If I wanted to be reelected by popular vote and wanted to bribe the people of the USA into voting for me, I'd have to buy lots of cheap votes. Think about it, in a democracy, Bill Gates' vote isn't worth anymore than Joe Schmoe's vote. Bill pulls in millions a year, Joe pulls in the nominal $30-40k. which one is going to be swayed cheaper? To Joe $5k is like 1/8th of his yearly income where as bill sneezes on Kleenex worth more than that. So screw the rich, the top 0.1% may hold 25% of the money, but I only need 50.0000001% of the people to vote for me to win an election, and I don't care which of the 265 Millon Americans those are.
Am I the only one that doesn't like to HAVE to connect to the net to play a game? There are a number of reasons, not the least being having to buy a game and then PAY for the ability to play it. Sometimes I want to play a game on my own. I don't like cheat books, I don't like asking people for help I want to play it, and I want to beat it myself. Sure, everyonce in a while, I like playing an FPS with a friend on the net in a multiplayer mode, but I like playing games that have offline aspects. Games that don't require anything but my TV, my Console and my sound system to work (or my PC and speakers). It seems to me that games that require you to play online seem more like thin-clients than real games. I hope there will continue to be plenty of offline playable games in the future. Am I the only one that thinks this whole MMO thing is just a fad that doesn't seem appealing at all?
And that's why you shut down your AV when your playing... and chat, and those cd's your burning and those torrents you're pulling from and that pr0n playing on the second screen of your dual monitor setup. Concentrate on the game and all is well. I don't need someone's expensive add-in card to tell me that.
Now, perhaps we can invent an add-in card that uses subspace carrier waves that will make a direct connection to your opponent instead of wi-fi or copper wires that go through switches and proxies. (oh yeah, and they need to have open source linux drivers,:)
Why should you tax people because they're smart enough or lucky enough to do a good job at making money? That's called jealousy. You're jealous that these "rich" people have more money than you do so you want to FORCE them to toss out well earned coin. Sure there are some people in higher brackets that don't deserve money they've got, but that happens in lower brackets as well. What we need is a flat percentage. for example, if it were 10% and you made $40k you'd pay $4k in taxes. The rich would naturally pay more because they'd pull in say $250k and by the same 10% have to pay $25k. It's fair to everyone.
But we forget the main reason why we're taxed. It's because someone else wants to spend the money we make. Yes, I agree that I want my taxes to pay for good schools, roads, infrastructure, etc... but I DON'T want MY money to go to some low-life on welfare, or to pay for someone's lawsuit.
What pisses me off about the american public is that everyone seems to want something for free. The money comes from somewhere. It comes from the individuals and businesses that work their asses off so that they can better themsevles. Grow a backbone people.
And don't forget the needless jobs of millions of people that are employed by the government for bloated TLA's that exist to simply add to the red-tape of society. You'd think that Microsoft wrote the government processes.
And yes I know that jobs are what fuel the economy, but at the same point, But why do you think that companies lay off workers? THe company gets so large and bloated that they realize that they need to strealine processes, streamline workloads, refocus their corporation and become a lean, mean, profit making machine instead of going deeper into debt. This is something the government seriously needs to look into.
I completely agree that there are many costs that come with running a large server room. I recently migrated some of my servers to lower power systems and consolidated many of their functions. This reduced heat/power/noise, freed space, etc. Also, I am a large advocate of using VMWare to not only provide consolidation and increase server utilization, but also to provide high-availability to services in need. However, I wonder how much software that fits this bill Java based?
I also wonder if some of the costs that have to do with the servers will still be incured (many of the administration costs come from setting up the services and adding/removing content. Something which will still occur. Many companies don't build their servers from scratch anymore, so the time spent physically building/mounting the servers is greatly reduced and almost diminished over the long term). I know personally many of the servers I regularly use have been installed for years and have had no issues other than adding/removing content. The fact that all the content is stored on one central server may make it easier to remember where it is, but I don't see how it impacts the time spent updating.
