I understand that, and I once was worried about that myself. The thought of keyboard and mouse wires all over the floor was not a pleasant thought. Then I started searching for a wireless keyboard with a trackball or touchpad built into it or at least a separate, wireless trackball. So, the PC can sit in the back corner with the wireless keyboard/trackball next to the sofa. If the issue is one of having a PC case, there are a number of PCs out there that are quite small. There are a few models from HP, Gateway, and, of course, Shuttle that are very nicely compact and should fit into just about any entertainment center.
So, within reach would be the console and PC, both ready to be accessed by changing the audio input on the home theater audio and the video input on the TV. Get wireless controllers for all of the involved units and there's no reason for anyone to not have all of the capabilities that the article's author stated right there, ready to be accessed with no wires and no bulky PC tower sitting somewhere.
Or if you REALLY want that, grab an older laptop and throw a wireless network adapter on it. I know, I know, that's a lot of money, but you can't expect any console to gain the functionalities of PCs with having a higher price tag. So, any point about spending more money is probably moot. And making a laptop into an HTPC would be better because they're really thin, comparatively speaking, and can do everything that the author says is missing from the 360! (Lots of fully capable laptops on eBay. No one said that it has to be new!)
That's why I don't really understand the desire for more PC-like functionality in consoles. All of us have PCs. Probably all of us have a spare PC hanging around. So, convert one of the spares to an HTPC. Console + HTPC + TV with multiple inputs + stereo system with multiple inputs = everything that the article's author wants.
By the way, I'm married, too, and my wife doesn't have a problem with an HTPC as long as it's wireless in network and keyboard. So marriage isn't necessarily a barrier to an HTPC/console combination.:)
The Shift key theoretically works, but doesn't always. I've held down the key, then inserted the CD, waited ten seconds, and then let go, and sometimes the CD still starts the autorun program. How long are you supposed to hold down the shift key?
What has worked flawlessly for me is this: hold the shift key down while the disc is spinning up. After the light goes out, you need to wait until there is a second blip on the activity LED. It's that second blip that actually indicated that the system is searching the disc for an autorun.inf file. If I release the Shift before that second blip, the autorun kicks in - every time. If I wait for about one or two seconds after that second blip, the autorun is stopped.
How long this takes seems to be determined by how easily your disc is read by the drive. I have one system with two DVD writers, one old, one new. A CD-R on the old one can take upwards of 30 seconds for it to be recognized and searched for the autorun file. The new drive takes about 10 seconds. In either case, waiting until after the second activity light to release the Shift prevent the autorun.
Just my two one-hundreths of a dollar. Convert to your currency as apporpriate.
I know that I'm going to get flamed my the pro-console/anti-PC gaming group, and I really don't mean it to be. But after reading through that whole article and looking at all of the points that he made, he seems to have inadvertently said that we wants his 360 to be a PC!
No MSN music. The PC already has it.
No HDMI support. The PC already has it.
No web browser -- although is that really a bad thing? I need not mention the browser options on a PC here.
No WMV-HD or MPEG-4 AVI playback. PC has it.
Even the point about no pressure-sensitive face buttons is equated on a PC though an analogue joystick.
Honestly, this just adds to my confusion about why the console vs PC argument can get so heated. I am NOT saying that to be a troll or flame. I know that a lot of console fans are ready to hit me with the "troll" or "flamebait" mods, but I honestly do not understand the whole rage for consoles any more. I've never understood it from the time that PCs could be (easily) connected to TVs.
That being said, I am fully cognizant of the arguments regarding having minimum PC specifications (CPU speed, RAM, video chipset). They're completely viable arguments and I agree that minimum system specifications are the biggest problems with PC gaming. Console games are meant to work with a single platform and that does indeed help to provide a consistency across all of the games for that particular platform onthe part of the designed. I will not argue that point.
But now PCs can be connected to TVs easily (almost all modern video cards support DVI or at least S-Video) and do just about everything that the article's author is asking for in his 360. Even the PS3 is supposed to have keyboard and mouse support!
Why does he not just use a console for gaming and a home theatre PC for everything else, both of which can be connected to the same audio system and same TV often through separate connections? Don't get me wrong. I still have my ol' Nintendo 64 hooked up and I do play it when I have the time and inclination. I wouldn't mind owning a PS2 or even a PS3 when it comes out. I wouldn't rule out buying a second-hand Xbox. I am *not* anti-console. But I just don't understand how someone can want so much from a console then spurn the PC that's probably sitting in an adjoining room.
Seems to me someone could easily reverse engineer (remember not to agree to any silly Eula) and build an equivalent piece of software that can bypass any DRM attempt.
Um... the Shift key has existed on keyboards since the typewriter as far as I know, and Windows has stopped the autorun when holding down Shift for quite some time. It's prevented all auto-installing DRM that I've ever run across from installing itself on my PC.
