That's right! Don't bother saving those mod points to bump up someone else! Use them to censor those whose points you disagree with! That's the intolerant, Slashdot way!
Oh, wait. You responded. Nevermind. (Yeah, that will probably get me nailed at flamebait or troll, but - karma be damned - it felt good to say.)
if you RTFA, it says "title sponsor".
And that justifies what appears to be locking AMD out of sponsorship completely?
it would be pretty ridiculous to have both AMD and Intel banners hanging around the convention area.
Many gatherings, such as Comdex (when it actually does run), are nothing but technical companies, who are competing for your business. Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, and so forth are all under one roof. Why is that not ridiculous? There are conventions related to video editing. Ulead, Pinnacle, AIT, and other companies are under one roof with their banners and demonstrations. Why is that not ridiculous? What about E3 or other smaller, technical "games and gadget" conventions that have Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft under one roof as well. Why is that not ridiculous? Having competing companies with banners in the same convention area happens all of the time. Those are hardly ridiculous.
Actually, having both companies work together to sponsor this event might actually show some civility between them, something that both of them could use right now.
I don't get this. When you watch NASCAR (I don't, thankfully), you see cars that have more visible sponsor logos than visible paint. Dozens and dozens of sponsors per car - not just one sponsor.
When you watch a show on commercial TV or you listen to a commercial radio station, you hear various commercials for several companies - not just one company.
What is so flipping special about QuakeCon that they can only have either AMD or Intel as a sponsor? Why is there apparently some kind of shame in letting both companies sponsor it? Oh, look! There are other names besides Intel that are sponsoring QuakeCon! Why is AMD not allowed to be one of them?
This militant, extremist attitude that there can only be either Intel or AMD - but, heaven forbid, not both - is ridiculous. And, frankly, you can't tell me that Intel won because they're better at gaming. Sorry, I don't believe that and the numbers normally side with AMD from what I've read; however, that does not mean that one party should be excluded. They're willing to pay up. Let them. Then let Intel's and AMD's PR fight among themselves.
If anything, it means that the gamers lose. With paid sponsorship by AMD now verboten, the prize packages are smaller than they otherwise might have been. Who knows? With AMD's support the prizes could have totalled $250,000 instead of the current $150,000.
Ridiculous and sad (in a pathetic way) at the same time.
Well, the apostrophe used for plurality is one of my major pet peeves. I caught it when I first read the summary and rolled my eyes then thinking, "Is it really that difficult to comprehend?" So, I was in the right frame of mind for your "rebuttal".
I dont see why it has to be either or. Why does it have to be "all games are going online" or "MMO games are gonna crash and burn."
I didn't say that it had to be either. I'm perfectly content with both coexisting because each tackles completely different target audiences, although many people enjoy both types.
I personally don't like MMORPG because I don't have a lot of time to spend on them, so I prefer to get involved in a story-rich, single-player game (and there are a lot of them out there) that I can stop and pick up later as I choose. (I don't doubt that there are MMORPGs that allow this, but given the choice I'd rather have a single-player. Personal preference.)
Intel vs. AMD, Nvidia vs ATI, Xbox vs PS, MS vs Apple, Windows vs Linux
I think that you're starting to get into apples and oranges here. A lot of the debate between those topics also takes into cosideration the corporate ethics of each company. I prefer AMD because of various technical and ethical issues that I have with Intel, not the least of which is that AMDs are cheaper, run cooler, and 100% compatible in my experience; I prefer NVidia because I've had problems with ATI cards but none with NVidia; XBox vs. PS, I despise Microsoft's attempts to dominate every fu*king market that they see, so I will not support them; MS vs Apple, see previous response, but I also don't like Apple's pricing; and so forth.
There really are no such issues like that with MMORPG vs. single-player. Sometimes I have no problems hopping online, joining a team, and going after the other team. Conversely, sometimes I get fed up with the little fu*kwads who have no tolerance for anyone who doesn't live up to their standards. ("We lost again! This team sucks!" Yeah, yeah, f*ck you and grow up. It's a game, you prepubescent brat.)
