Warrior, well, that was just Shadow Warrior. I still cannot fathom WHY people are still interested in Duke Nukem Forever; I personally felt Duke's 15 minutes were up a long time ago, and I'm a little puzzled by his continuing appeal.
What stereotype-fostering and biased "study"/editorial are we going to accept next? KKK Grand Dragon Presents Evidence That Aryans Are In Fact Master Race. Or maybe Mormon Scholar Confirms That Alcohol And Vulgarities Will Send You To Hell; non-Mormans fucked.
How about some better discretion when posting articles? The article author is an elitist hack, and the question he poses is one that shouldn't even be given any serious consideration. It's too absurd to even be funny, and everyone knows it's only going to start a bunch of silly flamewar and bitching here on slashdot...
Case in point: the post you've just read!