I've also been able to avoid DRM on my system by not using or installing anything that I know has DRM associated with it, like Media Player and iTunes. CDex, WinAmp, and the Shift key are the Three Amigos for just about every audio CD out there.
So, I don't know what you're going on about. The technology has been available for a while.:P
Right. And true democracies are never crooked, are they? Our elections are only crooked because we have a democratic republic. Your statement is spoken like a true non-American who's apparently ignorant of the purposes for the Electoral College as designed by the "founding fathers".
My question is: who the hell keeps predicting that PC gaming is going to die anyway? PC gaming rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) per year. Titles like the Splinter Cell and Half-Life series continue to sell bazillions of copies when they come out. Of course, can anyone say World of Warcraft?
You know, at least OS/2 did finally die, but that's only because of the arrogance and stupidity of IBM. In this case, I have to say that those who continually talk about PC gaming dying (A) are only implementing wishful thinking or (B) totally clueless on the current state of PC gaming.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look at my Battlefield 2 stats -- another PC game that has just sold ridiculously low amounts of copies. {/sarcasm}
...which is exactly why this issue will not go away. Oh, sure, here in south central PA it's probably a dead issue (thankfully), but all that it will take is a more creative group with less zealotry to find a way to interweave ID while avoiding the pitfalls that the Judge pointed out. Clearly, the judge was put off by the lies and zealotry of the previous Dover school board. A less ambitious group of people might still be able to pull it off in the future, regardless of whether we want it to be or not.
Then you can blame CNN. The quotes came from their site. I mean, it's not like the public media would distort the news for their own purposes, is it? *blink*
Yeah, and we might as well not bother watching any of the local news broadcasts for the first few minutes -- or at all. All of the TV and radio stations in York, Lancaster, and HBG are going to be dedicating the first ten minutes of each news broadcast to this throughout the day, with of course their own introspectives on "what this means for the Dover school distrct" and the opinions of the local yokels. Ugh. (I can say all of this because I live just outside of HBG, so this is local news to me as well.)
Since I'm sure that no one is going to actually RTFA and will instead jump for joy that the evil Christians have been defeated {/sarcasm}, it must be pointed out that the reason why it was defeated - in the words of the Judge - is not because of ID itself but because the people who represented the reasons for inserting ID into the curriculum did so inappropriately.
Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said. "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion. Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
ID itself is not the reason for the ruling as much as the deceitful practices of those who fought to have it put into the schools. So, those of you who are rejoicing might as well stop, as this was undoubtedly only a setback to the pro-ID crowd. Personally, I don't care about ID one way or the other. I just know how the Slashdot groupthink has been treating this topic lately.
Besides, we're talking about the U.S. judicial system here. Get ready for the appeals.
Serial ATA cables can be purchased for $2.99 at NewEgg, and I've never waited more than three days to get a package from them. Most come the next day if I order before noon. If you know you're going to be purchasing SATA in the future, buy your cables now and store them away. Hell, at that price, no one has an excuse not to buy some even if they don't think they'll be getting SATA in the near future. And a lot of local, mom-and-pop, PC builders will have SATA cables on hand if you MUST have one TODAY.
Okay, am I the *only* one who had a massive (and somewhat painful) flashback to the 1980s when I saw "RAD"? All that I could think of while reading the summary was the bad lingo of the time.
This new RAD thing is, like, you know, totally gnarly! It's just, like, a rad RAD! But it's got, like, Microsoft? Oh, totally gag me with a spoon! At least having Sun and Google, like, makes me, you know, feel kinda warm and cozy -- like when I've got my leg warmers on, right? Like, that is so-o-o weird, you know? Like, oh my god!
Take a lookat the whole buzz around the 360. Not having an HD-DVD upgrade is a no-brainer.
Look at it from the consumer's side. Why in hell would anyone want to buy a 360 *now* knowing that there would be a "better" version in the future? I'd wait a few months as well! Not only is it possible that prices would drop due to increased inventory, but there will be more games out and probably some bug fixes. So, even though I'm not one of those morons (I say that unapologetically) who feel this inexplicable need to be on the bleeding edge, waiting for a few months after something this new comes out is a good idea anyway.
Now, look at it from Microsoft's side. They already have millions of 360s in circulation. They will kill their sales of existing systems if they announce an upgrade because people will wait. So, they could always offer an HD-DVD upgrade to systems that are out there, waiting to be purchased. But, then what about the bleeding edge people who just HAD to have an 360 NOW? They'll shout "unfair" (and rightfully so) and demand a retro-fit. Both of these situations are compounded because Microsoft said that they made the unit as compact as possible excatly to prevent people from getting into the unit. So, a certified shop (or Microsoft themselves) would have to do an HD-DVD refit. That would cost a huge amount of money.
