It's not that suprising when considering how many companies still have WinXP as their main OS. For example, the company I work for has about 20K employees worldwide, and WinXP remains our OS platform. Thus, the people that your or I know who aren't using WinXP are probably a tiny fraction when compared to these large corporate install bases.
I have some flying experience, but understanding a stall or how to recover from one is more about understanding the physics of flight. In a stall, the aircraft wings reach point where they are no longer able to produce lift at the current flying speed. At this point, the plane will begin to drop, losing altitude until this condition is corrected. Additional forward thrust from increasing the throttle doesn't necessarily help. Since the aircraft is dropping at this point, it is likely already gaining speed, albeit in a downward direction. To break out of the stall, it is necessary to correct the wings angle of attack so that they are able to again provide lift. To do this, the nose of the plane must be dropped, which requires moving the yoke forward. Once the angle of attack is corrected, and the wings are again able to provide lift, the plane can then be brought back under control, and the pilot can begin to pull the aircraft back toward level flight, etc.
I grew up in Mankato, and I first used that MECC system discussed in the article around 1977 when I was in 4th grade. We didn't get Apples in our district until around 1978 or 1979, so for most of us, the MECC terminal was our first exposure to a computer. Our MECC sessions would continually print out on a large roll of yellow paper, and eventually it would run out and we'd need to get a teacher to help us reload it. Of course, it shouldn't be too surprising that most of us just used it for playing games. Among the games available on the MECC were Oregon Trail, a subhunt game (Seawolf?), and a dungeon game (Sceptre?). After a certain time of day (8am?), the access to some of the games was turned off, so some kids actually would arrive early just to play those games.
I greatly enjoyed the dungeon game, but never managed to get very far on it. Much later on, I learned about MUDs, and realized that I'd actually been playing one all those years ago. Nowadays, I suppose that many kids don't even know what MUDs are.
is how much gameplay each system actually gets in any given home. The gaming platforms in my home include multiple PCs, a 360 and a Wii. In a typical week, the gameplay (of my wife and me) breaks down to this:
PC: 12 to 20 hours
360: 12 to 20 hours
Wii: 0 to 2 hours at most, often going up to a month between power-ups
While our home is technically counted among those with a Wii, from our avg use numbers it looks like we barely qualify being called a Wii household. I suspect there are other Wii's out there in a similar situation.
If a game that we wanted did come out that is truly multi-platform (Wii, 360, pc, etc), we'd most likely get the PC or 360 version instead.
I originally held out buying a 360 until the 65nm processor came out (Falcon version). But then due to the RROD problems, I opted to wait for the 65nm GPU as well (Jasper version). Those have been out for a while now, but it's still somewhat hit or miss as to whether the Elite version you get has a Jasper board (65nm CPU + 64nm GPU) or an older version. However, it appears now that most of the new elites and nearly all arcade versions have Jasper. My only reason for holding out longer is that I suspected a significant price drop on the elite was coming.
Now that the price is dropped, I'll finally get one. I'll just make sure to doublecheck that it's rated at 12.1 amps so I know for sure that I'm getting a Jasper.
Too bad the article didn't include a comparison of the failure rates for Jasper versions vs. earlier ones. From what I've been able to glean from other forums, it sounds like Jasper fail rates might be on par with the PS3 or Wii rates, or maybe even lower.
The concept of levels in RPGs primarily arose from the table-top pencil and paper versions like Dungeons and Dragons as a way to reduce book-keeping. The actual meaning of levels is rather ludicrous, but they eventually became a motivating force for players of those games as a way to measure their progress, and often to boast.
In a computer-based RPG, there is absolutely no need for this type of book-keeping convention. The computer can easily track minute details across all manner of character actions & statistics. As a result, levels could be (and IMHO should be) abolished entirely. A game using a skill-based advancement system (which tracks all these minute character details) is much more dynamic and offers a greater range of customization and choice for the player.
