And we're not crazy, it just means we have good, undamaged hearing. As other's have noted, there are many parts of a conventional tube TV that can vibrate at high frequencies, near the high end of human hearing. Most commonly it's the flyback transformer for the horizontal refresh.
Apple doesn't sell Lisa's anymore, but you can buy Amiga 1200s. They're pretty cheap. Versalia Computer in Germany has them in stock with US keyboards for about $130, and lots of accessories.
Except that those games are by and large a big load of crap. Sony has no Icons. Sony gained popularity with the PS1 by making a cheap dev-kit and a console that was easy to develop for. This resulted in an Atari 2600-style situation, with a market flooded with poorly made garbage. Except that this time the garbage was "3D!" and people bought the hook. There are some gems in the backcatalog, but here's a suspicion I have:
Nobody likes Sony, I'm betting even the publishers don't. Nintendo has probably been shopping around to the publishers, offering lots of help, and CASH (which Nintendo can do, they have quite a warchest, in the Billions) to the various companies to get them to port their back-catalog to the Revolution, or to let Nintendo do it through emulation. They probably aren't just focusing on the likes of Sega and Square; they're probably going after Konami, Nippon Ichi, Atlas, and the rest as well.
Nintendo is managing this launch very, very well. First we get basic info at E3 last year, where they let Sony and Microsoft largely toot their horn, but as Sony's and Microsoft's hype engines died down, Nintendo has been letting out a steady stream of Snippets: Backwards compatibility with all Nintendo's consoles. Which got a good round of rumbling, and I know a LOT of people who were sold on just that. Now we get the knowledge that Sega's onboard too, there will be even more people excited now. I'm betting we see a steady stream of these from on, towards the November launch.
Sony ain't got shit. PERIOD. Sony is in about neck deep right now.
Since it is looking dead certain that Nintendo will beat Sony to market, and there is at least a decent chance the Revolution is going to launch at $200, I see there being a very decent chance of many, many people making the following call "Hmmm, $200 Revolution, with Nintendo AND Sega back-catalogs! Sweet! But the PS3 has nice hardware.... hurk! $500, fuck that!! That'll be Mario and Sonic for me thanks."
They only things Sony really has are the Residient Evil Series (almost all of which have been re-released for the 'cube, making them Revolution compatible) and Final Fantasy, and I don't see anything at all stopping Square from doing an FFVII re-release on the Revolution. Nothing at all.
On a more serious note, because farming is more dependable, and causes less wear and tear on people, than hunting and gathering.
Are you even trying to be serious? If farming causes less wear on people, then why does the Archaelological record clearly show a transition from nearly 2m tall hominids built like greek gods in hunter gatherer populations, to hunched over, painfully arthritic, barely 1.4m tall farmers? Wear and tear on teeth is also clear, Hunter have, and keep much better teeth, than farmers who die toothless and in slow agony at about 40. Hunters tend to die sudden more violent deaths, but I'd argue that's vastly preferable.
Yes, yes, I'm aware of this, people with good hearing, (including myself, I'm good down below 20Hz thank you very much) can differeniate tones below 150Hz. I am not speaking from experience with MY soundsystem, I speak from data on hearing studies. (Additionally a huge portion of the population is tone deaf, otherwise they wouldn't apply equalization on their crappy sound systems, turning "Bass" up to 10 because they like the boom.) But there is a lot more information than just tone in a sound. And much of this is lost in the bass range, especially in a dynamically complex peice of music. And you completely ignored my point that surface noise on an LP is easily removed due to its regular structure.
So the issue is really, do you have more than 60dB of dynamic range in your hearing in the deep bass range? Probably not. Given that, it's better to have the 150dB of dynamic range in the above 150Hz range, with around 60dB below, than to have a constant 90dB range that CD gives. LP can contain the entire dynamic range of extremely complex peices of music, like, for example Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, with no compression(except the bass end, which is LOUD anyway) and no clipping. A Compact disc recording MUST either use compression, or clip the the loudest notes. Only DVD-A is really capable of eclipsing LP.