Either scenario would end up costing Microsoft a ton of money in both revenue and PR. Besides, this gives Microsoft the excuse that they needed to rush to market the Xbox 720 -- comes with HD-DVD! w00t! And as proven by the last craze, there are clearly millions of suckers who will buy it as soon as it's released just because they can. So, delaying HD-DVD on the Xbox will just produce yet more marketing and potential revenue from "re-purchasers" in the future because they now can use HD-DVD as their excuse to call the Xbox 720 the "next generation" console.
Even after reading through the article, I still am not sure what they mean by "convergence" between video games and movies -- and I've been playing video games that are based on movies since before a lot of Slashdotters were itches in their daddy's pants!;)
They talk about a common code base. Okay, so is "convergence" the use of the same graphics engine to create movie sequences and video game graphics? That sounds more like resource sharing, not the merging of two types of media.
Is "convergence" the use of movie or movie-quality sequences in video games? Hell, video games have been doing that for many years. A lot of games, such as the original "Jedi Knight" and the later "Wing Commander" series, used theatrical cut-scenes in the games to further the story along in a more engrossing manner. (I just use those as examples. There are obviously games from before that that used the same techniques.) So, it THAT "convergence"?
But wait... TFA said that they were shown a series of works that ILM did, and that the results looked like a video game. I'm not sure that that's necessarily a compliment, but it again blurs the definition as I see it of what "convergence" means with respect to movies and video games.
Is "convergence" a game that plays like you're watching a movie? Again, there are many games that took that approach so that action blends seamlessly with cut-scenes and back again. If this is the definition, then is convergence related to the look or the feel or both?
Even looking at the threads here so far, the responses seem to go between video games and movies. So, it doesn't seem as though anyone here really has a firm grasp of what "convergence" entails.
Maybe if the developers/studios would come up with a concrete definition of "convergence", we'd be able to come up with a more credible target for when the two media actually are "converged".
Here are some through NewEgg. We use some of the keyboards below at work for our Operations group. They take some getting used to if you're used to a full-sized keyboard, but we don't have any quality issues with them so far. And the prices aren't that bad either. You can get a full list by going to the Keyboards sub-section then doing a search for all keyboards with a "Mini" design style.
I'm sure that other on-line and retail stores will have a number of these as well. I usually buy all of my stuff from NewEgg, so that's the first place I went to.
And of course you and I posted the same thing at roughly the same time.:) Oh, well.
Does not higher density mean higher risk?
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Hard Drive Window
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My guess is that because there's more density to newer drives, that makes it that much more important to be cautious about dust and particulate matter. A 3 GB disk has a lower density and can tolerate dust better. I guess a comparison woiuld be that (and this is just an example) a particle of dust might cover 10 sectors on a 3 GB drive, but the same particle might cover 100 sectors on a 30 GB drive, making the 30 GB drive much more susceptible to problems caused by dusst. So, that wouldn't make higher capacity drives more difficult to mod but you would have to have a much cleaner environment for it to work than you would with a 3 GB drive. Again, I'm not a hard drive engineer, but that would be my guess.
Of course, there's also the whole "risk" issue. This guy was only willing to risk this with an arguably obsolete drive. Would he be willing to do the same thing with a much newer drive that is more susceptible to dust? I think that's also where the whole "big whoop" attitiude is coming in.
And that's fine, but I still don't understand the why the development mindset has changed so abruptly that co-op modes are now suddenly so difficult that they're no longer included. Yes, the Internet and broadband make it easier to have network connectivity, but it's arrogant to just assume that people only want deathmatch against other humans. There is still a significant chunk of people out there who get together to be a team against an enemy and don't want to have to deal with immature kiddies that frequent global servers or risk getting thrown to the other side due to team balance. Yes, the Internet makes deathmatch more popular, but Internet connectivity and co-op modes are not mutually exclusive. Apparently, LAN parties want nothing more than deathmatch as well, which is news to me.
This is one of my MAJOR peeves with a lot of new games, such as Battlefield 2. I asked a friend at Valve why so few games have co-op modes anymore and his reply is that it takes a lot of AI coding to make co-op bots. But, really, this makes no sense to me. In single-player mode, the enemy creatures/people have you flagged as an enemy; therefore, the AI reacts towards you with hostility. So, why is it so much extra work to have both you *and* a gaming partner flagged as an enemy so that the bots react against you both in the same manner? This has been the norm for just about all 1st person shooters since the original Doom! So, why is it so difficult to suddenly be able to do this with modern games? Granted, I'm not a game coder, so I'm asking this strictly from a highly filtered point of view, but the AI is already there. I don't understand why it's apparently such a monumental task to implement co-op mode unless there is some nefarious reason that I just am not seeing.
With respect to BF2, you can actually force a co-op game. Start a single player game on your own system, then have your friends start a multi-player game and connect via IP to your system. Suddenly, you have a co-op game. Yet EA still insists that co-op mode of BF2 is not a viable function that can be added and/or it takes too much extra coding to implement such a function; therefore, the trick that I mentioned above is not a supported function -- even though it works. The vehement anti-co-op mode of modern game designers is mind-boggling.
