The definition, by the FCC, of 'broadband' is, as mentioned, a connection with at least 200 kbits of one-way bandwidth.
By comparison, the Canadian government defines 'broadband' as (paraphrasing) 'an internet connection capable of sustaining real-time two-way streaming multimedia'.
I found that quite interesting when I found it out. Broadband in Canada isn't what broadband in the US is, and I can't really figure out why, but I have some ideas.
First of all, Shaw Cable, one of the largest broadband providers in Canada, owns Fiberlink, Canada's largest coast-to-coast optical data network. Since people they peer with use them for traffic as much as they do, they don't have to worry about capping customer bandwidth - resulting in me being able to get 600kbytes/sec sustained download on 200+ meg compressed binary archives. Real transfer people, not magic numbers. I knew someone who colocated a server in Vancouver and ran an IRCd for an IRC network, and I, an hour and a half drive away, had (I kid you not) 6 millisecond pings to his server, 8 hops away. I've gotten 450kbyte/s from kernel.org, ftp.de.debian.org, and the University of Tokyo. It's all very well done.
Secondly, the networks in Canada aren't owned by many people at all. Shaw's one (Fibrelink), then there's Telus, BCE, and Aliant, Videotron, Rogers, and a few others that own the broadband scheme, but really, that's not much. Compare this to the US - how many companies are there? Well, less now, since they all went around buying each other up, but the ones that do exist aren't healthy companies anymore.
And thirdly, a backbone in Canada really only requires going from Vancouver to Montreal with stops in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Toronto. Handy. But that only counts for Canadian sites though...
Factor in that Canada is too cold to do anything in for half the year (not that that stops anyone), and you have more of a hint, but it's not really until you look at some of the other initiatives that people are coming up with that things become interesting.
First of all, you can go to the CBC or CTV websites and watch news clips and listen to live radio. You used to be able to even watch CTV Newsnet online and interactive, watching the regular feed or picking stories that interest you. You know the weather and headline tickers at the bottom and sides of the CNN channels? Click on them, and get new clips about weather or the election. It was truly interactive video, and it was great.
CBC has always had a Radio One and Radio Two, but online, you can visit CBC Radio Three, an online-only magazine about... well, all kinds of stuff. Not everyone's bag, but well-done nonetheless, with a background soundtrack and interactive stories that you can help yourself to.
This month's isn't interesting, but it's neat.
It's all about interactive media, and that's what people are interested in. Aliant is now starting to offer online digital radio and TV channels to its customers for ten bucks a month - and they're good channels, that people will pay for.
Broadband isn't taking off in the US because people aren't being told what to do with it - because there's nothing to do with it. In Canada, people are saying to themselves, hey, look, I can do things, I can make things, I can watch TV online, and the companies are realizing that it doesn't cost them bandwidth to deliver to their own customers, and they can spur development onward. In Canada, there's a reason, so people sign up.
A good point. Working at a game store of no ill repute, I can tell you that the worst part of my day is selling an XBox - not because I don't like them (Halo rocks, KOTOR rocks, etc.), but because I have to eat two or three good-sized steaks just to have the energy to get one from the back of the store.
The gamecube, on the other hand, which I have wisely purchased and am greatly enjoying, is smaller than many melons I have eaten, weighs not much more than the controller, and is silent unless you're sitting beside it.
The XBox is a perfect monstrosity - it works, to be sure, but it's big, loud, heavy, and hot. It's a hack at the best of times, and the engineers that designed it should be ashamed of themselves. The Gamecube, on the other hand, is a beauty of modern designing, as you can see when you disassemble it - layer upon layer of well-designed hardware and circuitry.
Maybe Microsoft will realize that bigger isn't always better this time. If not, I guess I'll have to start eating better.
That being said, what hurt the cost of the original XBox was that the PS2 had been around for a year, had a wealth of games, plus all the other PS2 games, and the XBox had the same reputation as Windows PCs (deserved or not) and cost five hundred bucks (almost $700 in Canada) at release.
I'm waiting for the Gamecube price drop (The current price is fair in my opinion... but with the rumors spreading, I'll feel like an idiot if the price drops a few days after I buy one!).
I just noticed this comment in your post - if you go to your local EB before the end of the month, you can get a demo disc along with one of four games (Metroid Prime, Mario Party 4, Zelda: Wind Waker, or something else) or a Game Boy Player (to play GB/GBC/GBA games on the GC) for free. All of the games and the player are all $70 retail and the demo disc is $15, but the deal only lasts until the end of the month, so if you're expecting the price to drop more than $70-85, then by all means wait. Otherwise, I'd go get one right now.
The problem isn't (necessarily) that there aren't worthwhile games, it's that they're so spread out. And keep in mind the vast selection of already released PS2 games, if you had the system.
I factor that in with the time it takes to get buggy games to work, the time it takes to upgrade and debug drivers, the cost of upgrading hardware every year (I'm lucky if it's only every year) so that I can play the latest games and have them look good, and so on. It's a pain in the ass just to do all that, plus it means paying for a Windows machine to do it on.
Then I look at consoles. I can get a PS2 for $179+tx, an XBox for the same, or a Gamecube for $200+tx. Games? Sure, they can be expensive, but I just stay a few months behind the curve. I didn't buy a GameCube when they were new, but the games that I have are good anyway - and I didn't pay much for them. Got Zelda for free, got Megaman:NT for $20, got my $5 worth out of it, then traded it back for $15 and got Metroid (which my roommate is now addicted to too, sucks for him that I'm moving out in a week).
