Uh, take a look at just about any checklist of scientific names. About half are named after a person. In fact, check out the cool newly described incredibly-long-necked sauropod Erketu ellisoni, named by paleontologist Mark Norell after his long-time illustrator Mick Ellison.
The fact of the matter is that, whatever pseudophilosophical bullshit exceptions people give here (such as the "wink wink" 'backing up my DVDs' nonsense of the submitter), the underlying problem is still the willingness of ordinary people to engage in acts of willful copyright infringement simply on the basis of the belief that their chances of being caught are low.
1. Backing up our DVDs so my daughter doesn't destroy them is not a "pseudophilosophical bullshit exception;" it's a fact of life. I don't much care if other people want to make copies of DVDs to distribute illegally. That's not my concern, nor is it my problem.
2. The underlying problem is not my willingness to engage in an act of copyright infringement. It is instead the fact that I currently CANNOT make a fair use backup copy of my own DVDs without breaking the law (thank you, DMCA).
I considered defending myself against your implication that I'm lying about my daughter, but instead I'll just issue the age-old curse:
Maybe we should institute some kind of "potential gibberish" tag, just to give us all fair warning before we wade into a post like that and find ourselves mired in a morass.
...such as the "wink wink" 'backing up my DVDs' nonsense of the submitter...
I have a two year old daughter. She's fond of Monster's Inc., Yellow Submarine and those damned Baby Einstein DVDs. She's also fond of touching the disks themselves. I own legally purchased store-bought copies of all the aforementioned titles. You think my desire to back them up is nonsense? Now THAT's nonsense!
What will you do when the computer chip on the lawnmower only allows authorized people to start it? Trusted mowing will be implemented to eliminate the undocumented workers.
Except the industry makes more money off undocumented (hence, underpaid) lawn workers, so you can be assured trusted computing will never come to that platform.
The crucial "early adopters" who pay the big bucks and have esoteric systems are going to have problems, many of them still have non-HDCP displays. These guys are likely to be pissed about being left out in the cold despite the promises of the tv manufacturers at the time of purchase. They won't benefit from HD-BLU-DVD-RAY either because their HDTV sets won't be permitted to display the HD video from the discs.
Like me, for instance. I'm going to sit out this round. And I'm hanging onto my non-HDCP component-input-only 1080i HDTV for as long as I can get a picture out of it. (Fortunately it's only 32" so standard DVDs with anamorphic squeeze look just dandy.)
So tell me: if even geeks are indifferent to HD disks, what will be the man in the street's reaction?
Depends on how gullible the man in the street is. "They say it's the latest and greatest and blows away what I already have and everyone else at work will be jealous and they'll think I have a big dick. I gotta get it!"
If you can't tell the difference or don't think it's worth it, that's your problem and not mine. I don't need an excuse to brag, but I think perhaps you have some inadequacy problems to deal with.
"it's your problem" -- this is the part I don't get. Some people seem to think it's a "problem" if I and people like me are happy enough with DVD. Just who has the inadequacy problem here?
I can see a huge difference on a 30 inch TV between 480x720 (DVD) and 720x1280.
And I've synched up DVDs with HD broadcasts of the same movie on my 32" HD set and flipped back and forth between inputs to compare them, and while I see some difference, I'd hardly even call it noticeable. And if I were watching just the DVD, it would never occur to me to say "Hey, this just isn't good enough to enjoy, dammit!"
It's a lot like where I sit when I go to a theater: before the movie starts, I think it's really important to get a good seat, near the center, not to far forward or back... whereas once the movie starts I realize that where I ended up sitting actually matters very little toward my enjoyment of the movie, as long it wasn't behind a really tall guy or next to a herd of loud teens.
HD looks better. DVDs don't do HD. That makes DVDs not good enough.
That does not logically follow. Begs the question. You're assuming anything that looks better makes whatever came before not good enough, and that's not true. Is HD good enough? What about that double-resolution ultra HD they're playing around with in Japan right now? Does that stuff make ordinary HD "not good enough?"
At some point, ordinary folk will decide something *is* good enough, and then "better" formats won't matter. Look at audio CD vs. SACD & DVD-A. Hell, lots of people are happy with clearly degraded mp3 over CD for the sake of convenience. And the same thing *may* happen with DVD vs. HD-DVD/Blu-ray. For example, I have no interest in owning a ginormous TV, so a good DVD looks great to me and I have no need or desire to upgrade for a long time to come (basically, until my current equipment gives up the ghost for good). Are there others like me? Sure. Enough to make HD DVDs a bust? Guess we'll see.