Eh? DAT didn't die, as a professional format. It remained THE standard digital recording format for it's entire lifetime, and its legacy lives on to this day in quite a number of popular digital recording solutions. Particularly ADAT stuff from Alesis. DAT didn't catch on in the consumer realm for the same reason as SA-CD, and DVD-A, Consumers are FUCKING TONE DEAF. Remember, these are the same people that think 128kbps MP3 is CD-quality sound.
That's why DAT didn't take off as a consumer format. Because it turns out that only audiophiles, who are a tiny percentage of the market anyway, are the only consumer group that buys higher quality music. Outside that group the only people who even give a damn are Audio Engineers working in studios, which is why studios see a steady progreesion in recording quality, as technology allows.
Please note, I'm no Sony apologist, I've seen their quarterly the numbers, they're floating a huge number of losses on their Digital Entertainment division, the PS2, and if the PS3 flops the way I think it might, they are in DEEP shit.
At the same time, I do think that the CD will gradually fade away into a niche market, where collectors appreciate good cover art, CD inserts, the box sets with their own books, etc. Listeners want the sound and probably don't place much regard to the extra material; collectors go for the art, the documents, and such that go with the discs themselves.
Except that market is already cornered by Vinyl! Even disregarding the the fact that vinyl is higher quality already[1], the collectors market you're talking about is more likely to spring for vinyl in the first place. Bigger Art, Better Extras, etc.
[1] Yes, Vinyl's actual performance is better than that of CD. If you look at actual spectra of noise performance across the human hearing range(rather than average numbers tossed around to "prove" CD's are better), you will see that CD's have a Constant noise floor of about -90dB. Vinyl, on the other hand, thoughout the majority of the range of human hearing has a noise floor of around 120dB-150dB, depending on quality of equipment, listening environment, and the quality of the pressing. Only below about 150Hz does Vinyl have a big spike in the noise floor, and in this range, humans have shitty hearing anyway. Anything below 150HZ is generally just heard as an undifferentiated BOOM, or RUMBLE. Also, because this reduced noise floor is attributable to surface noise on the recording, it is VERY structured and VERY easy to filter. Meaning that real world LP performance can easily match the performance of formats intended to replace CDs, i.e. SACD, and DVD-A
The anonymous coward who responded to this post is correct, however, in that most "downers" interact synergistically with alcohol, enormously reducing the lethal dosage. Additionally lethal dosages can also vary wildly depending on various other particulars.
Although honestly, the greater concern is really addiction. Although it is claimed that Xanax in particular has a low addiction potential, I find this dubious at best. Any drug which actually does have Anxiolytic properties is an addiction risk. Also the fact that the argument (that this NEW drug won't be addictive) has been made repeatedly by drug companies throughout history: first with heroin (as a cough suppressant, this new morphine formulation won't be addictive at all!), then with Barbiturates (Quaaludes? why no addiction risk at all! no siree!), and now with Benzodiazepines, although at least some physicians weigh this in their consideration of medications. Many of them have become jaded by the pharmaceutical industry to some extent and now weigh the options in a more systematic way, "In treating this patient, am I more concerned about the potential for physical drug dependence, or in treating extremely debilitating anxiety symptoms and a possible suicide risk?" Although the level of conscientiousness varies widely from Doctor to Doctor.
"no one has produced anything solid yet here except for microsoft, and even their launch was mediocre at best. Not only could no one buy a 360, those that did found only a few games available"
I would argue this is another area where Sony is in deep trouble. Sony has yet to produce anything like a working model of the PS3, and the word on the rumor boards is that their engineers are panicking because they have no idea how to fit everything Sony has promised into the shell that Sony's been showing under glass.
Nintendo, on the other hand hasn't promised anything so rediculous. I'm betting we see fully functional playable beta hardware of the Revolution at E3 this year, setting up for an October-November launch. While Sony will still be beating their hype drums, showing prerendered animations and a empty shell. How they're going to cram, let alone adequately cool the cell + Nvidia graphics HW + a blue diode laser optical drive + a PS2 + everything else they've promised Inside what they've shown is an utter mystery to me. I'm betting they ship a totally different, much bigger machine, and that will be a blow to them in Japan, even if Americans still refuse to disbelieve the illusion.