Unfortunately, decades of games featuring levels have in-grained player's thinking that levels are the be-all, end-all of RPGs, and it is very difficult to explain to them that levels are actually an archaic and unnecessary way to track character advancement. In addition, the term "skill-based" is often confused with playing skill, which is mostly unrelated to a skills-based advancement system in an RPG. Even the original summary seems to show this confusion.
I'd like to see more RPGs that ditch levels entirely, and switch to a skill-based advancement. It's time to move past the outdated level-up...ding!
...one of the larger energy problems for large brick'n'mortar buildings continues to be heating and/or cooling. There are a lot of companies that occupy older buildings that have very poor thermal qualities. A large chunk of a companies facilities budget might be spent purely on heating and cooling costs. Replacing the building may not be an option, and overhauling them can be challenging. In the days of cheap energy, it was often more cost effective to just live with those costs. However, as energy prices rise, the cost effectiveness of modernizing the buildings becomes more attractive.
I'm not sure IT is well-suited for overtaking such an endeavor. It seems that whatever facilities management departments in a company are currently dealing with the heating/air-conditioning issues would be the ones most likely assigned to this kind of effort. However, this would also offer an opportunity for knowledgeable and forward-thinking individuals to contribute in those areas. Hopefully the companies facing these challenges understand that.
"as bad as"? In all seriousness, given the supposed American outcry over nudity in games, nudity is actually deemed worse than violence.
This reminds me of an interview I read a few years back where a European gaming company was interested in getting their game introduced to the U.S. market. Supposedly, the conversation went something like this...
Euro dev: "It seems the US does not tolerate any nudity, but our game features some. Are there exceptions?" US marketer: "Well it all depends on how it is portrayed." Euro dev: "Would it be ok if we showed a woman's breasts?" US marketer: "I guess so...as long as you blow her head off!"
It's a really screwed up culture that gladly accepts graphic violence but won't tolerate even the slightest hint of nudity.
My family has several small ivory carvings that were obtained by my great uncle shortly after WWII from areas in the Pacific far east. We consider these to be antiques, and they are legal items to possess and potentially sell. However, we have no paperwork to prove their age or origin.
I suspect some kind of chemical test could be done to prove it, but that might not be simple or easy to obtain.
As part of my engineering curriculum, we were required to take a few business-related classes including Finance and Productions & Operations Mgmt (aka POM). The reason behind this was to make us "well-rounded engineers" and more adept at taking on a wider range of tasks, such as those one might find in smaller companies. I knew several bus. ed students who dreaded taking the Finance and POM classes since they were by their perspective their "two hardest classes by a long-shot". Turned out that these were among the easiest of all the classes the engineers ever took.
The scariest thing about this whole experience was seeing our future bankers struggling to do a single simple compounded interest problem with a calculator in under an hour w/o assistance from the teacher. Meanwhile, the engineering students in the class usually had it done correctly in about 10 seconds or less. I saw similar differences in the POM class where the bus.ed students were baffled by a simple just-in-time inventory scenario, while the engineers had the answer figured out within seconds.
There is such a difference in effort required to earn an "A" grade between engineering and non-engineering disciplines, that it probably merits using a different measuring system entirely.
Other technology innovation is comparitively quick and easy, because most of their products don't directly affect the human body. At worst, a failed design of a piece of technology may lead to a recall.
Biomedical products directly impact human lives, and even the smallest problem may end up causing harmful effects only realized several years down the road. The threat of potential lawsuits lead biomedical companies to undergo significantly more testing than most other technologies require. A new biomedical product may need many years of testing to be ultimately deemed safe.
If you want them to speed up that design process, then we as consumers would need to be more willing to accept risk, and that is something that the general public is definitely not willing to do. The moment anyone feels wronged in even the least way, they'll contact a lawyer and sue.
As someone with very good vision (once rated 20/10, now closer to 20/15), I find it absolutely bizarre when people comment on how HDTV vs. SDTV is "merely incremental". For my eyes, moving from a 480i blurred, craptastic image to a 720p/1080i crisp, clear picture is even more impressive than a supposedly mammoth change like B&W to color.
