If a game review has screenshots, i can see myself if the graphics look good or bad.
For the rest, i don't really care what a professional game reviewer thinks of a game. I much rather play the demo myself and see how i like it. Now i know demo's aren't always available so i look for comments in forums about the game.
I get much better reviews from regular users than from 'the professionals' (i.e. 'This game sucks, the controls are terrible', 'I played this game in 2 hours, it's too short!', 'This is the best game all year, if you loved x game, you're going to love y game.')
I just browse slashdot all day with the 'light' skin.
Light (reduce the complexity of Slashdot's HTML for AvantGo, Lynx, or slow connections)
Also, when i want to read something on a website that's too flashy and banners and crap are blinking all over the place, i make the window very very small, quickly press ctrl-a, ctrl-c and paste the page in my text editor.
This way it looks like i'm doing something important, and it's easy to shortkey to real work in the editor. I've set the standard text color to some light grey color so it's also very hard to read anything when your just walking by.
True, there's some good stuff out there.
Don't forget there's also a lot of amazing music from the past. Kids today don't always get to hear that music, i mean they won't show it on MTV.
You say new R&B and rap might be worth a listen sometimes, i say listen to oldskool Soul Sonic Force, Diamond D, Grandmaster Flash as well. Green Day and Limp Bizkit are among the popular bands now, but kids don't hear Dead Kennedies or Bad Religion much on their MTV.
I'm getting old, and of course i look back a say that the music was so good and all that. And i don't appreciate all the 'new' music of today, but i'm not too old to just listen to the music or enjoy it.
There's nothing wrong with liking music from > 20 years ago, just make sure you don't unplug from music that's out now so you are able to experience and enjoy new things
Re:No way in hell. It's better than ever.
on
Death of the Album?
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· Score: 1
Meanwhile, everyone who wants actual physical product in their hands buys albums
At some point i just stopped buying CDs because i had little space to store them, but i still prefer to have the music on a nice physical product with artwork/lyrics/whatever. I feel the total package has extra value (instead of just being able to listen to the songs on your computer or from a CDR/iPod/etc).
Proprietary crap is good for uneducated people who want to have a one-size-fits-all black box
You really show off your education there, don't you.
Did concept of an album change?
on
Death of the Album?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I listen to a lot of electronic music and with some styles like drum & bass for instance, the album concept never really has been a big thing there. Tracks are released on 12" mostly.
With other genres though, many albums are a concept of music/art (rather than a bunch of songs randomly put together on a disk, slapped together in an appealing package). For artists there's usually a whole process of creating the album, and often there's a story told througout the songs on an album. I don't think this will change much with new technology.
I like something shiny new just as much as the next guy. But when i really enjoy a game, i don't mind if there's a couple of sequels that are pretty much the same thing.
I guess it's because i play FPS games mostly. UT2004 is cool, but i still enjoy regular UT as well.
Same with music. New music can be refreshing, but when i like some artists' music a lot, i'll probably like the next album as well, even if it doesn't have any shiny new innovative sound/songs
I loved the Commander Keen series, as well as SOD, the DOOM series, the Quake series..
I think DOOM III is actually the first of these games that has disappointed me, probably because it was hyped to be scary enough to have people jump up their seats and i didn't have that experience.
Give away the OS, sell apps instead. (You listening, Microsoft?)
Thing is, when you buy XP you get pretty much all a regular user wants already. You got Wordpad which is good enough to read/write docs, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and MSN Messenger to do your stuff online, a nice picture viewer, media player..(i know you also get plenty of spyware/virus with the above programs but you can get free non-MS replacements anyway)
So how is Microsoft supposed to make money from selling apps to home users then?
You did read the part where it says they just won the grand prize (A full Unreal engine license and $50,000) in the Make Something Unreal Contest. right?
Some have already mentioned, but this does not seem to be what the headline wants you to believe.
The games are banned because they are either pirated copies of popular games, or they are illegally imported.
You're right, i forgot about online gaming. But as you point out it's easy to treat Windows as a disposable OS.
Behind a router/linux box it isn't that vunerable anyway if you stay away from outlook express and 'free' pron sites.
If you only use XP for gaming, why don't you just use it for that. I don't think my gaming machine with a non legit XP copy runs much of a risk getting hacked when i only use it to play games. If it's not connected to the internet i don't care what latest worm could attack my machine next cause it's simply not going to happen. You can download updates for your games on a Linux machine that's hooked up transfer by USB stick or something...
You're quite right about the Terminal Services. I use them to admin some of my own Windows XP machines all the time. It does indeed feel speedy even on dial-up connections usually.
So if your friend/family/customer runs Windows XP Professional and you foresee future remote access to the machine will be needed, set up the Terminal Services for them. You don't even have to run it over port 3389 if that's a problem, you can configure it to run on any free port (except i think port 21 didn't work well for some reason, port 22, or a really high port number if you're worried about portscanners, works fine. Many people in the friends/family cateogry have XP Home though, so then Remote Assistance or Netmeeting works like a charm.
On XP Remote assistance works well, you instruct them to go Start -> Help & Support -> Ask for assistance.
On other windows platforms i've been able to help people out with Netmeeting as well.
Otherwise VNC works fine..
Of course Bill Gates has a lot more money than he is donating. Many people with a lot of money are not eager to give it away though, even if it's a small share of what they have.
I applaude Gates' effort.
I thought we already knew we're too late fixing things up, plus some of the countries that polute the most don't really want to do much about all this anyway. Better rake in the profit before we all perish.
Really, is there anything that can be done?
