Yes, but it wasn't local to a specific field. There were enough GM crops that the entire North American population was affected. There were other factors that caused the huge decline in population (75% decrease in 2004 from the number in the 2003 migration) but the main cause is believed to be genetically modified crops.
So remember.. If your children have birth defects.. It's not because you didn't eat your vegetables, it's because you did eat them =)
Our release day console had an incomplete controller (battery pack missing a terminal) so it was unusable. Though, technically the console has had no problems.
My personal console runs, but it won't play Gears of War without an Internet connection (I don't have broadband at home *gasp*), so it doesn't really work.
I think those kinda even out to one broken, one not broken.
That is probably illegal or at least very gray-area. (..read: ianal)
Modchips with disc-flashable firmware are hardly a new thing, so I suspect one of the console manufacturers would have already tried this if they thought they could get away with it.
For example, the PSP firmware updates could be automatically flashed over hacked firmware making it difficult to revert to an older, exploitable, firmware version.
What it probably comes down to is, they know some percentage of people will freak out and shut off their system or yank the power cord, probably rendering the system useless. I.e. manufacturer-caused brick/PR nightmare.
In this case a 'new' or 'last-second' bug would translate to one that's been around for several months since that's how long the final build of Vista has been available. Taking that into consideration, Apple somehow missed an obvious bug for months, or they are lying through their noses to spread FUD, or it occurs a small percentage of the time or only in uncommon circumstances.
Probably it's the last one.. and (virtually) nobody has anything to worry about. They're just covering themselves to prevent a possible support flood that would hurt them and, in turn, their customers.
Oh and for the record, I hate Apple and think the parent poster is a delusional box abuser. I just happen to think this is the most likely explanation.
Only the original Threewave versions did not require downloading. The grappling hook and actual flags (instead of keys) were added and new maps were created, but all the models were relatively small. Quakeworld enabled the automatic downloading of missing files when connecting to a server requiring files the client didn't have, so the process was still very simple and easy.
It's also worth noting that a major aspect of Quake's achievement is how it shaped gaming. Not only did Quake spawn freeware mods with QuakeC and new games via the licensing of the engine, it also helped form or influence successful development houses and had some hand in the making of games such as Tribes, Half-Life, Painkiller, and others.
If it's not obvious, I am a Quake fanboy. But because of the scale on which Quake affected gamers and developers, and in some cases combined the two, I can say objectively that if it weren't for Quake, gaming (not just FPS gaming) would not be the same as it is today.
When I saw the Revolution I thought "Great another vertical console, what's wrong with these designers? Damn you Sony!". It's good to see that the base is removable.. And the console, placed horizontally, is just f'n sexy. Nintendo just won best looking new console in my mind.
I've had a D-Link DI-614+ for a year or two longer than my WRT54G and have had some inexcusable problems with it. The main problem is that firewall changes sometimes don't go into effect even though the router says they do. The router has to be unplugged when this happens.
The other big problem was that they never sent me my rebate, and when I tried to contact them about it the recording at the number listed on their Website was of such poor quality I couldn't tell which button I was supposed to press on my phone.
My Linksys WRT54G has been great. I can't think of any problems I've ever had with it or the stock firmware.
I thought of the Sveasoft firmware option also, and I'd like to point out that any self-respecting gamer should be able to perform the flash and set up QoS.
5% packet loss is nothing. If 1/20 of the packets are being dropped and the game is unplayable, the game has absolutely horrid networking code.
I'm most familiar with quakeworld, in which some people play with 10% packet loss and don't think much of it. Some play with 25-50% PL and are still very good (i.e. play for one of the top 3 teams in North America). And quakeworld netcode was basically the 1st generation of Internet code for FPS games.
If you know of a game that is maintained by salaried developers (unlike QW which is maintained by volunteers) and its network play fails with 5% PL you should complain to them. Point out that netcode from the late 90's maintained by hobbyists is significantly better than their work, and they should get in contact with Dave Kirsch.
You're right about the flood of prior art challenges that would come up, but in many cases it wouldn't be hard to see which patents needed closer examination. In the public patent review system, there could be a choice: patent is 'new' or 'prior art exists'. Then if the patent office sees that 80% of the reponses say 'prior art exists' that tips them off that the patent is widely believed to be invalid and probably should be investigated.
What about idiots and others who wrongly affect the ratio of new:exists? A simple account system could be created. You need an account to comment on the validity of a patent, and if a person is discovered to repeatedly be wrong about the final decisions they could be given warnings, then their accounts could be disabled, for some time period or permanently.. That's another discussion though.
Re:Video games taught me to read
on
Got Game
·
· Score: 1
I knew how to read by age 3, and by the time I was in 3rd grade I had college-level reading ability (according to some test the school had me take). This was all before I was allowed to own videogames.
Not to bash videogames or anything.. I love them.. but I don't know if I'd argue that they help you learn to read.
Some of the things that this book covers, though, I think are great examples of what abilities gaming helps develop. Gaming helps some low-level problem solving abilities that wouldn't be developed with other excercises.