MMORPG and single-player serve different markets with some overlap between the two. They both need to exist, and sales of each type of game cotinue to prove that they both can exist very well as long as quality games are released for both.
And UbiSoft. Hell, just look at how many millions of copies of the Splinter Cell series were sold with their strengths as compelling, single-player games. And the most recent came out years ago - about.25 years ago!
Same with the Thief series which has no multiplayer (although joint missions on that would be very cool if done like SC:CT coop multiplayer). Of course, Valve's Half-Life 2 was incredibly strong in its single-player method which killed it. {/sarcasm}
Obviously, single-player games are still very much in demand if they're made properly (unlike classic blunders like Ultima: Ascension).
Yeah, MMORPGs are just the only way to go. I've never understood that mentality. It's just as invalid now as it was over five years ago when the death of single-player was also held in strong opinion by many.
Yes, it does have MP coop - sort of...
on
Review: Battlefield 2
·
· Score: 2, Informative
# No multiplayer coop - playing against a few friends at a lan party with bots for backup was one of my favorite things to do in BF 1942.
This is actually not true. It does have it. You just have to trick it and you're restricted in functionality.
1. Start a single-player game, which is effectively a single-client multiplayer (hence why it says "starting server" during load).
2. Have the others launch an Internet multiplayer session, but click Connect To IP and enter the "server's" IP address. That will directly connect them to the LAN PC.
My nephew and I do this every weekend. It does have its limitations, though:
- 16-player maps only
- You have to manually load new maps
- Each map goes for 3 runs
- Each user must have a legitimate on-line account (or approriate crack, I would assume, but since all of my copies are legal I don't know what the crack status is on this)
No, it doesn't have a direct, configurable, LAN multiplayer, but you can still have LAN multiplayer.
You need a new video card, not because you couldn't play without but because the designers just decided to use the new shader model.
Define "new". The system that my nephew uses has a 128 MB, GeForce 5500 FX card, which by current standards is hardly a new card. The game runs just fine.
I like playing on my work computer and my home computer, why do I have to lug the DVD around?
There is no way in hell that I could agree with you more. On-disc protection is ludicrous and inconveniences only the legitimate purchasers.
True enough. I caught that after I posted. For some reason, GTA:SA feels more like a stand-alone expansion pack to GTA3 than its own game. Oh, well. That's for another thread.:)
1. Give PC to me since I know to format a hard drive properly.
2. I format the hard drive.
3. I install a user-firendly version of Linux, like SimplyMEPIS.
4. I sell the system on eBay to those who are willing to try Linux.
5. I profit!!!
Well, I like the idea! Is not capitalizing off of people's stupidity and apathy the American way? Hell, it works for Microsoft!
liberal libertarian Democrat (wrap your brain around that one!)
Oh, damn it! That hurt like hell! Don't ever use that phrase again!:)
This morality crusade does not represent what I, or most other liberals, believe in.
It's not even the whole morality thing, because even I as a conservative do not necessarily believe that my morals are superior to others'. They're mine; they're good for me. To try to push them on others makes me no better than the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who trespass^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pay a visit every year.
What disgusts me about her is that she is clearly pandoring to a group that she does not represent in an attempt to soften her image. Yet if she ever got the top spot (if there really is a god, he/she/whatever must never let that happen), she'll turn back to the hard-as-concrete lib that she always has been -- up until a year or two ago, that is. Okay, this was off-topic, but you started it.:)
{groan} Ah, man. I'm still hurting from the liberal libertarian Democrat paradox.
Re:Typical Slashdot reaction. You should know bett
on
How the ESRB Rates Games
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· Score: 2, Interesting
With respect to the overall topic, your statement is fair. I still consider that to be the same lines as the democrat from California -- Yees, I believe. "Let's make it look like I'm offended so that I can curry favor with the constituents."
Still doesn't change the fact that the inital GTA stink was started by not one but two democrats and that the GGP is a knee-jerk reactionary who looks for any excuse (informed or otherwise) to slam conservatives.
Oh, well. Another day on/.
