Mod up anonymous parent as informative, I have a friend who has the same phone and set his up similarly. It truly is amazing, I'd love to get one when my contract is up. Feels a bit like something out of science fiction how much better it is than everything else around.
I'd also mention that this phone has a 1 megapixel camera on it as well. It doesn't take the greatest pictures, but considering it adds apparently next to nothing to the bulk of the phone (it really is thin), it's one more bullet to add to things it can do.
I hate to break it to you, but the average computer user does not think of IE as, "designed to deliver ads to the user and to ensure MS lock in while firefox is designed to enhance your online experience."
The average computer user does not know what Firefox is, and thinks IE is the Internet.
Heck, I doubt even the average Linux user thinks as extremely about this as you seem to think the average computer user does.
This is actually one of my favorite Penny Arcade comics of all time, I laughed so hard the first time I saw it. And it's exactly like Jerry says, something about this strip is just so funny and stylish in a distinctly Penny Arcade sort of way.
Microsoft is working overtime to get its search right. Its indexed search feature in Vista negates the need to install Google Desktop.
Riiiight...just like IE7 will mean no need to install firefox!
Maybe not for enthusiasts or techies, but for the average computer user, IE7 exactly means no need to install firefox.
It takes a big improvement to make it worth someone's time to switch to a new piece of software and learn how to use it. By cutting into the difference in quality, it's simply not worth the average user's time to investigate alternative browsers. Heck, look at the present situation, where IE6 pretty much completely sucks, and still most people won't switch. Now imagine if IE7 copies all the good features from Firefox.
If the game played exactly the same as Ice Hockey, wasn't unnecessarily more complicated for "realism's" sake... but just LOOKED better and that's it... I'd be willing to play it.
Now the interesting thing is, I don't think many people who deny that if somebody did this, the game would sell horribly and no one would buy it except for a few nostalgics like you.
Take a moment to think about that, and consider why you suppose that is? Is it that people no longer value funness?
It's interesting that you include Starcraft in that mix, relatively young at less than 10 years old. Interesting in that I remember hearing this same type of criticism that has become so trendy now, among aging gamers back then. Sure, they'd say, there's the occasional game that's fun like Starcraft now, but there's no match for the MULE, the Elite, the Starflights, etc.
The simple fact of the matter is, 90% of creative works are mediocre. We remember the good ones. You include Starcraft now as being from the age when gameplay still counted. Well how about Dance Dance Revolution, Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, the entire genre of MMOGs? Innovation is far from dead, but that's hardly fashionable to acknowledge.
Compounding this remembering the good ones effect is the fact that we also remember things through rose colored glasses. The fact is, we can go back and play a game like Bard's Tale, and it kinda sucks. If a game with identical gameplay were released today, even with beautiful graphics, no one would play. We only think it was better because we were more open-minded back then.
Do you remember how you felt as a kid, when all the old people were saying how things aren't as good now as they were when they were growing up? You are the old person now.
One of the main reasons I don't like to play FPSs on the consoles is because the PC with mouse is far superior control. This new controller might change that. Although it is hard to envision this hand-held device being used to aim as well as for "mouselook".
This is a sentiment I hear a lot among PC FPS enthusiasts. As a former PC FPS player turned console FPS player, I'd say the big difference in mindset that most PC FPS players can't wrap their mind around is what does "far superior control" mean? Is being able to aim more accurately superior? Because the simple fact of the matter is that by this metric, the mouse and keyboard combo is a "far superior control" to holding a rifle in your hand and firing it, and something is distinctly perverse about that.
If a new controller came out where you could just think where on the screen you wanna shoot, and you would hit it with 100% accuracy would it make the game more fun? Under most PC FPS enthusiast's line of thinking this is better control, yet I think it's obvious to most people the game wouldn't be much fun anymore at that point.
Frankly, anything that reduces the amount of people jumping around wildly while firing sniper rifles in mid-air with pinpoint accuracy I consider a good thing, and so I'm quite pleased by the lower accuracy of console controllers over the mouse and keyboard. With console controllers, you can be fast, or you can be accurate, but it's very hard to be both. Y'know, sort of like with a real gun.
It's pretty weird that there's another charity that does almost exactly the same thing as Child's Play. In fact I can't really see any difference other than the fact that Child's Play has the publicity associated with Penny-Arcade.