Not to argue, just wondering how 1/2 of the points you outlined are improved by using this system (Administration, Maintainance, Support, and to some extent licensing).
Cassatt's control software costs about $100,000 for a 40-server pool. Adding the Web Automation Module increases the cost by about $5,000 per server, the company said.
Ok, so I can run java apps that save me lots of money on server hardware... for $100,000. unless I want to spend an extra $5,000 per server (bringing the total up to $300,000). So how is this going to save me money? I mean, I could by a whole bunch of 1U Dell P4 servers each valued at about $2k a piece. 40 of those would be only 80 grand. Now, I'm pretty sure that I pay my adminstrators so they can make an informed decision on grouping two or three services on a machine where it makes sense (like dns resolution and dhcp serving) and instantly save me a few machines there. And how many of my mission critical resource poor services are executed in Java? This seems like a huge waste of money to me. Besides how hard could this have been to come up with.. I mean, Java is running IN A VM in the first place. run an identical VM on another machine, add a little code to allow transfering of processes between VMs and you've got it. I'm sure it's got some tricky aspects, but is it that hard that it'll cost $300,000 to do? Something's fishy here...
Because there aren't any legitimate uses of internet access during class time...
Like maybe browsing the notes to the lecture that the teacher made available and adding notes/annotations
Pulling down source code from the book you've got because it didn't come with a CD (that costs extra)
Googling for more info to assist a group project
Uploading/Downloading your notes from your home server so you can keep them all in one place
Saving bookmarks and urls that a teacher may point out as a good source for more info
Using your laptop to run a presentation/group project
etc...
I know I was able to get a lot of use out of internet access when I was in the classroom a number of years back. It was Quite invaluable in MANY of my classes. The annoying thing is that we didn't have wireless then so I had to make sure I was by a port, although many of the newer buildings had classrooms where there was a network port and power plug available at every seat (if there weren't already PC's there). How one sided of a universtiy to think that because someone COULD missuse a piece of technology, that everyone will... but then again, it is Harvard. I bet they talk to the RIAA on a regular basis.
But Will It Run Linux?!? Seriously, the PS2 had a linux add-on available for it. The XBox, well, people just modded that. Can someone Mod the PS3? I have a feeling that it'd be nice to run other things besides games on that platform if it's all it is hyped to be. Properly compiled linux software for it would be quite slick and I'd be willing to say it'd give many other server platforms a run for their money.
Some of us don't particularly want translucent window borders and all that resource-hungry crap, when the box is going to sit there quietly going about its business doing sensible things.
Similarly in the Linux world, some people want a lightweight WM rather than KDE or Gnome. There's nothing wrong with that.
Yes, but in linux, you don't have to BUY the fancier WM. After all, it's just the WM, it's not like it's a whole new operating system... In MS's world, you have to pay to have a fancy interface, even if it just interfaces with the same OS.
As a programmer, there's only so much that can be done in software. Sure you can parallize things, and you can come up with newer/faster algorthms, but if we didn't get dual proc systems, that would have been pointless. So with parallel procs, we get better parallel code. Hardware advances will create software advances, and new algorthms will direct hardware futures. This is the way the world works, and I think it's worked out fairly well so far. Lets see what the Cell and processors after it can do!
Currently ver reports "Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]" and just the Windows directory is 3.12 GB; at fresh install + patch it was 2.88 GB.
Wow... Just, Wow. What did you install?
First I want to say that I'm NOT an M$ Fanboy. I think M$ is far from linux in stability, robustness, flexibility, and many other ares. However, I currently have Windows XP installed on a 15GB drive. I use it frequently, though mostly for gaming. When I installed XP on it it was well under a gig install, in fact, if I remember correctly, it was about 550MB. That's it. Now I did disable the roll-back changes ability, which freed up some space (it's backed up so who cares). I have multiple multi-GB games installed and all run flawlessly and I still have plenty of space to spare.
