Re:Will game consoles kill family life a little mo
on
First Looks At XBox
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· Score: 2
I think you merely failed to grasp the excellent game design that went into many C64 games. Perhaps you prefer eye candy over content.
I, for one, spent a ton of time gaming on my C64. If it wasn't Gunship, Archon or some RPG, I was online with Q-Link playing chess. I play tons of chess online, but no experience, be it ICC or Yahoo, or Chessmaster matches the intimate chess community on Q-Link. Of course, this was until the night they shut it down without warning to use the hardware to start something called America Online.
The fact is, people have been babbling with the same complaints when radio came along, then TV, then arcade and computer games, and most recently, the internet. It is a parent's job to regulate what their kids do, not a corporation's job to limit children's options.
I'm not concerced about the hard drive impacting reliability, either. I've had Tivo for quite some time, it records a few hours of stuff every day and plays back one or two, and very few people have reported problems.
The fact is, MS makes good hardware, and this will quite possibly demonstrate that again.
Also, the HD won't necessarily be used just as cache, I suspect they'll also use it to save games.
IANAL, but I've read a number of times that for libel to hold up, three things have to be proved:
1. Untrue information was published.
2. The author knew the info to be untrue.
3. The author published the false info with the intent to harm another party.
Libel suits are often litigated but rarely won in the US because of the difficulty in proving numbers two and three.
I shelled out $300 (after rebate) plus $10/month for Tivo so I can stop watching commercials. Given that they are about 1/3 of broadcast television and I watch 6-8 hours per week, I think it's a good investment. I've gotten pretty darn good at that 60X fast-forward, which compresses two minutes of commercials to two seconds. Interestingly, I have to concentrate so hard, I can't help but notice which company logos flash on the screen, which is more attention than I used to pay to ads.
However AFAIK, Tivo's business model does not involve compensating the networks for lost advertising viewership. Nonetheless, I think we're witnessing the beginning of what will become standard practice: free access to media with lots of ads or pay for access with much fewer ads. No matter how you cut it, though, I think you'll see ads no matter how much you pay. Shell out $8 for a movie ticket and you still see commercials, followed by previews, followed by increasingly obvious product placements within the feature.
I tried encrypting everything for awhile, but all my coworkers, friends and family would call me up on the phone and ask why I just sent them an email full of garbage characters.
A quote: "Nowadays, the free software philosophy is getting drowned out by the wishy-washy open source philosophy. There must be thousands of people who support the Open Source Movement because they think I do!
Read: People support open source over free software because they're fooled into thinking I support open source. No intelligent person could do so otherwise.
There can be no doubt that the Supreme Court will decide this eventually. Why can't they look at it now. Are they lazy? Afraid? I'm not buying the 'Due Process' argument. The fact that the SC was able to decide the motion to expedite implies that it is within the bounds of the legal system.
The Justice department investigated MS about five years ago because of this practice. They got MS to stop doing this, but accomplished little else to reign in the company.
Obviously TiVo has no legal means to keep people from modifying a device they own. What I think this may lead to is companies like TiVo will no longer sell devices to be used with their proprietary services, only lease them.
From the story: "For the past month, Hill has offered his BlessTiVo instructions, which help people modify the Linux-based TiVo unit to recognize a second drive." I suspect TiVo would have had to modify some GPL software to produce this unit. Have they open-sourced these modifications? More to the point: if a company rents out equipment with GPL-modified equipment (rather than sells it), would they need to release the code modifications? As I understand the GPL, the code only needs to be supplied to the eventual owners or licensees of the software. In this case, the service subscribers might not be considered licensees.
That's certainly a better system, but it's hard to implement because being first is so much more important in the computer hardware/games review business. These magazines and sites know that if they can publish a review before anyone else, they'll get a lot more readers and therefore, they have to acquire the merchandise from manufacturers before it hits the market.
On a totally different track, anyone notice that CR tends to benchmark every automobile against the Honda Accord? When the most recent major change was made to the Corvette, I remember reading in CR that the car lost points because it could hardly hold two bags of groceries. Oh well.