That's two games that have kept me occupied for the better part of a month, for $50 on top of the price of the system. I started playing Halo on a friend's system, and I can tell I'd be playing that quite a bit too if I had an XBox. Knights of the Old Republic would keep me occupied for a month or so at least, and so would Skies of Arcadia Legends, FFX, FFX2, Soul Calibur 2 (Link baby! Yeah!), Halo 2, Fable, Starcraft:Ghost or any one of a dozen other titles, none of which will be coming out for PC.
What would I play if I had a PC? Maybe Ghost Recon co-op. Maybe. Neverwinter Nights/Udrentide for sure. Rise of Nations. C&C:Generals:Zero Hour That's about it. Those are the only PC-exclusive games I'd play.
For me, the good bets are on systems. Unfortunately, none of the good online games are PS2 - unless you like EA Sports, and let's face it, who doesn't? - so their online pack is doing horribly. And there's only two controller ports. And the graphics aren't as good. But oh well, it's all good anyway.
Exactly so. As a perfect example, I submit Pulp Fiction, which cost $8m to make, and made $107m in the US, and $212m worldwide. That's what the studios look for, but oddly enough, they don't seem to realize it. Even movies like Go ($16m on a budget of $6.5m) are great for the companies, making a cool $10m just in US sales.
Just beacuse a movie has great sales doesn't mean it was worth it. Final Fantasy had $74m in sales, which is pretty good, except that it cost $137m to make. Ouch.
Pff, I've spent the last week playing the SNES I just got, and among the only games I've managed to borrow are the three Star Wars games - play those and then play KOTOR, and the difference is staggering.
As for the Tie Fighter/Rogue Squadron/etc. games, I find them too repetetive generaly - well done, but really, another space dogfighting game? For that matter, another Star Wars space dogfighting game? I had my fill with Wing Commander III, which at least had something resembling a unique plotline to go with the gameplay.
KOTOR, however, has renewed my faith in the Lucasarts team and Star Wars games in general. It really is amazing, and other than the 'save game is accidentally corrupted' bug, the worst part is the number of people I deal with on a day to day basis that won't stop talking about it. Whether that's actually a bad thing or not depends on whether or not you like to hear 'war stories' about RP games. If so, it's a definite plus.
The difference is that movies and TV shows accurately represent real life. For example, the only people who get killed in wartime are people who show pictures of their sweethearts back home, detectives always need to visit strip clubs during every investigation, and in every set of identical twins, one is always evil. This is why it's necessary to specifically say that the stories are fictional.
--Dan
Re:Truly suprising colnclusion, OR NOT!
on
Analysis: x86 Vs PPC
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· Score: 0, Troll
Nicholas Blachford (engineer of the PPC-based PEGASOS Platform) says that the PPC is better than x86.
What an unbiased opinion. Maybe we should really hear the other side too. I like the article for the wealth of info, and we all know the shortcomings of the x86 platform, but the conclusion seems to be biased.
While I of course agree that the result isn't surprising, I think people are getting the cause-effect thing backwards. I don't think he found that PPC is better because he uses it, I think he uses it because he found it better.
on the other hand, amazon japan seem to be all for shipping things to the US, though - any maybe to other countries like hungary too; so maybe give them a try.
It might be a better idea to try Amazon UK if you're in Hungary, as opposed to Amazon Japan. If nothing else, the shipping would be cheaper. It's what people do in Israel, anyway.
Even between the US and Canada, anything being shipped across the border gets taxes and a brokerage fee tacked on, and extra postage. Handling all of that for a wide range of countries, automatically, would be a logistical nightmare.
A nightmare for all involved, no less. Even ordering from the US into Canada is a nightmare. For example: I wanted to order a copy of Fallout 1/2 (in one package) for ten bucks online. Tack on another $7 for shipping to Canada, that's $17 USD, and I figure, that's about what I'd pay in Canada anyway. So I place the order. Four days later, I get an email telling me they're going to ship it to me via UPS international shipping. This is a problem for two reasons:
First of all, brokerage. On a $10 USD purchase, UPS wanted to charge me, on top of the $7 I was going to pay anyway, another $35 USD. Thirty-five dollars for 'brokerage', even though the only thing I'd have to pay would have been 14% sales tax at the border, which I could have paid no problem. But no, they had to charge me $35 to 'broker' my ten dollar purchase.
Secondly, UPS disclaims all liability when shipping internationally. This means that if they lose my package, too bad. If they smash it with a hammer, too bad. If it arrives in the form of silvery dust in a ziploc bag, well, too bad.
There was a story on slashdot (too lazy to search for it, but someone probably remembers it) about someone who shipped a few thousand dollars worth of mac and PC equipment from Ontario to California. It arrived largely in pieces, with damage to cases, lost cables, boxes smashed open along the sides with holes that things fell out through, etc. It was the worst damage I'd seen done to a computer that wasn't intentional or fire damage, and UPS's attitude was basically 'Yeah, that's too bad, isn't it?'
Unfortunately, UPS seems to be the courier of choice because FedEx is so expensive, and people in the US don't seem to realize what a colossally bad idea it is to ship internationally with UPS, because they can't destroy stuff sent domestically. As a result, if you want something ordered from a US website (with notable exceptions like Crucial), you either get it via UPS (but not intact) or you get it sent USPS, which most people won't even do.
Long story short: chances are, you don't WANT to order from the US. Not even if you're in Canada. ESPECIALLY not if you're overseas. If you need to, then get ahold of a friend in the US, get it shipped to them, then get it sent FedEx deferred by a week or two to save some coin. Otherwise, you're screwed.
Another other idea is to run a Cat5e backbone and use VoIP and streaming technologies over the IP network. That way you don't need to run special cable, just the $50/1000ft spools you can buy ay home despot.
I'm perfectly happy just having spools of cables running free around the house, behind furniture.. over tables. I think they are happier that way too.