As for stability, it's a HECK of a lot better than 98 and 2k were. Running those I had a 3-4 month complete fresh re-install limit. Anything past 3 months was getting slow unstable, and after 4-5 months, everything was starting to crash regularly. Now the same hardware is running XP and it's been going for 2.5 years! Now I will have to say that this isn't used for everything I do, and most of my data is stored on my Linux Server (and backed up nightly to tape), but I find this amazing for an M$ product.
Again, while M$ has a while to go to beat out a lot of aspects in linux, XP was a good step forward for them.
I also find it's important to point out that the OS is extra!
Sure that's cool for people like me that are going to throw gentoo on there, but what about gramma, she doesn't want linux... (yes some are ok with that, but for the majority, it's just not the way for the masses yet!). so we're well over 600 bucks if not more for a full version of something, close to 700. Since when is that cheap or budget?
I have a number of friends who simply refuse to use the small controllers. I don't honestly find them bad either, I just like the placement of the black and clear buttons on the smaller one better. Both controllers are hands down better than may of the other ones I've tried (including such beauties as the N64 and Game Cube Controllers *shudder* My fingers get sore just thinking about the latter).
The only thing i have to say about the x-box controllers is the damn buttons are so nice and round they dig RIGHT INTO my fingers after only a few minutes of game play. I have noticed though, the wireless controllers have a little bit flatter top on the buttons so I can play a while longer before my thumb cries out in agony. I hate to say it, but the original NES buttons were easier on my thumbs.
I haven't personally held the x-box 360 controller, but I hope MS learned their lesson on big jeweled pointy buttons.
What about the fact that DVD Players don't work for life!? I mean, if I buy a HD-DVD Player, get me 30-40 HD-DVDs (not a huge number by any stretch) and then the player dies, WTF? I have to Re-Buy ALL of my movies?? THAT is why I won't by something that's tied to the player.
No, a camera wouldn't be good. The sides would get distorted due to the lens and the resolution wouldn't be there.
Well, I started using my Canon Digital Rebel XT for "scanning" documents. If you have the right distance and the right lens (around 28mm seems pretty good, though 35 is better if you good enough light to be able to hold it steady).
It is true, at the 18mm end of the stock Rebel lens, distortion is a little of a problem, but if you go higher up, it's less fisheye. Good quality 18mm and 14mm lenses have a number of lenses meant to remove distortion and actually would work well, but I'm too cheap thus far.
The other complaint, resolution? Don't worry about that. at 8 MegaPixel, a 300 dpi image is larger than the print area of a stock 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Usually this is achieved around 3-4 feet from the image. And the stock lens focuses down to under a foot, so you can imagine the resolution you get out of that. The only thing is lighting. The stock lens is only an f3.4-5.6, so you have to have a good deal of light to get a good quality image. However, they sell a nice 50mm f1.8 for 75 bucks that would be perfect for this sort of thing.
Sure a flatbed will always have a place for scanning things, but you can see why I usually don't feel like dragging out the SCSI Flatbed everytime I want to scan in a document.
Re:ENLIGHTENMENT E17 WILL WIPE THE FLOOR!
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KDE 4 Screenshots
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I completely agree. Enlightenment 17 is not only breathtaking, but it's compact, it's quick, it's easy to code, it's VERY configurable, it's not a memory hog or a processor hog (my P2 350 laptop with 256MB runs enlightenment 17 perfectly, something I can't even come close to saying with KDE 3.x or Gnome). And if you happen to have the KDE libs installed and want to run a KDE app, it'll fire it right up.
I can't wait for the final product (though that hasn't been stopping me from running it for the last year+), so that the major distros can pick up this spectacular next generation Window Manager.
