Note how the genres that are dying are ones not making MONEY!
It's not about how much people are playing, its about how mcuh people are selling.
Which is quite sad because the word "dying" is a misnomer here, if we rate how much something is dying by how much people are forking out for it. I fork out exactly $0s for playing games on iWon.
This is what happens when you attempt to present an article as having ever so slight the amount of authority to it, but then not have enough people realize its so completely full of crap. I don't just want to comment on badly written articles like this, I want to be able to write to the author and publisher and say "your article sucks, it meets no minimum level of journalism and should be pulled, deleted, and eaten." Just once I want someone to write back "you are absolutely right, we'll do that right now!"
Call it theft or whatever, but I think that the everyday 40+ hour a week employee has voiced its opposition to the practices of the recording industry that takes money away from the working class to support the lifestyle of the artists.
Just as a side note (not a criticism) but its often pointed out that these practices do not in fact support most artists. These practices are designed to support the recording labels ONLY and for all but the biggest song stars, often screw the artist. I'll leave it to the imagination of those searching article history to find the examples that people have referenced.
Neither is the dual particle-wave theory of light. Hell in a decently designed TV one should never need to know it in order to repair it;)
(apologies to the physicists if I got the name of the theory wrong)
But the more you know the better you can work in the world. Its like the stereo type of being the worlds top scientist but not having the basic knowledge to match colors in the morning or cook their own breakfast.
I'm not talking about specific computer concepts, I'm talking about the ability to learn period. Some people have the ability to learn some things, and can't learn others, because of the way their mind is structured. Others absorb all information and process it in a very logical manner because their brain is highly critical, analytical and logical.
And it impresses me to be good at more than one thing at one time more than being the best at only one thing and lousy at others.
People like to discount other people as stupid if they don't know one thing. While on one hand this guy worked hard on his PhD, On the other hand, your job is pretty invaluable too, because the damn hard drive needs defragging and if he can't do it...
My mother is a massage therapist and has most of the muscles in the body memorized and has an excellent grasp of physiology, but she can't remember how to create an Alias or find a document on her Mac to save her life. Its not just a knowledge thing, I tell her several times and she just doesn't get it. And its a Mac! Good god I'm glad I don't try this in Linux or Windows!
I don't fault this PhD guy for not knowing how to defrag a hard drive, but I don't necessarily think its all that impressive that he has a PhD and does NOT know how to defrag a hard drive!!!
I'm shocked that there are so many in slashdot community who will, on one side, complain that IT departments in private corporations don't mandate that they consider open source products because the IT managers believe, based on false stereotypes and laziness of mind, that MS only is the way to go.
Now those slashdotters are complaining about a law who's sole purpose is to fight that mindset?
Of course this is politics, but its good politics. People who are hired in government IT departments are humans too and suffer from the same conceptions (or misconceptions if you will). Instead of shareholders who ask the CEO to make directives, lawmakers make directives of its subsidiary departments to make sure they fulfill certain goals.
Frankly, I think someone got the idea that Open source might save the taxpayers and the state money and that they are simply asking IT departments to make an effort to look at open source solutions rather than be lazy. Imagine that!
Sounds like exactly what happened with the Diablo 2 expansion. The biggest complaints were all the problems with balance and design and lots of people, were about making portions of this or that just right so certain skills would be useful.
What you ended up with were two expansion classes where entire skills were completely useless, items that were completely imbalanced (both over and underpowered) and completely redesigned skills which time and time again were nerfed because they were imbalanced and allowed one or two classes to dominate.
I see the same thing happening to the warcraft series if they insist on trying to bring more RPG elements to WC. It was pretty safe for a time because it was just a RTS game and the only thing that mattered was the here and now of the game, not what level your character was and what powers he/she had.
The motion picture industry, for one, doesn't respect animated pictures above being cute for kids.
They gave the nod to Beauty and the Beast one year for various reasons, but the industry on the whole didn't like this. My personal opinion was that because there are now more competing art houses for animated films now (Dreamworks and Nickelodeon studios are actually giving Disney a run for their money, and Pixar producing most of Disney's quality anyway) that this animated category was an industry move to satisfy the egos of people who only produce animated films so they can say they made good quality. This might help animated films slightly, because Disney will at least make some small effort to bring one art house animated feature to america a year to try to win this, but for the most part animated films are about getting kids into the movies and separating their parents from their money.