I usually string mine from one corner of the room to the center, and then out to the opposite corner. This lets me hang things like christmas lights (dim omnidirectional lighting is better for my eyes), plants, Christmas cards, decorations, and so on, with a minimum of effort. If you spend a little extra and use lengths of Belkin cable, you can even hang your home entertainment system from your ceiling, all without any loss in packets.
The trick is getting nicely coloured cable. Get white or off-white lengths for the across-the-ceiling backbone, or paint your ethernet or fibre cables before you string them, and the wife/roommate/girlfriend won't complain (or notice).
Gates is right though. OS/2 was huge - just not in the desktop home-user circles. Hell, my bank still uses OS/2. They're one of the largest banks in Canada, and they're an IBM shop through-and-through. They run on IBM's big iron mainframes, they use IBM's WebSphere (JSP and the whole shebang), and they use OS/2 on their desktops (with Netscape 4).
People nowadays just seem to think that nothing happened, but while it might have been as big a phenomenon as Windows, it sure isn't dead.
No, that's the (misguided) point of the open-source movement's worst figurehead. Linux (as in Linux) has no such purpose. It was started as an experimental project, and participated in as a hobby.
Having a goal in mind to attack someone isn't a very noble goal. It's destructive, and that never works out. The point should be to have a goal of creating something, and letting that stand on its own merit. The obsession with Microsoft is unhealthy, both psychologically and in terms of open-source projects. People should be able to make software that is good in its own right, without having a destructive purpose, or it won't get anywhere good.
Put simply, if Linux is meant to be a competitor to Windows, then when Windows is gone, Linux is purposeless. If, instead, its goal is to make a stable, secure, and versatile operating system, then it can outlast dead competitors instead of stagnating.
WHQL doesn't mean they're better drives, it just means that they passed some MSFT testing bits. If anything, non-WHQL drivers have potential to have higher performance (think a car engine that doesn't have to worry about passing emissions), since they don't have to worry so much about playing nice with -all- available hardware.
I don't know, but you seem to make the point of 'WHQL doesn't mean they're better, because all WHQL means is that they won't fuck up your system.'
To me, that's kind of important. I would rather have better drivers and slower performance than an extra 100 FPS but break my sound card's S/PDIF port when a Gl rendering is finished.
What's wrong with RH? It's made the most headway in developing a true alternative to M$.
I'm sorry, but when did the point of Linux become 'to destroy MS'? I always thought it was about making good software that people want to use, and sharing it with everyone so the people can benefit. Red Hat seems more interested in making a profit - and as a corporation, that is, in fact, the one thing they exist to do. I disapprove of this. It's like totalitarian communism - 'everyone helps everyone (to help me)'.
Redhat, as I've said before, is the MS of the Linux world. Which is not to say it's evil, but it certainly doesn't have the quality that Debian does, for one major reason: customers. Debian has users, Red Hat has customers. Red Hat has to provide new versions to its customers on a timetable. They can't afford to wait until things are finished, they have to get it out the door.
Debian, on the other hand, does not have that limitation. Debian releases happen when they're done, when they're ready to get burned onto a CD and downloaded by the ISO and dist-upgraded, and not a second before. Debian releases are done right, and the long release cycle is because they take the time to do it right the first time. THAT is what Linux and open-source should be about. Not doing it first, but doing it right.
Anyway you cut it RH helps all linux distro's across the board.
Not really, no. Red Hat has a horrible history of security holes, including (for example) keeping Wu-FTPd as the default FTP daemon, despite security hole after security hole, for over four years (or at least, four years of everyone criticizing them for being so stupid). They leave spades of ports open in the default installation, because someone might some day need them, instead of providing an option to turn them on later. They provide a packaging system that, at its best, is mediocre. They corporatize Linux, and make everyone feel as though they have to compete to be better. They made such a big deal about being the only Linux out there that corporations only support Red Hat - which severely hurts other Linux distros. Oracle, for example, is only supported on Red Hat. True, that's Oracle's fault, but Red Hat's boisterious success has marginalized distros that don't have overly commercial gains, and that hurts everyone across the board.
Debian has always had a strong following with Systems Administrators who want a strong, stable, supportable platform for their GNU/Linux based services that can be centrally administered without waisting a lot of time.
Well said. Debian is the only distro I can trust enough to reboot remotely, and to upgrade things like SSH remotely. I can trust any upgrades I make on my local machine to reflect the upgrades I make on the server later on, because I know that the versions are the same. I know I can test a config change locally and upload it to the server when I upgrade. I know I can test the versions in Unstable on my local network, then be ready for any config changes in Testing when the versions make it there (register_globals anyone?).
A friend of mine, systems administrator, was always trashing Debian. Package management sucks, he said. You don't know what's being installed, he said. It breaks things, he said. Then he got a job at a place in Montreal, which was an all-Debian shop.
Now, it's all he ever uses.
He trusts the package management on Debian (but wouldn't trust RPM). He can see what's being installed when he updates, and mark packages to be held back, if he wants. He can be aware ahead of time (thanks to Testing) of changes that might break configuration issues.
It's taken me a while to get him used to doing things 'The Debian Way' - not compiling from source, and so on - but once I show him how easy it is, he sticks with it. Dependancy management (apt-get build-dep for example) makes life easier when you're custom compiling. It all just works together.
The Red Hat apt-rpm issues remind me a lot of the rpm vs dpkg arguments. Red Hat wanted a package management system, but dpkg wans't ready, said the Debian programmers. So they made their own. And it sucks. It's not backwards compatible, it doesn't do dependancies right (it'll depend on a 'file' (/usr/bin/perl) but not check to see if the file exists; instead, you have to install a package that provides the file). It breaks when you try to upgrade. In short, they made something that does the same thing, but they missed the point. They failed to realize what it was that made the system great.