I hate watching 480i TV because the fuzzy images make me wonder if I'm losing my sight. Give us HD...or make us blind.
My father used to do a lot of electronics repair and he checked it out for me. He used an oscilloscope, but I think there are other tools that can do it. You might be able to get your power company to come check it out for you, but that may cost a service charge.
The trace indicated random spikes of noise riding on the typical 60hz sine wave. The grounding seemed to be ok, and the source of the noise was not apparent. We also checked most of my power strips and found some do a much better job at filtering out this type of noise.
There was a strong correlation between the newer, more expensive strips with how good a job they did at filtering the noise. Most older or cheaper ones did virtually nothing, while the more spendy ones I had looked much cleaner. I guess you get what you pay for. I don't recall the exact brands I have, but they advertised noise filtering on the packaging, and it definitely seems to help.
I have first-hand experience with some homes where there was excessive line noise which in turn wrecked various electronics. One of those houses was my own. There didn't seem to have anything fishy at first, but there was a tendancy for light bulbs in certain sockets in seldomly accessed locations to croak far sooner than expected. After a few years in that house, it progressively got worse. The list of things to die in one 12-month period included a 27" JVC TV, a Sony CD-player, a clock radio, a vacuum cleaner, and finally a nearly new computer trinitron computer monitor. I was annoyed when the TV died exactly 4 years and 1 day after I bought it (which was exactly 1 day past the extended warranty! Go figure!). The CD-player and clock radio were old, so I didn't really care about those. The vacuum had been a gift, but I never really liked it (too low a suction), so when it died, I was actually happy to finally see it go. But then when the monitor died (about 6 months after it's 1 year warranty expired), I got really suspicious and started checking things out.
Sure enough, my line noise was horrible. Some of the power strips I had helped, but both the TV and CD-player had been plugged into an old power strip which had surge protection but did squat for line noise. The clock radio and vacuum were directly plugged into a jack. So was the monitor, being the only item not plugged into my good power-strip used with the rest of my computer (doh!). Since that, I never plug any electronics directly into a socket anymore, and I've updated all my power-strips.
Some friends in the nearby area had similar problems, losing some expensive electronics, and then discovered they too had terrible line noise. Since taking my advice and switching to good power-strips, I know of no more electronics fallout from them.
I've recently moved, and the new house has low line noise (so far at least), but I'm still using power-strips just in case. I'm planning to eventually get a 360, and when I do, I will definitely safeguard it with a good power-strip.
When I first used the MECC system in 1977, Oregon Trail was the only game I played. I took special summer classes in the summer of '78 and '79 that were intended for the "high potential" students. (Not sure how they determined that, but I guess I did well enough in math & spelling to make the cut.) Besides doing a bunch of field trips to historical sites around Minnesota (Pipestone, Fort Snelling, Traverse de Sioux, etc), we got full access to the school's MECC teletype and were among the first students to be able to use the handful of Apple2 computers that arrived in the district. Back then, most of our "learning" on the computers equated to just playing any game we could find.
By the summer of 1978, the MECC system had added the Seawolf sub-hunting game. By the summer of 1979, the dungeon game which was an early MUD (originally called Milieu, then later called Scepter) was available. I remember getting in trouble one day when another player in the MUD began typing obscenities and it started scrolling out on my teletype. I had a hard time convincing the teacher that I didn't type it. He finally believed me, but we ended up being banned from playing that game for the remainder of the summer.
We had the MECC system in our elementary schools in Mankato, Minnesota. My first exposure to it was around 1977 when I was in 4th grade. All of the MECC terminals we had were paper teletypes, and the original version of Oregon Trail had no graphics whatsoever. Thus, it was just a text adventure. At the beginning of the game, you could change your word for firing your gun. Most people used things like "bang" or "shoot". You had to type the name in fast or you would miss. Longer names were given a bit of extra cushion. Interestingly, the firing text used didn't actually have to be a word.
Soon a few of us stumbled upon a trick: use letters on the keyboard that were able to be quickly typed, but didn't mean anything. One of the class favorites ended up being "wert" or "wertcow". Most of us didn't know how to type at that age, but typing in either of those two words was rather easy for most of us.