The Halo movie has had a director for a few years now. It's all right here.
What do you mean, "Stop being an ass!" That's not a Halo movie??
(Oh, come on. You knew that someone had to do it!)
I have to give Peter Jackson credit, though. He doesn't want to direct because he wants to take a break. After what he's done over the past few years, I certainly grant him that a break is deserved. I still wonder what a Halo movie would be like under his direction, but that might also come down to a possible difference between passion (like he had with LotR and KK) or just being a fan.
Hey, let's get George Lucas to do it! At least then we'd be assured of a quality movie! *cough* Of course, if that's the case who wants to bet that red fires first theatrically then blue fires first in the DVD with GL stating "That's how I wanted it from the beginning."
I was going to say the same thing before I saw that you beat me to it.
The two types of games are completely incomparable. The sizes of the games can't even be compared. Look at the BREW version of "Splinter Cell" and the PC game -- the BREW version is microscopic by comparison, and cannot replicate atmosphere or excitement of the PC game genre.
But the biggest difference - and I think the most important - is the PRICE. Most cell phone games that I consider buying are about US$7 or so to purchase. Compare that to the Collector's Edition of HL2 which ran at some $60. But since that's still an unfair comparison because HL2 in the same quality on a cell phone is impossible, let's compare the same games. I bought Bejewelled for my cell phone for US$6.99. The PC version from what I can tell still goes for US$19.99. So, for the same money I could have one PC game or three cell phone games. I'd be willing to bet that if cell phone games cost as much as their PC counterparts, cell phone gaming as we know it would be a mere fraction of what it is now.
So, to compare the sales of cell phone games to PC games is ludicrous at best. They're not related to each other in any way, except perhaps by title.
Re:Why should only Christian parents be challenged
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ESRB Retorts to NIMF
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You apparently need to go back and look at your posts. "All I'm doing is targeting the people responsible for the problem." You make a declaration to Christians that you challenge them to be parents then follow up with the statement that you're targeting the responsible people, then expect people not to make the correlation that you are accusing NIMF of being a Christian group or at worst that only Christians are responsible for this surge in refusing to take parental responsibility? Wow.
Actually, what's painfully clear here is that you're so used to people agreeing with you that when someone challenges you you completely lose all sense of rationalization. Your completely immature statement about "logging off before you hurt yourself" is just proof of this. I expect a better repose from children, not from a supposedly articulate adult. The last paragraph was what is referred to as a "joke" or "levity". (It also works, by the way.)
People disagree. It's the real world. Get over it.
Re:Why should only Christian parents be challenged
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ESRB Retorts to NIMF
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Okay. I can do the "breaking up the response into multiple segments" thing as well. (Someone refresh my memory on that term, please.)
All I'm doing is targeting the people responsible for the problem.
Nice blanket statement. There is nothing to indicate that NIMF is 100% Christian. I have no doubt that all major demononations are represented within, regardless of the percentage.
I just find it galling that fundamentalists can preach about what is best for America, but throw up their hands and admit defeat when it comes to actually doing what is best for their own children.
Oh, come now. That's a cop-out. We see this all over the place. Politics, religion, business. Such hypocrisy is not relegated only to fundamentalists. Every person who is reading this thread can cite an example where s/he witnessed such an action. In fact, I sincerely doubt that any of use are guiltless of doing that as well.
I also have to challenge your statement that they are a Christian group by design. Their About Us page clearly states The National Institute on Media and the Family is an independent, nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nonprofit organization that is based on research, education, and advocacy. They do not identify themselves as Christian. They identify themselves as being not restricted to any religion or denomination. The fact that they might be predominantly Christian is by the nature of 80% of the U.S. being Christian. So, again, I see no reason for you to be targeting Christians in your post. The issue of video game violence/sex/etc. is one that people from all religions are concerned about. Not all people, just all religions.
Exactly. And that's precisely what keeps me awake at night.
Melatonin. 3 mg about 1 hour before bed time. Works great.
Re:Why should only Christian parents be challenged
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ESRB Retorts to NIMF
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No, it's certainly valid. I wouldn't consider it to be flamebait, although I will confess that it does expose a chink in my argument's armor.:) Morality and ethics in many ways (if not exclusively) represent how you would treat others. So, someone who has good ethics and morals should be looking out for the betterment of others if not all, whereas the examples that you give are religions that from my understanding are self-serving and irresponsible with respect to others. So, would be be able to truly expect them to teach their kids right and wrong within societal norms?