Typical Slashdot reaction. You should know better.
on
How the ESRB Rates Games
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Typical. You mention factual statements and you get nailed as flamebait because it goes against the liberal/. groupthink. You should know better than to insult two prominent libs here.
For those mods who clearly don't have a f*cking clue, Hillary (clearly not a conservative) is actively pursuing the current GTA3 situation and Tipper was one of the main activists who was responsible for the Senate hearings regarding language/violence/drugs in music several years back. I also need to remind the mods that the initial politician who raised a stink in order to impress his constituents is a democrat from California. So - karma be damned - will the GP and the idiot mod who nailed the parent with -1 Flamebait kindly get your heads out of your asses and tell me once again where conservatives are causing the problem with the GTA3 issue?
Whereas the republican side of the isle is known for their own bits of censorship, particularly where issues of morality come into play, the current GTA3 rigamarole has not been started and is not currently a molehill being made into a mountain by republicans or conservatives.
Now, if that moron John Ashcroft was still in office, then you liberal, knee-jerk reactionaries might have cause to bitch about conservatives. Ashcroft would have been on top of the sex issue like... well, perhaps "on top of", "sex", and "Ashcroft" is not the best one-sentence combination to use, considering that he couldn't deal with a nude breast on a freakin' statue.
How many other business models work at public expense for personal gain?
Besides government? Besides mega-corporations (with products purchased by the public) that lay off tens of thousands of people then give the execs a big bonus for cutting expenses?
I'm not sure. You tell me.
I'm at a loss for what we should do about the problem. These people are essentially polluting the internet and it needs to stop. But how?
Unfortunately, until countries primarily in Asia who don't seem to care about stomping out spam decide top cooperate with other nations who do want to get rid of spam, we're most likely stuck. (For the record, over 90% of the spam that I get either comes from Asia or is housed on an Asian web hosting company. I can't even READ 50% of the spam that I get because it's in either Chinese or Japanese!) I know that other people bitch about U.S. spammers, but they're in the minority of spammers based on my Junk mailbox.
(I say that Asian ISPs and web hosting companies don't care because of the different mind set. I've read and seen interviews on this topic where the ISPs say that they don't understand why we're not honored that we are offered their customers' products and services. Oh... my... God...!)
Ah, the benefits of Eudora and its spam filter, which is actually pretty good!
And of course being typical Slashdot moderators you got a +1 Insightful for should have been +5 Not-Knowing-What-The-Hell-You're-Talking-About by applying "conservatives" with the broadest brush possible. What we have in Washington are not conservatives. They're nothing more that political grandstandards who hide behind the conservative shielf because they think it wins them brownie points of some kind, not that this matters to the 75% of/. mods who seem to wring their hands waiting for a good ol' anti-conservative post to come along just so they can mod it up whether or not it has any basis in fact.
You should have added an anti-Fox News statements as well as an anti-Bush statement so that the mods could have given you a +5 insightful.
Yeah, those lunchbox systems were cute. I just recently sold my whopping 50 MHz SPARCstation LX on eBay. Fully loaded with 96 MB of RAM (the maximum), too.
Now people are starting to appreciate the lunchbox format of mini-ITX systems like Shuttle. Once again, Sun was just a bit too far ahead of its time.
You're talking like P4's and Sparcs are comparable by speed. I've seen way "slower" sparcs kick the crap out of P4's in benchmarks. While Sun's equiptment is certainly high in the price range, your "Twice as much for half the cost" thing is complete and utter BS.
You go on thinking that.
They did not make the decision lightly. One company in particular ran several 2D and 3D rendering tests using designs of various complexities with different metalurgical and thermal dynamics. The top-of-the-line Dells whipped the sh!t out of the top-of-the-line Suns by a margin of approximately three to one.
That's not to say that the program itself was not at fault. It could have been improperly compiled on the Sun systems for (as an example) 32 bit when it should have been 64 bit. That's not Sun's fault, obviously. But the end result is what the company saw when they ran their tests. And they saw Dell systems producing results at 1/2 to 1/3 the time of Sun systems that cost twice as much. They're not going to pay twice as much for 1/2 the speed just because the software vendor didn't compile the product properly.
So, no, it's not utter BS just because you (and I) would like it to be.