There were other cool text-based games on the MECC system, including a sub-hunt game (IIRC, it was called Seawolf), and a dungeon-delving game (IIRC, it was called Scepter). To prevent kids from playing those during school hours, those to games were only accessible before 8am and after 3pm. Oregon Trail, deemed educational, was available during all hours. I remember being one of the geeky elementary kids who actually rushed to school in those days to try to get in some sub-hunting or dungeon-delving before school started. I've been a computer geek every since...
I'm afraid any posts even the slightest bit negative about the Wii around these parts seems to earn that. I fell victim to this a few weeks back myself. Even if you have valid arguments, should your opinion differ at all from the views of the Wii-zealots, your post is immediately marked as a troll. So much for open, objective thinking and dialogue.
Fully expecting to this post to be modded to troll as well...
As prejudiced or narrow-minded as the HD graphics-angle may seem, it should not be easily discounted.
IMHO, the difference in graphics moving from SD to HD is on par with the move from 56K to Broadband. Once you've got it, you'll never (want to) go back. Once you've seen HD signals on your HDTV, you want all your media sources to be in HD. Call it eye-candy, but once you've experienced it, you'll want that visual sucrose 24/7.
Among (spelled correctly this time - accidentally fat-fingered that on the earlier post) my gaming friends, HDTVs are rapidly becoming the norm, although I think most of us are still in 720p/1080i range and not all the way up to the coveted 1080p level just yet. However, even at 720p or 1080i, the images on the 360 simply blow away the Wii. Thus, from a graphics perspective, it's pretty clear (to most of us) that the Wii appears to be a generation behind in the graphics dept.
As for the processing power, I'll point to the guts of the machine (single sub-GHz core Wii vs. multi-GHz multicore 360 vs. multi-GHz multicore cell-based PS3). Whether or not the games make maximal use of that processing horsepower is another matter, but the point is that Nintendo opted to use a less state-of-the art design in their computing core. That doesn't mean it won't work, but it does mean that it will likely hit the wall sooner than it's 360 and PS3 competition. For a gamer that hopes to get several years out of a system, that's a very real concern, and the reason why many of us deem the Wii's design to be sub-par.
As for the name, I point to the countless jokes that the Wii name has spawned. Funny or not/juvenile or not, they persist. I know a few Wii-owners that are continually ridiculed over the name of the product (not by me, but I have to admit I do laugh at some of the jokes). The people cracking the jokes aren't jealous, they simply think the name is very poorly chosen and one that invites such ridicule. Said Wii-owners grow very tired of these jokes, and they even agree that Wii is a terrible name. With a cooler name, it's entirely possible that the Wii might be even more popular than it is now, drawing in some of those people on-the-fence or ones put-off by the current name.
As for the controller, the wand still seems like a gimmick, in the sense that it is really the only novel & innovative aspect of the system. It may turn out to be more than just a gimmick, and I expect the competition will explore their own versions of it. However, it's not clear that many games are going to embrace the wand controller. There are several popular & established gaming genres that do not lend themselves well to a wand controller: racing/driving games, shooters, flight sims, and fighting games to name a few. Games where a handled-object are used seem to be the best & most obvious fit. However, outside of the obvious sports games (featuring tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball bats, etc) and certain fantasy games (featuring weapon swinging, etc), the wand controller doesn't seem very applicable.
Gaming is all about fun, but what is deemed fun obviously varies from gamer to gamer. For most of the gamers I know, the Wii's line-up simply isn't what we are looking for. If the Wii featured a truly awesome game (in our eyes - such as a truly fun racing game, space flight sim, fighting game, shooter, whatever) several of us might be more willing to consider the Wii. As of yet, such a title does not exist, and even if it did, it's doubtful that it graphics would compare to a similar title developed for the 360 or PS3.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that suprising when considering how many companies still have WinXP as their main OS. For example, the company I work for has about 20K employees worldwide, and WinXP remains our OS platform. Thus, the people that your or I know who aren't using WinXP are probably a tiny fraction when compared to these large corporate install bases.