I don't mean that to be flamebait, as much as it sounds like it. Seriously! It's just that those religions from what I understand (and I confess that I have not bothered to research them) are more of a "do whatever I feel like doing because it's good for me" mentality. So, I would not expect them to be concerned with video game, music, or TV ratings or warnings. I could be wrong, though.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand that, and I once was worried about that myself. The thought of keyboard and mouse wires all over the floor was not a pleasant thought. Then I started searching for a wireless keyboard with a trackball or touchpad built into it or at least a separate, wireless trackball. So, the PC can sit in the back corner with the wireless keyboard/trackball next to the sofa. If the issue is one of having a PC case, there are a number of PCs out there that are quite small. There are a few models from HP, Gateway, and, of course, Shuttle that are very nicely compact and should fit into just about any entertainment center.
:)
So, within reach would be the console and PC, both ready to be accessed by changing the audio input on the home theater audio and the video input on the TV. Get wireless controllers for all of the involved units and there's no reason for anyone to not have all of the capabilities that the article's author stated right there, ready to be accessed with no wires and no bulky PC tower sitting somewhere.
Or if you REALLY want that, grab an older laptop and throw a wireless network adapter on it. I know, I know, that's a lot of money, but you can't expect any console to gain the functionalities of PCs with having a higher price tag. So, any point about spending more money is probably moot. And making a laptop into an HTPC would be better because they're really thin, comparatively speaking, and can do everything that the author says is missing from the 360! (Lots of fully capable laptops on eBay. No one said that it has to be new!)
That's why I don't really understand the desire for more PC-like functionality in consoles. All of us have PCs. Probably all of us have a spare PC hanging around. So, convert one of the spares to an HTPC. Console + HTPC + TV with multiple inputs + stereo system with multiple inputs = everything that the article's author wants.
By the way, I'm married, too, and my wife doesn't have a problem with an HTPC as long as it's wireless in network and keyboard. So marriage isn't necessarily a barrier to an HTPC/console combination.
The Shift key theoretically works, but doesn't always. I've held down the key, then inserted the CD, waited ten seconds, and then let go, and sometimes the CD still starts the autorun program. How long are you supposed to hold down the shift key?
What has worked flawlessly for me is this: hold the shift key down while the disc is spinning up. After the light goes out, you need to wait until there is a second blip on the activity LED. It's that second blip that actually indicated that the system is searching the disc for an autorun.inf file. If I release the Shift before that second blip, the autorun kicks in - every time. If I wait for about one or two seconds after that second blip, the autorun is stopped.
How long this takes seems to be determined by how easily your disc is read by the drive. I have one system with two DVD writers, one old, one new. A CD-R on the old one can take upwards of 30 seconds for it to be recognized and searched for the autorun file. The new drive takes about 10 seconds. In either case, waiting until after the second activity light to release the Shift prevent the autorun.
Just my two one-hundreths of a dollar. Convert to your currency as apporpriate.
I know that I'm going to get flamed my the pro-console/anti-PC gaming group, and I really don't mean it to be. But after reading through that whole article and looking at all of the points that he made, he seems to have inadvertently said that we wants his 360 to be a PC!
No MSN music. The PC already has it.
No HDMI support. The PC already has it.
No web browser -- although is that really a bad thing? I need not mention the browser options on a PC here.
No WMV-HD or MPEG-4 AVI playback. PC has it.
Even the point about no pressure-sensitive face buttons is equated on a PC though an analogue joystick.
Honestly, this just adds to my confusion about why the console vs PC argument can get so heated. I am NOT saying that to be a troll or flame. I know that a lot of console fans are ready to hit me with the "troll" or "flamebait" mods, but I honestly do not understand the whole rage for consoles any more. I've never understood it from the time that PCs could be (easily) connected to TVs.
That being said, I am fully cognizant of the arguments regarding having minimum PC specifications (CPU speed, RAM, video chipset). They're completely viable arguments and I agree that minimum system specifications are the biggest problems with PC gaming. Console games are meant to work with a single platform and that does indeed help to provide a consistency across all of the games for that particular platform onthe part of the designed. I will not argue that point.
But now PCs can be connected to TVs easily (almost all modern video cards support DVI or at least S-Video) and do just about everything that the article's author is asking for in his 360. Even the PS3 is supposed to have keyboard and mouse support!
Why does he not just use a console for gaming and a home theatre PC for everything else, both of which can be connected to the same audio system and same TV often through separate connections? Don't get me wrong. I still have my ol' Nintendo 64 hooked up and I do play it when I have the time and inclination. I wouldn't mind owning a PS2 or even a PS3 when it comes out. I wouldn't rule out buying a second-hand Xbox. I am *not* anti-console. But I just don't understand how someone can want so much from a console then spurn the PC that's probably sitting in an adjoining room.
Seems to me someone could easily reverse engineer (remember not to agree to any silly Eula) and build an equivalent piece of software that can bypass any DRM attempt.
... the Shift key has existed on keyboards since the typewriter as far as I know, and Windows has stopped the autorun when holding down Shift for quite some time. It's prevented all auto-installing DRM that I've ever run across from installing itself on my PC.