As another replier has already mentioned, Literacy rates are higher in Japan. Read all the replies and you'll see why this is an example of another poster talking out of their ass. Did you even read the article?
Think about this. Notice how all these old Marvel superheros are getting a resurgence in popularity because Stan Lee is helping to bring them to the big screen in an medium that American's often dominate, the blockbuster movie.
Lazy americans who can't read well won't pick up something they have to spend time reading and thinking about, but if all they have to do is sit for two hours and watch a bunch of explosions and martial arts, they'll be very happy.
Unfortunately you don't understand the technical aspects of what it takes to run filesharing channels.
1) each person logged into the room takes up bandwidth on the irc server. 2) Each broadcast to the channel saying "I'm a fileswapper trade with me" requires bandwidth. 3) Now multiply this many times due to the fact that the "person" logged in is actually a bot thats designed to do all of this automatically and can keep doing this indefinitely for weeks.
A single person chatting does not take up as much bandwidth as a bot being a bot, but a bot that is on 24/7 saying the same thing over and over takes up more daily bandwidth than all but the most hardened IRC chatters.
Some irc servers actively drop people who "idle" on channels all day as well so that they don't waste bandwidth even though they don't want to be disconnected.
what a moron everyone reading slashdot knows that, its fucking obvious u fucking idiot
If its so obvious then why did the originator of this line of discussion think otherwise?
Sometimes Common sense isn't so common, like the common sense to read the entire threat before criticizing a comment which was moderated up because someone quite obviously did not know this, no matter how obvious we think this is.
Try not to soak yourself in Napalm before flaming someone else.
You are absolutely right, its amazing how hard people work if you let them keep the proceeds. Its amazing to me however that one would tax someone at $10,000 a year at the same rate as someone who makes $500,000 a year. If I take $100,000 from the second person, they can still survive and have all the necessities. If I take $2,000 from the first person that could mean the difference between paying the rent or being out on the street.
Also note, as many people have pointed out in article after article, sales tax is a regressive tax that the rich pay less of... quite simply because they HOARD money, that's why they are rich!!
Apple creates software that allows you to mix CDs called iTunes. Then someone creates an extension which somehow allows you to share music over a network.
Someone nudges Apple and says "Hey, are you supporting a file sharing network with that iTunes stuff and that software plugin?"
"No!" Says Apple, "and if someone is using it like that its against our license, we'll go squash them. Sorry mister big RIAA rep."
Apple may have a lot of cash but there is no value to be had for any major company to be supporting a file swapping network. This is CYA.
If you want to attack people, attack the RIAA and get them to allow this kind of thing. Don't blame Apple for trying to avoid lawsuits.
Here is apples KB document on Quicktime 6.1. It includes what are new features, what's required to update, and how to update (like the last part is hard, but oh well...).
Note this update is ONLY for Macs and ONLY for Mac OS 10.1.5 or higher. The AppleCare docu contains instructions on how to update for OS 9 but I believe thats part of a template that they forgot to remove.
If you are anal and a perfectionist and like to annoy support representatives, contact them using this page. Unfortunately, they don't have direct email, probably because of all the Mac haters;)
Until Americans switch their primary power source for vehicles to something other than Oil I doubt the country will even bother with trying this approach.
Americans consume a lot of things, especially Oil. The government knows why things are the way they are, they just have a major problem reconciling our needs with the needs of the rest of the world.
Note: Emphasis added for the logically impaired masses.
Telemarketers find any way they can to get around the do not call lists. "No sir this is not an unsolicited call. You sneezed while visiting our website so this gives us the right to call you back with other offers as given in the agreement on the website."
If telemarketers can get around do not call lists in order to avoid being fined $500 (and some don't really care if they are fined or not), do you actually expect them to pay 5 cents to some guy who said it costs that much to call me with a solicitation?
Your first argument that criminals will always find ways to get guns is a logical statement of fact, but not a conclusion. I would have to agree with you here.