With apt-rpm, it's the same thing. They saw Debian, and how it all worked flawlessly, and decided to duplicate it. So, they ripped off apt-get (and good for them, I approve). The problem is, they missed the point. They saw the difference on the surface and made a copy, but they didn't get the deeper realities of it - the soul of Debian, not the face of Debian. And that is exactly what's being discussed in the article.
The only problem is, people look at Debian and see the face, and look at Red Hat and see the same face. It's only when you try them that you feel the soul of the projects, but you have to try them both to realize how much difference there really is. That's the problem that Debian has.
I don't understand why it flags the name 'Utvik', which sounds (to me) to be somewhat Scandinavian, but seems to ignore 'Uday', a name spelt and pronounced almost exactly the same, which also happens to be the same name as the first son of Sadadm Hussein. I guess that's good, right?
Fortunately for me, my name is very common in India, which should help keep it off the list (or give me an excuse to not get held up). Then again, I'm as caucasian as they come, so it might seem suspicious.
A defect does not always mean "Will cause Windows BSOD". Some defects are an interpretation of a problem.
Indeed. Some 'defects' (in actuality, entries in the Win2K BTS) aren't defects at all. One of them might be (as a made-up example) 'Outlook Express doesn't have a start-up screen,; maybe we should put one in so that people on slow systems know that it's starting.' or 'Resource ID 456456 in winsock32.dll has typo ('teh instead of the')'.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions mentioned in this post are my own, and have nothing to do with the opinions of EB Games. Likewise, EB Games has nothing to do with my own opinions, and this post doesn't have much to do with anything.
With Nintendo, the quality and brand recognition of the flagship titles (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc) are so irresistable many first-party games are considered must-have purchases, leaving cube owners little time and money for third-party titles.
I don't think that's the problem. The problem is that after you have all the must-have purchases (Mario games, Zelda, Metroid - Eternal Darkness is Nintendo, isn't it?), the rest of the games are mediocre at best.
I recently acquired a SNES. I have a few RPGs in a box in my parents' house from ages ago (now that they've moved, I'll never find them), and I have Zelda right here. I'm also going to do my best to dig up the other games. Why? The graphics, by today's 'standards', suck. The audio isn't digitally sampled accoustically balanced CD-quality Dolby 5.1. But you know what? They were fun. They were challenging. They were inventive. There was a lot of crap, but there were a lot of games that were worth playing too. Actraiser was neat. Raiden Trad. Mario games. Lots of fun multiplayer games, and lots of fun single-player games.
What does the Gamecube have? Not much. It has all the first-party titles, and believe me, they rock. But after that? Nothing. Well, not really. Nothing worth buying unless you can take it back to EB within two weeks for something else.
Here's a tip for all you gamers, too. If there's a game you really want, go to EB and buy a game that you may or may not want. Try it out. If you like it enough to keep it, keep it. If not, take it back within two weeks, and get the full trade-in value, and put it towards the game that you know you want. You get to try a game out, and the only downside is that you can't bring back the game you know you really wanted as a trade in if you don't like it, which you know you will.
Anyway, having worked at EB, there is one thing I know for sure: there are a lot of really good games. The only problem is, there are some for the GC, some for XB, some for PS2, and some for GBA. THIS is the problem with the gaming industry.
But Dan, you're so wise and sexy and virile and you're always right, but I don't understand how competition is a bad thing.
Exclusivity.
Let's pretend I'm the age I act, and I'm looking forward to my 14th birthday. My parents are suburbanites, and want to get me a game console so I can play games. The available consoles (last I checked) were $300, $300, and $230, or so. This quite clearly says that I can only get one. Couple this with exclusive titles. Exclusive titles are, when good (like Splinter Cell, or Final Fantasy) what drive console sales. They are the killer apps of gaming. I know for a fact that I will get a PS2, because I know that FFX and FFX2 are only on PS2. It's simple. So I have to decide, do I want FFX and X2, and see Yuna in those too-short-to-be-shorts shorts, or do I want to go unnoticed into the darkness and kill those who would attack our (your) fair country?
Well, I'll get a paper route, and I'll buy both. Ok, so now I have a PS2, which I bought, and an XBox, which my parents bought. I also got XBox Live, the PS2 broadband adapter, and keyboards, and mice, and dongles and switches, and everything.
I've spent a thosuand dollars on gaming. Why on earth would I spend another five hundred? It doesn't make sense. The exclusive Nintendo-only games aren't as 'cool' as Splinter Cell, or as huge as Final Fantasy (supposedly). So they're not as big of a draw. They're kid games. Games that three-year-olds play while their parents try to keep them from drooling on the controller.
Nevermind that even the most cynical of 18-to-25 geeks that I know seem to generally love these games (then again, even the most cynical of 18-to-25 geeks that I know are closet Mac fans to
Also, the opteron, using intel's compiler, manages to beat the 970 in int and fp.
Really? Well, I'll just rush right out and buy one then! Can I get them from the Dell store? No? What about Compaq? Not shipping them, you say? Well hmm...
Sarcasm aside, the point is this: when I can buy a desktop system (NOT workstation, NOT server) with an Opteron, then we can compare. Until then, no dice.
Slashdot Mirror
The definition, by the FCC, of 'broadband' is, as mentioned, a connection with at least 200 kbits of one-way bandwidth.
By comparison, the Canadian government defines 'broadband' as (paraphrasing) 'an internet connection capable of sustaining real-time two-way streaming multimedia'.
I found that quite interesting when I found it out. Broadband in Canada isn't what broadband in the US is, and I can't really figure out why, but I have some ideas.