:P
Um
I've also been able to avoid DRM on my system by not using or installing anything that I know has DRM associated with it, like Media Player and iTunes. CDex, WinAmp, and the Shift key are the Three Amigos for just about every audio CD out there.
So, I don't know what you're going on about. The technology has been available for a while.
I'm interested also to see how many additional "Me too!" posts are added to Usenet via Google Groups now. Ugh. :)
Right. And true democracies are never crooked, are they? Our elections are only crooked because we have a democratic republic. Your statement is spoken like a true non-American who's apparently ignorant of the purposes for the Electoral College as designed by the "founding fathers".
My question is: who the hell keeps predicting that PC gaming is going to die anyway? PC gaming rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) per year. Titles like the Splinter Cell and Half-Life series continue to sell bazillions of copies when they come out. Of course, can anyone say World of Warcraft?
You know, at least OS/2 did finally die, but that's only because of the arrogance and stupidity of IBM. In this case, I have to say that those who continually talk about PC gaming dying (A) are only implementing wishful thinking or (B) totally clueless on the current state of PC gaming.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look at my Battlefield 2 stats -- another PC game that has just sold ridiculously low amounts of copies. {/sarcasm}
He also gave a reason why ID isn't science
...which is exactly why this issue will not go away. Oh, sure, here in south central PA it's probably a dead issue (thankfully), but all that it will take is a more creative group with less zealotry to find a way to interweave ID while avoiding the pitfalls that the Judge pointed out. Clearly, the judge was put off by the lies and zealotry of the previous Dover school board. A less ambitious group of people might still be able to pull it off in the future, regardless of whether we want it to be or not.
Then you can blame CNN. The quotes came from their site. I mean, it's not like the public media would distort the news for their own purposes, is it? *blink*
Yeah, and we might as well not bother watching any of the local news broadcasts for the first few minutes -- or at all. All of the TV and radio stations in York, Lancaster, and HBG are going to be dedicating the first ten minutes of each news broadcast to this throughout the day, with of course their own introspectives on "what this means for the Dover school distrct" and the opinions of the local yokels. Ugh. (I can say all of this because I live just outside of HBG, so this is local news to me as well.)
Since I'm sure that no one is going to actually RTFA and will instead jump for joy that the evil Christians have been defeated {/sarcasm}, it must be pointed out that the reason why it was defeated - in the words of the Judge - is not because of ID itself but because the people who represented the reasons for inserting ID into the curriculum did so inappropriately.
Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said. "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion. Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
ID itself is not the reason for the ruling as much as the deceitful practices of those who fought to have it put into the schools. So, those of you who are rejoicing might as well stop, as this was undoubtedly only a setback to the pro-ID crowd. Personally, I don't care about ID one way or the other. I just know how the Slashdot groupthink has been treating this topic lately.
Besides, we're talking about the U.S. judicial system here. Get ready for the appeals.
Serial ATA cables can be purchased for $2.99 at NewEgg, and I've never waited more than three days to get a package from them. Most come the next day if I order before noon. If you know you're going to be purchasing SATA in the future, buy your cables now and store them away. Hell, at that price, no one has an excuse not to buy some even if they don't think they'll be getting SATA in the near future. And a lot of local, mom-and-pop, PC builders will have SATA cables on hand if you MUST have one TODAY.
Okay, am I the *only* one who had a massive (and somewhat painful) flashback to the 1980s when I saw "RAD"? All that I could think of while reading the summary was the bad lingo of the time.
This new RAD thing is, like, you know, totally gnarly! It's just, like, a rad RAD! But it's got, like, Microsoft? Oh, totally gag me with a spoon! At least having Sun and Google, like, makes me, you know, feel kinda warm and cozy -- like when I've got my leg warmers on, right? Like, that is so-o-o weird, you know? Like, oh my god!
*shudder*
Take a lookat the whole buzz around the 360. Not having an HD-DVD upgrade is a no-brainer.
Look at it from the consumer's side. Why in hell would anyone want to buy a 360 *now* knowing that there would be a "better" version in the future? I'd wait a few months as well! Not only is it possible that prices would drop due to increased inventory, but there will be more games out and probably some bug fixes. So, even though I'm not one of those morons (I say that unapologetically) who feel this inexplicable need to be on the bleeding edge, waiting for a few months after something this new comes out is a good idea anyway.
Now, look at it from Microsoft's side. They already have millions of 360s in circulation. They will kill their sales of existing systems if they announce an upgrade because people will wait. So, they could always offer an HD-DVD upgrade to systems that are out there, waiting to be purchased. But, then what about the bleeding edge people who just HAD to have an 360 NOW? They'll shout "unfair" (and rightfully so) and demand a retro-fit. Both of these situations are compounded because Microsoft said that they made the unit as compact as possible excatly to prevent people from getting into the unit. So, a certified shop (or Microsoft themselves) would have to do an HD-DVD refit. That would cost a huge amount of money.