Analysts say the early adopters, those who rush out and buy whatever new technology becomes available, will jump right in and pay $1,800 US for a Blu-ray player from Pioneer or $499 US for the Toshiba HD DVD player.
I guess I was an early adopter of HDTV, because my set only has component inputs. AFAIK this means I won't be able to play EITHER format (at true HD resolution) because I can't support the oh-so-wonderful copy protection in HDMI connectors. As far as I'm concerned, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can both take a flying fuck at the moon.
An anamaphoric-enhanced DVD release (as most theatrical DVDs have been since the 90's), on a progressive scan DVD player with component inputs on a widescreen TV looks damn good. Better than most people will ever wish to have in their home.
That's pretty much my situation, except I bought my 1080i set a few years ago so it's 4x3 and the picture gets sqeezed into letterbox mode when it goes anamorphic on a DVD. When Finding Nemo was broadcast recently in hi def I synched up the DVD of it and switched between the two, and I could see damned little difference (and both looked damned good).
Now of course it's only a 32" set, so maybe on a huge screen I'd see more of a difference, but at the moment I don't look at my screen and think "Gee, I wish it looked better", I think "Wow, that looks great!", so it's gonna be a LONG time before I have any incentive to move to hi def DVDs.
OK, I'm pretty much a Linux noob so this may not grind anyone else's gears here, but it drives me crazy when Linux program names are not capitalized. xmms, xine, apt, synaptic... Half the time I don't even realize I'm reading about a program until I go back and reread it and realize "Oh, apt is a program's name!" Just another barrier to entry for interested bystanders like myself.
Can someone explain this to me, and in a way that doesn't involve singular instances... a broad spectrum view of why so many people are so keen on Google and so unkeen on Yahoo...
When I go to www.google.com I see a clean, empty page with a few lines of text and an input box. When I just visited www.yahoo.com, I saw Donald Trump's face. 'Nuff said.
And while you're at it, bring back DOS! I miss my batch files.
And XtreeGold; don't forget that. With DOS 5 (and NDOS for a nice popup cl history box), XTGold, WordPerfect 5.1, and Paradox 4.5 (hell, even 3.5), I'm all set.
The whole point here being about usability, what is logical/natural does matter. Much easier to use something in a way that feels natural than having to remember a bunch of button combos, right?
After a (relatively) short time the button combos *become* natural gestures to perform. When my left hand rests on a keyboard, the middle finger just *knows* that W means "Go forward" and S means "Move backwards." Once trained, no thought is involved and the gesture is easy to perform; the requirements of usability are satisfied.
I'm concerned about two things (which others have pointed out):
1. Fingers provide a fine degree of control over gestures in a game, and substituting something more "natural" in place of button-controlled fingers and knobs -- requiring increased use of one's arms -- may well reduce that degree of control;
2. It may become tiring having to hold up a controller for any longish period of time. I can rest a "traditional" controller in my lap and still have complete freedom to move, precisely because I only use my fingers to control things.
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea; in fact, I hope it succeeds. It's definitely innovative, and I look forward to giving it a try. But until then I remain pretty unconvinced that making the experience of controlling a game more "natural" necessarily means making it better.
And yet, none of your non-gamers people ever told you that it doesn't feel natural to hold a controler with both hands, and then press one of 10 buttons to swing a sword? While it may seem pretty natural for gamers to press buttons to have your characters perform actions, I would actually think that it is more "logical" to actually swing your arm if you want to swing a sword.
What difference does it make which seems more logical and/or natural? What matters is what's fun to do while sitting in front of a TV. If I want to play a videogame, pressing buttons to control things in the game is a fairly fun way to do it. If I want natural swordplay, I'll take up fencing.
Now enter the puck mouse. You still rest your wrist on the table, but you can move the whole mouse with ONLY your fingers! Very fast, light, easy, and sensible.
I'm using a "slow, cumbersome" normal mouse right now, with my wrist wresting on my desk, and I'm moving the cursor everywhere with ONLY my fingers. Up your pointer sensitivity.
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Uh, take a look at just about any checklist of scientific names. About half are named after a person. In fact, check out the cool newly described incredibly-long-necked sauropod Erketu ellisoni, named by paleontologist Mark Norell after his long-time illustrator Mick Ellison.
Tell me about it!
Well, it's warm and round and not too soft but not too firm, and usually found in pairs... wait, that's probably not what you meant.
You have too much time on your hands (and not enough breast).
Of course, books mean we have to imagine it, but this is slashdot, that's all we do anyway... right? right????
