This thing is weak. Back in the day there was a controller called "The Activator" for the Genesis that set up as a large, nearly flat hexagon on the floor. The hexagon would send up a grid of infrared beams, and could detect when beams were broken.
Of course, making it affordable meant that the technology was not up to snuff, so it never really worked worth a damn.
This could be cool, but with the following considerations:
1- It needs to come with a supported keyboard and mouse, modem/broadband support, and have a desktop environment, so that I can actually DO something with it.
2- It damned well better support apt-get or something similar, because I am NOT going to try to compile a program and fill all of its dependencies just to screw with Linux on the PS2.
It would also help if it could do cool stuff out the box to begin with, such as Tivo like abilities, especially now that the PS2 hard drive is getting ready to ship. Of course, if this thing has net access people will be able to just code all that goodness for me to download.
Wow, another $100 million for Amazon to flush away! Now I get to wait ANOTHER three months before FuckedCompany final lists Amazon as dead and gone, and investors finally realize that the days of the DotCom are really, really over.
"Bill Gates really, really doesn't want Sunday papers editorializing about how shoddy and dangerous his security flaws are"
And you think the Sun guys are not doing the same thing? The following is from the CERT advisory on Code Red:
"Based on preliminary analysis, the sadmind/IIS worm exploits a vulnerability in Solaris systems and subsequently installs software to attack Microsoft IIS web servers"
Without your blessed UNIX servers, this worm wouldn't be hitting the NT boxes in the first place. The people who should really be worried are all of the sysadmins out there who don't bother to install patches for their security holes, as both Microsoft and Sun have done.
This is actually a really big bad thing. While for home consumers it likely means faster read times, and a return to bulky hard disks, this will suck for businesses that need mass storage.
Once the storage capacity of a hard disk can only increase by adding platters, large raid arrays are going to get huge fast. Massive databases will take up huge amounts of physical space, eat up a ton of power to run, and that is really, really expensive.
Problems like this have occurred in ALL released massively-multiplayer games. This is because these games cost much, much more to develop and test than other games, and so the only way to ensure a profit is to just pick a date and go live, regardless of the state of the game.
It is getting better, though. When Ultima Online launched, the entire game economy was destroyed within days. Connection and crash bugs were unavoidable. Even to this day, they don't have all the kinks worked out.
The same can be said for EverQuest. EverQuest's early days were nightmarish, and the game quickly earned the nickname "NeverQuest," because players could not log on much of the time, and those that did were usually disconnected quickly. It took them several months to deal with those problems. Beyond that, the game has always suffered from a myriad of internal bugs, client bugs, quest bugs, and a host of other bugs. The EQ bugs, however, don't even compare to the bugs in UO.
Then along comes AO. They have a lot of problems, but at least many of their customers can get in and play. Crash bugs come up here and there, but nothing like UO and EQ. People often report gameplay to be a satisfying experience.
This is the nature of the beast that is online gaming. It will be this way for a long time, until there are a few established players in the field with a good, easily reusable code base and good testing methods.
Ok, I admit, this is kind of cool. If I was a baseball player, I might even buy one to practice with. But what it really boils down to is this; baseball is boring enough as is, does anyone REALLY want to sit around watching a robot throw out pitches?
CD-ROM became a popular format out of necessity. At the time it grew into common use, software was just becoming too large to manage and distribute on floppy disks. This created a need for people who wanted to use a PC to run any recent software to buy a CDROM or deal with piles of floppies.
Hard disks on consoles are a different situation. With the exception of online games that need frequent patching, there is little need for a hard disk on a console system that already allows for data storage on memory cards. Until we reach a time that online gaming is massively popular, or find another reason for a game console to need mass storage, a hard disk in a gaming console is not likely to be widely adopted unless it is installed by default (As is the case of the XBOX.).
"Ummm, except Square has stated that the HD add-on is going to be a virtual necessity in order to play Final Fantasy X."
Square making FF games that support the hard drive is still just a niche product. FFX will not require a hard disk for solo play, only for the additional online stuff. Only players who want to use their console to play the game online will need to buy the hard disk, and many will likely balk at buying said hard disk just to play SquareSoft games online when four other new games could be purchased for the same cost.
This of course assumes that Square makes online content people actually like. Don't forget that Square has had many games that flopped sales wise, examples being The Bouncer, Ergheiz, and their forgettable PS2 racing sim.
"Besides, hasve you taken a look at the sales figures for PS2's after the announced price drop in Japan?"
And those have what to do with the hard disk add-on?
This is not a good thing for Sony. While it is neat to have a hard disk, network adapters, etc. for the PS2, chances are it won't go over well.
