I agree. Time and time again every time Halo-mania pops up I cannot bring myself to get excited by this particular franchise. Maybe it is due to me being a PC gamer for most of my life. I felt the same way when Goldeneye was the king of console FPS. I thought that game was absolutely horrible looking and the multiplayer portion was laughable. I just don't see anything special about this series. I've played Halo 1 & 2 in Co-op. It was ok, but nothing I haven't seen on the PC. Deathmatch in Halo 1 & 2 was boring--UT, Quake, and Counterstrike on the PC are more exciting. I found the single player mode in Halo 1 & 2 to be outright dull. Storyline is not a masterpiece as Halo fanboys make it out to be. Halo fans tend to reply that you need to read the novels to appreciate the whole Halo universe, but that stuff needs to be in the game. Graphics are not groundbreaking. The music soundtrack is practically the only part of the Halo series that I have enjoyed so far. I tend to side with those that believe that this franchise is over-hyped, not innovative, not evolutionary (despite the combat evolved tag that was apart of the title of the original), and definitely should never be in any Top 10 games of all time list. Anywhere.
I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working,
They must not know that Opera has an ad blocking feature built-in, and like Firefox, IE has ad blocking add-ons also. Will they also block text browsers such as Links since I can't see there image/flash crap ads also? Why single out Firefox/adblock? I guess any site that only depends on ads to earn revenue and is willing engage in blocking a certain segment of web users, must be devoid of any interesting content and not worth my time anyways.
When the only way to distribute your work is through a medium in which the distribution cartels always take their cut
There is this thing called the Internet. And you know, it allows one to distribute their own stuff without the middle-men (record labels, publishers, tv/cable stations, movie studios) being involved. Perhaps you have heard of it?
Minor quip: As a resident of California I would say that Arnold is hardly "overly conservative right wing". Not even close. He is more of a moderate conservative with some liberal leanings.
I highly doubt the ability to play mp3s out the box is what is keeping GNU/Linux from reaching mainstream acceptance. More like a certain software company in Redmond engaging in illegal/unethical business practices to keep its OS the main preinstalled OS on OEM machines, lack of commercial software that is only available for Windows that users require, slow (but steadly growing) desktop adoption rate by businesses and government, vendor-lockin, ease of Windows piracy, desktop monopoly in most US schools, and hardware compatibility. The ability to play mp3s is very low on the list of things keeping GNU/Linux from mainstream success. It will get their one day, just takes time and everyday that list gets shorter.
Seriously, what is the point of this nonsense article, just to get the groupthink all riled up?
Well it is SOP to have at least one of these articles at least once a day here. Hell, I wouldn't be able to make it through the day without the daily 2-minute Microsoft Hate.
Notebooks are no good for 3D gaming, and their video is not upgradeable.
This is only true if we are talking integrated video. Actually there are a few notebooks with upgradeable video cards. Usually the high-end or gaming notebooks allow you to swap out the video card.
Quoting: 'Despite strong points that go far beyond price, Linux falls short when it comes to legally supporting file formats such as MP3, WMA/WMV and DVDs.
This issue is actually a distro dependent problem. Linux cannot fall short as Linux is just a kernel, not a company or a distribution. Some distro's (such as Turbolinux) do pay the fees to legally distribute the proprietary codecs in question. These fees may be too high (overpriced) for many distributions to afford so many will find an alternative way to distribute the codecs to people in the United States.
the scary legalese dialogs you have to click through
But he has no problems clicking through the EULA screens that come with Windows and other Microsoft software which I consider more scary then anything I have observed in the FOSS world.
The PS3 hasn't even been out for a year and already the Xbots are claiming it a failure. Hilarious. It is still way to early to crown the king of this current generation--especially as the Wii is about to overtake the stagnate Xbox 360 in units sold--so I wouldn't give Xbox the title yet.
My point is this: when I was "dead," I never "left my body," I never saw myself and the doctors in the hospital from "above," I never experienced anything. It was like a light-switch was simply flipped. I was just gone. No angels, no bright light, nothing.