I first read about this other one because Microsoft made some sort of a large donation to it recently. Apparently it's been in operation since 2001 however, incorporated in 2003. http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2005/12/2-3
In my opinion (IANAL) after looking at the letter, I don't think, following the letter of his proposal, that the requirements have been met.
His proposal was as follows:
The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:
Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.
Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.
O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons: machetes, Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name it. Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.
O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an eye," says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2.
O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. "So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring.
With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up high-tech video arcades called GameWerks. "Game over," O.K. laughs.
Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You should have checked kids' IDs!"
O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.
How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got the tech. It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.
Here is what was made:
Mild mannered Christian attorney by day, Jack Thompson moonlights as Banman, a homicidal hero who cuts through immorality and beauracratic laws with an automatic rifle. Utilizing his Schwarzenegger sized personal arsenal and his trusty Bannedwagon, Banman fights the evil videogame industry's dirty tactics. From destroying trucks to make sure the children are kept safe from violent games, to fighting off an armed rebellion of lesbians, feminists, and female golfers led by General Janet Reno, Banman puts it all on the line to protect the homeland.
Jack Thompson meanwhile sets himself hard to work at protecting the youth through the power of the lawsuit, finally going after those evil Super Mario Bros. B
"I guess I'm not impressed with the lack of consistency displayed in slashbot logic."
Maybe your mistake is attributing to one monolithic whole (the "slashbot" crowd) the opinions of individuals. Maybe some people do have contradictory beliefs for when it suits their aims, but just as likely it is different people saying contradictory things.
Yes the controllers seem to have a pretty exciting design. Wireless by default (though you can plug in a charging USB cable to the Xbox to make them wired is the rumor). Have a gem in the middle that shows 1-4 to show what controller number you are since they're wireless. Headphone jack on the bottom. Press the gem down to get access to Live or something like that. Seem pretty cool.
Yes just like jokes about being engulfed by a tidalwave of work were particularly tasteful right after the Asian tsunami, and jokes about terrorism went over real well in the US after 9/11.
Is it just me or would it be really amazing if they released a phone with essentially an iPod mini integrated into it? That's all the convergence device I would need really. Seriously, why hasn't anyone released in the US either a phone or a PDA with a built in HD? The iPod mini shows the hard drive can be pretty damn small.
With an iPod mini integrated into a phone, you could get phone call making, mp3 playing, and basic PDA functionality all in one. Basically all I need from a mobile device. And you could wrap it all up with a super slick scroll wheel rotary dial interface. Maybe not as easy to use for making number dials as a regular phone, but easy enough, considering I almost never dial in a number manually and 90% of my phone calls go to people I already know. And man that sure would be futuristic retro cool.
Too bad it's pretty apparent the real device isn't going to be anything like this. I sure think this would be sweet...
Halo is like an iPod, everything just fits
on
Halo 2 Reviews
·
· Score: 0, Troll
You guys bashing Halo with your know-it-all snobbery remind me of how a certain demographic on/. bashes the iPod everytime there's a story on an mp3 player, saying the iPod is overpriced and lacks key features.
You guys just don't get it. You're part of the 5% minority that obsess about stuff normal people just don't give a damn about, but you strut around on Slashdot like your champions of reason. Maybe you think it sucks for estoeric reason X. Or maybe more truthfully you think it sucks out of elitist snobbery. But maybe, just maybe, when everyone else loves something, and you think it sucks, it reflects just as much on you as on the thing.
I just can't escape the feeling that if the name of the company involved was anything besides Apple, 99% of the community here would be decrying their anticompetitive behavior. Would you be the saying the same thing if it was Apple adding iTunes compatibility to Sony's ATRAC only proprietary Netwalkman?
Someone's the bad guy here but it sure doesn't feel like Real for giving consumers more choice on their legally purchased hardware. Or did I miss the part where restricting how we could use our own hardware became "cool". That'd certainly be thinking differently.
If anyone wants to check out the speed runs, start with the Silent Cartographer. That one is a masterful speed run, full of interesting tricks and creativity. If you want to see another one, see Assault on the Control Room, that one has some pretty good tricks too, including one doozy. The rest I wouldn't really bother with, I didn't think they were worth the time. Basically they read just like normal play throughs, with nothing in particular interesting about them.
Funny how it is, but the long (maybe tedious) levels of Halo make for some long (maybe tedious) speed runs as well, as they get bogged down slogging through room after room of enemies.