Hey, I've been married for eight years... so yes, all I do is imagine it.
You wrote:
The fact of the matter is that, whatever pseudophilosophical bullshit exceptions people give here (such as the "wink wink" 'backing up my DVDs' nonsense of the submitter), the underlying problem is still the willingness of ordinary people to engage in acts of willful copyright infringement simply on the basis of the belief that their chances of being caught are low.
1. Backing up our DVDs so my daughter doesn't destroy them is not a "pseudophilosophical bullshit exception;" it's a fact of life. I don't much care if other people want to make copies of DVDs to distribute illegally. That's not my concern, nor is it my problem.
2. The underlying problem is not my willingness to engage in an act of copyright infringement. It is instead the fact that I currently CANNOT make a fair use backup copy of my own DVDs without breaking the law (thank you, DMCA).
I considered defending myself against your implication that I'm lying about my daughter, but instead I'll just issue the age-old curse:
"Just wait until you have kids of your own!"
Maybe we should institute some kind of "potential gibberish" tag, just to give us all fair warning before we wade into a post like that and find ourselves mired in a morass.
...such as the "wink wink" 'backing up my DVDs' nonsense of the submitter...
I have a two year old daughter. She's fond of Monster's Inc., Yellow Submarine and those damned Baby Einstein DVDs. She's also fond of touching the disks themselves. I own legally purchased store-bought copies of all the aforementioned titles. You think my desire to back them up is nonsense? Now THAT's nonsense!
The first eight Sony blu-ray discs will play in full resolution over componet cables.
The first few samples from a drug dealer are always free too. Once you get hooked, it's a different story...
What will you do when the computer chip on the lawnmower only allows authorized people to start it? Trusted mowing will be implemented to eliminate the undocumented workers.
Except the industry makes more money off undocumented (hence, underpaid) lawn workers, so you can be assured trusted computing will never come to that platform.
And I thought it was agonizing to sit through. Guess that's what makes the world go 'round (hey, I'm no physicist).
The crucial "early adopters" who pay the big bucks and have esoteric systems are going to have problems, many of them still have non-HDCP displays. These guys are likely to be pissed about being left out in the cold despite the promises of the tv manufacturers at the time of purchase. They won't benefit from HD-BLU-DVD-RAY either because their HDTV sets won't be permitted to display the HD video from the discs.
Like me, for instance. I'm going to sit out this round. And I'm hanging onto my non-HDCP component-input-only 1080i HDTV for as long as I can get a picture out of it. (Fortunately it's only 32" so standard DVDs with anamorphic squeeze look just dandy.)
So tell me: if even geeks are indifferent to HD disks, what will be the man in the street's reaction?
Depends on how gullible the man in the street is. "They say it's the latest and greatest and blows away what I already have and everyone else at work will be jealous and they'll think I have a big dick. I gotta get it!"
If you can't tell the difference or don't think it's worth it, that's your problem and not mine. I don't need an excuse to brag, but I think perhaps you have some inadequacy problems to deal with.
"it's your problem" -- this is the part I don't get. Some people seem to think it's a "problem" if I and people like me are happy enough with DVD. Just who has the inadequacy problem here?
I can see a huge difference on a 30 inch TV between 480x720 (DVD) and 720x1280.
And I've synched up DVDs with HD broadcasts of the same movie on my 32" HD set and flipped back and forth between inputs to compare them, and while I see some difference, I'd hardly even call it noticeable. And if I were watching just the DVD, it would never occur to me to say "Hey, this just isn't good enough to enjoy, dammit!"
It's a lot like where I sit when I go to a theater: before the movie starts, I think it's really important to get a good seat, near the center, not to far forward or back... whereas once the movie starts I realize that where I ended up sitting actually matters very little toward my enjoyment of the movie, as long it wasn't behind a really tall guy or next to a herd of loud teens.
HD looks better. DVDs don't do HD. That makes DVDs not good enough.
That does not logically follow. Begs the question. You're assuming anything that looks better makes whatever came before not good enough, and that's not true. Is HD good enough? What about that double-resolution ultra HD they're playing around with in Japan right now? Does that stuff make ordinary HD "not good enough?"
At some point, ordinary folk will decide something *is* good enough, and then "better" formats won't matter. Look at audio CD vs. SACD & DVD-A. Hell, lots of people are happy with clearly degraded mp3 over CD for the sake of convenience. And the same thing *may* happen with DVD vs. HD-DVD/Blu-ray. For example, I have no interest in owning a ginormous TV, so a good DVD looks great to me and I have no need or desire to upgrade for a long time to come (basically, until my current equipment gives up the ghost for good). Are there others like me? Sure. Enough to make HD DVDs a bust? Guess we'll see.