The conclusion you leap to that owning a gun as an average civilian is a good defense from crime is in fact flawed. At least I think its flawed. There are no good statistics that prove or disprove this, but the fact is, its not a simple logical conclusion, because neither of us have the proof to back it.
In fact, if you carried a gun in your pocket, and a criminal stuck a gun in your face on the street, that gun is going to do you very little good, because his finger and that bullet can move faster than your arm. This is why I think the argument that owning a gun is good for self defense is ridiculous.
The birth of the Sci-Fi Money Maker
on
Spielberg's Taken
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
"In conclusion, SCIFI is trading Farscape for John Edwards and in the process losing its soul. Instead of watching a particular show, I would watch "SCIFI" - I don't do that anymore, I pick and choose from a rapidly shrinking pool of shows I want to see. And the shows that do remain could be as easily shown on many other, less distinct, channels. I'm sure "The Dream Team" would do just as well on VH1. So sad to see you go SCIFI, it was fun while it lasted."
Of course it is, this is the nature of all cabel channels. They do really well in the beginning but then they just skew to their audience to get better ratings and settle into a funk of turning out crap.
Every year a cable channel is remaking itself into one thing, something that can make money. Several years ago it was The Learning Channel which no longer teaches anyone anything but is mostly melodrama about emergency rooms, police chases, and weird medical sob stories. Recently they got back to their roots by actually putting something on during prime time that educates about science or history, but I have the history channel now so pffffffft (God how I long for Connections:2).
Last year it was "The new TNN!" and their revamp around Star Trek:TNG, Baywatch, and Wrestling, from a country and western style station (If you weren't enough of a redneck to know before, it used to be the Nashville Network, now its The National Network).
This year its the Sci-Fi channel, and I'm surprised it didn't come before. What most/.ers consider real Sci Fi doesn't sell to the masses unless its action-packed. Actioned-Packed Sci fi is expensive... too expensive for TV.
John Edwards is cheap, and he pulls in ratings.
I don't see this as a death, just the natural order of that evil thing called cable.
If I want sci-fi, I'll tape Adult swim on Saturday night on Cartoon Network (mmmmmmmmm Cowboy Bebop *incessant drooling*)
No, its not because Microsoft can buy high priced lawyers.
A report I have not seen on slashdot lately, and unfortunately I cannot confirm, is that Microsoft was eyeing major Real Estate in Canada around the time the White house and Attorney General's office was making the transistion to Bush/Ashcroft.
This action would have scared the shit out of the Clinton admininstration, even if they didn't act on it. The current administration probably felt it wasn't worth it to try to completely kill Microsoft and lose billions in tax dollars. They also probably saw that $40 billion war chest and said "Crap, that's enough money to move them out of the country, and we won't see any taxes on it."
If anyone has anything that could confirm this I would appreciate replies added (and a mod up to show them to everyone;))
Why do all games revolve around A physics engine?
on
The Future of PC Gaming
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
All the "future of gaming" articles I'm constantly seeing are about improving the physics models in games and creating more realistic graphics and actions?
Civilization 3 is an extremely popular game with no physics or highly advanced graphics engine, just some nice animated units that entertain you while your conquering Egyptians.
Heroes of Might and Magic is also a very popular game that also does not require physics, and barely has any animation.
Diablo 2 is unimaginably popular and their physics consists model consists of pushing you in the opposite direction when you get "knocked back" and all the characters/monsters die in roughly the same way with similar animations.
I'm not sure about Warcraft 3 but I can't imagine it requires a sophisticated engine that makes the goblins blow up in just the right way.
This is self-serving tripe about first person shooters. There are dozens of genres out there that don't require physics engines to make their games the absolute best. Hell I just want a game that doesn't crash or contain so many damn gameplay bugs; can we have an article about the future of better QA processes please?
Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a tongue in cheek satire about the ruling class itself. However, despite his intentions, the ruling class completely missed the point and saw the book as a "guide." Today it's still good reading as both a Satire and guide at the same time.
Frankly, the logic here is not bad, at least in my experience, except the conclusion is badly worded.
Please note that you only have statistics on people who CALLED. Your statements blanketly label all Mac users.
I would say of the Mac users that called, if they were idiots, its because nothing could help them. There's always a percentage of the population that would never get anything electronic if they tried for years.
