Yeah, you got me there. I wasn't quite thinking clearly, apparently... It's a good thing that I haven't gotten my physics Ph.D. yet. =)
*But*, after some calculations, I can still partially salvage what the movie showed. If the Oberon was sufficiently long and pains were take with thrusters to keep it so it was perpendicular to the surface of Saturn, then the distance between the part of the station that we saw and the center of mass of the station would result in an acceleration that might function as an apparent gravitational field.
However, of course, from the relative scale of the pods and the size of the ruins, the Oberon was probably not of sufficient length (not to mention that IIRC the setup they showed, the apparent gravitational field would have been in the opposite direction).
I agree with most of the problems you mentioned. However, I just wanted to comment on the apparent problem of artificial gravity. When I was watching the movie, it hit me immediately, so much that I even started to stare at the actors' feet to see if they were wearing anything that could be construed as magnetic boots. But anyway, I thought about it for a little longer, and it occurred to me that it may be conceivable that since the Oberon is orbiting Saturn, assuming that it was oriented correctly, it could be positioned in the right orbit for a sufficiently apparent gravitational field aboard the station. I started to try to do some calculations in my head, but then I had to stop myself so I didn't miss any of the movie. =P
I thought a feature was something that was beneficial to the user, not something that breaks standards and has the potential to make the product I bought totally useless.
I will agree that SafeDisc is in no way directly beneficial to the user. In fact, I cannot currently think up an example where any form of copy protection is directly beneficial to the user, and thus copy protection is not a feature.
That being said, I must point out that copy protection, to some extent, is a necessary evil. After all, companies exist (virtually) solely for profit, and the eternal problem of software pirating drives them to seek ways to prevent a person with a CD burner to become an illegal redistibutor of a product. SafeDisc gives companies peace of mind, and thus there are willing to make more games. Which is a Good Thing.
As far as I know, most CD-ROM drives are fine with reading SafeDisc-ed CDs, though I admit not to know the exact percentage. And please, don't try to cite the volume of forum complaints as some measure of that percentage, since the data is certainly skewed. I have not personally ever run into a problem trying to read a SafeDisc-ed CD. And I prefer this form of copy protection to the old-school look-up-a-random-figure-or-character-string form of copy protection.
So, no, though I call SafeDisc a "feature" (which was meant ironically), it is not a (unquoted) feature, but it is also not a bug. I suppose that "wart" might be a good descriptive term. It's just one of those things that's annoying as hell, but you're simply going to have to accept its existence.
Though I am by no means a fan of the SafeDisc copy protection, your condemnation of its use flies in the face of Slashdot's praise for (guess!) Diablo 2. Diablo 2, among quite a few other popular games such as Age of Empires 2, all use the SafeDisc copy protection, so if you can't run Myst III, then you must be missing out on Diablo 2.
You can probably do a simple search on Google to find out what other games use SafeDisc. Yes, it's a "feature". Yes, it causes the game to be unreadable by some CD-ROM drives. But no, it is not a valid reason to specifically blast UbiSoft for a "feature" commonly used today by many other companies in computer games.
Go find a computer that will run Myst III, and you'll find that the graphics and puzzles are great. Wonderful, even. Even the flaky Hewlett Packard I installed it on managed to run it fine.
Incidentally, my copy of Myst III came with an instruction manual. You know, in the CD case. Like Riven. Like the original Myst. And it has installation instructions. Just to let you know.
Honestly, a majority of users seem to be getting worked up because of all the hype. It doesn't help that Linux users (me included) have the ingrained belief that Microsoft sucks, and derive much glee from this NSA business and the Hotmail crack. I'm glad to see that people are calming down from the screams of conspiracy; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (or perhaps I should appeal to Occam's razor)
Personally, I'm quite the fan of the programmer's-joke theory: I've got one thing named KEY, I'm bored, I don't want to name it KEY2 or something equally boring, so why not slap "NSA" in front? Hmm, maybe I should slip "NSA" into the code I'm (supposed to be) working on right now...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, you got me there. I wasn't quite thinking clearly, apparently... It's a good thing that I haven't gotten my physics Ph.D. yet. =)
*But*, after some calculations, I can still partially salvage what the movie showed. If the Oberon was sufficiently long and pains were take with thrusters to keep it so it was perpendicular to the surface of Saturn, then the distance between the part of the station that we saw and the center of mass of the station would result in an acceleration that might function as an apparent gravitational field.