Nintendo actually HAS shown some of their networking capabilities... in the DS. I don't own one (yet) but everything I've read says that it's smooth and easily set up. Mario Kart DS with wireless multiplayer is supposed to be a blast. I'm an avowed Nintendo fanboy, but I maintain: Nintendo hasn't promised anything unbelievable or fantastic. They haven't promised anything I suspect they can't deliver.
In my eyes Microsoft has already failed to deliver with the 360, (in both the figurative and literal senses) and Sony's prospects don't look too good at all.
Who modded my post up? It was intended as a personal reply to correct some of the Parent poster's misconceptions. It has nothing to do with the Article and is completely off-topic! Mod me down!
Oh yeah? What might those enduring hits be exactly? The PSX Diablo port? Square has basically been the selling point for Sony for a long time now (actually always) and Square hasn't really been bringing home the bacon lately. FFVII is about the only PSX exclusive many gamers will get alll misty eyed about. Most agree FFVIII sucked, as did FFIX, FFX was ok, FFX-II kinda blah. The other stuff (Gran Turismo, I'm looking at you) can easily be outdone, and nobody really wants to play an OLD Gran Turismo, as the heart there was always the eye candy.
People might not argee with me, but I say Sony's got nothing. Does Sony have a Mario, a Samus Aran, a Zelda, a Link? Hell, they don't even have an Alex Kidd! (odds are you can't even recognize that one! He was Sega's attempt at a "Mario" before they did Sonic.)
Sony is all talk. They are hype and specs and theorical performance numbers. Someday the industry is going to wake up and notice, and then Sony is gonna be toast.
Xanax isn't an antidepressant. It's a member of the benzodiazapine class of drugs (the most common one actually). Benzodiazapines are the "drug of the day" for Anti-anxiety and also for anaesthesia in high doses. It does the same thing as barbiturates (Qualudes) and Codeine/Morphine/Heroine did in their times respectively. Your employee was probably placed on Xanax temporarily as her medical provider put her on a regime of anti-depressants (Prozac, Paxil, or something else). The Xanax is there to serve essentially as a sedative. This is common practice, especially with patients considered a suicide risk by their Doctors (As sedated people generally don't kill themselves) alhough at the same time is something of risk itself, as it is possible to commit suicide through Benzodiazapine overdose, just as it is possible with Barbiturates, or Opiates. But the medical community has weighed this risk, and generally sedates mild suicide risk patients, while those considered at high risk are generally hospitalized.
"I suppose it could be possible that claiming an underling acting on his own was responsible could be a defense, but in that case it should just result in both the manager and the underling being guilty, but splitting the sentence between them"
I would argue against this, "just following orders," didn't fly at Nuremburg, why shoud it fly here? They are both independently guilty, although perhaps the underling's act is worthy of a lesser punishment, as at Nuremburg.
I would also argue that we ARE talking about human rights issues here. I would argue that fair use, and the public domain; both of which DRM is intended to defeat, ARE human RIGHTS. They are uppercase R Rights, and not merely something granted at the mercy of government and corporate overlords. Copyright, is a lowercase r right, granted to content creators in Our (the public's) mercy, that it is being so abused and used as means to oppress us means we need to seriously rethink it. The fact that copyright scarcely benefits those for whom it was created only strengthens this claim.
Acknowledged, handholding a 1911A from the projectionist windows is a bit risky. I don't think you could rely on an average register biscuit to get headshots with a semi-automatic pistol from a good 30-40 feet away. Fear is not my intention >:) and I think hitting by-standers would be bad for business. On the other hand even a N00b ought to be able to hit with high-mag infrared scope from a secure crow's nest, with the rifle balanced on a tripod. As far as noise goes, I know the silencing won't work well, so I guess you'd just have to wait for orchestra hits to fire.:)
I am no longer a Windows User, I dumped it for a dual G5 and OS X Panther (Now Tiger). I became too fed up with Windows' insecurity and other general cruft and crap. I had tried Linux, and found I really lacked the skillset to function as I was accustomed to in a Windows environment. OS X I like, I won't say it's perfect, but it's better than anything else I've tried, and gets better every release. I haven't looked back since. Although I do get period reminders of my rationale when I'm asked to do Tech support for my friends and family (which I do, because I want to help my parents and grandparents).