Seriously though, I hope we see something from all the major players at E3. Not only new games and ideas to make the 360 actually worth the price of admission, but something from Sony and Nintendo to show that they aren't going down without a fight. I think if Sony is smart, we'll have some playable demos of the PS3 as well as maybe an announcement of some games that are planned for the system in the future. I am really interested in seeing what they're going to do with not only the power of the PS3, but the space of the Blu-Ray medium.
As far as Nintendo, I think it's time they shift into high gear and do the same thing instead of just pulling a controller or a random system photo out. I know all the Nintendo Fan-boys/Fan-girls are drooling over the controller, but I don't think the controller is that cool unless there is a kickass system and games to go along with it.
"So how does copying and posting music files for the world to download help the artists?"
Well, first off it allows people to find out if they like the music before they try to blindly decide if they want to drop $15 on their CD. I'll have to say that I have purchased more CD's I've downloaded and liked than I would have ever purchased if I wasn't able to download them at all. (My criteria are simple, have atleast 3 good songs with replay value for a $10 investment. It's amazing how most CDs don't fit this category.) iTunes filled this gap by allowing people to just buy 1 song from that album that had nothing but crap except for the one good one. Now the RIAA is bitching because it didn't get your 15 bucks it only got $1. Maybe they should figure out why instead of suing everyone for the other $14.
Ever since the dawn of time, the best way for someone to know about something is word of mouth. If I hear some random advertiser tell me a CD is good, I'm not buying it. If I hear it from one of my friends that knows my musical tastes, I may give it a shot. The Internet allows these artists to advertise their songs to anyone willing to lend an ear. Now you don't have to take your best friend's advice, you can hear it yourself!
I suppose not everyone is as good at buying CD's they like as I am perhaps, but I think the artists should start to use the power of the internet instead of letting the RIAA buy lawyers new cars for them.
I'd buy this, other than the fact that the movie industry is also sucking as of late. It seems like they're really digging for ideas and those ideas aren't working. There honestly hasn't been a movie that's made me jump up and say "Wow, I need to go see that!" since Lord of the Rings.
To a point, the same goes for games. I'd say that games actually have more to choose from than movies, but not all of those choices are "Hot New Titles". I haven't bought a game since the first Rogue Spear: Raven Sheild. Sure I could get an expansion pack, but #1 all my friends that I play with online would also need to drop that money. #2 I can find plenty of added maps/mods online and I'm still quite happy with the experience.
You can't say that the gaming industry doesn't have a wide variety though. I mean, not everything out is an FPS. There are plenty of things like Rise of Nations, or the Sims, or Tetris 5 billion, or need for speed, or Sim City, or whatever. There's a lot of variety. I think/.'ers just spend more time playing FPS's so they don't see the whole picture.
I suppose another thing is the fact that a good game has a good amount of replay to it and if you have good replay the casual gamer won't want to go out and spend more money on something new when he already has something that he wants to replay.
It's not that I don't like buying games, it's that I don't like any of the new games available for buying. Nor do I really see the point to spending $50 on a game when I still have 4+ games I still want to complete/replay.
"The music industry is very used to getting their way. They have plenty of money to give to politicians when they aren't giving it to radio stations in illegal pay for play schemes. Give them a while and they will bribe the bad news away..."
Because God Forbid the music industry actually gives any of that money to the people that write/play/record/produce/create the music that makes them an industry. I figure the artists should actually see some of the money instead of it being spent on lawsuits and red-tape.
I mean, that's like winning the $100M lottery and only getting $5 out of it because someone decided that they'd use the rest of the money to sue other people to make sure someone doesn't steal my $5.
I guess I just don't see how the RIAA isn't a wholy owned subsidiary of the Mafia.
I'm glad someone made the reference. It wouldn't be a good slashdot day if obscure references to pink floyd songs weren't made. Now if I could just skip the meat and go right for the pudding I'll be set!
I agree. However, the gun it's attached to will also have to be made more accurate, and the scope may have to take into acount other things as well (wind, distance, movement, etc..). However this would be a nice part of the system. Hopefully whoever's shooting at me didn't buy one.
