"Actually, I develop games *only* because I want to. If I wanted plenty of money, I'd be working for a bank."
Don't be a smartass. You know what I meant - you're paid to program and you can't live forever without an income, so if you're told you have to program an online gaming system, that's what you program.
"So if developing decent online for PS2 takes significantly longer than for XBox, the game publisher will do what?"
Let's put it this way: if one game developer makes a game for all game systems and puts the extra work into getting it to work online for each system, and another game developer makes a game only for Xbox just to take advantage of Xbox Live, which one will make more money - the one who spent the time making a game that works online for Xbox, PS2, GameCube, and PSP -- a total of 4 systems -- or the one who only made the game available for Xbox? I would think the first game developer would have sales at least 2-3x higher than that of the second.
If 300,000 is your idea of plenty... (Yes, that's WoW only - but that's the point. The user base gets fragmented without a uniform backend)
Thanks for leaving out Unreal Tournament, the Mac and PC versions of Halo, DOOM3, The Sims, and hundreds of other online computer games.
PC Internet gaming is alive and well - even though we may have to set up our own servers for some of these games. Actually that's part of the beauty - you can set up your own server and guarantee yourself a spot whenever you want to play. And if you're in a clan you can reserve spots for your fellow clan members, too.
"Sony is *nuts* not to provide something similar"
Maybe they want to encourage developers to make quality games? I love Halo, but as far as the single-player goes, it's no better than DOOM or Half-Life 2 and it's perhaps even worse.
"The fact that I've actually worked with Live?"
First of all. . . what do you mean by worked with Live? If you mean that you've used Live before, so have I. If you mean that you actually had something to do with building Live or program games that use Live, well people once thought that it wasn't possible to put a color custom spray in Half-Life (even Valve themself had said that color sprays weren't possible) - now, we have people using tools that let them create custom colored sprays from any picture - including ones from Goatse, as you mentioned before.
"Why would microsoft waste a huge launch title like Halo 3, when they really need to save that one for the launch of the PS3!"
The ironic thing about MS' attempt to thwart PS3 sales by releasing Halo 3 on the same day is that for the most part, only people with lots of money they're willing to blow will have a 360 at that time - precisely the sort of people who would be able to afford both Halo 3 AND the PS3.
Plus, the real thing that sells systems is the games that are available for them.
I don't know if you also play PSP or DS, but I remember reading in Popular Science about how to build a wifi hotspot you can fit in a backpack - batteries and all - with enough batteries for a few hours of gameplay. It also had solar panels on it to recharge it.
I think his concern isn't so much that they'll be able to force him to play online (which is just stupid - you're right) as it is that since they're forcing him to register an account online they're going to force him into paying for Xbox Live even though he doesn't intend to use it.
"From a developer POV, Sony's idea is not so good. I don't *want* to develop all that stuff when I'm writing a game. Hence, nobody does it."
Please - that's pathetic. You probably don't want to develop the game either but no game no money. Game publishers don't make games because they want to, they do it to make money. To say that you don't want to program. . . well, you're a programmer so tough - it's not about what you want, it's about what the customer wants.
And Sony probably doesn't want to develop an online system - why aren't they allowed to use that excuse? I'm sure they would've done it by now if they had all the money that MS does.
"average Joe to play. No dice with PC games
having a universal friends system.
having universal voice chat.
Micropayments for content.
Authenticated content only. Let me just say goatse...."
There's plenty of average Joes playing PC games online. And have you ever used Steam? Steam's got a universal friends system for all its games, it's got universal voice chat, and you can buy content through Steam. And what makes you think systems like Xbox Live authenticate content and block stuff from shock sites like Goatse? The only reason you don't see that kind of stuff is because there is no way to have custom logos/sprays (and the shapes and colors they let you choose don't count). I'll bet someone will come up with a way now that 360 uses an external drive.
Plus, I'm sure the RvB movie quote was supposed to be a joke, especially since Halo was originally going to be released for the Mac.
That's one of the things I like about PC gaming. I can run my own DOOM3 or Half-Life server for free - and I can guarantee myself a spot on the server, and guarantee that there won't be any hackers or other people I hate on their because I can kick them off. Plus I know for a fact that there's a fairly fast server that runs my fave game the way I like to play it (say if I like a specific mod, or to only play with certain weapons) 24/7 - when I want to play all I have to do is click a button.
Plus, I think Sony will come out with their own Live-like service. But it might take them longer because they obviously don't have the huge budget that MS does. I think they'll do it, though.