I AM still a gamer. I'm just largely a retro/console gamer. I get my fix on my Gamecube, my Playstation 2, and my GBA, plus emulators on OS X. Moreover, I'm roleplayer, as in Pen&Paper.
I do vaguely keep up with the PC gaming field, and from the looks of things lately, I ain't missing bloody much. Lots more cookie-cutter shooters, lots of MMOGs, some RTS's. Not anything I haven't seen before at all. I AM keeping an eye on "Spore," however, if it delivers(!) I'll put together a machine to run it (which I will probably never plug into the internet directly at all.)
I look forward to the Nintendo Revolution, as I am an avowed Nintendo fanboy.
Yes, It has INTEL's integrated graphics solution, the new one, which while supposedly better than intel's previous efforts, still isn't close to even entry level add-on cards.
Seriously, I don't understand all of this pissing and moaning. Since Flip4mac came out, I've been able to play 99% of media files with no problem whatsoever. Although I prefer VLC for most everything and only use Quicktime player for a couple of formats. So maybe that explains my superior experience:)
Does anybody give a damn? I mean seriously, did anyone out there actually BUY a new Intel mac counting on the rumors that it MIGHT be able to run windows sometime soon? If so, why?
And does this really come as a suprise to anyone anyway? "Oh my God! Someone tries to update the x86 architecture in a meaningful way and Microsoft arrives late to the Party: Drunk, kicking, and screaming! Who knew that might happen?"
This is why Robert Heinlein made the argument, in the novel "For us the Living," that the US government ought to just give fiat money directly to the people in order to drive demand. Remember that this was written during the Great Depression.
IMO his argument is not as absurd as one might be inclined to think. He argues that there is something wrong with the way money was created (and still is) by banks simply lending money they do not have, and then having it paid back to them. In comtemporary terms we would summarize his argument by saying that money creation in western society is a supply-side economic process. Heinlein argues that this is inherently bad, and gives rise to the same problems that similar supply side policies produce. He argues that simply creating demand directly would have solved the economic issues of his day. More simply, it is not necessary to provide inducements to business, as long as you have DEMAND, the businesses will be alright anyway. He also responds to the critique that this policy would cause runaway inflation by arguing that the value of fiat money is really a measurement of the people's faith in the stability of the government. Germany in the 1920's had horrific runaway inflation because the people had no faith in the stability of the government at all. As paper money has really always been a guarantee that you will be able to procure value from the government with said paper. In the past, this meant that one could take one's paper money and redeem it for an appropriate amount of gold, silver, or other commodity. In Heinlein's society, this value was largely that one could pay taxes with it.
So playing "Link to the Past" on the SNES or GBA is the same experience as playing "Ocarina of Time" on the N64 or 'Cube?
Lets face it, as far as plot goes there just ain't that big a difference between the two (or even between the two of them and "The Legend of Zelda" for that matter). I think it's very hard to argue honestly that there isn't a difference between the two experiences.
I think it is clear that the original poster thought the difference in gameplay experience between a 2-D Earthbound, and 3-D Earthbound would have been novel and enjoyable in ways that the same way that "Ocarina of Time" was/is.
Sorry, I will freely admit that I'm not actually doing that kind of work with my Macintosh. I have but a mere 1.5GB installed in my G5 (although I probably could use an upgrade, I regularly max out my RAM when doing batch operations in Photoshop.)
However, I thought it worthwhile to point out that there are indeed people that do (The Pro Apps Users), and that for them, Intel switch is decidedly a bad thing(!); due to the horrific monstrosity that is the x86 address bus.
However, it does very much depress me that the OS X upgrade path means moving to a LESS capable architecture. I will eventually have to replace my G5 Tower, and that machine will probably be decendent of the Mac Mini, only possibly a Pro Tower, which I'm guessing will be Xeon based. Intel has really got to consider migrating their physical address space hacks down market, 32-bit Addressing just ain't cuttiing the mustard anymore.
Wow, I do need to start learning to use Graphic Converter now that I look at it, for some reason I think I thought it was still only a Classic App, and thus dismissed it since I knew Classic's days are numbered, but now I see its still under active development.