I have some flying experience, but understanding a stall or how to recover from one is more about understanding the physics of flight. In a stall, the aircraft wings reach point where they are no longer able to produce lift at the current flying speed. At this point, the plane will begin to drop, losing altitude until this condition is corrected. Additional forward thrust from increasing the throttle doesn't necessarily help. Since the aircraft is dropping at this point, it is likely already gaining speed, albeit in a downward direction. To break out of the stall, it is necessary to correct the wings angle of attack so that they are able to again provide lift. To do this, the nose of the plane must be dropped, which requires moving the yoke forward. Once the angle of attack is corrected, and the wings are again able to provide lift, the plane can then be brought back under control, and the pilot can begin to pull the aircraft back toward level flight, etc.
will that count as fraud, waste, or just business-as-usual?
(for more info see http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-going-overseas/)
I grew up in Mankato, and I first used that MECC system discussed in the article around 1977 when I was in 4th grade. We didn't get Apples in our district until around 1978 or 1979, so for most of us, the MECC terminal was our first exposure to a computer. Our MECC sessions would continually print out on a large roll of yellow paper, and eventually it would run out and we'd need to get a teacher to help us reload it. Of course, it shouldn't be too surprising that most of us just used it for playing games. Among the games available on the MECC were Oregon Trail, a subhunt game (Seawolf?), and a dungeon game (Sceptre?). After a certain time of day (8am?), the access to some of the games was turned off, so some kids actually would arrive early just to play those games.
I greatly enjoyed the dungeon game, but never managed to get very far on it. Much later on, I learned about MUDs, and realized that I'd actually been playing one all those years ago. Nowadays, I suppose that many kids don't even know what MUDs are.
is how much gameplay each system actually gets in any given home. The gaming platforms in my home include multiple PCs, a 360 and a Wii. In a typical week, the gameplay (of my wife and me) breaks down to this:
PC: 12 to 20 hours
360: 12 to 20 hours
Wii: 0 to 2 hours at most, often going up to a month between power-ups
While our home is technically counted among those with a Wii, from our avg use numbers it looks like we barely qualify being called a Wii household. I suspect there are other Wii's out there in a similar situation. If a game that we wanted did come out that is truly multi-platform (Wii, 360, pc, etc), we'd most likely get the PC or 360 version instead.
I originally held out buying a 360 until the 65nm processor came out (Falcon version). But then due to the RROD problems, I opted to wait for the 65nm GPU as well (Jasper version). Those have been out for a while now, but it's still somewhat hit or miss as to whether the Elite version you get has a Jasper board (65nm CPU + 64nm GPU) or an older version. However, it appears now that most of the new elites and nearly all arcade versions have Jasper. My only reason for holding out longer is that I suspected a significant price drop on the elite was coming.
Now that the price is dropped, I'll finally get one. I'll just make sure to doublecheck that it's rated at 12.1 amps so I know for sure that I'm getting a Jasper.
Too bad the article didn't include a comparison of the failure rates for Jasper versions vs. earlier ones. From what I've been able to glean from other forums, it sounds like Jasper fail rates might be on par with the PS3 or Wii rates, or maybe even lower.
The concept of levels in RPGs primarily arose from the table-top pencil and paper versions like Dungeons and Dragons as a way to reduce book-keeping. The actual meaning of levels is rather ludicrous, but they eventually became a motivating force for players of those games as a way to measure their progress, and often to boast.
In a computer-based RPG, there is absolutely no need for this type of book-keeping convention. The computer can easily track minute details across all manner of character actions & statistics. As a result, levels could be (and IMHO should be) abolished entirely. A game using a skill-based advancement system (which tracks all these minute character details) is much more dynamic and offers a greater range of customization and choice for the player.
Unfortunately, decades of games featuring levels have in-grained player's thinking that levels are the be-all, end-all of RPGs, and it is very difficult to explain to them that levels are actually an archaic and unnecessary way to track character advancement. In addition, the term "skill-based" is often confused with playing skill, which is mostly unrelated to a skills-based advancement system in an RPG. Even the original summary seems to show this confusion.