First of all, Shaw Cable, one of the largest broadband providers in Canada, owns Fiberlink, Canada's largest coast-to-coast optical data network. Since people they peer with use them for traffic as much as they do, they don't have to worry about capping customer bandwidth - resulting in me being able to get 600kbytes/sec sustained download on 200+ meg compressed binary archives. Real transfer people, not magic numbers. I knew someone who colocated a server in Vancouver and ran an IRCd for an IRC network, and I, an hour and a half drive away, had (I kid you not) 6 millisecond pings to his server, 8 hops away. I've gotten 450kbyte/s from kernel.org, ftp.de.debian.org, and the University of Tokyo. It's all very well done.
Secondly, the networks in Canada aren't owned by many people at all. Shaw's one (Fibrelink), then there's Telus, BCE, and Aliant, Videotron, Rogers, and a few others that own the broadband scheme, but really, that's not much. Compare this to the US - how many companies are there? Well, less now, since they all went around buying each other up, but the ones that do exist aren't healthy companies anymore.
And thirdly, a backbone in Canada really only requires going from Vancouver to Montreal with stops in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Toronto. Handy. But that only counts for Canadian sites though...
Factor in that Canada is too cold to do anything in for half the year (not that that stops anyone), and you have more of a hint, but it's not really until you look at some of the other initiatives that people are coming up with that things become interesting.
First of all, you can go to the CBC or CTV websites and watch news clips and listen to live radio. You used to be able to even watch CTV Newsnet online and interactive, watching the regular feed or picking stories that interest you. You know the weather and headline tickers at the bottom and sides of the CNN channels? Click on them, and get new clips about weather or the election. It was truly interactive video, and it was great.
CBC has always had a Radio One and Radio Two, but online, you can visit CBC Radio Three, an online-only magazine about... well, all kinds of stuff. Not everyone's bag, but well-done nonetheless, with a background soundtrack and interactive stories that you can help yourself to.
This month's isn't interesting, but it's neat.
It's all about interactive media, and that's what people are interested in. Aliant is now starting to offer online digital radio and TV channels to its customers for ten bucks a month - and they're good channels, that people will pay for.
Broadband isn't taking off in the US because people aren't being told what to do with it - because there's nothing to do with it. In Canada, people are saying to themselves, hey, look, I can do things, I can make things, I can watch TV online, and the companies are realizing that it doesn't cost them bandwidth to deliver to their own customers, and they can spur development onward. In Canada, there's a reason, so people sign up.
--Dan
I heard they're just going to switch their websites over to IIS and wait until the servers take themselves down.
--Dan
A good point. Working at a game store of no ill repute, I can tell you that the worst part of my day is selling an XBox - not because I don't like them (Halo rocks, KOTOR rocks, etc.), but because I have to eat two or three good-sized steaks just to have the energy to get one from the back of the store.
The gamecube, on the other hand, which I have wisely purchased and am greatly enjoying, is smaller than many melons I have eaten, weighs not much more than the controller, and is silent unless you're sitting beside it.
The XBox is a perfect monstrosity - it works, to be sure, but it's big, loud, heavy, and hot. It's a hack at the best of times, and the engineers that designed it should be ashamed of themselves. The Gamecube, on the other hand, is a beauty of modern designing, as you can see when you disassemble it - layer upon layer of well-designed hardware and circuitry.
Maybe Microsoft will realize that bigger isn't always better this time. If not, I guess I'll have to start eating better.
That being said, what hurt the cost of the original XBox was that the PS2 had been around for a year, had a wealth of games, plus all the other PS2 games, and the XBox had the same reputation as Windows PCs (deserved or not) and cost five hundred bucks (almost $700 in Canada) at release.
--Dan
I'm waiting for the Gamecube price drop (The current price is fair in my opinion... but with the rumors spreading, I'll feel like an idiot if the price drops a few days after I buy one!).
:)
I just noticed this comment in your post - if you go to your local EB before the end of the month, you can get a demo disc along with one of four games (Metroid Prime, Mario Party 4, Zelda: Wind Waker, or something else) or a Game Boy Player (to play GB/GBC/GBA games on the GC) for free. All of the games and the player are all $70 retail and the demo disc is $15, but the deal only lasts until the end of the month, so if you're expecting the price to drop more than $70-85, then by all means wait. Otherwise, I'd go get one right now.
Actually, wait... I did.
--Dan
The problem isn't (necessarily) that there aren't worthwhile games, it's that they're so spread out. And keep in mind the vast selection of already released PS2 games, if you had the system.
I factor that in with the time it takes to get buggy games to work, the time it takes to upgrade and debug drivers, the cost of upgrading hardware every year (I'm lucky if it's only every year) so that I can play the latest games and have them look good, and so on. It's a pain in the ass just to do all that, plus it means paying for a Windows machine to do it on.
Then I look at consoles. I can get a PS2 for $179+tx, an XBox for the same, or a Gamecube for $200+tx. Games? Sure, they can be expensive, but I just stay a few months behind the curve. I didn't buy a GameCube when they were new, but the games that I have are good anyway - and I didn't pay much for them. Got Zelda for free, got Megaman:NT for $20, got my $5 worth out of it, then traded it back for $15 and got Metroid (which my roommate is now addicted to too, sucks for him that I'm moving out in a week).
That's two games that have kept me occupied for the better part of a month, for $50 on top of the price of the system. I started playing Halo on a friend's system, and I can tell I'd be playing that quite a bit too if I had an XBox. Knights of the Old Republic would keep me occupied for a month or so at least, and so would Skies of Arcadia Legends, FFX, FFX2, Soul Calibur 2 (Link baby! Yeah!), Halo 2, Fable, Starcraft:Ghost or any one of a dozen other titles, none of which will be coming out for PC.