Thank you, I'm going to start reading the GraphicConverter User Guide.
I was never happy with preview as anything other than a pdf viewer, although it does do that much more nicely than anything on windows. Therefore since I got my Mac I've been franticly searching for apps to replace Irfanview functionality, Xee only appeared just a few months ago, and I was ecstatic to find it. I think it relies on a lot a CoreImage stuff for display, and as I'm checking the newest version, it's added lossless JPEG transforms. WooHOO!
That's the problem. Mac people just see, "oh, it's a media viewer, we have THAT, try preview or iPhoto!"
Unfortunately, that isn't all it does it all. It IS a media viewer (an extremely efficient, fast, and with very low memory usage). It is also an editor somewhat comparable to Photoshop Elements, or Paint Shop Pro. It is capable of doing basically all common light weight edits and transformations, and does them both very quickly and efficiently (and with selectable quality levels). I suspect there's an awful lot of hand-tuned assembly deep down in its inner sanctum.
Basically it's functional replacement for photoshop Elements AND a media viewer, but with a memory footprint of less than two-megabytes, and it therefore starts in the time required to read the executable off your HD, (i.e. instantly).
Also of note that I've been unable to find, is it contains and exceptionally well developed batch processor, better than the one in Photoshop. And you can set up sequential batch processes/batch renames while retaining original file order.
To explain what I mean, it is trivially easy if, say, you have a set of photos you've taken, your camera gives them filenames sequentially by time. Irfanview can resample and sharpen the images, give them completely sequential filenames, RETAINING the original order (which I have yet to figure out how to do in OS X). This can be done in just a few seconds.
Using it through emulation doesn't do it justice at all, its very, very fast even on ancient Windows hardware (The Viewer is almost totally I/O limited, unless your system is prehistoric). A Pentium II at 300MHz, running windows 98, runs Irfanview to edit multimegapixel images very well. I know that it doesn't touch the windows graphics api's at all to do any of this, due to posts about concerns about windows vulnerabilities, the author has said that it doesn't.
Unfortunatly other Mac people think I'm trolling when I talk about it. Luckily "Xee" on OS X is starting to equal the media viewer functionality.
But for its editing capabilities I'm forced to resort to photoshop, which is no where near as responsive or convenient.
Although maybe, (here's hoping) once WINE gets working on OSX Intel, and I actually switch back to intel (*sobs, shakes fist at fate*) by buying an intel based mac I'll be able to use it again.
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And we're not crazy, it just means we have good, undamaged hearing. As other's have noted, there are many parts of a conventional tube TV that can vibrate at high frequencies, near the high end of human hearing. Most commonly it's the flyback transformer for the horizontal refresh.
http://www.vesalia.de/
Nobody likes Sony, I'm betting even the publishers don't. Nintendo has probably been shopping around to the publishers, offering lots of help, and CASH (which Nintendo can do, they have quite a warchest, in the Billions) to the various companies to get them to port their back-catalog to the Revolution, or to let Nintendo do it through emulation. They probably aren't just focusing on the likes of Sega and Square; they're probably going after Konami, Nippon Ichi, Atlas, and the rest as well.
Nintendo is managing this launch very, very well. First we get basic info at E3 last year, where they let Sony and Microsoft largely toot their horn, but as Sony's and Microsoft's hype engines died down, Nintendo has been letting out a steady stream of Snippets: Backwards compatibility with all Nintendo's consoles. Which got a good round of rumbling, and I know a LOT of people who were sold on just that. Now we get the knowledge that Sega's onboard too, there will be even more people excited now. I'm betting we see a steady stream of these from on, towards the November launch.
Since it is looking dead certain that Nintendo will beat Sony to market, and there is at least a decent chance the Revolution is going to launch at $200, I see there being a very decent chance of many, many people making the following call "Hmmm, $200 Revolution, with Nintendo AND Sega back-catalogs! Sweet! But the PS3 has nice hardware.... hurk! $500, fuck that!! That'll be Mario and Sonic for me thanks."
They only things Sony really has are the Residient Evil Series (almost all of which have been re-released for the 'cube, making them Revolution compatible) and Final Fantasy, and I don't see anything at all stopping Square from doing an FFVII re-release on the Revolution. Nothing at all.