I completely agree on this one. I used to think that my fianceé's computer was going to be too old and slow (an AMD XP 1700+) to run her new favorite game (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3), but I realized that it's not as CPU intensive as I figured. She had a GeForce 440 MX in there and I had to scale everything back. I borrowed a GF4200 from a friend and dropped it in there and now I can crank pretty much every detail setting through the roof and still make it play fast enough for her (picky) tastes.
Lesson here, a newer graphics AGP card can help breathe life into an old system, don't discount it.
Slashdot Mirror
If I wanted to be reelected by popular vote and wanted to bribe the people of the USA into voting for me, I'd have to buy lots of cheap votes. Think about it, in a democracy, Bill Gates' vote isn't worth anymore than Joe Schmoe's vote. Bill pulls in millions a year, Joe pulls in the nominal $30-40k. which one is going to be swayed cheaper? To Joe $5k is like 1/8th of his yearly income where as bill sneezes on Kleenex worth more than that. So screw the rich, the top 0.1% may hold 25% of the money, but I only need 50.0000001% of the people to vote for me to win an election, and I don't care which of the 265 Millon Americans those are.
Yeah, that's a good idea... I did that too... unfortunatley now there are two things I'm missing out on:
Income from these ideas
Proof that I ever had such ideas first
Am I the only one that doesn't like to HAVE to connect to the net to play a game? There are a number of reasons, not the least being having to buy a game and then PAY for the ability to play it. Sometimes I want to play a game on my own. I don't like cheat books, I don't like asking people for help I want to play it, and I want to beat it myself. Sure, everyonce in a while, I like playing an FPS with a friend on the net in a multiplayer mode, but I like playing games that have offline aspects. Games that don't require anything but my TV, my Console and my sound system to work (or my PC and speakers). It seems to me that games that require you to play online seem more like thin-clients than real games. I hope there will continue to be plenty of offline playable games in the future. Am I the only one that thinks this whole MMO thing is just a fad that doesn't seem appealing at all?
And that's why you shut down your AV when your playing... and chat, and those cd's your burning and those torrents you're pulling from and that pr0n playing on the second screen of your dual monitor setup. Concentrate on the game and all is well. I don't need someone's expensive add-in card to tell me that.
:)
Now, perhaps we can invent an add-in card that uses subspace carrier waves that will make a direct connection to your opponent instead of wi-fi or copper wires that go through switches and proxies. (oh yeah, and they need to have open source linux drivers,
Why should you tax people because they're smart enough or lucky enough to do a good job at making money? That's called jealousy. You're jealous that these "rich" people have more money than you do so you want to FORCE them to toss out well earned coin. Sure there are some people in higher brackets that don't deserve money they've got, but that happens in lower brackets as well. What we need is a flat percentage. for example, if it were 10% and you made $40k you'd pay $4k in taxes. The rich would naturally pay more because they'd pull in say $250k and by the same 10% have to pay $25k. It's fair to everyone.
But we forget the main reason why we're taxed. It's because someone else wants to spend the money we make. Yes, I agree that I want my taxes to pay for good schools, roads, infrastructure, etc... but I DON'T want MY money to go to some low-life on welfare, or to pay for someone's lawsuit.
What pisses me off about the american public is that everyone seems to want something for free. The money comes from somewhere. It comes from the individuals and businesses that work their asses off so that they can better themsevles. Grow a backbone people.
And don't forget the needless jobs of millions of people that are employed by the government for bloated TLA's that exist to simply add to the red-tape of society. You'd think that Microsoft wrote the government processes.
And yes I know that jobs are what fuel the economy, but at the same point, But why do you think that companies lay off workers? THe company gets so large and bloated that they realize that they need to strealine processes, streamline workloads, refocus their corporation and become a lean, mean, profit making machine instead of going deeper into debt. This is something the government seriously needs to look into.