I'd say this is fairly likely to happen, especially since the 360 will use a removable hard drive. I'm sure someone will find out how to hook it up to their PC as a normal hard drive - once that happens I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone writes a virus, purposely infects one of their games, hooks it to their Xbox, and gets on Live and spreads it.
And I wouldn't exactly trust MS's network to stop that sort of thing - so far MS systems haven't exactly been the best at stopping viruses.
You can install Linux on just about anything. My iPod Mini has Linux on it. Hell, even TiVos with their slow (?33mHz is it??) processors run Linux. Can you imagine what they'd be like if they ran Windows?
Actually, Linux would probably be a good idea for a multiprocessor system - it's had support for multiple processors for a while now (longer than Windows, I'm pretty sure) so it might have more seemless integration of multiprocessor technology.
Halo was a lot of fun to play multiplayer, and most of the games up until then with a really good storyline were for PC. So I think the storyline attracted people to the single-player part, and then the multiplayer part drew in even more people. Even though most people liked the storyline, almost all of them liked playing against their friends - even the people who didn't actually own Xbox liked Halo because it was familiar since it was just like other FPSes but it did have one or two things in there that (most) other FPSes didn't - such as having 3 people in a Warthog, having teammates be able to sit on your tank, and the sticky nades which were a good equalizer for people who were new to Halo (I was really bad but I almost always managed to stick someone with a sticky nade right before they killed me).
The truth is that evolution doesn't work too well anymore because we won't let it. Sure, people are born with HIV, physical and mental defects, and all sorts of other problems. People say that evolution is wrong because these people still live and, often, reproduce.
But that's not true because evolution has to do with the surrounding environment, and we humans have learned to adapt our environment to us, rather than adapting to our environment. You've got hypothermia? A few hundred years ago there was no hope for you. Now we've got indoor heating, heated water, Thinsulate, and many other technologies to keep you warm.
We also have our brains to help us work against evolution. We've come up with ways of helping people with diabetes, preventing major flu breakouts, and other things.
"One person can learn the entire theory of UNIX operating systems by reading this 254 page book. UNIX is clear, UNIX is concise, UNIX is a beautiful elegant masterwork. Much of the framework used in every modern OS is present in UNIX 6th edition."
I'm not the one who said the kernel code was a tangled mess. I'm sure it's very clear and easy to read. But I don't know many people who'd want to sit there and read all of it, unless they're either trying to fix part of it or are trying to learn from it - and I doubt they'd even read the entire thing, they'd probably just pick specific parts having to do with what they're trying to learn/fix.
IOW I wasn't saying that you can't read or can't understand the kernel code - I was just saying that I, for one, would rather read something else.
"Welcome to the unveiling of the unveiling of the new WTFBBQ Supercomputer! The fastest in the. .." (whispers) 'Dammit Jim, we've got the BSOD again! Go hit Ctrl-Alt-Del!"
Seti@Home generally isn't considered a "supercomputer" because each of the client machines work independently. They aren't working together to analyze the same piece of data, each is crunching away at its own record, and the other computers go on without it if one computer isn't done yet. If you turn off the Seti screensaver mid-process the rest of the network keeps on crunching data. However, in a supercomputer the main computer waits for every computer to finish up before it goes on - so if one were to freeze or lose power the whole system would go down.
"Given how expensive the interconnects are in these machines, 300$ CPU is negligeable."
Given that many of these machines have over 4,000 CPUs. . . it's really not all that negligible. Saving over $1,000,000 isn't what I'd call negligible - it'd buy you quite a few extra CPUs. Or quite a few extra gigabytes of memory, or whatever else you might need/want in there. Sure, maybe there's other areas that are more costly but saving that much money by ditching MS is something to consider.
"Well, if Sony hadn't went off and got caught they would have the largest supercomputer and it would be running Microsft Windows!"
In order for it to be considered a supercomputer all the boxes generally have to be in the same building and owned by the same company. A large network of computers that were overtaken by a Skynet-like, we-control-your-PC-now piece of malware such as Sony's rootkit doesn't count for a "supercomputer".
"Can a mere mortal even read that mangled mess of spaghetti?"
Why would you want to read the kernel code? Maybe certain parts of it to optimize it, but not the whole thing. You'd split it up between the people on the team (if you wanted the whole thing read).
"You're obviously too young to remember the OS wars... C64, IMB-compatible, Apple (Mac), Amiga, etc. It used to be a real nightmare to buy and even more of a pain to develop software. As someone who was a geek during those days, I can say that things in the world of PC's are MUCH better today than they were when we actually had a lot of OS competition."