I'd like to see more RPGs that ditch levels entirely, and switch to a skill-based advancement. It's time to move past the outdated level-up...ding!
I can almost always spot the Milky Way.
It's usually right next to the Snickers.
...one of the larger energy problems for large brick'n'mortar buildings continues to be heating and/or cooling. There are a lot of companies that occupy older buildings that have very poor thermal qualities. A large chunk of a companies facilities budget might be spent purely on heating and cooling costs. Replacing the building may not be an option, and overhauling them can be challenging. In the days of cheap energy, it was often more cost effective to just live with those costs. However, as energy prices rise, the cost effectiveness of modernizing the buildings becomes more attractive.
I'm not sure IT is well-suited for overtaking such an endeavor. It seems that whatever facilities management departments in a company are currently dealing with the heating/air-conditioning issues would be the ones most likely assigned to this kind of effort. However, this would also offer an opportunity for knowledgeable and forward-thinking individuals to contribute in those areas. Hopefully the companies facing these challenges understand that.
"as bad as"? In all seriousness, given the supposed American outcry over nudity in games, nudity is actually deemed worse than violence.
This reminds me of an interview I read a few years back where a European gaming company was interested in getting their game introduced to the U.S. market. Supposedly, the conversation went something like this...
Euro dev: "It seems the US does not tolerate any nudity, but our game features some. Are there exceptions?"
US marketer: "Well it all depends on how it is portrayed."
Euro dev: "Would it be ok if we showed a woman's breasts?"
US marketer: "I guess so...as long as you blow her head off!"
It's a really screwed up culture that gladly accepts graphic violence but won't tolerate even the slightest hint of nudity.
How do you verify if it is antique ivory?
My family has several small ivory carvings that were obtained by my great uncle shortly after WWII from areas in the Pacific far east. We consider these to be antiques, and they are legal items to possess and potentially sell. However, we have no paperwork to prove their age or origin.
I suspect some kind of chemical test could be done to prove it, but that might not be simple or easy to obtain.
Waiting in line for the first Unbibium concert. Heavy metal!
As part of my engineering curriculum, we were required to take a few business-related classes including Finance and Productions & Operations Mgmt (aka POM). The reason behind this was to make us "well-rounded engineers" and more adept at taking on a wider range of tasks, such as those one might find in smaller companies. I knew several bus. ed students who dreaded taking the Finance and POM classes since they were by their perspective their "two hardest classes by a long-shot". Turned out that these were among the easiest of all the classes the engineers ever took.
The scariest thing about this whole experience was seeing our future bankers struggling to do a single simple compounded interest problem with a calculator in under an hour w/o assistance from the teacher. Meanwhile, the engineering students in the class usually had it done correctly in about 10 seconds or less. I saw similar differences in the POM class where the bus.ed students were baffled by a simple just-in-time inventory scenario, while the engineers had the answer figured out within seconds.
There is such a difference in effort required to earn an "A" grade between engineering and non-engineering disciplines, that it probably merits using a different measuring system entirely.
...lawsuits.
Other technology innovation is comparitively quick and easy, because most of their products don't directly affect the human body. At worst, a failed design of a piece of technology may lead to a recall.
Biomedical products directly impact human lives, and even the smallest problem may end up causing harmful effects only realized several years down the road. The threat of potential lawsuits lead biomedical companies to undergo significantly more testing than most other technologies require. A new biomedical product may need many years of testing to be ultimately deemed safe.
If you want them to speed up that design process, then we as consumers would need to be more willing to accept risk, and that is something that the general public is definitely not willing to do. The moment anyone feels wronged in even the least way, they'll contact a lawyer and sue.
As someone with very good vision (once rated 20/10, now closer to 20/15), I find it absolutely bizarre when people comment on how HDTV vs. SDTV is "merely incremental". For my eyes, moving from a 480i blurred, craptastic image to a 720p/1080i crisp, clear picture is even more impressive than a supposedly mammoth change like B&W to color.