However, on the PC side, you'd probably get more PC users who have some knowledge because the problems are weird, esoteric, obnoxious bug that was difficult to troubleshoot.
The mac users who know enough about their computer, never called, because the problem was easier to troubleshoot on a mac.
Mac users are far more likelier to know their systems, troubleshoot their own system, buy software, etc etc, than PC users. You have to be careful not to ignore the statistics you aren't directly exposed to.
I'm constantly reminded of how geektoy oriented people on this site are when it comes to palm tops.
People are constantly bitching about wanting innovation here.
Has anyone stopped to think that perhaps the marketshare is NOT in innovation?
1) The palm market was saturated a long time ago. Its mostly a subset of current computer owners so the market space is smaller than in most computing circles. 2) Most people, especially business types, which have a huge share of the palm market now, like palms and visors for one single reason, they WORK. They are electronic organizers! That's what they are ment for. Keep your schedule and tasks and phone numbers handy and have something to beep at you so you don't miss an appointment. Why do you think that they still sell those little credit card sized appointment reminders that look like calculators? Because sometimes thats all people want. Palm, Sony, and handspring aren't making any money on a Palm top that can play MP3s, has huge room for expandability and can make a double latte. 3) The current innovation is the direction no geek really cares about. Most/.ers care about toying with, programming, configuring, and otherwise hacking a new device. Palms and Visors don't do that. You have some expandability with them, incorporating new programs which could be quite useful, but all the programs I see lately are either ment as distractions in the airport (little arcade games) or productivity enhancers. Again, what the buyers of these devices want.
Therefore, you have companies like Palm/Handspring/Sony creating things for business or highly practical gadgets (cell/PDA combos) and not "innovating" as much as/.ers want, who aren't their target market, and MS at the top end selling gadgets twice as expensive in order to invade a market place... and you know how innovative they are.
My only suggestion is if you want to innovate, you are a/.er after all, do it yourself;)
Slashdot Mirror
Note how the genres that are dying are ones not making MONEY!
It's not about how much people are playing, its about how mcuh people are selling.
Which is quite sad because the word "dying" is a misnomer here, if we rate how much something is dying by how much people are forking out for it. I fork out exactly $0s for playing games on iWon.
This is what happens when you attempt to present an article as having ever so slight the amount of authority to it, but then not have enough people realize its so completely full of crap. I don't just want to comment on badly written articles like this, I want to be able to write to the author and publisher and say "your article sucks, it meets no minimum level of journalism and should be pulled, deleted, and eaten." Just once I want someone to write back "you are absolutely right, we'll do that right now!"
Call it theft or whatever, but I think that the everyday 40+ hour a week employee has voiced its opposition to the practices of the recording industry that takes money away from the working class to support the lifestyle of the artists.
Just as a side note (not a criticism) but its often pointed out that these practices do not in fact support most artists. These practices are designed to support the recording labels ONLY and for all but the biggest song stars, often screw the artist. I'll leave it to the imagination of those searching article history to find the examples that people have referenced.
Defragging a HD is not an obvious concept.
;)
Neither is the dual particle-wave theory of light. Hell in a decently designed TV one should never need to know it in order to repair it
(apologies to the physicists if I got the name of the theory wrong)
But the more you know the better you can work in the world. Its like the stereo type of being the worlds top scientist but not having the basic knowledge to match colors in the morning or cook their own breakfast.
I'm not talking about specific computer concepts, I'm talking about the ability to learn period. Some people have the ability to learn some things, and can't learn others, because of the way their mind is structured. Others absorb all information and process it in a very logical manner because their brain is highly critical, analytical and logical.
And it impresses me to be good at more than one thing at one time more than being the best at only one thing and lousy at others.
People like to discount other people as stupid if they don't know one thing. While on one hand this guy worked hard on his PhD, On the other hand, your job is pretty invaluable too, because the damn hard drive needs defragging and if he can't do it...
My mother is a massage therapist and has most of the muscles in the body memorized and has an excellent grasp of physiology, but she can't remember how to create an Alias or find a document on her Mac to save her life. Its not just a knowledge thing, I tell her several times and she just doesn't get it. And its a Mac! Good god I'm glad I don't try this in Linux or Windows!