Developers don't like console add-ons, because they facture the market and can lead to low game sales. Nintendo learned this in the 1980s, when their slew of add-ons for the NES in Japan (Even a knitting machine.), and a smaller number of them in the US, flopped. Sega experienced the same problems with their 32X and Sega CD add ons for the Genesis . Nintendo again had problems trying to add high-density media to the N64 system. When Nintendo created a RAM add-on for the N64, it sold well at first, but was eventually rejected with consumers, and the first game to require it ended up being packaged with one.
Console add-ons are just bad news. Sony will likely end up slashing costs and making crazy deals with developers to get the add-ons support beyond niche games. In the long run, they will fracture their own market and annoy customers. Microsoft will have these features prepackaged without an obvious added cost, and Sony will likely suffer for it.
Nintendo, of course, will get to sit atop the heap of game companies, leveraging their experience into a strategy that allows them to come out best (Albeit maybe not highest selling.) by marketing a simple, cheap gaming system without much hassle by a proven console company.
The cube failed because it was too goddamned expensive. Apple products were worth the price when they outperformed comparable PCs, and were a million times as stable as PCs. Now that AMD processors and a huge amount of competition in the DRAM market has dramatically lowered the cost of high-end PCs, and Windows 2000 is almost as stable as UNIX, there is no longer a reason to pay Apple's prices for a workstation.
Re:People tend to shoot back
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 2
"Start destroying people's stuff, and eventually, you aren't going to live through one of the attempts."
I could attempt to fly on a poorly regulated airline, and be killed when oxygen production machines catch fire over the everglades.
I could attempt to drive down the highway, and be killed when the driver of a Ford Explorer with Firestone tires loses a tire, than control of the vehicle, and rolls over, wiping out my car in the process.
I could attempt to eat a Taco, and die because it was secretly made with genetically engineered corn to which some people have a deadly allergy.
I could drink well water at a rural farm, and die because the groundwater is polluted with waste from a local corporate hog farm.
Wake up. Corporations are becoming horrible, dangerous things. Lives of individuals are meaningless to the people who run them. If our government will not look out for us we may need to look out for ourselves.
"how can you justify that when a simple injunction or (at most) arrest would accomplish the same thing?"
Has the CEO of Ford been arrested for putting Explorers on the road with tires known to suffer problems when underinflated, and then telling consumers to prevent rollovers by underinflating those same tires? Was it not insane for the CEO of Ford to allow this to be done, putting the lives of millions of people at risk?
Is it not insane for me to look out for my best interests, and to defend myself from corporate greed and a weak government by any means necessary?
"maybe you should move to afghanistan."
Of course, after all Americans are incapable of terrorism. They would never blow up their own government buildings, or abortion clinics.
"It is clear from credit reports and demographic databases"
I hardly think that looking up the fake address I used to register my domains allowed you to look up credit reports and demographic databases... If you really wanted to impress me, how about a social security number or credit card number?
If I wanted to keep this stuff anonymous, I would post AC. Pretending to be l33t like you did is just lame.
Well, if the democrats want to guard the spammer's right to cost me and my company money, I think I'll be calling my Republican senator, asking him to slap them around a little.
Of course, in a week I will be threatening vote for a democrat if he doesn't stop advocating internet censorship bills...
"Business, magazines, websites, software developers, entertainment companies may soon be paying you to pay attention to their creations, rather than the other way around."
That has already been done. You can read all about it over at Fucked Company.
I usually stay away from this sort of post, but Bill Gates lives to piss me off, so FLAME ON.
"makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen."
Isn't that the point? To keep it all open, so Microsoft can't come in and screw everyone again? Look at what they did to kerberos- used it, and broke it for everyone else. Sendmail? They keep trying to proprietize email standards so that everyone is stuck using Outlook. The browser? Yes, nice to see people like Microsoft and Netscape flush consistentcy and standards down the toilet while going into a feature (Bloat.) war.
I don't see how ANYONE (Other than the guys running corporations like MSFT.) could want companies to be able to keep doing this stupid shit to the computing macrocosm. We need to do anything possible to keep free/open software going so that the scum at Microsoft don't innovate us right into set top boxes that we are charged by the hour to use, and anything else lands us in jail!
Maybe if they just stopped wasting money...
on
VA Layoff Rumors
·
· Score: 5
Top ten reasons to own an imac: Rip Episode 1 dvd and extra footage to hard disk. Make movie watchable. Laugh as thousands of warez monkeys trade internet edits and call people asking for DiVX rip of the official release lamers.
Slashdot Mirror
This thing is weak. Back in the day there was a controller called "The Activator" for the Genesis that set up as a large, nearly flat hexagon on the floor. The hexagon would send up a grid of infrared beams, and could detect when beams were broken.
Of course, making it affordable meant that the technology was not up to snuff, so it never really worked worth a damn.
There is a short description of the Activator in the classic gaming museum. I ripped the text and posted it below:
I don't care how small the CRT is, if it still gives me headaches and sore eyes at even the highest of refresh rates, it still blows compared to LCDs.