I completely agree that there are many costs that come with running a large server room. I recently migrated some of my servers to lower power systems and consolidated many of their functions. This reduced heat/power/noise, freed space, etc. Also, I am a large advocate of using VMWare to not only provide consolidation and increase server utilization, but also to provide high-availability to services in need. However, I wonder how much software that fits this bill Java based?
I also wonder if some of the costs that have to do with the servers will still be incured (many of the administration costs come from setting up the services and adding/removing content. Something which will still occur. Many companies don't build their servers from scratch anymore, so the time spent physically building/mounting the servers is greatly reduced and almost diminished over the long term). I know personally many of the servers I regularly use have been installed for years and have had no issues other than adding/removing content. The fact that all the content is stored on one central server may make it easier to remember where it is, but I don't see how it impacts the time spent updating.
Not to argue, just wondering how 1/2 of the points you outlined are improved by using this system (Administration, Maintainance, Support, and to some extent licensing).
Cassatt's control software costs about $100,000 for a 40-server pool. Adding the Web Automation Module increases the cost by about $5,000 per server, the company said.
Ok, so I can run java apps that save me lots of money on server hardware... for $100,000. unless I want to spend an extra $5,000 per server (bringing the total up to $300,000). So how is this going to save me money? I mean, I could by a whole bunch of 1U Dell P4 servers each valued at about $2k a piece. 40 of those would be only 80 grand. Now, I'm pretty sure that I pay my adminstrators so they can make an informed decision on grouping two or three services on a machine where it makes sense (like dns resolution and dhcp serving) and instantly save me a few machines there. And how many of my mission critical resource poor services are executed in Java? This seems like a huge waste of money to me. Besides how hard could this have been to come up with.. I mean, Java is running IN A VM in the first place. run an identical VM on another machine, add a little code to allow transfering of processes between VMs and you've got it. I'm sure it's got some tricky aspects, but is it that hard that it'll cost $300,000 to do? Something's fishy here...
Because there aren't any legitimate uses of internet access during class time...
Like maybe browsing the notes to the lecture that the teacher made available and adding notes/annotations
Pulling down source code from the book you've got because it didn't come with a CD (that costs extra)
Googling for more info to assist a group project
Uploading/Downloading your notes from your home server so you can keep them all in one place
Saving bookmarks and urls that a teacher may point out as a good source for more info
Using your laptop to run a presentation/group project
etc...
I know I was able to get a lot of use out of internet access when I was in the classroom a number of years back. It was Quite invaluable in MANY of my classes. The annoying thing is that we didn't have wireless then so I had to make sure I was by a port, although many of the newer buildings had classrooms where there was a network port and power plug available at every seat (if there weren't already PC's there). How one sided of a universtiy to think that because someone COULD missuse a piece of technology, that everyone will... but then again, it is Harvard. I bet they talk to the RIAA on a regular basis.
We should turn off all energy plants, stop burning fossil fuels then find a cave or tree to cling on to and eat bark for the rest of our lives. :-|
That wouldn't satisfy the tree-huggers... Think about the amount of bark we'd be eating! It'd be like killing elephands just for their tusks.
But Will It Run Linux?!? Seriously, the PS2 had a linux add-on available for it. The XBox, well, people just modded that. Can someone Mod the PS3? I have a feeling that it'd be nice to run other things besides games on that platform if it's all it is hyped to be. Properly compiled linux software for it would be quite slick and I'd be willing to say it'd give many other server platforms a run for their money.
That is if it's ever released...
Yes, but in linux, you don't have to BUY the fancier WM. After all, it's just the WM, it's not like it's a whole new operating system... In MS's world, you have to pay to have a fancy interface, even if it just interfaces with the same OS.
As a programmer, there's only so much that can be done in software. Sure you can parallize things, and you can come up with newer/faster algorthms, but if we didn't get dual proc systems, that would have been pointless. So with parallel procs, we get better parallel code. Hardware advances will create software advances, and new algorthms will direct hardware futures. This is the way the world works, and I think it's worked out fairly well so far. Lets see what the Cell and processors after it can do!