Not to mention laptop users with corp. versions of XP.. Laptops are for travelling and using the Internet while travelling is gonna affect your IP.
Complete review of Halo 2 and this topic
on
Halo 2 Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Halo 2 is fun as was Halo. Because it's very similar. Not a challenging game in any way, not very creative despite what some people claim were innovations. But fun.
All arguments about the game come down to preference. There are plenty of valid arguments about why Halo(2) is fun/exciting and easy/crappy but they all depend on what YOU like in a game.
So shutup.
If you want some fun with less than the maximum amount of action possible in an FPS to make for a small learning curve, this is your game.
Re:I think what it was...
on
Halo 2 Reviews
·
· Score: 1
I dunno about Gamespot or IGN, but GameSpy is obviously in it as a business, not as gaming enthusiasts. If they were gaming enthusiasts, they wouldn't have screwed up QuakeSpy so bad and forced you to register with them to use fileplanet. GameSpy is an example of an organization that grew entirely from the support of a gaming community and then evolved in a way that made them more profit, and their users more frustrated.
Counter-Strike is for newbies with misconceptions about sophistication and skill =)
Re:All our hopes are on Halo 2
on
Halo 2 Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hey, no offense but.. Halo was designed for the COMPUTER not for the XBOX. Perhaps you weren't around on the Internet way back in 1998 when it was slated to be released, but I was, and I had been around. I remember the (then groundbreaking) features like mouth movement (who else remembers the wazzzaaaaaaa! video they released?) and realistic plant and wildlife. Unfortunately, now in 2004, Halo 2 still doesn't have the environment Halo had in the late 90's. That's my problem with the franchise, neither game comes anywhere near the level of hype surrounding it. As for being a competitive rather than casual game, consoles don't compare to PC's. Sorry. Remember that supposed Halo "tournament" they had? If you didn't already know, they played large FFA matches (!!?) not 1on1's.
Several years after I had decided that Halo looked like a cool game, the release hype started up, and I had all but forgotten about the game. I didn't pay much attention to the hype around the Xbox release, and when I finally saw the game I said "What the hell? This doesn't look as good as what I remember seeing". It wasn't and isn't. Halo 2 has some new game modes and new features, but nothing I can think of that hasn't been around a while. For a console, it's a very good game, it opens up the ability to LAN with just 1 machine per 4 people. In the arena of FPS games, though, it's nothing. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
An Xbox with XBMC is great but an Xbox360 with XBMC360 would be able to play HD resolution media, something the Xbox can't do properly.
Yes, but it wasn't local to a specific field. There were enough GM crops that the entire North American population was affected. There were other factors that caused the huge decline in population (75% decrease in 2004 from the number in the 2003 migration) but the main cause is believed to be genetically modified crops.
So remember.. If your children have birth defects.. It's not because you didn't eat your vegetables, it's because you did eat them =)
Our release day console had an incomplete controller (battery pack missing a terminal) so it was unusable. Though, technically the console has had no problems. My personal console runs, but it won't play Gears of War without an Internet connection (I don't have broadband at home *gasp*), so it doesn't really work.
I think those kinda even out to one broken, one not broken.
Whomever modded this 'Informative' deserves a mod up for that mod!
Best mod descriptor I've seen..
That is probably illegal or at least very gray-area. (..read: ianal)
Modchips with disc-flashable firmware are hardly a new thing, so I suspect one of the console manufacturers would have already tried this if they thought they could get away with it. For example, the PSP firmware updates could be automatically flashed over hacked firmware making it difficult to revert to an older, exploitable, firmware version.
What it probably comes down to is, they know some percentage of people will freak out and shut off their system or yank the power cord, probably rendering the system useless. I.e. manufacturer-caused brick/PR nightmare.
In this case a 'new' or 'last-second' bug would translate to one that's been around for several months since that's how long the final build of Vista has been available. Taking that into consideration, Apple somehow missed an obvious bug for months, or they are lying through their noses to spread FUD, or it occurs a small percentage of the time or only in uncommon circumstances.
Probably it's the last one.. and (virtually) nobody has anything to worry about. They're just covering themselves to prevent a possible support flood that would hurt them and, in turn, their customers.
Oh and for the record, I hate Apple and think the parent poster is a delusional box abuser. I just happen to think this is the most likely explanation.
Only the original Threewave versions did not require downloading. The grappling hook and actual flags (instead of keys) were added and new maps were created, but all the models were relatively small. Quakeworld enabled the automatic downloading of missing files when connecting to a server requiring files the client didn't have, so the process was still very simple and easy.
It's also worth noting that a major aspect of Quake's achievement is how it shaped gaming. Not only did Quake spawn freeware mods with QuakeC and new games via the licensing of the engine, it also helped form or influence successful development houses and had some hand in the making of games such as Tribes, Half-Life, Painkiller, and others.