Either scenario would end up costing Microsoft a ton of money in both revenue and PR. Besides, this gives Microsoft the excuse that they needed to rush to market the Xbox 720 -- comes with HD-DVD! w00t! And as proven by the last craze, there are clearly millions of suckers who will buy it as soon as it's released just because they can. So, delaying HD-DVD on the Xbox will just produce yet more marketing and potential revenue from "re-purchasers" in the future because they now can use HD-DVD as their excuse to call the Xbox 720 the "next generation" console.
Even after reading through the article, I still am not sure what they mean by "convergence" between video games and movies -- and I've been playing video games that are based on movies since before a lot of Slashdotters were itches in their daddy's pants! ;)
... TFA said that they were shown a series of works that ILM did, and that the results looked like a video game. I'm not sure that that's necessarily a compliment, but it again blurs the definition as I see it of what "convergence" means with respect to movies and video games.
They talk about a common code base. Okay, so is "convergence" the use of the same graphics engine to create movie sequences and video game graphics? That sounds more like resource sharing, not the merging of two types of media.
Is "convergence" the use of movie or movie-quality sequences in video games? Hell, video games have been doing that for many years. A lot of games, such as the original "Jedi Knight" and the later "Wing Commander" series, used theatrical cut-scenes in the games to further the story along in a more engrossing manner. (I just use those as examples. There are obviously games from before that that used the same techniques.) So, it THAT "convergence"?
But wait
Is "convergence" a game that plays like you're watching a movie? Again, there are many games that took that approach so that action blends seamlessly with cut-scenes and back again. If this is the definition, then is convergence related to the look or the feel or both?
Even looking at the threads here so far, the responses seem to go between video games and movies. So, it doesn't seem as though anyone here really has a firm grasp of what "convergence" entails.
Maybe if the developers/studios would come up with a concrete definition of "convergence", we'd be able to come up with a more credible target for when the two media actually are "converged".
Here are some through NewEgg. We use some of the keyboards below at work for our Operations group. They take some getting used to if you're used to a full-sized keyboard, but we don't have any quality issues with them so far. And the prices aren't that bad either. You can get a full list by going to the Keyboards sub-section then doing a search for all keyboards with a "Mini" design style.
2 E16823166015
2 E16823166005
2 E16823192002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
I'm sure that other on-line and retail stores will have a number of these as well. I usually buy all of my stuff from NewEgg, so that's the first place I went to.
And of course you and I posted the same thing at roughly the same time. :) Oh, well.
My guess is that because there's more density to newer drives, that makes it that much more important to be cautious about dust and particulate matter. A 3 GB disk has a lower density and can tolerate dust better. I guess a comparison woiuld be that (and this is just an example) a particle of dust might cover 10 sectors on a 3 GB drive, but the same particle might cover 100 sectors on a 30 GB drive, making the 30 GB drive much more susceptible to problems caused by dusst. So, that wouldn't make higher capacity drives more difficult to mod but you would have to have a much cleaner environment for it to work than you would with a 3 GB drive. Again, I'm not a hard drive engineer, but that would be my guess.
Of course, there's also the whole "risk" issue. This guy was only willing to risk this with an arguably obsolete drive. Would he be willing to do the same thing with a much newer drive that is more susceptible to dust? I think that's also where the whole "big whoop" attitiude is coming in.
And that's fine, but I still don't understand the why the development mindset has changed so abruptly that co-op modes are now suddenly so difficult that they're no longer included. Yes, the Internet and broadband make it easier to have network connectivity, but it's arrogant to just assume that people only want deathmatch against other humans. There is still a significant chunk of people out there who get together to be a team against an enemy and don't want to have to deal with immature kiddies that frequent global servers or risk getting thrown to the other side due to team balance. Yes, the Internet makes deathmatch more popular, but Internet connectivity and co-op modes are not mutually exclusive. Apparently, LAN parties want nothing more than deathmatch as well, which is news to me.
This is one of my MAJOR peeves with a lot of new games, such as Battlefield 2. I asked a friend at Valve why so few games have co-op modes anymore and his reply is that it takes a lot of AI coding to make co-op bots. But, really, this makes no sense to me. In single-player mode, the enemy creatures/people have you flagged as an enemy; therefore, the AI reacts towards you with hostility. So, why is it so much extra work to have both you *and* a gaming partner flagged as an enemy so that the bots react against you both in the same manner? This has been the norm for just about all 1st person shooters since the original Doom! So, why is it so difficult to suddenly be able to do this with modern games? Granted, I'm not a game coder, so I'm asking this strictly from a highly filtered point of view, but the AI is already there. I don't understand why it's apparently such a monumental task to implement co-op mode unless there is some nefarious reason that I just am not seeing.