Are you even trying to be serious? If farming causes less wear on people, then why does the Archaelological record clearly show a transition from nearly 2m tall hominids built like greek gods in hunter gatherer populations, to hunched over, painfully arthritic, barely 1.4m tall farmers? Wear and tear on teeth is also clear, Hunter have, and keep much better teeth, than farmers who die toothless and in slow agony at about 40. Hunters tend to die sudden more violent deaths, but I'd argue that's vastly preferable.
So the issue is really, do you have more than 60dB of dynamic range in your hearing in the deep bass range? Probably not. Given that, it's better to have the 150dB of dynamic range in the above 150Hz range, with around 60dB below, than to have a constant 90dB range that CD gives. LP can contain the entire dynamic range of extremely complex peices of music, like, for example Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, with no compression(except the bass end, which is LOUD anyway) and no clipping. A Compact disc recording MUST either use compression, or clip the the loudest notes. Only DVD-A is really capable of eclipsing LP.
That's why DAT didn't take off as a consumer format. Because it turns out that only audiophiles, who are a tiny percentage of the market anyway, are the only consumer group that buys higher quality music. Outside that group the only people who even give a damn are Audio Engineers working in studios, which is why studios see a steady progreesion in recording quality, as technology allows.
Please note, I'm no Sony apologist, I've seen their quarterly the numbers, they're floating a huge number of losses on their Digital Entertainment division, the PS2, and if the PS3 flops the way I think it might, they are in DEEP shit.
Except that market is already cornered by Vinyl! Even disregarding the the fact that vinyl is higher quality already[1], the collectors market you're talking about is more likely to spring for vinyl in the first place. Bigger Art, Better Extras, etc.
[1] Yes, Vinyl's actual performance is better than that of CD. If you look at actual spectra of noise performance across the human hearing range(rather than average numbers tossed around to "prove" CD's are better), you will see that CD's have a Constant noise floor of about -90dB. Vinyl, on the other hand, thoughout the majority of the range of human hearing has a noise floor of around 120dB-150dB, depending on quality of equipment, listening environment, and the quality of the pressing. Only below about 150Hz does Vinyl have a big spike in the noise floor, and in this range, humans have shitty hearing anyway. Anything below 150HZ is generally just heard as an undifferentiated BOOM, or RUMBLE. Also, because this reduced noise floor is attributable to surface noise on the recording, it is VERY structured and VERY easy to filter. Meaning that real world LP performance can easily match the performance of formats intended to replace CDs, i.e. SACD, and DVD-A
Although honestly, the greater concern is really addiction. Although it is claimed that Xanax in particular has a low addiction potential, I find this dubious at best. Any drug which actually does have Anxiolytic properties is an addiction risk. Also the fact that the argument (that this NEW drug won't be addictive) has been made repeatedly by drug companies throughout history: first with heroin (as a cough suppressant, this new morphine formulation won't be addictive at all!), then with Barbiturates (Quaaludes? why no addiction risk at all! no siree!), and now with Benzodiazepines, although at least some physicians weigh this in their consideration of medications. Many of them have become jaded by the pharmaceutical industry to some extent and now weigh the options in a more systematic way, "In treating this patient, am I more concerned about the potential for physical drug dependence, or in treating extremely debilitating anxiety symptoms and a possible suicide risk?" Although the level of conscientiousness varies widely from Doctor to Doctor.
"no one has produced anything solid yet here except for microsoft, and even their launch was mediocre at best. Not only could no one buy a 360, those that did found only a few games available"
I would argue this is another area where Sony is in deep trouble. Sony has yet to produce anything like a working model of the PS3, and the word on the rumor boards is that their engineers are panicking because they have no idea how to fit everything Sony has promised into the shell that Sony's been showing under glass.
Nintendo, on the other hand hasn't promised anything so rediculous. I'm betting we see fully functional playable beta hardware of the Revolution at E3 this year, setting up for an October-November launch. While Sony will still be beating their hype drums, showing prerendered animations and a empty shell. How they're going to cram, let alone adequately cool the cell + Nvidia graphics HW + a blue diode laser optical drive + a PS2 + everything else they've promised Inside what they've shown is an utter mystery to me. I'm betting they ship a totally different, much bigger machine, and that will be a blow to them in Japan, even if Americans still refuse to disbelieve the illusion.