Third Party Software distributed under the Gnu General Public License) is licensed to you under the terms of the applicable Third Party Software End User License accompanying such software (the "Excluded Third Party Software"), and, except with respect to Sections 5 ("Disclaimer") and 7 ("Limitations"), the terms of this Agreement do not apply to such Excluded Third Party Software. You may view these Third Party Software End User Licenses using the Help menu in the Netscape browser on your NIC
Anyone tried to hook a hard drive up to this thing?
Background checks and proficiency requirements are a good thing. But what about the loose cannon out there who has nothing bad in his background but one day gets up in the morning and thinks "I'm gonna go out ta buy me one of them compewters and turn loose one helluva vearus!"
Obviously, the only way to protect ourselves from these nuts is to also implement a mandatory five day waiting period to buy a computer.
Also, what possible need does anyone have for more than a Pentium 166? It does word processing, email, web browsing and runs solitaire. Any more power can only be used by someone with dangerous intent. We need to start worrying about these assault-computers, namely those with 64-bit processors. The evil PC makers (such as Dell and Micron) are already planning to unleash these weapons on the consumer market. They need to be stopped now with sensible legistlation that outlaws assault computers.
At least when I listen to the radio I get ten, Ten, TEN songs in a ROW on NONSTOP-ROCK WSUX!!!.
Now I'm supposed to hear an ad in between every song? Right, that's a good one.
Yet another company trying to apply a 20th century revenue model to mp3 music distribution.
Few artists are truly capitalizing on MP3, by using it to generate revenue through merchandise and concert tie-ins and building targeted consumer databases (you may hate the idea, but mp3 would be a great generator for this). Unfortunately, as many have said, these revenue models cut out the music label dinosaurs, so now we have this company trying to make money off of MP3 for RIAA. It makes as much sense as trying to sell software to generate revenue for oil companies.
I went to NSI's website about a month ago and paid the renewal fee. I was three days late, which appears not to be a problem. The charge went through on my credit card, but the whois entry still shows it expired 8 June. Emails have gone unanswered.
I'm going to register.com. They even offer free DNS service.
AMD had compatibility issues through the K6 release, but I haven't heard of any starting with K6/2. I've been running countless applications and games on K6/2, K6/3 and Athlon processors for quite some time and have yet to encounter a single 'compatibility problem'. The AMDs have proven to be nothing but a better value than Intel's offerings time and time again.
Frankly, the only people I have encountered to bring up 'compatibility problems' are uneducated intel loyalists who have never put an AMD into one of their boxes.
Can you provide a URL to an article that discusses these 'compatibility problems'?
As much inconvenience as it's caused and most posts here to the contrary, I completely understand AOL's past position on this, at least from a business standpoint.
Microsoft's IM client will become an integrated part of all future releases of their OSes, and they'll annex the man-share of new subscribers. After that, the only ones signing up for AIM will be AOL subscribers who become AIM users by default.
AOL users (of which I doubt there are many on/.) can expect this experience:
Install Windows2002
Notice Instant Messaging client which you configure to use with your current AIM acct. (this will be part of the installation process)
Install AOL 6.0
Notice other IM client has been replaced (remember what AOL 5.0 does to people's existing dial-up and TCP/IP configuration).
This type of experience is just going to get worse and worse. [SARCASM]But take comfort. At least more and more of your Windows desktop will be displaying ads you can't get rid of.[/SARCASM]
For those with more memory than 8 Mb - tough luck. I've * not got it, why should you:-) The source is here. Change * it. (Seriously - it shouldn't be too difficult. Mostly * change some constants etc. I left it at 8Mb, as my machine * even cannot be extended past that (ok, but it was cheap:-) * I've tried to show which constants to change by having * some kind of marker at them (search for "8Mb"), but I * won't guarantee that's all:-( )
Bill Gates didn't include source code and encourage others to change it. He wasn't saying it in jest, and he was not referring to an Alpha release.
By my reading of your analysis, this also means that screenshots cannot be employed in reviews critical of Apogee's games.
The criticism against UCITA, which I feel may be valid, is that it throws out fair-use exemptions from copyrights for digital media. The U.S. has a long history of defining and protecting the fair-use of copyrighted materials. We have been very successful at striking a balance between protecting intellectual property and allowing the free exchange of ideas. Software companies especially seem to dislike this concept, and crafted UCITA to largely eliminate its extension to software (even while making hollow statements to the contrary.