First of all, this is not the "OS wars" so much as the machine wars - these are all different machines, even if they do use different OSes - the only reason they have different OSes is because their OSes were written specifically with that machine in mind. This is no different today - you still can't run MS Windows on a Mac.
Second of all, each of these OSes had their own strengths and weaknesses, right?
And third of all, as long as they follow standards, there'd be no problem. I have yet to hear anyone say that they have trouble switching between Opera and Firefox. In fact many of the problems we have with computers today such as vendor lock-in and version incompatibilities are partially due to *certain companies* (AKA MS) not following standards.
What do you think would be the repercussions? Is it possible that Sony will be forced to open-source their rootkit - and that we'll see more rootkits like this, based on that source?
Man, MS is screwed now - an open-source Windows rootkit, freely available for all to see MS's security holes!
Although I sure hope it doesn't give open-source software a bad rap. . .
"but really, all seriousness aside, where did all that come from? who's immagination is vibrant enough to give an answer?"
We may never know. I know it sounds silly, but it's entirely possible that the particle from Big Bang was created by aliens in another dimension.
And I don't see what any eternal force or deity has to do with what we were talking about. You said that Big Bang didn't answer the question of where the Universe got its energy from, I said it got it from the explosion that created it.
Where would this said deity have come from, anyway? Are you suggesting that it's possible for a deity to just appear, yet impossible for a particle to just appear? Let's not forget that both the idea of a god and the idea of Big Bang were created by a human mind. Whether the universe was really created by God, or by Big Bang, or if God created Big Bang we may never know. Don't just blow off others' ideas of the creation of the universe - no one knows for sure, and it's just as likely that you're wrong as it is that they are.
"For scientists to have any credibility, they would have to prove that there is some sort of huge source of energy external to the Earth."
Yeah, that certainly tears the Big Bang theory with its immense explosion that was big and powerful enough to create the universe to shreds.
"A chaotic soup of particles doesn't just magically tend towards order."
What about the strong nuclear force that holds the particles together as atoms - or the electromagnetic force that brings them together in the first place? You're right - particles don't form atoms on their own - these two forces help them out.
"Also look at Apple's software before Steve came."
Might wanna check up on your historical facts - there was no Apple "before Steve came", Jobs was one of Apple's co-founders. If you're speaking of the time he took away from the company. . . well, what'd you expect - the company lost one of its best programmers. If you want a comparison, look at the time where Bill Gates was CEO and wasn't doing any programming - we had wonderful products such as Office 97 with its "features" and its virus named after a stripper, we had Windows 98 which even crashed at the demo and really wasn't much better as a completed product - and which was so crappy they had to make a "Second Edition" to fix all the bugs, and even SE wasn't that much better. . .
Plus, there were plenty who liked Macs - they were well-known as being the best for video and graphics editing, and for being easy to learn to use.
Also, from the Bill Gates bio I've been reading, it sounds like he also was fairly well-known around the office for insisting things be done his way and berating employees.
Almost no software is bug-free. It's just that MS software has more bugs than most other software companies.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the iBook's logic board problems more the fault of the company that actually made the logic board? Sure, Apple makes the iBook but they use other companies' parts - they'd have to be insane to build their own processors or GPUs when there are already plenty of great ones out on the market.
Exactly - they claim to be free and open-source, but their free version is pretty half-assed and doesn't work properly so you pretty much have to pay for a subscription or steal it from somewhere. What they should do is have everything you need in a free package and then just have like the work they did on keycode validation and other "anti-piracy" measures in the paid version. That way the people using the free version can still use it and play games on it, and the paid customers can use it for the latest and greatest games that require validation.
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Don't be a smartass. You know what I meant - you're paid to program and you can't live forever without an income, so if you're told you have to program an online gaming system, that's what you program.
"So if developing decent online for PS2 takes significantly longer than for XBox, the game publisher will do what?"
Let's put it this way: if one game developer makes a game for all game systems and puts the extra work into getting it to work online for each system, and another game developer makes a game only for Xbox just to take advantage of Xbox Live, which one will make more money - the one who spent the time making a game that works online for Xbox, PS2, GameCube, and PSP -- a total of 4 systems -- or the one who only made the game available for Xbox? I would think the first game developer would have sales at least 2-3x higher than that of the second.
If 300,000 is your idea of plenty... (Yes, that's WoW only - but that's the point. The user base gets fragmented without a uniform backend)
Thanks for leaving out Unreal Tournament, the Mac and PC versions of Halo, DOOM3, The Sims, and hundreds of other online computer games.