(don't you love how companies only publish the particular benchmarks that their system performs best on *cough* IBM *cough*)
I can only take this with a grain of salt, but supposedly some of IBM's software specs, such as for DB/2 performance, are specs as they were run on Sun systems because they were faster than AIX. Again, grain of salt.
But never take marketers seriously. I remember one time becoming furious at either HP or Dell because they said that people should buy their systems instead of Sun based on (get this) OpenGL performance! Uh, excuse me? I want to run a smokin' database or e-commerce web site, and I'm supposed to buy HP (or Dell, whichever it was) because of OpenGL performance! Whoa....
I myself think (hope) Sun will be around for the long run, and won't join those other awesome companies (i.e. DEC) that due to an outdated business model, fade away.
Careful! This is Slashdot! You need to specify when there is sarcasm in a statement or risk getting megatively modded by the oblivious. But to continue your statement, I can't wait to read about the "IP for Food" scandal in the next few years.
I need to clarify I think that price cuts are a good thing for Sun. I didn't realize with my first reply that you were actually criticizing Sun for cutting prices. How cutting prices is a death knell is beyond me.
The FACT is that Sun's hardware has been way OVERPRICED for almost a decade! That's exactly why I personally have seen a number of major, international, engineering firms go from Sun workstations to Dell workstations. The Dell systems were twice and fast at half the cost and the CAD/CAM product that they used was available on both platforms. So, switching to Dell was a no brainer!
The fact that Sun is starting to cut their prices tells me that they finally understand that they can no longer ride the high-price wave just because of the Sun name.
So, you tell me what's worse - selling less hardware at a higher profit margin because it's cost prohibitive, or selling more hardware at a lower cost and lower profit margin? Personally, I'd rather get anything that I sell to more people at a lower profit. It gets a larger installed base; it means that many more people that might upgrade in the future; it means even more potential sales for licensing; it means more people that might spread positive word-of mouth. There are many more benefits that I can see to selling more items at a lower cost than fewer at a higher cost. They might not be realized in the here and now, but they could bring in much better returns in the long run.
They're finally starting to tinker with #1. The new Ultra 20 (based on the AMD Opteron 64 chipset) lists at $895. This is *unheard* of for Sun, particularly that the SunBlade 1500 still goes for up to $3500.
The current promotion is that the workstation if FREE as long as you buy three years of Sun service for ~$1,000, but is only a bit more than the workstation itself. The catch: annual payments instead of the advertised $29.95 per month. Sadly, the annual payments crap (roughly $400 per year for three years) was enough to kill it for me. If they implemented the advertised $29.95 per month, three of us in my department would have ordered one by now.
Even with the annual payment hurdle, for Sun to offer a workstation that actually has quite respectable horsepower under the hood for less than $1,000 is completely unheard of. Maybe they're testing the waters for further pricing structures in the future? One can only hope.
The incompetent mods strike again. This should have been +5 insightful or a combination of insightful/funny by now because he's absolutely right. A fan site that has been around for years gets picked as a topic of the day? If this was the criteria for a submission, we'd have tens of thousands of fan sites getting/. headlines every month.
That's not to say that the mentioned web site is not of particular value; but considering that this is a site that touts "News for Nerds", that also assumes that nerds know how to use search engines for fan sites that have been around for a long time. And this is not news particularly when you consider that the first three letters of "news" is "new", which this web site is not.
Karma be damned in this particular instance. I've learned that many times negative moderation means that the poster is right but the mods just don't like the fact that the poster was right.
I was only being a smart ass with the methane crack (no pun intended) until I followed a link in a comment farther down in this whole thread that stated:
Hydrogen is plentiful in fossil fuels such as methane and natural gas.
So, I was right! I'd better get my Beer and Bratwurst Post-Production Methane Collector patented, copyrighted, and trademarked now!
Slashdot Mirror
I can either mod you down for being flamebait
That's right! Don't bother saving those mod points to bump up someone else! Use them to censor those whose points you disagree with! That's the intolerant, Slashdot way!