So there really are no 72 virgins awaiting Allah's faithful flock? Man death is going to be boring.
Microsoft probably can't hire enough people in the US,
That would be willing to work for low wages and long hours right? That was probably what you meant to post. Please tell me that you don't really believe that these greedy companies cannot find enough competent US workers to fill these jobs? Microsoft knows there are enough American workers to fulfill their quota, they just don't want to pay these people what they are truly worth.
Sure, FFXII's story was a bit light, but the combat system was the best ever seen of any jRPG.
Best ever? The combat system in FFXII was good and has alot of potential--hopefully Square-Enix can improve this in future titles--but IMO, it was not deep enough. For example, how can I get a character to continue to steal until they get certain item and then stop and switch to attacking? Or to steal only once from a certain monster for the whole battle, even if that monster has less then 100% health. The previous example was real annoying problem for me. For most of the game in order to have a character just steal once usually you would have a gambit like steal as long as monster health is 100%. What happens if another character or monster attacks the target first? Now you have to manually steal or move on to something else.
Vagrant Story's battle system was deep. IMO, that was probably the best combat system in a JRPG ever. One annoying problem with FFXII and the gambits was one would have to wait until 2/3rds through the game to get some the really fine-grained gambits that would have been beneficial earlier in the game. By the time you can acquire these late gambits, you most likely are already strong enough to not really need them or use a combination of other gambits to perform the same thing. The automatic nature of the gambits was a welcome change in JRPGs, but it felt limited to me.
California has a Republican governor because the Democrats screwed up the recall election in 03. Gray Davis (D) was loathed by the state (having suffered the result of Pete Wilson (R) signing the act to privatize electricity...which gave us rolling blackouts and the whole Enron debacle).
As long as proprietary/closed software from companies (ie. Microsoft) who have a long known history in restricting consumer's rights, but will bend over backward to please their own special customers (the content makers), I'll choose FOSS (MythTV) everytime without hesitation.
There will be a next election in the US. And one after that. Totalitarian/Fascist governments only take power because the good people stand around and do nothing. If Americans are sheepish enough to standby and allow Bush or any politician to appoint himself dictator-for-life, destroy the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded, and eradicate democracy, then maybe freedom is too much for them to comprehend and they deserve Big Brother/Sister to think for them.
The only people that would care about such a thing would be people who frequent/., digg, arstechnica, and the other tech/geek sites. Face it, the majority of the US population does not really know who the RIAA let alone whether they are "evil" or whatever. The rest of the US population voters do not care for these type of issues as they do not truly no what it is that they have lost to the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/TCG.
We are already passed the ridicule stage. We are now in the fight stage, hence the multiple threats made by Ballmer over the past year about FOSS violating MS's IP, the Forbes article--posted here yesterday--where Microsoft's Mr. Gutierrez and Brad Smith are looking to extort money out of companies that use FOSS, the Novell deal, funding of SCO, the attempts to derail ODF, and so on. Time to hunker down folks as Microsoft's opening barrage has only just begun.
I would guess that Microsoft probably infringes on some number of IBM patents - but then, pretty much everyone does. The thing I don't know is, does Microsoft already hve some patent license agreement (presumably some sort of blanket agreement) with IBM to cover them?
FTA:
Furthermore, FOSS has powerful corporate patrons and allies. In 2005, six of them - IBM (Charts, Fortune 500), Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat (Charts) and NEC - set up the Open Invention Network to acquire a portfolio of patents that might pose problems for companies like Microsoft, which are known to pose a patent threat to Linux.