This could be cool, but with the following considerations:
1- It needs to come with a supported keyboard and mouse, modem/broadband support, and have a desktop environment, so that I can actually DO something with it.
2- It damned well better support apt-get or something similar, because I am NOT going to try to compile a program and fill all of its dependencies just to screw with Linux on the PS2.
It would also help if it could do cool stuff out the box to begin with, such as Tivo like abilities, especially now that the PS2 hard drive is getting ready to ship. Of course, if this thing has net access people will be able to just code all that goodness for me to download.
Wow, another $100 million for Amazon to flush away! Now I get to wait ANOTHER three months before FuckedCompany final lists Amazon as dead and gone, and investors finally realize that the days of the DotCom are really, really over.
"Ames researchers are using off-the-shelf parts to help keep costs down. The robot's computer is a Pentium® III running Linux..."
At least Microsoft hasn't managed to convince NASA that they should not use Linux...
Damn.. i gotta stop smoking when I post...
"Bill Gates really, really doesn't want Sunday papers editorializing about how shoddy and dangerous his security flaws are"
And you think the Sun guys are not doing the same thing? The following is from the CERT advisory on Code Red:
"Based on preliminary analysis, the sadmind/IIS worm exploits a vulnerability in Solaris systems and subsequently installs software to attack Microsoft IIS web servers"
Without your blessed UNIX servers, this worm wouldn't be hitting the NT boxes in the first place. The people who should really be worried are all of the sysadmins out there who don't bother to install patches for their security holes, as both Microsoft and Sun have done.
Let me put it into terms a paranoid idiot like you can understand:
Your employer needs big database X to make money off of operation Y.
Database X is 10 terabytes.
Due to growing sizes of hard disks, database X will suck an extra million dollars out of the IT budget.
To recoup costs and make stockholder happy, your employer lays off ten IT employees with 100K salaries.
You now have no job.
This is actually a really big bad thing. While for home consumers it likely means faster read times, and a return to bulky hard disks, this will suck for businesses that need mass storage.
Once the storage capacity of a hard disk can only increase by adding platters, large raid arrays are going to get huge fast. Massive databases will take up huge amounts of physical space, eat up a ton of power to run, and that is really, really expensive.
So yes, this IS a problem.
Problems like this have occurred in ALL released massively-multiplayer games. This is because these games cost much, much more to develop and test than other games, and so the only way to ensure a profit is to just pick a date and go live, regardless of the state of the game.
It is getting better, though. When Ultima Online launched, the entire game economy was destroyed within days. Connection and crash bugs were unavoidable. Even to this day, they don't have all the kinks worked out.
The same can be said for EverQuest. EverQuest's early days were nightmarish, and the game quickly earned the nickname "NeverQuest," because players could not log on much of the time, and those that did were usually disconnected quickly. It took them several months to deal with those problems. Beyond that, the game has always suffered from a myriad of internal bugs, client bugs, quest bugs, and a host of other bugs. The EQ bugs, however, don't even compare to the bugs in UO.
Then along comes AO. They have a lot of problems, but at least many of their customers can get in and play. Crash bugs come up here and there, but nothing like UO and EQ. People often report gameplay to be a satisfying experience.
This is the nature of the beast that is online gaming. It will be this way for a long time, until there are a few established players in the field with a good, easily reusable code base and good testing methods.
Ok, I admit, this is kind of cool. If I was a baseball player, I might even buy one to practice with. But what it really boils down to is this; baseball is boring enough as is, does anyone REALLY want to sit around watching a robot throw out pitches?
Has anyone considered that this is likely just a hoax? Doesn't it seem a little odd to just see this pop up on a message board?
/. crew have probably fallen for a random, stupid net hoax.
I think the
CD-ROM became a popular format out of necessity. At the time it grew into common use, software was just becoming too large to manage and distribute on floppy disks. This created a need for people who wanted to use a PC to run any recent software to buy a CDROM or deal with piles of floppies.
Hard disks on consoles are a different situation. With the exception of online games that need frequent patching, there is little need for a hard disk on a console system that already allows for data storage on memory cards. Until we reach a time that online gaming is massively popular, or find another reason for a game console to need mass storage, a hard disk in a gaming console is not likely to be widely adopted unless it is installed by default (As is the case of the XBOX.).
"Ummm, except Square has stated that the HD add-on is going to be a virtual necessity in order to play Final Fantasy X."
Square making FF games that support the hard drive is still just a niche product. FFX will not require a hard disk for solo play, only for the additional online stuff. Only players who want to use their console to play the game online will need to buy the hard disk, and many will likely balk at buying said hard disk just to play SquareSoft games online when four other new games could be purchased for the same cost.
This of course assumes that Square makes online content people actually like. Don't forget that Square has had many games that flopped sales wise, examples being The Bouncer, Ergheiz, and their forgettable PS2 racing sim.