I don't fault this PhD guy for not knowing how to defrag a hard drive, but I don't necessarily think its all that impressive that he has a PhD and does NOT know how to defrag a hard drive!!!
I'm shocked that there are so many in slashdot community who will, on one side, complain that IT departments in private corporations don't mandate that they consider open source products because the IT managers believe, based on false stereotypes and laziness of mind, that MS only is the way to go.
Now those slashdotters are complaining about a law who's sole purpose is to fight that mindset?
Of course this is politics, but its good politics. People who are hired in government IT departments are humans too and suffer from the same conceptions (or misconceptions if you will). Instead of shareholders who ask the CEO to make directives, lawmakers make directives of its subsidiary departments to make sure they fulfill certain goals.
Frankly, I think someone got the idea that Open source might save the taxpayers and the state money and that they are simply asking IT departments to make an effort to look at open source solutions rather than be lazy. Imagine that!
Sounds like exactly what happened with the Diablo 2 expansion. The biggest complaints were all the problems with balance and design and lots of people, were about making portions of this or that just right so certain skills would be useful.
What you ended up with were two expansion classes where entire skills were completely useless, items that were completely imbalanced (both over and underpowered) and completely redesigned skills which time and time again were nerfed because they were imbalanced and allowed one or two classes to dominate.
I see the same thing happening to the warcraft series if they insist on trying to bring more RPG elements to WC. It was pretty safe for a time because it was just a RTS game and the only thing that mattered was the here and now of the game, not what level your character was and what powers he/she had.
The motion picture industry, for one, doesn't respect animated pictures above being cute for kids.
They gave the nod to Beauty and the Beast one year for various reasons, but the industry on the whole didn't like this. My personal opinion was that because there are now more competing art houses for animated films now (Dreamworks and Nickelodeon studios are actually giving Disney a run for their money, and Pixar producing most of Disney's quality anyway) that this animated category was an industry move to satisfy the egos of people who only produce animated films so they can say they made good quality. This might help animated films slightly, because Disney will at least make some small effort to bring one art house animated feature to america a year to try to win this, but for the most part animated films are about getting kids into the movies and separating their parents from their money.
As another replier has already mentioned, Literacy rates are higher in Japan. Read all the replies and you'll see why this is an example of another poster talking out of their ass. Did you even read the article?
Think about this. Notice how all these old Marvel superheros are getting a resurgence in popularity because Stan Lee is helping to bring them to the big screen in an medium that American's often dominate, the blockbuster movie.
Lazy americans who can't read well won't pick up something they have to spend time reading and thinking about, but if all they have to do is sit for two hours and watch a bunch of explosions and martial arts, they'll be very happy.
Unfortunately you don't understand the technical aspects of what it takes to run filesharing channels.
1) each person logged into the room takes up bandwidth on the irc server.
2) Each broadcast to the channel saying "I'm a fileswapper trade with me" requires bandwidth.
3) Now multiply this many times due to the fact that the "person" logged in is actually a bot thats designed to do all of this automatically and can keep doing this indefinitely for weeks.
A single person chatting does not take up as much bandwidth as a bot being a bot, but a bot that is on 24/7 saying the same thing over and over takes up more daily bandwidth than all but the most hardened IRC chatters.
Some irc servers actively drop people who "idle" on channels all day as well so that they don't waste bandwidth even though they don't want to be disconnected.
what a moron everyone reading slashdot knows that, its fucking obvious u fucking idiot
If its so obvious then why did the originator of this line of discussion think otherwise?
Sometimes Common sense isn't so common, like the common sense to read the entire threat before criticizing a comment which was moderated up because someone quite obviously did not know this, no matter how obvious we think this is.
Try not to soak yourself in Napalm before flaming someone else.
You are absolutely right, its amazing how hard people work if you let them keep the proceeds. Its amazing to me however that one would tax someone at $10,000 a year at the same rate as someone who makes $500,000 a year. If I take $100,000 from the second person, they can still survive and have all the necessities. If I take $2,000 from the first person that could mean the difference between paying the rent or being out on the street.
Also note, as many people have pointed out in article after article, sales tax is a regressive tax that the rich pay less of... quite simply because they HOARD money, that's why they are rich!!