PC Internet gaming is alive and well - even though we may have to set up our own servers for some of these games. Actually that's part of the beauty - you can set up your own server and guarantee yourself a spot whenever you want to play. And if you're in a clan you can reserve spots for your fellow clan members, too. "Sony is *nuts* not to provide something similar"
Maybe they want to encourage developers to make quality games? I love Halo, but as far as the single-player goes, it's no better than DOOM or Half-Life 2 and it's perhaps even worse.
"The fact that I've actually worked with Live?"
First of all. . . what do you mean by worked with Live? If you mean that you've used Live before, so have I. If you mean that you actually had something to do with building Live or program games that use Live, well people once thought that it wasn't possible to put a color custom spray in Half-Life (even Valve themself had said that color sprays weren't possible) - now, we have people using tools that let them create custom colored sprays from any picture - including ones from Goatse, as you mentioned before.
The ironic thing about MS' attempt to thwart PS3 sales by releasing Halo 3 on the same day is that for the most part, only people with lots of money they're willing to blow will have a 360 at that time - precisely the sort of people who would be able to afford both Halo 3 AND the PS3.
Plus, the real thing that sells systems is the games that are available for them.
Here it is if you wanna check it out.
I think his concern isn't so much that they'll be able to force him to play online (which is just stupid - you're right) as it is that since they're forcing him to register an account online they're going to force him into paying for Xbox Live even though he doesn't intend to use it.
Please - that's pathetic. You probably don't want to develop the game either but no game no money. Game publishers don't make games because they want to, they do it to make money. To say that you don't want to program. . . well, you're a programmer so tough - it's not about what you want, it's about what the customer wants.
And Sony probably doesn't want to develop an online system - why aren't they allowed to use that excuse? I'm sure they would've done it by now if they had all the money that MS does.
"average Joe to play. No dice with PC games
having a universal friends system.
having universal voice chat.
Micropayments for content.
Authenticated content only. Let me just say goatse...."
There's plenty of average Joes playing PC games online. And have you ever used Steam? Steam's got a universal friends system for all its games, it's got universal voice chat, and you can buy content through Steam. And what makes you think systems like Xbox Live authenticate content and block stuff from shock sites like Goatse? The only reason you don't see that kind of stuff is because there is no way to have custom logos/sprays (and the shapes and colors they let you choose don't count). I'll bet someone will come up with a way now that 360 uses an external drive.
Plus, I'm sure the RvB movie quote was supposed to be a joke, especially since Halo was originally going to be released for the Mac.
Plus, I think Sony will come out with their own Live-like service. But it might take them longer because they obviously don't have the huge budget that MS does. I think they'll do it, though.
And I wouldn't exactly trust MS's network to stop that sort of thing - so far MS systems haven't exactly been the best at stopping viruses.
Actually, Linux would probably be a good idea for a multiprocessor system - it's had support for multiple processors for a while now (longer than Windows, I'm pretty sure) so it might have more seemless integration of multiprocessor technology.
Halo was a lot of fun to play multiplayer, and most of the games up until then with a really good storyline were for PC. So I think the storyline attracted people to the single-player part, and then the multiplayer part drew in even more people. Even though most people liked the storyline, almost all of them liked playing against their friends - even the people who didn't actually own Xbox liked Halo because it was familiar since it was just like other FPSes but it did have one or two things in there that (most) other FPSes didn't - such as having 3 people in a Warthog, having teammates be able to sit on your tank, and the sticky nades which were a good equalizer for people who were new to Halo (I was really bad but I almost always managed to stick someone with a sticky nade right before they killed me).
But that's not true because evolution has to do with the surrounding environment, and we humans have learned to adapt our environment to us, rather than adapting to our environment. You've got hypothermia? A few hundred years ago there was no hope for you. Now we've got indoor heating, heated water, Thinsulate, and many other technologies to keep you warm.
We also have our brains to help us work against evolution. We've come up with ways of helping people with diabetes, preventing major flu breakouts, and other things.
Oops. It sounded to me like it was talking about the Linux kernel code - AFAIK you're not allowed to fix or recompile the Windows kernel code.
I'm not the one who said the kernel code was a tangled mess. I'm sure it's very clear and easy to read. But I don't know many people who'd want to sit there and read all of it, unless they're either trying to fix part of it or are trying to learn from it - and I doubt they'd even read the entire thing, they'd probably just pick specific parts having to do with what they're trying to learn/fix.