It's one thing to say Duke Nukem's graphics are blocky, it's another to actually show the chunky sprites, which Apogee may be claiming to disallow.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you merely failed to grasp the excellent game design that went into many C64 games. Perhaps you prefer eye candy over content.
I, for one, spent a ton of time gaming on my C64. If it wasn't Gunship, Archon or some RPG, I was online with Q-Link playing chess. I play tons of chess online, but no experience, be it ICC or Yahoo, or Chessmaster matches the intimate chess community on Q-Link. Of course, this was until the night they shut it down without warning to use the hardware to start something called America Online.
The fact is, people have been babbling with the same complaints when radio came along, then TV, then arcade and computer games, and most recently, the internet. It is a parent's job to regulate what their kids do, not a corporation's job to limit children's options.
I'm not concerced about the hard drive impacting reliability, either. I've had Tivo for quite some time, it records a few hours of stuff every day and plays back one or two, and very few people have reported problems.
The fact is, MS makes good hardware, and this will quite possibly demonstrate that again.
Also, the HD won't necessarily be used just as cache, I suspect they'll also use it to save games.
Even more likely is that screenshots were captured by some graphics designer and the animated screens were assembled and generated with a Macintosh.
IANAL, but I've read a number of times that for libel to hold up, three things have to be proved:
1. Untrue information was published.
2. The author knew the info to be untrue.
3. The author published the false info with the intent to harm another party.
Libel suits are often litigated but rarely won in the US because of the difficulty in proving numbers two and three.
Get us all a raise.
Post inflated numbers to SAGE and then direct the boss to the site during your next salary negotiation.
C'mon, everyone. Chip in!
I shelled out $300 (after rebate) plus $10/month for Tivo so I can stop watching commercials. Given that they are about 1/3 of broadcast television and I watch 6-8 hours per week, I think it's a good investment. I've gotten pretty darn good at that 60X fast-forward, which compresses two minutes of commercials to two seconds. Interestingly, I have to concentrate so hard, I can't help but notice which company logos flash on the screen, which is more attention than I used to pay to ads.
However AFAIK, Tivo's business model does not involve compensating the networks for lost advertising viewership. Nonetheless, I think we're witnessing the beginning of what will become standard practice: free access to media with lots of ads or pay for access with much fewer ads. No matter how you cut it, though, I think you'll see ads no matter how much you pay. Shell out $8 for a movie ticket and you still see commercials, followed by previews, followed by increasingly obvious product placements within the feature.
I tried encrypting everything for awhile, but all my coworkers, friends and family would call me up on the phone and ask why I just sent them an email full of garbage characters.
A quote: "Nowadays, the free software philosophy is getting drowned out by the wishy-washy open source philosophy. There must be thousands of people who support the Open Source Movement because they think I do!
Read: People support open source over free software because they're fooled into thinking I support open source. No intelligent person could do so otherwise.
There can be no doubt that the Supreme Court will decide this eventually. Why can't they look at it now. Are they lazy? Afraid? I'm not buying the 'Due Process' argument. The fact that the SC was able to decide the motion to expedite implies that it is within the bounds of the legal system.
Hey, Teach?
Refresh my memory, how do you factor n into p and q again?
:)
The Justice department investigated MS about five years ago because of this practice. They got MS to stop doing this, but accomplished little else to reign in the company.
This idea has been implemented for awhile in a more elegant fashion via WikiWikiWebs. To see how they work, check out The Portland Pattern Repository
To set up one yourself, I recommend checking out phpwiki.
That's certainly a better system, but it's hard to implement because being first is so much more important in the computer hardware/games review business. These magazines and sites know that if they can publish a review before anyone else, they'll get a lot more readers and therefore, they have to acquire the merchandise from manufacturers before it hits the market.
On a totally different track, anyone notice that CR tends to benchmark every automobile against the Honda Accord? When the most recent major change was made to the Corvette, I remember reading in CR that the car lost points because it could hardly hold two bags of groceries. Oh well.
Next time, read the whole thing.
Anyone tried to hook a hard drive up to this thing?
Background checks and proficiency requirements are a good thing. But what about the loose cannon out there who has nothing bad in his background but one day gets up in the morning and thinks "I'm gonna go out ta buy me one of them compewters and turn loose one helluva vearus!"