Apple creates software that allows you to mix CDs called iTunes. Then someone creates an extension which somehow allows you to share music over a network.
Someone nudges Apple and says "Hey, are you supporting a file sharing network with that iTunes stuff and that software plugin?"
"No!" Says Apple, "and if someone is using it like that its against our license, we'll go squash them. Sorry mister big RIAA rep."
Apple may have a lot of cash but there is no value to be had for any major company to be supporting a file swapping network. This is CYA.
If you want to attack people, attack the RIAA and get them to allow this kind of thing. Don't blame Apple for trying to avoid lawsuits.
This is OT but I had to say. The following is a conversation I had with a cow-orker while showing him this article.
Me: "Hey, look they are going to sequence the DNA of a Banana."
Him: "Bananas have DNA?"
Pardon me while I cleanse the gene pool (no pun intended).
Here is apples KB document on Quicktime 6.1. It includes what are new features, what's required to update, and how to update (like the last part is hard, but oh well...).
;)
Note this update is ONLY for Macs and ONLY for Mac OS 10.1.5 or higher. The AppleCare docu contains instructions on how to update for OS 9 but I believe thats part of a template that they forgot to remove.
If you are anal and a perfectionist and like to annoy support representatives, contact them using this page. Unfortunately, they don't have direct email, probably because of all the Mac haters
Until Americans switch their primary power source for vehicles to something other than Oil I doubt the country will even bother with trying this approach.
Americans consume a lot of things, especially Oil . The government knows why things are the way they are, they just have a major problem reconciling our needs with the needs of the rest of the world.
Note: Emphasis added for the logically impaired masses.
Telemarketers find any way they can to get around the do not call lists. "No sir this is not an unsolicited call. You sneezed while visiting our website so this gives us the right to call you back with other offers as given in the agreement on the website."
If telemarketers can get around do not call lists in order to avoid being fined $500 (and some don't really care if they are fined or not), do you actually expect them to pay 5 cents to some guy who said it costs that much to call me with a solicitation?
The logic is not so simple.
Your first argument that criminals will always find ways to get guns is a logical statement of fact, but not a conclusion. I would have to agree with you here.
The conclusion you leap to that owning a gun as an average civilian is a good defense from crime is in fact flawed. At least I think its flawed. There are no good statistics that prove or disprove this, but the fact is, its not a simple logical conclusion, because neither of us have the proof to back it.
In fact, if you carried a gun in your pocket, and a criminal stuck a gun in your face on the street, that gun is going to do you very little good, because his finger and that bullet can move faster than your arm. This is why I think the argument that owning a gun is good for self defense is ridiculous.
"In conclusion, SCIFI is trading Farscape for John Edwards and in the process losing its soul. Instead of watching a particular show, I would watch "SCIFI" - I don't do that anymore, I pick and choose from a rapidly shrinking pool of shows I want to see. And the shows that do remain could be as easily shown on many other, less distinct, channels. I'm sure "The Dream Team" would do just as well on VH1. So sad to see you go SCIFI, it was fun while it lasted."
/.ers consider real Sci Fi doesn't sell to the masses unless its action-packed. Actioned-Packed Sci fi is expensive... too expensive for TV.
Of course it is, this is the nature of all cabel channels. They do really well in the beginning but then they just skew to their audience to get better ratings and settle into a funk of turning out crap.
Every year a cable channel is remaking itself into one thing, something that can make money. Several years ago it was The Learning Channel which no longer teaches anyone anything but is mostly melodrama about emergency rooms, police chases, and weird medical sob stories. Recently they got back to their roots by actually putting something on during prime time that educates about science or history, but I have the history channel now so pffffffft (God how I long for Connections:2).
Last year it was "The new TNN!" and their revamp around Star Trek:TNG, Baywatch, and Wrestling, from a country and western style station (If you weren't enough of a redneck to know before, it used to be the Nashville Network, now its The National Network).
This year its the Sci-Fi channel, and I'm surprised it didn't come before. What most
John Edwards is cheap, and he pulls in ratings.
I don't see this as a death, just the natural order of that evil thing called cable.