Oh, wait. You responded. Nevermind. (Yeah, that will probably get me nailed at flamebait or troll, but - karma be damned - it felt good to say.)
if you RTFA, it says "title sponsor".
And that justifies what appears to be locking AMD out of sponsorship completely?
it would be pretty ridiculous to have both AMD and Intel banners hanging around the convention area.
Many gatherings, such as Comdex (when it actually does run), are nothing but technical companies, who are competing for your business. Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, and so forth are all under one roof. Why is that not ridiculous? There are conventions related to video editing. Ulead, Pinnacle, AIT, and other companies are under one roof with their banners and demonstrations. Why is that not ridiculous? What about E3 or other smaller, technical "games and gadget" conventions that have Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft under one roof as well. Why is that not ridiculous? Having competing companies with banners in the same convention area happens all of the time. Those are hardly ridiculous.
Actually, having both companies work together to sponsor this event might actually show some civility between them, something that both of them could use right now.
I don't get this. When you watch NASCAR (I don't, thankfully), you see cars that have more visible sponsor logos than visible paint. Dozens and dozens of sponsors per car - not just one sponsor.
When you watch a show on commercial TV or you listen to a commercial radio station, you hear various commercials for several companies - not just one company.
What is so flipping special about QuakeCon that they can only have either AMD or Intel as a sponsor? Why is there apparently some kind of shame in letting both companies sponsor it? Oh, look! There are other names besides Intel that are sponsoring QuakeCon! Why is AMD not allowed to be one of them?
This militant, extremist attitude that there can only be either Intel or AMD - but, heaven forbid, not both - is ridiculous. And, frankly, you can't tell me that Intel won because they're better at gaming. Sorry, I don't believe that and the numbers normally side with AMD from what I've read; however, that does not mean that one party should be excluded. They're willing to pay up. Let them. Then let Intel's and AMD's PR fight among themselves.
If anything, it means that the gamers lose. With paid sponsorship by AMD now verboten, the prize packages are smaller than they otherwise might have been. Who knows? With AMD's support the prizes could have totalled $250,000 instead of the current $150,000.
Ridiculous and sad (in a pathetic way) at the same time.
Well, the apostrophe used for plurality is one of my major pet peeves. I caught it when I first read the summary and rolled my eyes then thinking, "Is it really that difficult to comprehend?" So, I was in the right frame of mind for your "rebuttal".
Diet Coke out the nose. Thank you so very much. Not only did that hurt like hell, but you owe me a new keyboard, damn it!
I dont see why it has to be either or. Why does it have to be "all games are going online" or "MMO games are gonna crash and burn."
I didn't say that it had to be either. I'm perfectly content with both coexisting because each tackles completely different target audiences, although many people enjoy both types.
I personally don't like MMORPG because I don't have a lot of time to spend on them, so I prefer to get involved in a story-rich, single-player game (and there are a lot of them out there) that I can stop and pick up later as I choose. (I don't doubt that there are MMORPGs that allow this, but given the choice I'd rather have a single-player. Personal preference.)
Intel vs. AMD, Nvidia vs ATI, Xbox vs PS, MS vs Apple, Windows vs Linux
I think that you're starting to get into apples and oranges here. A lot of the debate between those topics also takes into cosideration the corporate ethics of each company. I prefer AMD because of various technical and ethical issues that I have with Intel, not the least of which is that AMDs are cheaper, run cooler, and 100% compatible in my experience; I prefer NVidia because I've had problems with ATI cards but none with NVidia; XBox vs. PS, I despise Microsoft's attempts to dominate every fu*king market that they see, so I will not support them; MS vs Apple, see previous response, but I also don't like Apple's pricing; and so forth.
There really are no such issues like that with MMORPG vs. single-player. Sometimes I have no problems hopping online, joining a team, and going after the other team. Conversely, sometimes I get fed up with the little fu*kwads who have no tolerance for anyone who doesn't live up to their standards. ("We lost again! This team sucks!" Yeah, yeah, f*ck you and grow up. It's a game, you prepubescent brat.)
MMORPG and single-player serve different markets with some overlap between the two. They both need to exist, and sales of each type of game cotinue to prove that they both can exist very well as long as quality games are released for both.