Currently ver reports "Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]" and just the Windows directory is 3.12 GB; at fresh install + patch it was 2.88 GB.
Wow... Just, Wow. What did you install?
First I want to say that I'm NOT an M$ Fanboy. I think M$ is far from linux in stability, robustness, flexibility, and many other ares. However, I currently have Windows XP installed on a 15GB drive. I use it frequently, though mostly for gaming. When I installed XP on it it was well under a gig install, in fact, if I remember correctly, it was about 550MB. That's it. Now I did disable the roll-back changes ability, which freed up some space (it's backed up so who cares). I have multiple multi-GB games installed and all run flawlessly and I still have plenty of space to spare.
As for stability, it's a HECK of a lot better than 98 and 2k were. Running those I had a 3-4 month complete fresh re-install limit. Anything past 3 months was getting slow unstable, and after 4-5 months, everything was starting to crash regularly. Now the same hardware is running XP and it's been going for 2.5 years! Now I will have to say that this isn't used for everything I do, and most of my data is stored on my Linux Server (and backed up nightly to tape), but I find this amazing for an M$ product.
Again, while M$ has a while to go to beat out a lot of aspects in linux, XP was a good step forward for them.
I also find it's important to point out that the OS is extra!
Sure that's cool for people like me that are going to throw gentoo on there, but what about gramma, she doesn't want linux... (yes some are ok with that, but for the majority, it's just not the way for the masses yet!). so we're well over 600 bucks if not more for a full version of something, close to 700. Since when is that cheap or budget?
I have a number of friends who simply refuse to use the small controllers. I don't honestly find them bad either, I just like the placement of the black and clear buttons on the smaller one better. Both controllers are hands down better than may of the other ones I've tried (including such beauties as the N64 and Game Cube Controllers *shudder* My fingers get sore just thinking about the latter).
The only thing i have to say about the x-box controllers is the damn buttons are so nice and round they dig RIGHT INTO my fingers after only a few minutes of game play. I have noticed though, the wireless controllers have a little bit flatter top on the buttons so I can play a while longer before my thumb cries out in agony. I hate to say it, but the original NES buttons were easier on my thumbs.
I haven't personally held the x-box 360 controller, but I hope MS learned their lesson on big jeweled pointy buttons.
What about the fact that DVD Players don't work for life!? I mean, if I buy a HD-DVD Player, get me 30-40 HD-DVDs (not a huge number by any stretch) and then the player dies, WTF? I have to Re-Buy ALL of my movies?? THAT is why I won't by something that's tied to the player.
No, a camera wouldn't be good. The sides would get distorted due to the lens and the resolution wouldn't be there.
Well, I started using my Canon Digital Rebel XT for "scanning" documents. If you have the right distance and the right lens (around 28mm seems pretty good, though 35 is better if you good enough light to be able to hold it steady).
It is true, at the 18mm end of the stock Rebel lens, distortion is a little of a problem, but if you go higher up, it's less fisheye. Good quality 18mm and 14mm lenses have a number of lenses meant to remove distortion and actually would work well, but I'm too cheap thus far.
The other complaint, resolution? Don't worry about that. at 8 MegaPixel, a 300 dpi image is larger than the print area of a stock 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Usually this is achieved around 3-4 feet from the image. And the stock lens focuses down to under a foot, so you can imagine the resolution you get out of that. The only thing is lighting. The stock lens is only an f3.4-5.6, so you have to have a good deal of light to get a good quality image. However, they sell a nice 50mm f1.8 for 75 bucks that would be perfect for this sort of thing.
Sure a flatbed will always have a place for scanning things, but you can see why I usually don't feel like dragging out the SCSI Flatbed everytime I want to scan in a document.