We need a pre-recorded format for ATSC
Maybe you need it. I sure don't. I'm perfectly happy with DVD resolution on a 32" screen.
Analysts say the early adopters, those who rush out and buy whatever new technology becomes available, will jump right in and pay $1,800 US for a Blu-ray player from Pioneer or $499 US for the Toshiba HD DVD player.
I guess I was an early adopter of HDTV, because my set only has component inputs. AFAIK this means I won't be able to play EITHER format (at true HD resolution) because I can't support the oh-so-wonderful copy protection in HDMI connectors. As far as I'm concerned, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can both take a flying fuck at the moon.
An anamaphoric-enhanced DVD release (as most theatrical DVDs have been since the 90's), on a progressive scan DVD player with component inputs on a widescreen TV looks damn good. Better than most people will ever wish to have in their home.
That's pretty much my situation, except I bought my 1080i set a few years ago so it's 4x3 and the picture gets sqeezed into letterbox mode when it goes anamorphic on a DVD. When Finding Nemo was broadcast recently in hi def I synched up the DVD of it and switched between the two, and I could see damned little difference (and both looked damned good).
Now of course it's only a 32" set, so maybe on a huge screen I'd see more of a difference, but at the moment I don't look at my screen and think "Gee, I wish it looked better", I think "Wow, that looks great!", so it's gonna be a LONG time before I have any incentive to move to hi def DVDs.
Here's a list of a thirty.
And BootitNG is so good, they listed it twice (#5 and #29). (I'd list it twice too; I use it and love it.)
OK, I'm pretty much a Linux noob so this may not grind anyone else's gears here, but it drives me crazy when Linux program names are not capitalized. xmms, xine, apt, synaptic... Half the time I don't even realize I'm reading about a program until I go back and reread it and realize "Oh, apt is a program's name!" Just another barrier to entry for interested bystanders like myself.
Can someone explain this to me, and in a way that doesn't involve singular instances... a broad spectrum view of why so many people are so keen on Google and so unkeen on Yahoo...
When I go to www.google.com I see a clean, empty page with a few lines of text and an input box. When I just visited www.yahoo.com, I saw Donald Trump's face. 'Nuff said.
And while you're at it, bring back DOS! I miss my batch files.
And XtreeGold; don't forget that. With DOS 5 (and NDOS for a nice popup cl history box), XTGold, WordPerfect 5.1, and Paradox 4.5 (hell, even 3.5), I'm all set.
The whole point here being about usability, what is logical/natural does matter. Much easier to use something in a way that feels natural than having to remember a bunch of button combos, right?
After a (relatively) short time the button combos *become* natural gestures to perform. When my left hand rests on a keyboard, the middle finger just *knows* that W means "Go forward" and S means "Move backwards." Once trained, no thought is involved and the gesture is easy to perform; the requirements of usability are satisfied.
I'm concerned about two things (which others have pointed out):
1. Fingers provide a fine degree of control over gestures in a game, and substituting something more "natural" in place of button-controlled fingers and knobs -- requiring increased use of one's arms -- may well reduce that degree of control;
2. It may become tiring having to hold up a controller for any longish period of time. I can rest a "traditional" controller in my lap and still have complete freedom to move, precisely because I only use my fingers to control things.
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea; in fact, I hope it succeeds. It's definitely innovative, and I look forward to giving it a try. But until then I remain pretty unconvinced that making the experience of controlling a game more "natural" necessarily means making it better.
And yet, none of your non-gamers people ever told you that it doesn't feel natural to hold a controler with both hands, and then press one of 10 buttons to swing a sword? While it may seem pretty natural for gamers to press buttons to have your characters perform actions, I would actually think that it is more "logical" to actually swing your arm if you want to swing a sword.
What difference does it make which seems more logical and/or natural? What matters is what's fun to do while sitting in front of a TV. If I want to play a videogame, pressing buttons to control things in the game is a fairly fun way to do it. If I want natural swordplay, I'll take up fencing.
Now enter the puck mouse. You still rest your wrist on the table, but you can move the whole mouse with ONLY your fingers! Very fast, light, easy, and sensible.
I'm using a "slow, cumbersome" normal mouse right now, with my wrist wresting on my desk, and I'm moving the cursor everywhere with ONLY my fingers. Up your pointer sensitivity.