Yeah, it's killing Rockstar.
.25 years ago!
And UbiSoft. Hell, just look at how many millions of copies of the Splinter Cell series were sold with their strengths as compelling, single-player games. And the most recent came out years ago - about
Same with the Thief series which has no multiplayer (although joint missions on that would be very cool if done like SC:CT coop multiplayer). Of course, Valve's Half-Life 2 was incredibly strong in its single-player method which killed it. {/sarcasm}
Obviously, single-player games are still very much in demand if they're made properly (unlike classic blunders like Ultima: Ascension).
Yeah, MMORPGs are just the only way to go. I've never understood that mentality. It's just as invalid now as it was over five years ago when the death of single-player was also held in strong opinion by many.
# No multiplayer coop - playing against a few friends at a lan party with bots for backup was one of my favorite things to do in BF 1942.
This is actually not true. It does have it. You just have to trick it and you're restricted in functionality.
1. Start a single-player game, which is effectively a single-client multiplayer (hence why it says "starting server" during load).
2. Have the others launch an Internet multiplayer session, but click Connect To IP and enter the "server's" IP address. That will directly connect them to the LAN PC.
My nephew and I do this every weekend. It does have its limitations, though:
- 16-player maps only
- You have to manually load new maps
- Each map goes for 3 runs
- Each user must have a legitimate on-line account (or approriate crack, I would assume, but since all of my copies are legal I don't know what the crack status is on this)
No, it doesn't have a direct, configurable, LAN multiplayer, but you can still have LAN multiplayer.
You need a new video card, not because you couldn't play without but because the designers just decided to use the new shader model.
Define "new". The system that my nephew uses has a 128 MB, GeForce 5500 FX card, which by current standards is hardly a new card. The game runs just fine.
I like playing on my work computer and my home computer, why do I have to lug the DVD around?
There is no way in hell that I could agree with you more. On-disc protection is ludicrous and inconveniences only the legitimate purchasers.
On the moon, the old Korean Overlords welcome you by saying "All moon base belong to us"?
True enough. I caught that after I posted. For some reason, GTA:SA feels more like a stand-alone expansion pack to GTA3 than its own game. Oh, well. That's for another thread. :)
Who are you kidding? More than likely it was because I slammed John Ashcroft. ;)
1. Give PC to me since I know to format a hard drive properly.
2. I format the hard drive.
3. I install a user-firendly version of Linux, like SimplyMEPIS.
4. I sell the system on eBay to those who are willing to try Linux.
5. I profit!!!
Well, I like the idea! Is not capitalizing off of people's stupidity and apathy the American way? Hell, it works for Microsoft!
liberal libertarian Democrat (wrap your brain around that one!)
:)
:)
Oh, damn it! That hurt like hell! Don't ever use that phrase again!
This morality crusade does not represent what I, or most other liberals, believe in.
It's not even the whole morality thing, because even I as a conservative do not necessarily believe that my morals are superior to others'. They're mine; they're good for me. To try to push them on others makes me no better than the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who trespass^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pay a visit every year.
What disgusts me about her is that she is clearly pandoring to a group that she does not represent in an attempt to soften her image. Yet if she ever got the top spot (if there really is a god, he/she/whatever must never let that happen), she'll turn back to the hard-as-concrete lib that she always has been -- up until a year or two ago, that is. Okay, this was off-topic, but you started it.
{groan} Ah, man. I'm still hurting from the liberal libertarian Democrat paradox.
With respect to the overall topic, your statement is fair. I still consider that to be the same lines as the democrat from California -- Yees, I believe. "Let's make it look like I'm offended so that I can curry favor with the constituents."
/.
Still doesn't change the fact that the inital GTA stink was started by not one but two democrats and that the GGP is a knee-jerk reactionary who looks for any excuse (informed or otherwise) to slam conservatives.
Oh, well. Another day on
Typical. You mention factual statements and you get nailed as flamebait because it goes against the liberal /. groupthink. You should know better than to insult two prominent libs here.