"Besides, hasve you taken a look at the sales figures for PS2's after the announced price drop in Japan?"
And those have what to do with the hard disk add-on?
This is not a good thing for Sony. While it is neat to have a hard disk, network adapters, etc. for the PS2, chances are it won't go over well.
Developers don't like console add-ons, because they facture the market and can lead to low game sales. Nintendo learned this in the 1980s, when their slew of add-ons for the NES in Japan (Even a knitting machine.), and a smaller number of them in the US, flopped. Sega experienced the same problems with their 32X and Sega CD add ons for the Genesis . Nintendo again had problems trying to add high-density media to the N64 system. When Nintendo created a RAM add-on for the N64, it sold well at first, but was eventually rejected with consumers, and the first game to require it ended up being packaged with one.
Console add-ons are just bad news. Sony will likely end up slashing costs and making crazy deals with developers to get the add-ons support beyond niche games. In the long run, they will fracture their own market and annoy customers. Microsoft will have these features prepackaged without an obvious added cost, and Sony will likely suffer for it.
Nintendo, of course, will get to sit atop the heap of game companies, leveraging their experience into a strategy that allows them to come out best (Albeit maybe not highest selling.) by marketing a simple, cheap gaming system without much hassle by a proven console company.
The cube failed because it was too goddamned expensive. Apple products were worth the price when they outperformed comparable PCs, and were a million times as stable as PCs. Now that AMD processors and a huge amount of competition in the DRAM market has dramatically lowered the cost of high-end PCs, and Windows 2000 is almost as stable as UNIX, there is no longer a reason to pay Apple's prices for a workstation.
"Start destroying people's stuff, and eventually, you aren't going to live through one of the attempts."
I could attempt to fly on a poorly regulated airline, and be killed when oxygen production machines catch fire over the everglades.
I could attempt to drive down the highway, and be killed when the driver of a Ford Explorer with Firestone tires loses a tire, than control of the vehicle, and rolls over, wiping out my car in the process.
I could attempt to eat a Taco, and die because it was secretly made with genetically engineered corn to which some people have a deadly allergy.
I could drink well water at a rural farm, and die because the groundwater is polluted with waste from a local corporate hog farm.
Wake up. Corporations are becoming horrible, dangerous things. Lives of individuals are meaningless to the people who run them. If our government will not look out for us we may need to look out for ourselves.
"how can you justify that when a simple injunction or (at most) arrest would accomplish the same thing?"
Has the CEO of Ford been arrested for putting Explorers on the road with tires known to suffer problems when underinflated, and then telling consumers to prevent rollovers by underinflating those same tires? Was it not insane for the CEO of Ford to allow this to be done, putting the lives of millions of people at risk?
Is it not insane for me to look out for my best interests, and to defend myself from corporate greed and a weak government by any means necessary?
"maybe you should move to afghanistan."
Of course, after all Americans are incapable of terrorism. They would never blow up their own government buildings, or abortion clinics.
"It is clear from credit reports and demographic databases"
I hardly think that looking up the fake address I used to register my domains allowed you to look up credit reports and demographic databases... If you really wanted to impress me, how about a social security number or credit card number?
If I wanted to keep this stuff anonymous, I would post AC. Pretending to be l33t like you did is just lame.
Why, oh why, must people too stupid to comprehend obvious sarcasm respond to my posts?
Well, if the democrats want to guard the spammer's right to cost me and my company money, I think I'll be calling my Republican senator, asking him to slap them around a little.
Of course, in a week I will be threatening vote for a democrat if he doesn't stop advocating internet censorship bills...
"Business, magazines, websites, software developers, entertainment companies may soon be paying you to pay attention to their creations, rather than the other way around."
That has already been done. You can read all about it over at Fucked Company.
I usually stay away from this sort of post, but Bill Gates lives to piss me off, so FLAME ON.
"makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen."
Isn't that the point? To keep it all open, so Microsoft can't come in and screw everyone again? Look at what they did to kerberos- used it, and broke it for everyone else. Sendmail? They keep trying to proprietize email standards so that everyone is stuck using Outlook. The browser? Yes, nice to see people like Microsoft and Netscape flush consistentcy and standards down the toilet while going into a feature (Bloat.) war.
I don't see how ANYONE (Other than the guys running corporations like MSFT.) could want companies to be able to keep doing this stupid shit to the computing macrocosm. We need to do anything possible to keep free/open software going so that the scum at Microsoft don't innovate us right into set top boxes that we are charged by the hour to use, and anything else lands us in jail!
on Jon Katz.
Top ten reasons to own an imac: Rip Episode 1 dvd and extra footage to hard disk. Make movie watchable. Laugh as thousands of warez monkeys trade internet edits and call people asking for DiVX rip of the official release lamers.