That's an interesting point, something I hadn't considered.
Now some other guy jumping all over me for speaking ill of an Apple product pointed out that there are wireless audio streamers that are out, like some product from Jensen. Now those aren't all digital, like the AX is, nor do they use my existing wifi instructure, but presumably those are fast enough for use with video? Does the use of wifi instead of some proprietary system really add so much overahead as that the delay would be unworkable you think?
Are you guys kidding me!?! Someone responds to my post by demonstrating they completely failed to read my post. They point out that iTunes can run on Windows, when this is a fact that I acknowledged in my original post. I respond by highlighting exactly where I acknowledged this in my original post, and I'm the flamebait and they're the informative? Are you guys joking?
We have a device here that is capable of streaming audio to speakers wirelessly. The first questions that come to my mind are: Can it stream my music? Yes, with a caveat. Can it stream my music with any software besides iTunes? No. Can it stream my sound from movies using QuickTime? No. Can it stream my sound from movies or DVDs using any software? No. Can it stream my system sounds? No.
I think these are pretty fair questions to ask of a device that allows wireless streaming of audio, and that it's pretty fair to wonder why so many of the answers are in the negative, when the hardware is clearly there.
Now, without question, this is a nice device, and I'm not meaning to anger all your Apple supporters by questioning it, but with the answers to these questions as they are, the fact is that this device is of limited use to the majority of the population. It's nice that you can play your music over your hifi system, but it's of limited utility if you still need to drag out a wire everytime you want to watch a movie or listen to anything at all besides iTunes. Recognizing that this device failed to meet my needs, I asked the simple question, is there anything out there that would meet my needs? I hardly think that's unfair.
and I quote, "So I can listen to my music wirelessly, assuming I'm running either Windows or have an Apple with iTunes, and when it's time to watch a movie, or anything else, the sound reverts to my laptop's internal speakers?"
Anyone know if there is anything similar out there that can be used to send any audio, not just iTunes? I would love to have a wireless connect to my speakers, but iTunes only is a complete cop-out.
So I can listen to my music wirelessly, assuming I'm running either Windows or have an Apple with iTunes, and when it's time to watch a movie, or anything else, the sound reverts to my laptop's internal speakers? Pretty weak.
Bargainshare.com is sort of a better version of fatwallet. Deals tend to be killed by the shear volume of abusers at FW, and posters are chastized for posting deals (and trying to help their fellow man) by trolls and flamers who are simply out to spoil other peoples experiences. People at Bargainshare tend to be much friendlier, and deals that hit there first last much longer than on FW, giving you more of a chance of actually getting in on them. It's a lot more technically sophisticated, with board software that allows you to filter by criteria that are important to you.
Also, BS has a protected deal area for hot deals that would be killed if posted to the general public restricted to only positive contributors for the hardcore deal followers out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod up anonymous parent as informative, I have a friend who has the same phone and set his up similarly. It truly is amazing, I'd love to get one when my contract is up. Feels a bit like something out of science fiction how much better it is than everything else around.
I'd also mention that this phone has a 1 megapixel camera on it as well. It doesn't take the greatest pictures, but considering it adds apparently next to nothing to the bulk of the phone (it really is thin), it's one more bullet to add to things it can do.
I hate to break it to you, but the average computer user does not think of IE as, "designed to deliver ads to the user and to ensure MS lock in while firefox is designed to enhance your online experience."
The average computer user does not know what Firefox is, and thinks IE is the Internet.
Heck, I doubt even the average Linux user thinks as extremely about this as you seem to think the average computer user does.
This is actually one of my favorite Penny Arcade comics of all time, I laughed so hard the first time I saw it. And it's exactly like Jerry says, something about this strip is just so funny and stylish in a distinctly Penny Arcade sort of way.
Maybe not for enthusiasts or techies, but for the average computer user, IE7 exactly means no need to install firefox.
It takes a big improvement to make it worth someone's time to switch to a new piece of software and learn how to use it. By cutting into the difference in quality, it's simply not worth the average user's time to investigate alternative browsers. Heck, look at the present situation, where IE6 pretty much completely sucks, and still most people won't switch. Now imagine if IE7 copies all the good features from Firefox.
Now the interesting thing is, I don't think many people who deny that if somebody did this, the game would sell horribly and no one would buy it except for a few nostalgics like you.