What would I play if I had a PC? Maybe Ghost Recon co-op. Maybe. Neverwinter Nights/Udrentide for sure. Rise of Nations. C&C:Generals:Zero Hour That's about it. Those are the only PC-exclusive games I'd play.
For me, the good bets are on systems. Unfortunately, none of the good online games are PS2 - unless you like EA Sports, and let's face it, who doesn't? - so their online pack is doing horribly. And there's only two controller ports. And the graphics aren't as good. But oh well, it's all good anyway.
--Dan
Exactly so. As a perfect example, I submit Pulp Fiction, which cost $8m to make, and made $107m in the US, and $212m worldwide. That's what the studios look for, but oddly enough, they don't seem to realize it. Even movies like Go ($16m on a budget of $6.5m) are great for the companies, making a cool $10m just in US sales.
Just beacuse a movie has great sales doesn't mean it was worth it. Final Fantasy had $74m in sales, which is pretty good, except that it cost $137m to make. Ouch.
--Dan
Pff, I've spent the last week playing the SNES I just got, and among the only games I've managed to borrow are the three Star Wars games - play those and then play KOTOR, and the difference is staggering.
As for the Tie Fighter/Rogue Squadron/etc. games, I find them too repetetive generaly - well done, but really, another space dogfighting game? For that matter, another Star Wars space dogfighting game? I had my fill with Wing Commander III, which at least had something resembling a unique plotline to go with the gameplay.
KOTOR, however, has renewed my faith in the Lucasarts team and Star Wars games in general. It really is amazing, and other than the 'save game is accidentally corrupted' bug, the worst part is the number of people I deal with on a day to day basis that won't stop talking about it. Whether that's actually a bad thing or not depends on whether or not you like to hear 'war stories' about RP games. If so, it's a definite plus.
--Dan
The difference is that movies and TV shows accurately represent real life. For example, the only people who get killed in wartime are people who show pictures of their sweethearts back home, detectives always need to visit strip clubs during every investigation, and in every set of identical twins, one is always evil. This is why it's necessary to specifically say that the stories are fictional.
--Dan
Nicholas Blachford (engineer of the PPC-based PEGASOS Platform) says that the PPC is better than x86.
What an unbiased opinion. Maybe we should really hear the other side too. I like the article for the wealth of info, and we all know the shortcomings of the x86 platform, but the conclusion seems to be biased.
While I of course agree that the result isn't surprising, I think people are getting the cause-effect thing backwards. I don't think he found that PPC is better because he uses it, I think he uses it because he found it better.
Of course, I could be biased...
--Dan
UPS, DHL FEDEX and other shippers do ship overseas.
See my previous post for examples of why never to use UPS. FexEx is ok, and I've never even heard of DHL, but never use UPS.
--Dan
on the other hand, amazon japan seem to be all for shipping things to the US, though - any maybe to other countries like hungary too; so maybe give them a try.
It might be a better idea to try Amazon UK if you're in Hungary, as opposed to Amazon Japan. If nothing else, the shipping would be cheaper. It's what people do in Israel, anyway.
--Dan
Even between the US and Canada, anything being shipped across the border gets taxes and a brokerage fee tacked on, and extra postage. Handling all of that for a wide range of countries, automatically, would be a logistical nightmare.
A nightmare for all involved, no less. Even ordering from the US into Canada is a nightmare. For example: I wanted to order a copy of Fallout 1/2 (in one package) for ten bucks online. Tack on another $7 for shipping to Canada, that's $17 USD, and I figure, that's about what I'd pay in Canada anyway. So I place the order. Four days later, I get an email telling me they're going to ship it to me via UPS international shipping. This is a problem for two reasons:
First of all, brokerage. On a $10 USD purchase, UPS wanted to charge me, on top of the $7 I was going to pay anyway, another $35 USD. Thirty-five dollars for 'brokerage', even though the only thing I'd have to pay would have been 14% sales tax at the border, which I could have paid no problem. But no, they had to charge me $35 to 'broker' my ten dollar purchase.
Secondly, UPS disclaims all liability when shipping internationally. This means that if they lose my package, too bad. If they smash it with a hammer, too bad. If it arrives in the form of silvery dust in a ziploc bag, well, too bad.
There was a story on slashdot (too lazy to search for it, but someone probably remembers it) about someone who shipped a few thousand dollars worth of mac and PC equipment from Ontario to California. It arrived largely in pieces, with damage to cases, lost cables, boxes smashed open along the sides with holes that things fell out through, etc. It was the worst damage I'd seen done to a computer that wasn't intentional or fire damage, and UPS's attitude was basically 'Yeah, that's too bad, isn't it?'
Unfortunately, UPS seems to be the courier of choice because FedEx is so expensive, and people in the US don't seem to realize what a colossally bad idea it is to ship internationally with UPS, because they can't destroy stuff sent domestically. As a result, if you want something ordered from a US website (with notable exceptions like Crucial), you either get it via UPS (but not intact) or you get it sent USPS, which most people won't even do.
Long story short: chances are, you don't WANT to order from the US. Not even if you're in Canada. ESPECIALLY not if you're overseas. If you need to, then get ahold of a friend in the US, get it shipped to them, then get it sent FedEx deferred by a week or two to save some coin. Otherwise, you're screwed.
--Dan
Vancouver's Skytrain mass-transit system also runs on OS/2. There's an OS/2 box sitting in every train. I thought that was pretty neat.
--Dan
Another other idea is to run a Cat5e backbone and use VoIP and streaming technologies over the IP network. That way you don't need to run special cable, just the $50/1000ft spools you can buy ay home despot.
--Dan
I'm perfectly happy just having spools of cables running free around the house, behind furniture.. over tables. I think they are happier that way too.