... well, perhaps "on top of", "sex", and "Ashcroft" is not the best one-sentence combination to use, considering that he couldn't deal with a nude breast on a freakin' statue.
For those mods who clearly don't have a f*cking clue, Hillary (clearly not a conservative) is actively pursuing the current GTA3 situation and Tipper was one of the main activists who was responsible for the Senate hearings regarding language/violence/drugs in music several years back. I also need to remind the mods that the initial politician who raised a stink in order to impress his constituents is a democrat from California. So - karma be damned - will the GP and the idiot mod who nailed the parent with -1 Flamebait kindly get your heads out of your asses and tell me once again where conservatives are causing the problem with the GTA3 issue?
Whereas the republican side of the isle is known for their own bits of censorship, particularly where issues of morality come into play, the current GTA3 rigamarole has not been started and is not currently a molehill being made into a mountain by republicans or conservatives.
Now, if that moron John Ashcroft was still in office, then you liberal, knee-jerk reactionaries might have cause to bitch about conservatives. Ashcroft would have been on top of the sex issue like
Close! Very close! (You're salivating a bit too much at the edges of your mouth though.)
Now, try it again, this time with less frothing at the mouth. And don't forget to throw in the obligatory anti-Fox News rant!
Come on! You can do it! Just keep concentrating on that +5 insightful! You'll get it if you keep trying!
Now, try it again...
How many other business models work at public expense for personal gain?
... my ... God ...!)
Besides government? Besides mega-corporations (with products purchased by the public) that lay off tens of thousands of people then give the execs a big bonus for cutting expenses?
I'm not sure. You tell me.
I'm at a loss for what we should do about the problem. These people are essentially polluting the internet and it needs to stop. But how?
Unfortunately, until countries primarily in Asia who don't seem to care about stomping out spam decide top cooperate with other nations who do want to get rid of spam, we're most likely stuck. (For the record, over 90% of the spam that I get either comes from Asia or is housed on an Asian web hosting company. I can't even READ 50% of the spam that I get because it's in either Chinese or Japanese!) I know that other people bitch about U.S. spammers, but they're in the minority of spammers based on my Junk mailbox.
(I say that Asian ISPs and web hosting companies don't care because of the different mind set. I've read and seen interviews on this topic where the ISPs say that they don't understand why we're not honored that we are offered their customers' products and services. Oh
Ah, the benefits of Eudora and its spam filter, which is actually pretty good!
And of course being typical Slashdot moderators you got a +1 Insightful for should have been +5 Not-Knowing-What-The-Hell-You're-Talking-About by applying "conservatives" with the broadest brush possible. What we have in Washington are not conservatives. They're nothing more that political grandstandards who hide behind the conservative shielf because they think it wins them brownie points of some kind, not that this matters to the 75% of /. mods who seem to wring their hands waiting for a good ol' anti-conservative post to come along just so they can mod it up whether or not it has any basis in fact.
You should have added an anti-Fox News statements as well as an anti-Bush statement so that the mods could have given you a +5 insightful.
Yup. Gotta love the ol' spelling faux pas. :) Oh, well.
I used a Sun IPC!
Yeah, those lunchbox systems were cute. I just recently sold my whopping 50 MHz SPARCstation LX on eBay. Fully loaded with 96 MB of RAM (the maximum), too.
Now people are starting to appreciate the lunchbox format of mini-ITX systems like Shuttle. Once again, Sun was just a bit too far ahead of its time.
You're talking like P4's and Sparcs are comparable by speed. I've seen way "slower" sparcs kick the crap out of P4's in benchmarks. While Sun's equiptment is certainly high in the price range, your "Twice as much for half the cost" thing is complete and utter BS.
You go on thinking that.
They did not make the decision lightly. One company in particular ran several 2D and 3D rendering tests using designs of various complexities with different metalurgical and thermal dynamics. The top-of-the-line Dells whipped the sh!t out of the top-of-the-line Suns by a margin of approximately three to one.