Obviously, the only way to protect ourselves from these nuts is to also implement a mandatory five day waiting period to buy a computer.
Also, what possible need does anyone have for more than a Pentium 166? It does word processing, email, web browsing and runs solitaire. Any more power can only be used by someone with dangerous intent. We need to start worrying about these assault-computers, namely those with 64-bit processors. The evil PC makers (such as Dell and Micron) are already planning to unleash these weapons on the consumer market. They need to be stopped now with sensible legistlation that outlaws assault computers.
At least when I listen to the radio I get ten, Ten, TEN songs in a ROW on NONSTOP-ROCK WSUX!!!.
Now I'm supposed to hear an ad in between every song? Right, that's a good one.
Yet another company trying to apply a 20th century revenue model to mp3 music distribution.
Few artists are truly capitalizing on MP3, by using it to generate revenue through merchandise and concert tie-ins and building targeted consumer databases (you may hate the idea, but mp3 would be a great generator for this). Unfortunately, as many have said, these revenue models cut out the music label dinosaurs, so now we have this company trying to make money off of MP3 for RIAA. It makes as much sense as trying to sell software to generate revenue for oil companies.
Actually, their webhosting provider (hypermart.net) runs Linux/apache (guess they're not up to setting up their own server).
hypermart.net is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) secured_by_Raven/1.4.2-dev ApacheJServ/1.0 g2am/1.36 adutil/1.7 g2ad/1.63 on Linux
I went to NSI's website about a month ago and paid the renewal fee. I was three days late, which appears not to be a problem. The charge went through on my credit card, but the whois entry still shows it expired 8 June. Emails have gone unanswered.
I'm going to register.com. They even offer free DNS service.
AMD had compatibility issues through the K6 release, but I haven't heard of any starting with K6/2. I've been running countless applications and games on K6/2, K6/3 and Athlon processors for quite some time and have yet to encounter a single 'compatibility problem'. The AMDs have proven to be nothing but a better value than Intel's offerings time and time again.
Frankly, the only people I have encountered to bring up 'compatibility problems' are uneducated intel loyalists who have never put an AMD into one of their boxes.
Can you provide a URL to an article that discusses these 'compatibility problems'?
As much inconvenience as it's caused and most posts here to the contrary, I completely understand AOL's past position on this, at least from a business standpoint.
Microsoft's IM client will become an integrated part of all future releases of their OSes, and they'll annex the man-share of new subscribers. After that, the only ones signing up for AIM will be AOL subscribers who become AIM users by default.
AOL users (of which I doubt there are many on /.) can expect this experience:
This type of experience is just going to get worse and worse. [SARCASM]But take comfort. At least more and more of your Windows desktop will be displaying ads you can't get rid of.[/SARCASM]
And I thought the airlines were just making all this up so people have to pay $5/minute to use the airfone in the headrest in front of you.
They charge out the wazoo for their standards. Even if you're just downloading a copy from their website.
Why didn't you post Linus' entire comment?
:-) The source is here. Change :-) :-( )
For those with more memory than 8 Mb - tough luck. I've
* not got it, why should you
* it. (Seriously - it shouldn't be too difficult. Mostly
* change some constants etc. I left it at 8Mb, as my machine
* even cannot be extended past that (ok, but it was cheap
* I've tried to show which constants to change by having
* some kind of marker at them (search for "8Mb"), but I
* won't guarantee that's all
Bill Gates didn't include source code and encourage others to change it. He wasn't saying it in jest, and he was not referring to an Alpha release.
All this making you the bigger idiot.
By my reading of your analysis, this also means that screenshots cannot be employed in reviews critical of Apogee's games.
The criticism against UCITA, which I feel may be valid, is that it throws out fair-use exemptions from copyrights for digital media. The U.S. has a long history of defining and protecting the fair-use of copyrighted materials. We have been very successful at striking a balance between protecting intellectual property and allowing the free exchange of ideas. Software companies especially seem to dislike this concept, and crafted UCITA to largely eliminate its extension to software (even while making hollow statements to the contrary.
It's one thing to say Duke Nukem's graphics are blocky, it's another to actually show the chunky sprites, which Apogee may be claiming to disallow.