I hate watching 480i TV because the fuzzy images make me wonder if I'm losing my sight. Give us HD...or make us blind.
My father used to do a lot of electronics repair and he checked it out for me. He used an oscilloscope, but I think there are other tools that can do it. You might be able to get your power company to come check it out for you, but that may cost a service charge.
The trace indicated random spikes of noise riding on the typical 60hz sine wave. The grounding seemed to be ok, and the source of the noise was not apparent. We also checked most of my power strips and found some do a much better job at filtering out this type of noise.
There was a strong correlation between the newer, more expensive strips with how good a job they did at filtering the noise. Most older or cheaper ones did virtually nothing, while the more spendy ones I had looked much cleaner. I guess you get what you pay for. I don't recall the exact brands I have, but they advertised noise filtering on the packaging, and it definitely seems to help.
I have first-hand experience with some homes where there was excessive line noise which in turn wrecked various electronics. One of those houses was my own. There didn't seem to have anything fishy at first, but there was a tendancy for light bulbs in certain sockets in seldomly accessed locations to croak far sooner than expected. After a few years in that house, it progressively got worse. The list of things to die in one 12-month period included a 27" JVC TV, a Sony CD-player, a clock radio, a vacuum cleaner, and finally a nearly new computer trinitron computer monitor. I was annoyed when the TV died exactly 4 years and 1 day after I bought it (which was exactly 1 day past the extended warranty! Go figure!). The CD-player and clock radio were old, so I didn't really care about those. The vacuum had been a gift, but I never really liked it (too low a suction), so when it died, I was actually happy to finally see it go. But then when the monitor died (about 6 months after it's 1 year warranty expired), I got really suspicious and started checking things out.
Sure enough, my line noise was horrible. Some of the power strips I had helped, but both the TV and CD-player had been plugged into an old power strip which had surge protection but did squat for line noise. The clock radio and vacuum were directly plugged into a jack. So was the monitor, being the only item not plugged into my good power-strip used with the rest of my computer (doh!). Since that, I never plug any electronics directly into a socket anymore, and I've updated all my power-strips.
Some friends in the nearby area had similar problems, losing some expensive electronics, and then discovered they too had terrible line noise. Since taking my advice and switching to good power-strips, I know of no more electronics fallout from them.
I've recently moved, and the new house has low line noise (so far at least), but I'm still using power-strips just in case. I'm planning to eventually get a 360, and when I do, I will definitely safeguard it with a good power-strip.
...just to handle all bittorrent streams.
When I first used the MECC system in 1977, Oregon Trail was the only game I played. I took special summer classes in the summer of '78 and '79 that were intended for the "high potential" students. (Not sure how they determined that, but I guess I did well enough in math & spelling to make the cut.) Besides doing a bunch of field trips to historical sites around Minnesota (Pipestone, Fort Snelling, Traverse de Sioux, etc), we got full access to the school's MECC teletype and were among the first students to be able to use the handful of Apple2 computers that arrived in the district. Back then, most of our "learning" on the computers equated to just playing any game we could find.
By the summer of 1978, the MECC system had added the Seawolf sub-hunting game. By the summer of 1979, the dungeon game which was an early MUD (originally called Milieu, then later called Scepter) was available. I remember getting in trouble one day when another player in the MUD began typing obscenities and it started scrolling out on my teletype. I had a hard time convincing the teacher that I didn't type it. He finally believed me, but we ended up being banned from playing that game for the remainder of the summer.
We had the MECC system in our elementary schools in Mankato, Minnesota. My first exposure to it was around 1977 when I was in 4th grade. All of the MECC terminals we had were paper teletypes, and the original version of Oregon Trail had no graphics whatsoever. Thus, it was just a text adventure. At the beginning of the game, you could change your word for firing your gun. Most people used things like "bang" or "shoot". You had to type the name in fast or you would miss. Longer names were given a bit of extra cushion. Interestingly, the firing text used didn't actually have to be a word.