Slashdot Mirror
I get much better reviews from regular users than from 'the professionals' (i.e. 'This game sucks, the controls are terrible', 'I played this game in 2 hours, it's too short!', 'This is the best game all year, if you loved x game, you're going to love y game.')
Actually Green Day just came out with a new album that has been received quite well by fans and critcs.
But i guess you being an AC you know better..
Light (reduce the complexity of Slashdot's HTML for AvantGo, Lynx, or slow connections)
Also, when i want to read something on a website that's too flashy and banners and crap are blinking all over the place, i make the window very very small, quickly press ctrl-a, ctrl-c and paste the page in my text editor.
This way it looks like i'm doing something important, and it's easy to shortkey to real work in the editor. I've set the standard text color to some light grey color so it's also very hard to read anything when your just walking by.
True, there's some good stuff out there.
Don't forget there's also a lot of amazing music from the past. Kids today don't always get to hear that music, i mean they won't show it on MTV.
You say new R&B and rap might be worth a listen sometimes, i say listen to oldskool Soul Sonic Force, Diamond D, Grandmaster Flash as well. Green Day and Limp Bizkit are among the popular bands now, but kids don't hear Dead Kennedies or Bad Religion much on their MTV.
I'm getting old, and of course i look back a say that the music was so good and all that. And i don't appreciate all the 'new' music of today, but i'm not too old to just listen to the music or enjoy it.
There's nothing wrong with liking music from > 20 years ago, just make sure you don't unplug from music that's out now so you are able to experience and enjoy new things
At some point i just stopped buying CDs because i had little space to store them, but i still prefer to have the music on a nice physical product with artwork/lyrics/whatever. I feel the total package has extra value (instead of just being able to listen to the songs on your computer or from a CDR/iPod/etc).
Moooooooooother, save me!
You really show off your education there, don't you.
I listen to a lot of electronic music and with some styles like drum & bass for instance, the album concept never really has been a big thing there. Tracks are released on 12" mostly.
With other genres though, many albums are a concept of music/art (rather than a bunch of songs randomly put together on a disk, slapped together in an appealing package). For artists there's usually a whole process of creating the album, and often there's a story told througout the songs on an album. I don't think this will change much with new technology.
Sometimes when i would drop my fist on it in anger, the whole thing would lift off an inch or two. It never really broke though!
I like something shiny new just as much as the next guy. But when i really enjoy a game, i don't mind if there's a couple of sequels that are pretty much the same thing.
I guess it's because i play FPS games mostly. UT2004 is cool, but i still enjoy regular UT as well.
Same with music. New music can be refreshing, but when i like some artists' music a lot, i'll probably like the next album as well, even if it doesn't have any shiny new innovative sound/songs
I loved the Commander Keen series, as well as SOD, the DOOM series, the Quake series..
I think DOOM III is actually the first of these games that has disappointed me, probably because it was hyped to be scary enough to have people jump up their seats and i didn't have that experience.
See, this is the best way to distribute an OS.
Give away the OS, sell apps instead. (You listening, Microsoft?)
Thing is, when you buy XP you get pretty much all a regular user wants already. You got Wordpad which is good enough to read/write docs, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and MSN Messenger to do your stuff online, a nice picture viewer, media player..(i know you also get plenty of spyware/virus with the above programs but you can get free non-MS replacements anyway)
So how is Microsoft supposed to make money from selling apps to home users then?
Aphex Twin amongst others, has been using images to make music for a long time already.
This site has more information about the Windowlicker song.
You did read the part where it says they just won the grand prize (A full Unreal engine license and $50,000) in the Make Something Unreal Contest. right?
It's rated flamebait right now, and i don't think that's right
Some have already mentioned, but this does not seem to be what the headline wants you to believe.
The games are banned because they are either pirated copies of popular games, or they are illegally imported.
You're right, i forgot about online gaming. But as you point out it's easy to treat Windows as a disposable OS.
Behind a router/linux box it isn't that vunerable anyway if you stay away from outlook express and 'free' pron sites.
If you only use XP for gaming, why don't you just use it for that. I don't think my gaming machine with a non legit XP copy runs much of a risk getting hacked when i only use it to play games. If it's not connected to the internet i don't care what latest worm could attack my machine next cause it's simply not going to happen.
You can download updates for your games on a Linux machine that's hooked up transfer by USB stick or something...
You tunnel it with ssh though right? I don't trust network users with my VNC session either.
You're quite right about the Terminal Services. I use them to admin some of my own Windows XP machines all the time. It does indeed feel speedy even on dial-up connections usually.
So if your friend/family/customer runs Windows XP Professional and you foresee future remote access to the machine will be needed, set up the Terminal Services for them. You don't even have to run it over port 3389 if that's a problem, you can configure it to run on any free port (except i think port 21 didn't work well for some reason, port 22, or a really high port number if you're worried about portscanners, works fine.
Many people in the friends/family cateogry have XP Home though, so then Remote Assistance or Netmeeting works like a charm.
On XP Remote assistance works well, you instruct them to go Start -> Help & Support -> Ask for assistance.
On other windows platforms i've been able to help people out with Netmeeting as well.
Otherwise VNC works fine..
In less than a year i've seen my cable subscription (in Europe) go from 1.5Mbps/256Kbps to 4Mbps/1Mbps for the same price in several upgrades.
I'm not complaining.
Of course Bill Gates has a lot more money than he is donating. Many people with a lot of money are not eager to give it away though, even if it's a small share of what they have. I applaude Gates' effort.
yeah, a shooter with sponge bullets i hope they come up with a good alternative to raise the money..
I thought we already knew we're too late fixing things up, plus some of the countries that polute the most don't really want to do much about all this anyway. Better rake in the profit before we all perish. Really, is there anything that can be done?