If it's not obvious, I am a Quake fanboy. But because of the scale on which Quake affected gamers and developers, and in some cases combined the two, I can say objectively that if it weren't for Quake, gaming (not just FPS gaming) would not be the same as it is today.
When I saw the Revolution I thought "Great another vertical console, what's wrong with these designers? Damn you Sony!". It's good to see that the base is removable.. And the console, placed horizontally, is just f'n sexy. Nintendo just won best looking new console in my mind.
This has been done before, more than once. The first time I read about it was long enough ago that I don't remember when it was..
I've had a D-Link DI-614+ for a year or two longer than my WRT54G and have had some inexcusable problems with it. The main problem is that firewall changes sometimes don't go into effect even though the router says they do. The router has to be unplugged when this happens.
The other big problem was that they never sent me my rebate, and when I tried to contact them about it the recording at the number listed on their Website was of such poor quality I couldn't tell which button I was supposed to press on my phone.
My Linksys WRT54G has been great. I can't think of any problems I've ever had with it or the stock firmware.
I thought of the Sveasoft firmware option also, and I'd like to point out that any self-respecting gamer should be able to perform the flash and set up QoS.
5% packet loss is nothing. If 1/20 of the packets are being dropped and the game is unplayable, the game has absolutely horrid networking code.
I'm most familiar with quakeworld, in which some people play with 10% packet loss and don't think much of it. Some play with 25-50% PL and are still very good (i.e. play for one of the top 3 teams in North America). And quakeworld netcode was basically the 1st generation of Internet code for FPS games.
If you know of a game that is maintained by salaried developers (unlike QW which is maintained by volunteers) and its network play fails with 5% PL you should complain to them. Point out that netcode from the late 90's maintained by hobbyists is significantly better than their work, and they should get in contact with Dave Kirsch.
You're right about the flood of prior art challenges that would come up, but in many cases it wouldn't be hard to see which patents needed closer examination. In the public patent review system, there could be a choice: patent is 'new' or 'prior art exists'. Then if the patent office sees that 80% of the reponses say 'prior art exists' that tips them off that the patent is widely believed to be invalid and probably should be investigated.
What about idiots and others who wrongly affect the ratio of new:exists? A simple account system could be created. You need an account to comment on the validity of a patent, and if a person is discovered to repeatedly be wrong about the final decisions they could be given warnings, then their accounts could be disabled, for some time period or permanently.. That's another discussion though.
I knew how to read by age 3, and by the time I was in 3rd grade I had college-level reading ability (according to some test the school had me take). This was all before I was allowed to own videogames. Not to bash videogames or anything.. I love them.. but I don't know if I'd argue that they help you learn to read. Some of the things that this book covers, though, I think are great examples of what abilities gaming helps develop. Gaming helps some low-level problem solving abilities that wouldn't be developed with other excercises.
One foot and three inches of silence CmdrTaco?
Not to mention laptop users with corp. versions of XP.. Laptops are for travelling and using the Internet while travelling is gonna affect your IP.
Halo 2 is fun as was Halo. Because it's very similar. Not a challenging game in any way, not very creative despite what some people claim were innovations. But fun.
All arguments about the game come down to preference. There are plenty of valid arguments about why Halo(2) is fun/exciting and easy/crappy but they all depend on what YOU like in a game.
So shutup.
If you want some fun with less than the maximum amount of action possible in an FPS to make for a small learning curve, this is your game.
I dunno about Gamespot or IGN, but GameSpy is obviously in it as a business, not as gaming enthusiasts. If they were gaming enthusiasts, they wouldn't have screwed up QuakeSpy so bad and forced you to register with them to use fileplanet. GameSpy is an example of an organization that grew entirely from the support of a gaming community and then evolved in a way that made them more profit, and their users more frustrated.
Counter-Strike is for newbies with misconceptions about sophistication and skill =)
Hey, no offense but..
Halo was designed for the COMPUTER not for the XBOX. Perhaps you weren't around on the Internet way back in 1998 when it was slated to be released, but I was, and I had been around. I remember the (then groundbreaking) features like mouth movement (who else remembers the wazzzaaaaaaa! video they released?) and realistic plant and wildlife.
Unfortunately, now in 2004, Halo 2 still doesn't have the environment Halo had in the late 90's. That's my problem with the franchise, neither game comes anywhere near the level of hype surrounding it. As for being a competitive rather than casual game, consoles don't compare to PC's. Sorry. Remember that supposed Halo "tournament" they had? If you didn't already know, they played large FFA matches (!!?) not 1on1's.
Several years after I had decided that Halo looked like a cool game, the release hype started up, and I had all but forgotten about the game. I didn't pay much attention to the hype around the Xbox release, and when I finally saw the game I said "What the hell? This doesn't look as good as what I remember seeing". It wasn't and isn't. Halo 2 has some new game modes and new features, but nothing I can think of that hasn't been around a while.
For a console, it's a very good game, it opens up the ability to LAN with just 1 machine per 4 people. In the arena of FPS games, though, it's nothing. Sorry.