Soon a few of us stumbled upon a trick: use letters on the keyboard that were able to be quickly typed, but didn't mean anything. One of the class favorites ended up being "wert" or "wertcow". Most of us didn't know how to type at that age, but typing in either of those two words was rather easy for most of us.
There were other cool text-based games on the MECC system, including a sub-hunt game (IIRC, it was called Seawolf), and a dungeon-delving game (IIRC, it was called Scepter). To prevent kids from playing those during school hours, those to games were only accessible before 8am and after 3pm. Oregon Trail, deemed educational, was available during all hours. I remember being one of the geeky elementary kids who actually rushed to school in those days to try to get in some sub-hunting or dungeon-delving before school started. I've been a computer geek every since...
I'm afraid any posts even the slightest bit negative about the Wii around these parts seems to earn that. I fell victim to this a few weeks back myself. Even if you have valid arguments, should your opinion differ at all from the views of the Wii-zealots, your post is immediately marked as a troll. So much for open, objective thinking and dialogue.
Fully expecting to this post to be modded to troll as well...
...we need a bigger hammer!
As prejudiced or narrow-minded as the HD graphics-angle may seem, it should not be easily discounted. IMHO, the difference in graphics moving from SD to HD is on par with the move from 56K to Broadband. Once you've got it, you'll never (want to) go back. Once you've seen HD signals on your HDTV, you want all your media sources to be in HD. Call it eye-candy, but once you've experienced it, you'll want that visual sucrose 24/7.
Among (spelled correctly this time - accidentally fat-fingered that on the earlier post) my gaming friends, HDTVs are rapidly becoming the norm, although I think most of us are still in 720p/1080i range and not all the way up to the coveted 1080p level just yet. However, even at 720p or 1080i, the images on the 360 simply blow away the Wii. Thus, from a graphics perspective, it's pretty clear (to most of us) that the Wii appears to be a generation behind in the graphics dept.
As for the processing power, I'll point to the guts of the machine (single sub-GHz core Wii vs. multi-GHz multicore 360 vs. multi-GHz multicore cell-based PS3). Whether or not the games make maximal use of that processing horsepower is another matter, but the point is that Nintendo opted to use a less state-of-the art design in their computing core. That doesn't mean it won't work, but it does mean that it will likely hit the wall sooner than it's 360 and PS3 competition. For a gamer that hopes to get several years out of a system, that's a very real concern, and the reason why many of us deem the Wii's design to be sub-par.
As for the name, I point to the countless jokes that the Wii name has spawned. Funny or not/juvenile or not, they persist. I know a few Wii-owners that are continually ridiculed over the name of the product (not by me, but I have to admit I do laugh at some of the jokes). The people cracking the jokes aren't jealous, they simply think the name is very poorly chosen and one that invites such ridicule. Said Wii-owners grow very tired of these jokes, and they even agree that Wii is a terrible name. With a cooler name, it's entirely possible that the Wii might be even more popular than it is now, drawing in some of those people on-the-fence or ones put-off by the current name.
As for the controller, the wand still seems like a gimmick, in the sense that it is really the only novel & innovative aspect of the system. It may turn out to be more than just a gimmick, and I expect the competition will explore their own versions of it. However, it's not clear that many games are going to embrace the wand controller. There are several popular & established gaming genres that do not lend themselves well to a wand controller: racing/driving games, shooters, flight sims, and fighting games to name a few. Games where a handled-object are used seem to be the best & most obvious fit. However, outside of the obvious sports games (featuring tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball bats, etc) and certain fantasy games (featuring weapon swinging, etc), the wand controller doesn't seem very applicable.
Gaming is all about fun, but what is deemed fun obviously varies from gamer to gamer. For most of the gamers I know, the Wii's line-up simply isn't what we are looking for. If the Wii featured a truly awesome game (in our eyes - such as a truly fun racing game, space flight sim, fighting game, shooter, whatever) several of us might be more willing to consider the Wii. As of yet, such a title does not exist, and even if it did, it's doubtful that it graphics would compare to a similar title developed for the 360 or PS3.