I usually string mine from one corner of the room to the center, and then out to the opposite corner. This lets me hang things like christmas lights (dim omnidirectional lighting is better for my eyes), plants, Christmas cards, decorations, and so on, with a minimum of effort. If you spend a little extra and use lengths of Belkin cable, you can even hang your home entertainment system from your ceiling, all without any loss in packets.
The trick is getting nicely coloured cable. Get white or off-white lengths for the across-the-ceiling backbone, or paint your ethernet or fibre cables before you string them, and the wife/roommate/girlfriend won't complain (or notice).
--Dan
Gates is right though. OS/2 was huge - just not in the desktop home-user circles. Hell, my bank still uses OS/2. They're one of the largest banks in Canada, and they're an IBM shop through-and-through. They run on IBM's big iron mainframes, they use IBM's WebSphere (JSP and the whole shebang), and they use OS/2 on their desktops (with Netscape 4).
People nowadays just seem to think that nothing happened, but while it might have been as big a phenomenon as Windows, it sure isn't dead.
--Dan
No, that's the (misguided) point of the open-source movement's worst figurehead. Linux (as in Linux) has no such purpose. It was started as an experimental project, and participated in as a hobby.
Having a goal in mind to attack someone isn't a very noble goal. It's destructive, and that never works out. The point should be to have a goal of creating something, and letting that stand on its own merit. The obsession with Microsoft is unhealthy, both psychologically and in terms of open-source projects. People should be able to make software that is good in its own right, without having a destructive purpose, or it won't get anywhere good.
Put simply, if Linux is meant to be a competitor to Windows, then when Windows is gone, Linux is purposeless. If, instead, its goal is to make a stable, secure, and versatile operating system, then it can outlast dead competitors instead of stagnating.
--Dan
WHQL doesn't mean they're better drives, it just means that they passed some MSFT testing bits. If anything, non-WHQL drivers have potential to have higher performance (think a car engine that doesn't have to worry about passing emissions), since they don't have to worry so much about playing nice with -all- available hardware.
I don't know, but you seem to make the point of 'WHQL doesn't mean they're better, because all WHQL means is that they won't fuck up your system.'
To me, that's kind of important. I would rather have better drivers and slower performance than an extra 100 FPS but break my sound card's S/PDIF port when a Gl rendering is finished.
--Dan
What's wrong with RH? It's made the most headway in developing a true alternative to M$.
I'm sorry, but when did the point of Linux become 'to destroy MS'? I always thought it was about making good software that people want to use, and sharing it with everyone so the people can benefit. Red Hat seems more interested in making a profit - and as a corporation, that is, in fact, the one thing they exist to do. I disapprove of this. It's like totalitarian communism - 'everyone helps everyone (to help me)'.
Redhat, as I've said before, is the MS of the Linux world. Which is not to say it's evil, but it certainly doesn't have the quality that Debian does, for one major reason: customers. Debian has users, Red Hat has customers. Red Hat has to provide new versions to its customers on a timetable. They can't afford to wait until things are finished, they have to get it out the door.
Debian, on the other hand, does not have that limitation. Debian releases happen when they're done, when they're ready to get burned onto a CD and downloaded by the ISO and dist-upgraded, and not a second before. Debian releases are done right, and the long release cycle is because they take the time to do it right the first time. THAT is what Linux and open-source should be about. Not doing it first, but doing it right.
Anyway you cut it RH helps all linux distro's across the board.
Not really, no. Red Hat has a horrible history of security holes, including (for example) keeping Wu-FTPd as the default FTP daemon, despite security hole after security hole, for over four years (or at least, four years of everyone criticizing them for being so stupid). They leave spades of ports open in the default installation, because someone might some day need them, instead of providing an option to turn them on later. They provide a packaging system that, at its best, is mediocre. They corporatize Linux, and make everyone feel as though they have to compete to be better. They made such a big deal about being the only Linux out there that corporations only support Red Hat - which severely hurts other Linux distros. Oracle, for example, is only supported on Red Hat. True, that's Oracle's fault, but Red Hat's boisterious success has marginalized distros that don't have overly commercial gains, and that hurts everyone across the board.
--Dan
Debian has always had a strong following with Systems Administrators who want a strong, stable, supportable platform for their GNU/Linux based services that can be centrally administered without waisting a lot of time.
Well said. Debian is the only distro I can trust enough to reboot remotely, and to upgrade things like SSH remotely. I can trust any upgrades I make on my local machine to reflect the upgrades I make on the server later on, because I know that the versions are the same. I know I can test a config change locally and upload it to the server when I upgrade. I know I can test the versions in Unstable on my local network, then be ready for any config changes in Testing when the versions make it there (register_globals anyone?).
A friend of mine, systems administrator, was always trashing Debian. Package management sucks, he said. You don't know what's being installed, he said. It breaks things, he said. Then he got a job at a place in Montreal, which was an all-Debian shop.
Now, it's all he ever uses.
He trusts the package management on Debian (but wouldn't trust RPM). He can see what's being installed when he updates, and mark packages to be held back, if he wants. He can be aware ahead of time (thanks to Testing) of changes that might break configuration issues.
It's taken me a while to get him used to doing things 'The Debian Way' - not compiling from source, and so on - but once I show him how easy it is, he sticks with it. Dependancy management (apt-get build-dep for example) makes life easier when you're custom compiling. It all just works together.
The Red Hat apt-rpm issues remind me a lot of the rpm vs dpkg arguments. Red Hat wanted a package management system, but dpkg wans't ready, said the Debian programmers. So they made their own. And it sucks. It's not backwards compatible, it doesn't do dependancies right (it'll depend on a 'file' (/usr/bin/perl) but not check to see if the file exists; instead, you have to install a package that provides the file). It breaks when you try to upgrade. In short, they made something that does the same thing, but they missed the point. They failed to realize what it was that made the system great.