Nintendo actually HAS shown some of their networking capabilities... in the DS. I don't own one (yet) but everything I've read says that it's smooth and easily set up. Mario Kart DS with wireless multiplayer is supposed to be a blast. I'm an avowed Nintendo fanboy, but I maintain: Nintendo hasn't promised anything unbelievable or fantastic. They haven't promised anything I suspect they can't deliver.
In my eyes Microsoft has already failed to deliver with the 360, (in both the figurative and literal senses) and Sony's prospects don't look too good at all.
Who modded my post up? It was intended as a personal reply to correct some of the Parent poster's misconceptions. It has nothing to do with the Article and is completely off-topic! Mod me down!
People might not argee with me, but I say Sony's got nothing. Does Sony have a Mario, a Samus Aran, a Zelda, a Link? Hell, they don't even have an Alex Kidd! (odds are you can't even recognize that one! He was Sega's attempt at a "Mario" before they did Sonic.)
Sony is all talk. They are hype and specs and theorical performance numbers. Someday the industry is going to wake up and notice, and then Sony is gonna be toast.
Xanax isn't an antidepressant. It's a member of the benzodiazapine class of drugs (the most common one actually). Benzodiazapines are the "drug of the day" for Anti-anxiety and also for anaesthesia in high doses. It does the same thing as barbiturates (Qualudes) and Codeine/Morphine/Heroine did in their times respectively. Your employee was probably placed on Xanax temporarily as her medical provider put her on a regime of anti-depressants (Prozac, Paxil, or something else). The Xanax is there to serve essentially as a sedative. This is common practice, especially with patients considered a suicide risk by their Doctors (As sedated people generally don't kill themselves) alhough at the same time is something of risk itself, as it is possible to commit suicide through Benzodiazapine overdose, just as it is possible with Barbiturates, or Opiates. But the medical community has weighed this risk, and generally sedates mild suicide risk patients, while those considered at high risk are generally hospitalized.
I would argue against this, "just following orders," didn't fly at Nuremburg, why shoud it fly here? They are both independently guilty, although perhaps the underling's act is worthy of a lesser punishment, as at Nuremburg.
I would also argue that we ARE talking about human rights issues here. I would argue that fair use, and the public domain; both of which DRM is intended to defeat, ARE human RIGHTS. They are uppercase R Rights, and not merely something granted at the mercy of government and corporate overlords. Copyright, is a lowercase r right, granted to content creators in Our (the public's) mercy, that it is being so abused and used as means to oppress us means we need to seriously rethink it. The fact that copyright scarcely benefits those for whom it was created only strengthens this claim.
Acknowledged, handholding a 1911A from the projectionist windows is a bit risky. I don't think you could rely on an average register biscuit to get headshots with a semi-automatic pistol from a good 30-40 feet away. Fear is not my intention >:) and I think hitting by-standers would be bad for business. On the other hand even a N00b ought to be able to hit with high-mag infrared scope from a secure crow's nest, with the rifle balanced on a tripod. As far as noise goes, I know the silencing won't work well, so I guess you'd just have to wait for orchestra hits to fire. :)
I AM still a gamer. I'm just largely a retro/console gamer. I get my fix on my Gamecube, my Playstation 2, and my GBA, plus emulators on OS X. Moreover, I'm roleplayer, as in Pen&Paper.
I do vaguely keep up with the PC gaming field, and from the looks of things lately, I ain't missing bloody much. Lots more cookie-cutter shooters, lots of MMOGs, some RTS's. Not anything I haven't seen before at all. I AM keeping an eye on "Spore," however, if it delivers(!) I'll put together a machine to run it (which I will probably never plug into the internet directly at all.)
I look forward to the Nintendo Revolution, as I am an avowed Nintendo fanboy.
Yes, It has INTEL's integrated graphics solution, the new one, which while supposedly better than intel's previous efforts, still isn't close to even entry level add-on cards.