If I want sci-fi, I'll tape Adult swim on Saturday night on Cartoon Network (mmmmmmmmm Cowboy Bebop *incessant drooling*)
No, its not because Microsoft can buy high priced lawyers.
;))
A report I have not seen on slashdot lately, and unfortunately I cannot confirm, is that Microsoft was eyeing major Real Estate in Canada around the time the White house and Attorney General's office was making the transistion to Bush/Ashcroft.
This action would have scared the shit out of the Clinton admininstration, even if they didn't act on it. The current administration probably felt it wasn't worth it to try to completely kill Microsoft and lose billions in tax dollars. They also probably saw that $40 billion war chest and said "Crap, that's enough money to move them out of the country, and we won't see any taxes on it."
If anyone has anything that could confirm this I would appreciate replies added (and a mod up to show them to everyone
All the "future of gaming" articles I'm constantly seeing are about improving the physics models in games and creating more realistic graphics and actions?
Civilization 3 is an extremely popular game with no physics or highly advanced graphics engine, just some nice animated units that entertain you while your conquering Egyptians.
Heroes of Might and Magic is also a very popular game that also does not require physics, and barely has any animation.
Diablo 2 is unimaginably popular and their physics consists model consists of pushing you in the opposite direction when you get "knocked back" and all the characters/monsters die in roughly the same way with similar animations.
I'm not sure about Warcraft 3 but I can't imagine it requires a sophisticated engine that makes the goblins blow up in just the right way.
This is self-serving tripe about first person shooters. There are dozens of genres out there that don't require physics engines to make their games the absolute best. Hell I just want a game that doesn't crash or contain so many damn gameplay bugs; can we have an article about the future of better QA processes please?
Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a tongue in cheek satire about the ruling class itself. However, despite his intentions, the ruling class completely missed the point and saw the book as a "guide." Today it's still good reading as both a Satire and guide at the same time.
I love it when a man pretending to be a journalist runs around complaining about a superstition running around pretending to be a law of physics.
You're behind the times, we have a more advanced method nowadays which saves information daily. Its called a Web Log.
Frankly, the logic here is not bad, at least in my experience, except the conclusion is badly worded.
Please note that you only have statistics on people who CALLED. Your statements blanketly label all Mac users.
I would say of the Mac users that called, if they were idiots, its because nothing could help them. There's always a percentage of the population that would never get anything electronic if they tried for years.
However, on the PC side, you'd probably get more PC users who have some knowledge because the problems are weird, esoteric, obnoxious bug that was difficult to troubleshoot.
The mac users who know enough about their computer, never called, because the problem was easier to troubleshoot on a mac.
Mac users are far more likelier to know their systems, troubleshoot their own system, buy software, etc etc, than PC users. You have to be careful not to ignore the statistics you aren't directly exposed to.
I'm constantly reminded of how geektoy oriented people on this site are when it comes to palm tops.
/.ers care about toying with, programming, configuring, and otherwise hacking a new device. Palms and Visors don't do that. You have some expandability with them, incorporating new programs which could be quite useful, but all the programs I see lately are either ment as distractions in the airport (little arcade games) or productivity enhancers. Again, what the buyers of these devices want.
/.ers want, who aren't their target market, and MS at the top end selling gadgets twice as expensive in order to invade a market place... and you know how innovative they are.
/.er after all, do it yourself ;)
People are constantly bitching about wanting innovation here.
Has anyone stopped to think that perhaps the marketshare is NOT in innovation?
1) The palm market was saturated a long time ago. Its mostly a subset of current computer owners so the market space is smaller than in most computing circles.
2) Most people, especially business types, which have a huge share of the palm market now, like palms and visors for one single reason, they WORK. They are electronic organizers! That's what they are ment for. Keep your schedule and tasks and phone numbers handy and have something to beep at you so you don't miss an appointment. Why do you think that they still sell those little credit card sized appointment reminders that look like calculators? Because sometimes thats all people want. Palm, Sony, and handspring aren't making any money on a Palm top that can play MP3s, has huge room for expandability and can make a double latte.
3) The current innovation is the direction no geek really cares about. Most
Therefore, you have companies like Palm/Handspring/Sony creating things for business or highly practical gadgets (cell/PDA combos) and not "innovating" as much as
My only suggestion is if you want to innovate, you are a