With respect to BF2, you can actually force a co-op game. Start a single player game on your own system, then have your friends start a multi-player game and connect via IP to your system. Suddenly, you have a co-op game. Yet EA still insists that co-op mode of BF2 is not a viable function that can be added and/or it takes too much extra coding to implement such a function; therefore, the trick that I mentioned above is not a supported function -- even though it works. The vehement anti-co-op mode of modern game designers is mind-boggling.
The Halo movie has had a director for a few years now. It's all right here.
:)
What do you mean, "Stop being an ass!" That's not a Halo movie??
(Oh, come on. You knew that someone had to do it!)
I have to give Peter Jackson credit, though. He doesn't want to direct because he wants to take a break. After what he's done over the past few years, I certainly grant him that a break is deserved. I still wonder what a Halo movie would be like under his direction, but that might also come down to a possible difference between passion (like he had with LotR and KK) or just being a fan.
Hey, let's get George Lucas to do it! At least then we'd be assured of a quality movie! *cough* Of course, if that's the case who wants to bet that red fires first theatrically then blue fires first in the DVD with GL stating "That's how I wanted it from the beginning."
Oh, well. It's only karma.
I was going to say the same thing before I saw that you beat me to it.
The two types of games are completely incomparable. The sizes of the games can't even be compared. Look at the BREW version of "Splinter Cell" and the PC game -- the BREW version is microscopic by comparison, and cannot replicate atmosphere or excitement of the PC game genre.
But the biggest difference - and I think the most important - is the PRICE. Most cell phone games that I consider buying are about US$7 or so to purchase. Compare that to the Collector's Edition of HL2 which ran at some $60. But since that's still an unfair comparison because HL2 in the same quality on a cell phone is impossible, let's compare the same games. I bought Bejewelled for my cell phone for US$6.99. The PC version from what I can tell still goes for US$19.99. So, for the same money I could have one PC game or three cell phone games. I'd be willing to bet that if cell phone games cost as much as their PC counterparts, cell phone gaming as we know it would be a mere fraction of what it is now.
So, to compare the sales of cell phone games to PC games is ludicrous at best. They're not related to each other in any way, except perhaps by title.
You apparently need to go back and look at your posts. "All I'm doing is targeting the people responsible for the problem." You make a declaration to Christians that you challenge them to be parents then follow up with the statement that you're targeting the responsible people, then expect people not to make the correlation that you are accusing NIMF of being a Christian group or at worst that only Christians are responsible for this surge in refusing to take parental responsibility? Wow.
Actually, what's painfully clear here is that you're so used to people agreeing with you that when someone challenges you you completely lose all sense of rationalization. Your completely immature statement about "logging off before you hurt yourself" is just proof of this. I expect a better repose from children, not from a supposedly articulate adult. The last paragraph was what is referred to as a "joke" or "levity". (It also works, by the way.)
People disagree. It's the real world. Get over it.
Okay. I can do the "breaking up the response into multiple segments" thing as well. (Someone refresh my memory on that term, please.)
All I'm doing is targeting the people responsible for the problem.
Nice blanket statement. There is nothing to indicate that NIMF is 100% Christian. I have no doubt that all major demononations are represented within, regardless of the percentage.
I just find it galling that fundamentalists can preach about what is best for America, but throw up their hands and admit defeat when it comes to actually doing what is best for their own children.
Oh, come now. That's a cop-out. We see this all over the place. Politics, religion, business. Such hypocrisy is not relegated only to fundamentalists. Every person who is reading this thread can cite an example where s/he witnessed such an action. In fact, I sincerely doubt that any of use are guiltless of doing that as well.
I also have to challenge your statement that they are a Christian group by design. Their About Us page clearly states The National Institute on Media and the Family is an independent, nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nonprofit organization that is based on research, education, and advocacy. They do not identify themselves as Christian. They identify themselves as being not restricted to any religion or denomination. The fact that they might be predominantly Christian is by the nature of 80% of the U.S. being Christian. So, again, I see no reason for you to be targeting Christians in your post. The issue of video game violence/sex/etc. is one that people from all religions are concerned about. Not all people, just all religions.
Exactly. And that's precisely what keeps me awake at night.
Melatonin. 3 mg about 1 hour before bed time. Works great.
No, it's certainly valid. I wouldn't consider it to be flamebait, although I will confess that it does expose a chink in my argument's armor. :) Morality and ethics in many ways (if not exclusively) represent how you would treat others. So, someone who has good ethics and morals should be looking out for the betterment of others if not all, whereas the examples that you give are religions that from my understanding are self-serving and irresponsible with respect to others. So, would be be able to truly expect them to teach their kids right and wrong within societal norms?
I don't mean that to be flamebait, as much as it sounds like it. Seriously! It's just that those religions from what I understand (and I confess that I have not bothered to research them) are more of a "do whatever I feel like doing because it's good for me" mentality. So, I would not expect them to be concerned with video game, music, or TV ratings or warnings. I could be wrong, though.