With apt-rpm, it's the same thing. They saw Debian, and how it all worked flawlessly, and decided to duplicate it. So, they ripped off apt-get (and good for them, I approve). The problem is, they missed the point. They saw the difference on the surface and made a copy, but they didn't get the deeper realities of it - the soul of Debian, not the face of Debian. And that is exactly what's being discussed in the article.
The only problem is, people look at Debian and see the face, and look at Red Hat and see the same face. It's only when you try them that you feel the soul of the projects, but you have to try them both to realize how much difference there really is. That's the problem that Debian has.
--Dan
After trying the Soundex tool, I am just bewildered how anyone could think this algorithim is appropriate for a no-fly list.
Here's mine:
Name: Udey
Soundex: U300
Matches: Udo Udoh Udy Ueda Uhde Uthe Utt Uyeda Utvik
I don't understand why it flags the name 'Utvik', which sounds (to me) to be somewhat Scandinavian, but seems to ignore 'Uday', a name spelt and pronounced almost exactly the same, which also happens to be the same name as the first son of Sadadm Hussein. I guess that's good, right?
Fortunately for me, my name is very common in India, which should help keep it off the list (or give me an excuse to not get held up). Then again, I'm as caucasian as they come, so it might seem suspicious.
--Dan
A defect does not always mean "Will cause Windows BSOD". Some defects are an interpretation of a problem.
Indeed. Some 'defects' (in actuality, entries in the Win2K BTS) aren't defects at all. One of them might be (as a made-up example) 'Outlook Express doesn't have a start-up screen,; maybe we should put one in so that people on slow systems know that it's starting.' or 'Resource ID 456456 in winsock32.dll has typo ('teh instead of the')'.
--Dan
If they can profit on the gamecube, they will, if they can't, then it won't be supported.
The only way that could happen is if they stopped making crap, but then they wouldn't be making any games at all.
I made that sound like a bad thing, but it's not.
--Dan
DISCLAIMER: The opinions mentioned in this post are my own, and have nothing to do with the opinions of EB Games. Likewise, EB Games has nothing to do with my own opinions, and this post doesn't have much to do with anything.
With Nintendo, the quality and brand recognition of the flagship titles (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc) are so irresistable many first-party games are considered must-have purchases, leaving cube owners little time and money for third-party titles.
I don't think that's the problem. The problem is that after you have all the must-have purchases (Mario games, Zelda, Metroid - Eternal Darkness is Nintendo, isn't it?), the rest of the games are mediocre at best.
I recently acquired a SNES. I have a few RPGs in a box in my parents' house from ages ago (now that they've moved, I'll never find them), and I have Zelda right here. I'm also going to do my best to dig up the other games. Why? The graphics, by today's 'standards', suck. The audio isn't digitally sampled accoustically balanced CD-quality Dolby 5.1. But you know what? They were fun. They were challenging. They were inventive. There was a lot of crap, but there were a lot of games that were worth playing too. Actraiser was neat. Raiden Trad. Mario games. Lots of fun multiplayer games, and lots of fun single-player games.
What does the Gamecube have? Not much. It has all the first-party titles, and believe me, they rock. But after that? Nothing. Well, not really. Nothing worth buying unless you can take it back to EB within two weeks for something else.
Here's a tip for all you gamers, too. If there's a game you really want, go to EB and buy a game that you may or may not want. Try it out. If you like it enough to keep it, keep it. If not, take it back within two weeks, and get the full trade-in value, and put it towards the game that you know you want. You get to try a game out, and the only downside is that you can't bring back the game you know you really wanted as a trade in if you don't like it, which you know you will.
Anyway, having worked at EB, there is one thing I know for sure: there are a lot of really good games. The only problem is, there are some for the GC, some for XB, some for PS2, and some for GBA. THIS is the problem with the gaming industry.
But Dan, you're so wise and sexy and virile and you're always right, but I don't understand how competition is a bad thing.
Exclusivity.
Let's pretend I'm the age I act, and I'm looking forward to my 14th birthday. My parents are suburbanites, and want to get me a game console so I can play games. The available consoles (last I checked) were $300, $300, and $230, or so. This quite clearly says that I can only get one. Couple this with exclusive titles. Exclusive titles are, when good (like Splinter Cell, or Final Fantasy) what drive console sales. They are the killer apps of gaming. I know for a fact that I will get a PS2, because I know that FFX and FFX2 are only on PS2. It's simple. So I have to decide, do I want FFX and X2, and see Yuna in those too-short-to-be-shorts shorts, or do I want to go unnoticed into the darkness and kill those who would attack our (your) fair country?
Well, I'll get a paper route, and I'll buy both. Ok, so now I have a PS2, which I bought, and an XBox, which my parents bought. I also got XBox Live, the PS2 broadband adapter, and keyboards, and mice, and dongles and switches, and everything.
I've spent a thosuand dollars on gaming. Why on earth would I spend another five hundred? It doesn't make sense. The exclusive Nintendo-only games aren't as 'cool' as Splinter Cell, or as huge as Final Fantasy (supposedly). So they're not as big of a draw. They're kid games. Games that three-year-olds play while their parents try to keep them from drooling on the controller.
Nevermind that even the most cynical of 18-to-25 geeks that I know seem to generally love these games (then again, even the most cynical of 18-to-25 geeks that I know are closet Mac fans to
Also, the opteron, using intel's compiler, manages to beat the 970 in int and fp.
Really? Well, I'll just rush right out and buy one then! Can I get them from the Dell store? No? What about Compaq? Not shipping them, you say? Well hmm...
Sarcasm aside, the point is this: when I can buy a desktop system (NOT workstation, NOT server) with an Opteron, then we can compare. Until then, no dice.
--Dan