Take a moment to think about that, and consider why you suppose that is? Is it that people no longer value funness?
It's interesting that you include Starcraft in that mix, relatively young at less than 10 years old. Interesting in that I remember hearing this same type of criticism that has become so trendy now, among aging gamers back then. Sure, they'd say, there's the occasional game that's fun like Starcraft now, but there's no match for the MULE, the Elite, the Starflights, etc.
The simple fact of the matter is, 90% of creative works are mediocre. We remember the good ones. You include Starcraft now as being from the age when gameplay still counted. Well how about Dance Dance Revolution, Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, the entire genre of MMOGs? Innovation is far from dead, but that's hardly fashionable to acknowledge.
Compounding this remembering the good ones effect is the fact that we also remember things through rose colored glasses. The fact is, we can go back and play a game like Bard's Tale, and it kinda sucks. If a game with identical gameplay were released today, even with beautiful graphics, no one would play. We only think it was better because we were more open-minded back then.
Do you remember how you felt as a kid, when all the old people were saying how things aren't as good now as they were when they were growing up? You are the old person now.
This is a sentiment I hear a lot among PC FPS enthusiasts. As a former PC FPS player turned console FPS player, I'd say the big difference in mindset that most PC FPS players can't wrap their mind around is what does "far superior control" mean? Is being able to aim more accurately superior? Because the simple fact of the matter is that by this metric, the mouse and keyboard combo is a "far superior control" to holding a rifle in your hand and firing it, and something is distinctly perverse about that.
If a new controller came out where you could just think where on the screen you wanna shoot, and you would hit it with 100% accuracy would it make the game more fun? Under most PC FPS enthusiast's line of thinking this is better control, yet I think it's obvious to most people the game wouldn't be much fun anymore at that point.
Frankly, anything that reduces the amount of people jumping around wildly while firing sniper rifles in mid-air with pinpoint accuracy I consider a good thing, and so I'm quite pleased by the lower accuracy of console controllers over the mouse and keyboard. With console controllers, you can be fast, or you can be accurate, but it's very hard to be both. Y'know, sort of like with a real gun.
It's pretty weird that there's another charity that does almost exactly the same thing as Child's Play. In fact I can't really see any difference other than the fact that Child's Play has the publicity associated with Penny-Arcade.
I first read about this other one because Microsoft made some sort of a large donation to it recently. Apparently it's been in operation since 2001 however, incorporated in 2003.
http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2005/12/2-3
His proposal was as follows:
Here is what was made:
"I guess I'm not impressed with the lack of consistency displayed in slashbot logic."
Maybe your mistake is attributing to one monolithic whole (the "slashbot" crowd) the opinions of individuals. Maybe some people do have contradictory beliefs for when it suits their aims, but just as likely it is different people saying contradictory things.
Yes the controllers seem to have a pretty exciting design. Wireless by default (though you can plug in a charging USB cable to the Xbox to make them wired is the rumor). Have a gem in the middle that shows 1-4 to show what controller number you are since they're wireless. Headphone jack on the bottom. Press the gem down to get access to Live or something like that. Seem pretty cool.
Yes just like jokes about being engulfed by a tidalwave of work were particularly tasteful right after the Asian tsunami, and jokes about terrorism went over real well in the US after 9/11.
Is it just me or would it be really amazing if they released a phone with essentially an iPod mini integrated into it? That's all the convergence device I would need really. Seriously, why hasn't anyone released in the US either a phone or a PDA with a built in HD? The iPod mini shows the hard drive can be pretty damn small.
With an iPod mini integrated into a phone, you could get phone call making, mp3 playing, and basic PDA functionality all in one. Basically all I need from a mobile device. And you could wrap it all up with a super slick scroll wheel rotary dial interface. Maybe not as easy to use for making number dials as a regular phone, but easy enough, considering I almost never dial in a number manually and 90% of my phone calls go to people I already know. And man that sure would be futuristic retro cool.
Too bad it's pretty apparent the real device isn't going to be anything like this. I sure think this would be sweet...
You guys bashing Halo with your know-it-all snobbery remind me of how a certain demographic on /. bashes the iPod everytime there's a story on an mp3 player, saying the iPod is overpriced and lacks key features.