However, of course, from the relative scale of the pods and the size of the ruins, the Oberon was probably not of sufficient length (not to mention that IIRC the setup they showed, the apparent gravitational field would have been in the opposite direction).
I agree with most of the problems you mentioned. However, I just wanted to comment on the apparent problem of artificial gravity. When I was watching the movie, it hit me immediately, so much that I even started to stare at the actors' feet to see if they were wearing anything that could be construed as magnetic boots. But anyway, I thought about it for a little longer, and it occurred to me that it may be conceivable that since the Oberon is orbiting Saturn, assuming that it was oriented correctly, it could be positioned in the right orbit for a sufficiently apparent gravitational field aboard the station. I started to try to do some calculations in my head, but then I had to stop myself so I didn't miss any of the movie. =P
I thought a feature was something that was beneficial to the user, not something that breaks standards and has the potential to make the product I bought totally useless.
I will agree that SafeDisc is in no way directly beneficial to the user. In fact, I cannot currently think up an example where any form of copy protection is directly beneficial to the user, and thus copy protection is not a feature.
That being said, I must point out that copy protection, to some extent, is a necessary evil. After all, companies exist (virtually) solely for profit, and the eternal problem of software pirating drives them to seek ways to prevent a person with a CD burner to become an illegal redistibutor of a product. SafeDisc gives companies peace of mind, and thus there are willing to make more games. Which is a Good Thing.
As far as I know, most CD-ROM drives are fine with reading SafeDisc-ed CDs, though I admit not to know the exact percentage. And please, don't try to cite the volume of forum complaints as some measure of that percentage, since the data is certainly skewed. I have not personally ever run into a problem trying to read a SafeDisc-ed CD. And I prefer this form of copy protection to the old-school look-up-a-random-figure-or-character-string form of copy protection.
So, no, though I call SafeDisc a "feature" (which was meant ironically), it is not a (unquoted) feature, but it is also not a bug. I suppose that "wart" might be a good descriptive term. It's just one of those things that's annoying as hell, but you're simply going to have to accept its existence.
Though I am by no means a fan of the SafeDisc copy protection, your condemnation of its use flies in the face of Slashdot's praise for (guess!) Diablo 2. Diablo 2, among quite a few other popular games such as Age of Empires 2, all use the SafeDisc copy protection, so if you can't run Myst III, then you must be missing out on Diablo 2.
t ections_safedisc.shtml
For a (presumably incomplete) list of games that use SafeDisc, go here: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_pro
You can probably do a simple search on Google to find out what other games use SafeDisc. Yes, it's a "feature". Yes, it causes the game to be unreadable by some CD-ROM drives. But no, it is not a valid reason to specifically blast UbiSoft for a "feature" commonly used today by many other companies in computer games.
Go find a computer that will run Myst III, and you'll find that the graphics and puzzles are great. Wonderful, even. Even the flaky Hewlett Packard I installed it on managed to run it fine. Incidentally, my copy of Myst III came with an instruction manual. You know, in the CD case. Like Riven. Like the original Myst. And it has installation instructions. Just to let you know.
Honestly, a majority of users seem to be getting worked up because of all the hype. It doesn't help that Linux users (me included) have the ingrained belief that Microsoft sucks, and derive much glee from this NSA business and the Hotmail crack. I'm glad to see that people are calming down from the screams of conspiracy; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (or perhaps I should appeal to Occam's razor)
Personally, I'm quite the fan of the programmer's-joke theory: I've got one thing named KEY, I'm bored, I don't want to name it KEY2 or something equally boring, so why not slap "NSA" in front? Hmm, maybe I should slip "NSA" into the code I'm (supposed to be) working on right now...
Obviously, you didn't read his entire article...
Did I miss some news? When did the release date change from May 21 to May 19? That makes that Foxtrot cartoon incorrect...