Seriously, I don't understand all of this pissing and moaning. Since Flip4mac came out, I've been able to play 99% of media files with no problem whatsoever. Although I prefer VLC for most everything and only use Quicktime player for a couple of formats. So maybe that explains my superior experience :)
And does this really come as a suprise to anyone anyway? "Oh my God! Someone tries to update the x86 architecture in a meaningful way and Microsoft arrives late to the Party: Drunk, kicking, and screaming! Who knew that might happen?"
Why a tranquilizer gun? A Silenced .223 round through the back of the head from the projectionist windows would be far more effective!
IMO his argument is not as absurd as one might be inclined to think. He argues that there is something wrong with the way money was created (and still is) by banks simply lending money they do not have, and then having it paid back to them. In comtemporary terms we would summarize his argument by saying that money creation in western society is a supply-side economic process. Heinlein argues that this is inherently bad, and gives rise to the same problems that similar supply side policies produce. He argues that simply creating demand directly would have solved the economic issues of his day. More simply, it is not necessary to provide inducements to business, as long as you have DEMAND, the businesses will be alright anyway. He also responds to the critique that this policy would cause runaway inflation by arguing that the value of fiat money is really a measurement of the people's faith in the stability of the government. Germany in the 1920's had horrific runaway inflation because the people had no faith in the stability of the government at all. As paper money has really always been a guarantee that you will be able to procure value from the government with said paper. In the past, this meant that one could take one's paper money and redeem it for an appropriate amount of gold, silver, or other commodity. In Heinlein's society, this value was largely that one could pay taxes with it.
Lets face it, as far as plot goes there just ain't that big a difference between the two (or even between the two of them and "The Legend of Zelda" for that matter). I think it's very hard to argue honestly that there isn't a difference between the two experiences. I think it is clear that the original poster thought the difference in gameplay experience between a 2-D Earthbound, and 3-D Earthbound would have been novel and enjoyable in ways that the same way that "Ocarina of Time" was/is.
However, I thought it worthwhile to point out that there are indeed people that do (The Pro Apps Users), and that for them, Intel switch is decidedly a bad thing(!); due to the horrific monstrosity that is the x86 address bus.
However, it does very much depress me that the OS X upgrade path means moving to a LESS capable architecture. I will eventually have to replace my G5 Tower, and that machine will probably be decendent of the Mac Mini, only possibly a Pro Tower, which I'm guessing will be Xeon based. Intel has really got to consider migrating their physical address space hacks down market, 32-bit Addressing just ain't cuttiing the mustard anymore.
Wow, I do need to start learning to use Graphic Converter now that I look at it, for some reason I think I thought it was still only a Classic App, and thus dismissed it since I knew Classic's days are numbered, but now I see its still under active development. Thank you, I'm going to start reading the GraphicConverter User Guide. I was never happy with preview as anything other than a pdf viewer, although it does do that much more nicely than anything on windows. Therefore since I got my Mac I've been franticly searching for apps to replace Irfanview functionality, Xee only appeared just a few months ago, and I was ecstatic to find it. I think it relies on a lot a CoreImage stuff for display, and as I'm checking the newest version, it's added lossless JPEG transforms. WooHOO!
To explain what I mean, it is trivially easy if, say, you have a set of photos you've taken, your camera gives them filenames sequentially by time. Irfanview can resample and sharpen the images, give them completely sequential filenames, RETAINING the original order (which I have yet to figure out how to do in OS X). This can be done in just a few seconds.
Using it through emulation doesn't do it justice at all, its very, very fast even on ancient Windows hardware (The Viewer is almost totally I/O limited, unless your system is prehistoric). A Pentium II at 300MHz, running windows 98, runs Irfanview to edit multimegapixel images very well. I know that it doesn't touch the windows graphics api's at all to do any of this, due to posts about concerns about windows vulnerabilities, the author has said that it doesn't.
Unfortunatly other Mac people think I'm trolling when I talk about it. Luckily "Xee" on OS X is starting to equal the media viewer functionality.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19978
But for its editing capabilities I'm forced to resort to photoshop, which is no where near as responsive or convenient. Although maybe, (here's hoping) once WINE gets working on OSX Intel, and I actually switch back to intel (*sobs, shakes fist at fate*) by buying an intel based mac I'll be able to use it again.