You guys just don't get it. You're part of the 5% minority that obsess about stuff normal people just don't give a damn about, but you strut around on Slashdot like your champions of reason. Maybe you think it sucks for estoeric reason X. Or maybe more truthfully you think it sucks out of elitist snobbery. But maybe, just maybe, when everyone else loves something, and you think it sucks, it reflects just as much on you as on the thing.
I just can't escape the feeling that if the name of the company involved was anything besides Apple, 99% of the community here would be decrying their anticompetitive behavior. Would you be the saying the same thing if it was Apple adding iTunes compatibility to Sony's ATRAC only proprietary Netwalkman?
Someone's the bad guy here but it sure doesn't feel like Real for giving consumers more choice on their legally purchased hardware. Or did I miss the part where restricting how we could use our own hardware became "cool". That'd certainly be thinking differently.
If anyone wants to check out the speed runs, start with the Silent Cartographer. That one is a masterful speed run, full of interesting tricks and creativity. If you want to see another one, see Assault on the Control Room, that one has some pretty good tricks too, including one doozy. The rest I wouldn't really bother with, I didn't think they were worth the time. Basically they read just like normal play throughs, with nothing in particular interesting about them.
Funny how it is, but the long (maybe tedious) levels of Halo make for some long (maybe tedious) speed runs as well, as they get bogged down slogging through room after room of enemies.
That's an interesting point, something I hadn't considered.
Now some other guy jumping all over me for speaking ill of an Apple product pointed out that there are wireless audio streamers that are out, like some product from Jensen. Now those aren't all digital, like the AX is, nor do they use my existing wifi instructure, but presumably those are fast enough for use with video? Does the use of wifi instead of some proprietary system really add so much overahead as that the delay would be unworkable you think?
Are you guys kidding me!?! Someone responds to my post by demonstrating they completely failed to read my post. They point out that iTunes can run on Windows, when this is a fact that I acknowledged in my original post. I respond by highlighting exactly where I acknowledged this in my original post, and I'm the flamebait and they're the informative? Are you guys joking?
I hardly think my criticism is unreasonable.
We have a device here that is capable of streaming audio to speakers wirelessly. The first questions that come to my mind are:
Can it stream my music? Yes, with a caveat.
Can it stream my music with any software besides iTunes? No.
Can it stream my sound from movies using QuickTime? No.
Can it stream my sound from movies or DVDs using any software? No.
Can it stream my system sounds? No.
I think these are pretty fair questions to ask of a device that allows wireless streaming of audio, and that it's pretty fair to wonder why so many of the answers are in the negative, when the hardware is clearly there.
Now, without question, this is a nice device, and I'm not meaning to anger all your Apple supporters by questioning it, but with the answers to these questions as they are, the fact is that this device is of limited use to the majority of the population. It's nice that you can play your music over your hifi system, but it's of limited utility if you still need to drag out a wire everytime you want to watch a movie or listen to anything at all besides iTunes. Recognizing that this device failed to meet my needs, I asked the simple question, is there anything out there that would meet my needs? I hardly think that's unfair.
and I quote, "So I can listen to my music wirelessly, assuming I'm running either Windows or have an Apple with iTunes, and when it's time to watch a movie, or anything else, the sound reverts to my laptop's internal speakers?"
Anyone know if there is anything similar out there that can be used to send any audio, not just iTunes? I would love to have a wireless connect to my speakers, but iTunes only is a complete cop-out.
So I can listen to my music wirelessly, assuming I'm running either Windows or have an Apple with iTunes, and when it's time to watch a movie, or anything else, the sound reverts to my laptop's internal speakers? Pretty weak.
Funny, the T226 gets high marks on Howard Chui for its reception.
That's great except that it's not Barney, that's Dino from Flintstones.
Bargainshare.com is sort of a better version of fatwallet. Deals tend to be killed by the shear volume of abusers at FW, and posters are chastized for posting deals (and trying to help their fellow man) by trolls and flamers who are simply out to spoil other peoples experiences. People at Bargainshare tend to be much friendlier, and deals that hit there first last much longer than on FW, giving you more of a chance of actually getting in on them. It's a lot more technically sophisticated, with board software that allows you to filter by criteria that are important to you.
Also, BS has a protected deal area for hot deals that would be killed if posted to the general public restricted to only positive contributors for the hardcore deal followers out there.
Anyone able to find a link to the word file? I'd like to see this for myself in its entirety. I did a quick search on Google and didn't turn it up.