That's not to say that the program itself was not at fault. It could have been improperly compiled on the Sun systems for (as an example) 32 bit when it should have been 64 bit. That's not Sun's fault, obviously. But the end result is what the company saw when they ran their tests. And they saw Dell systems producing results at 1/2 to 1/3 the time of Sun systems that cost twice as much. They're not going to pay twice as much for 1/2 the speed just because the software vendor didn't compile the product properly.
So, no, it's not utter BS just because you (and I) would like it to be.
(don't you love how companies only publish the particular benchmarks that their system performs best on *cough* IBM *cough*)
I can only take this with a grain of salt, but supposedly some of IBM's software specs, such as for DB/2 performance, are specs as they were run on Sun systems because they were faster than AIX. Again, grain of salt.
But never take marketers seriously. I remember one time becoming furious at either HP or Dell because they said that people should buy their systems instead of Sun based on (get this) OpenGL performance! Uh, excuse me? I want to run a smokin' database or e-commerce web site, and I'm supposed to buy HP (or Dell, whichever it was) because of OpenGL performance! Whoa....
I myself think (hope) Sun will be around for the long run, and won't join those other awesome companies (i.e. DEC) that due to an outdated business model, fade away.
Agreed.
Careful! This is Slashdot! You need to specify when there is sarcasm in a statement or risk getting megatively modded by the oblivious. But to continue your statement, I can't wait to read about the "IP for Food" scandal in the next few years.
I need to clarify I think that price cuts are a good thing for Sun. I didn't realize with my first reply that you were actually criticizing Sun for cutting prices. How cutting prices is a death knell is beyond me.
The FACT is that Sun's hardware has been way OVERPRICED for almost a decade! That's exactly why I personally have seen a number of major, international, engineering firms go from Sun workstations to Dell workstations. The Dell systems were twice and fast at half the cost and the CAD/CAM product that they used was available on both platforms. So, switching to Dell was a no brainer!
The fact that Sun is starting to cut their prices tells me that they finally understand that they can no longer ride the high-price wave just because of the Sun name.
So, you tell me what's worse - selling less hardware at a higher profit margin because it's cost prohibitive, or selling more hardware at a lower cost and lower profit margin? Personally, I'd rather get anything that I sell to more people at a lower profit. It gets a larger installed base; it means that many more people that might upgrade in the future; it means even more potential sales for licensing; it means more people that might spread positive word-of mouth. There are many more benefits that I can see to selling more items at a lower cost than fewer at a higher cost. They might not be realized in the here and now, but they could bring in much better returns in the long run.
They're finally starting to tinker with #1. The new Ultra 20 (based on the AMD Opteron 64 chipset) lists at $895. This is *unheard* of for Sun, particularly that the SunBlade 1500 still goes for up to $3500.
The current promotion is that the workstation if FREE as long as you buy three years of Sun service for ~$1,000, but is only a bit more than the workstation itself. The catch: annual payments instead of the advertised $29.95 per month. Sadly, the annual payments crap (roughly $400 per year for three years) was enough to kill it for me. If they implemented the advertised $29.95 per month, three of us in my department would have ordered one by now.
Even with the annual payment hurdle, for Sun to offer a workstation that actually has quite respectable horsepower under the hood for less than $1,000 is completely unheard of. Maybe they're testing the waters for further pricing structures in the future? One can only hope.
The incompetent mods strike again. This should have been +5 insightful or a combination of insightful/funny by now because he's absolutely right. A fan site that has been around for years gets picked as a topic of the day? If this was the criteria for a submission, we'd have tens of thousands of fan sites getting /. headlines every month.
That's not to say that the mentioned web site is not of particular value; but considering that this is a site that touts "News for Nerds", that also assumes that nerds know how to use search engines for fan sites that have been around for a long time. And this is not news particularly when you consider that the first three letters of "news" is "new", which this web site is not.
Karma be damned in this particular instance. I've learned that many times negative moderation means that the poster is right but the mods just don't like the fact that the poster was right.
I was only being a smart ass with the methane crack (no pun intended) until I followed a link in a comment farther down in this whole thread that stated:
Hydrogen is plentiful in fossil fuels such as methane and natural gas.
So, I was right! I'd better get my Beer and Bratwurst Post-Production Methane Collector patented, copyrighted, and trademarked now!