IOW I wasn't saying that you can't read or can't understand the kernel code - I was just saying that I, for one, would rather read something else.
"Welcome to the unveiling of the unveiling of the new WTFBBQ Supercomputer! The fastest in the. . ." (whispers) 'Dammit Jim, we've got the BSOD again! Go hit Ctrl-Alt-Del!"
At least that's the way I understand it.
Given that many of these machines have over 4,000 CPUs. . . it's really not all that negligible. Saving over $1,000,000 isn't what I'd call negligible - it'd buy you quite a few extra CPUs. Or quite a few extra gigabytes of memory, or whatever else you might need/want in there. Sure, maybe there's other areas that are more costly but saving that much money by ditching MS is something to consider.
In order for it to be considered a supercomputer all the boxes generally have to be in the same building and owned by the same company. A large network of computers that were overtaken by a Skynet-like, we-control-your-PC-now piece of malware such as Sony's rootkit doesn't count for a "supercomputer".
Why would you want to read the kernel code? Maybe certain parts of it to optimize it, but not the whole thing. You'd split it up between the people on the team (if you wanted the whole thing read).
First of all, this is not the "OS wars" so much as the machine wars - these are all different machines, even if they do use different OSes - the only reason they have different OSes is because their OSes were written specifically with that machine in mind. This is no different today - you still can't run MS Windows on a Mac.
Second of all, each of these OSes had their own strengths and weaknesses, right?
And third of all, as long as they follow standards, there'd be no problem. I have yet to hear anyone say that they have trouble switching between Opera and Firefox. In fact many of the problems we have with computers today such as vendor lock-in and version incompatibilities are partially due to *certain companies* (AKA MS) not following standards.
What do you think would be the repercussions? Is it possible that Sony will be forced to open-source their rootkit - and that we'll see more rootkits like this, based on that source?
Man, MS is screwed now - an open-source Windows rootkit, freely available for all to see MS's security holes!
Although I sure hope it doesn't give open-source software a bad rap. . .
We may never know. I know it sounds silly, but it's entirely possible that the particle from Big Bang was created by aliens in another dimension.
And I don't see what any eternal force or deity has to do with what we were talking about. You said that Big Bang didn't answer the question of where the Universe got its energy from, I said it got it from the explosion that created it.
Where would this said deity have come from, anyway? Are you suggesting that it's possible for a deity to just appear, yet impossible for a particle to just appear? Let's not forget that both the idea of a god and the idea of Big Bang were created by a human mind. Whether the universe was really created by God, or by Big Bang, or if God created Big Bang we may never know. Don't just blow off others' ideas of the creation of the universe - no one knows for sure, and it's just as likely that you're wrong as it is that they are.
Maybe it does - the energy came from the Big Bang.
Yeah, that certainly tears the Big Bang theory with its immense explosion that was big and powerful enough to create the universe to shreds.
"A chaotic soup of particles doesn't just magically tend towards order."
What about the strong nuclear force that holds the particles together as atoms - or the electromagnetic force that brings them together in the first place? You're right - particles don't form atoms on their own - these two forces help them out.
Might wanna check up on your historical facts - there was no Apple "before Steve came", Jobs was one of Apple's co-founders. If you're speaking of the time he took away from the company. . . well, what'd you expect - the company lost one of its best programmers. If you want a comparison, look at the time where Bill Gates was CEO and wasn't doing any programming - we had wonderful products such as Office 97 with its "features" and its virus named after a stripper, we had Windows 98 which even crashed at the demo and really wasn't much better as a completed product - and which was so crappy they had to make a "Second Edition" to fix all the bugs, and even SE wasn't that much better. . .
Plus, there were plenty who liked Macs - they were well-known as being the best for video and graphics editing, and for being easy to learn to use.
Also, from the Bill Gates bio I've been reading, it sounds like he also was fairly well-known around the office for insisting things be done his way and berating employees.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the iBook's logic board problems more the fault of the company that actually made the logic board? Sure, Apple makes the iBook but they use other companies' parts - they'd have to be insane to build their own processors or GPUs when there are already plenty of great ones out on the market.
Exactly - they claim to be free and open-source, but their free version is pretty half-assed and doesn't work properly so you pretty much have to pay for a subscription or steal it from somewhere. What they should do is have everything you need in a free package and then just have like the work they did on keycode validation and other "anti-piracy" measures in the paid version. That way the people using the free version can still use it and play games on it, and the paid customers can use it for the latest and greatest games that require validation.