Microsoft has more than IBM to worry about. I'm sure if Microsoft attempts anything, the OIN will retaliate big time.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. Time and time again every time Halo-mania pops up I cannot bring myself to get excited by this particular franchise. Maybe it is due to me being a PC gamer for most of my life. I felt the same way when Goldeneye was the king of console FPS. I thought that game was absolutely horrible looking and the multiplayer portion was laughable. I just don't see anything special about this series. I've played Halo 1 & 2 in Co-op. It was ok, but nothing I haven't seen on the PC. Deathmatch in Halo 1 & 2 was boring--UT, Quake, and Counterstrike on the PC are more exciting. I found the single player mode in Halo 1 & 2 to be outright dull. Storyline is not a masterpiece as Halo fanboys make it out to be. Halo fans tend to reply that you need to read the novels to appreciate the whole Halo universe, but that stuff needs to be in the game. Graphics are not groundbreaking. The music soundtrack is practically the only part of the Halo series that I have enjoyed so far. I tend to side with those that believe that this franchise is over-hyped, not innovative, not evolutionary (despite the combat evolved tag that was apart of the title of the original), and definitely should never be in any Top 10 games of all time list. Anywhere.
http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?stor
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/19/ana
They must not know that Opera has an ad blocking feature built-in, and like Firefox, IE has ad blocking add-ons also. Will they also block text browsers such as Links since I can't see there image/flash crap ads also? Why single out Firefox/adblock? I guess any site that only depends on ads to earn revenue and is willing engage in blocking a certain segment of web users, must be devoid of any interesting content and not worth my time anyways.
Minor quip: As a resident of California I would say that Arnold is hardly "overly conservative right wing". Not even close. He is more of a moderate conservative with some liberal leanings.
I highly doubt the ability to play mp3s out the box is what is keeping GNU/Linux from reaching mainstream acceptance. More like a certain software company in Redmond engaging in illegal/unethical business practices to keep its OS the main preinstalled OS on OEM machines, lack of commercial software that is only available for Windows that users require, slow (but steadly growing) desktop adoption rate by businesses and government, vendor-lockin, ease of Windows piracy, desktop monopoly in most US schools, and hardware compatibility. The ability to play mp3s is very low on the list of things keeping GNU/Linux from mainstream success. It will get their one day, just takes time and everyday that list gets shorter.
The PS3 hasn't even been out for a year and already the Xbots are claiming it a failure. Hilarious. It is still way to early to crown the king of this current generation--especially as the Wii is about to overtake the stagnate Xbox 360 in units sold--so I wouldn't give Xbox the title yet.
Vagrant Story's battle system was deep. IMO, that was probably the best combat system in a JRPG ever. One annoying problem with FFXII and the gambits was one would have to wait until 2/3rds through the game to get some the really fine-grained gambits that would have been beneficial earlier in the game. By the time you can acquire these late gambits, you most likely are already strong enough to not really need them or use a combination of other gambits to perform the same thing. The automatic nature of the gambits was a welcome change in JRPGs, but it felt limited to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Ass
As long as proprietary/closed software from companies (ie. Microsoft) who have a long known history in restricting consumer's rights, but will bend over backward to please their own special customers (the content makers), I'll choose FOSS (MythTV) everytime without hesitation.
Windows Media Center Restricts Cable TV
There will be a next election in the US. And one after that. Totalitarian/Fascist governments only take power because the good people stand around and do nothing. If Americans are sheepish enough to standby and allow Bush or any politician to appoint himself dictator-for-life, destroy the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded, and eradicate democracy, then maybe freedom is too much for them to comprehend and they deserve Big Brother/Sister to think for them.
The only people that would care about such a thing would be people who frequent /., digg, arstechnica, and the other tech/geek sites. Face it, the majority of the US population does not really know who the RIAA let alone whether they are "evil" or whatever. The rest of the US population voters do not care for these type of issues as they do not truly no what it is that they have lost to the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/TCG.
We are already passed the ridicule stage. We are now in the fight stage, hence the multiple threats made by Ballmer over the past year about FOSS violating MS's IP, the Forbes article--posted here yesterday--where Microsoft's Mr. Gutierrez and Brad Smith are looking to extort money out of companies that use FOSS, the Novell deal, funding of SCO, the attempts to derail ODF, and so on. Time to hunker down folks as Microsoft's opening barrage has only just begun.