I completely agree. Enlightenment 17 is not only breathtaking, but it's compact, it's quick, it's easy to code, it's VERY configurable, it's not a memory hog or a processor hog (my P2 350 laptop with 256MB runs enlightenment 17 perfectly, something I can't even come close to saying with KDE 3.x or Gnome). And if you happen to have the KDE libs installed and want to run a KDE app, it'll fire it right up.
I can't wait for the final product (though that hasn't been stopping me from running it for the last year+), so that the major distros can pick up this spectacular next generation Window Manager.
Ahh! Sarcasm at it's finest!
Seriously though, I hope we see something from all the major players at E3. Not only new games and ideas to make the 360 actually worth the price of admission, but something from Sony and Nintendo to show that they aren't going down without a fight. I think if Sony is smart, we'll have some playable demos of the PS3 as well as maybe an announcement of some games that are planned for the system in the future. I am really interested in seeing what they're going to do with not only the power of the PS3, but the space of the Blu-Ray medium.
As far as Nintendo, I think it's time they shift into high gear and do the same thing instead of just pulling a controller or a random system photo out. I know all the Nintendo Fan-boys/Fan-girls are drooling over the controller, but I don't think the controller is that cool unless there is a kickass system and games to go along with it.
"So how does copying and posting music files for the world to download help the artists?"
Well, first off it allows people to find out if they like the music before they try to blindly decide if they want to drop $15 on their CD. I'll have to say that I have purchased more CD's I've downloaded and liked than I would have ever purchased if I wasn't able to download them at all. (My criteria are simple, have atleast 3 good songs with replay value for a $10 investment. It's amazing how most CDs don't fit this category.) iTunes filled this gap by allowing people to just buy 1 song from that album that had nothing but crap except for the one good one. Now the RIAA is bitching because it didn't get your 15 bucks it only got $1. Maybe they should figure out why instead of suing everyone for the other $14.
Ever since the dawn of time, the best way for someone to know about something is word of mouth. If I hear some random advertiser tell me a CD is good, I'm not buying it. If I hear it from one of my friends that knows my musical tastes, I may give it a shot. The Internet allows these artists to advertise their songs to anyone willing to lend an ear. Now you don't have to take your best friend's advice, you can hear it yourself!
I suppose not everyone is as good at buying CD's they like as I am perhaps, but I think the artists should start to use the power of the internet instead of letting the RIAA buy lawyers new cars for them.
I'd buy this, other than the fact that the movie industry is also sucking as of late. It seems like they're really digging for ideas and those ideas aren't working. There honestly hasn't been a movie that's made me jump up and say "Wow, I need to go see that!" since Lord of the Rings.
/.'ers just spend more time playing FPS's so they don't see the whole picture.
To a point, the same goes for games. I'd say that games actually have more to choose from than movies, but not all of those choices are "Hot New Titles". I haven't bought a game since the first Rogue Spear: Raven Sheild. Sure I could get an expansion pack, but #1 all my friends that I play with online would also need to drop that money. #2 I can find plenty of added maps/mods online and I'm still quite happy with the experience.
You can't say that the gaming industry doesn't have a wide variety though. I mean, not everything out is an FPS. There are plenty of things like Rise of Nations, or the Sims, or Tetris 5 billion, or need for speed, or Sim City, or whatever. There's a lot of variety. I think
I suppose another thing is the fact that a good game has a good amount of replay to it and if you have good replay the casual gamer won't want to go out and spend more money on something new when he already has something that he wants to replay.
It's not that I don't like buying games, it's that I don't like any of the new games available for buying. Nor do I really see the point to spending $50 on a game when I still have 4+ games I still want to complete/replay.
"The music industry is very used to getting their way. They have plenty of money to give to politicians when they aren't giving it to radio stations in illegal pay for play schemes. Give them a while and they will bribe the bad news away..."
Because God Forbid the music industry actually gives any of that money to the people that write/play/record/produce/create the music that makes them an industry. I figure the artists should actually see some of the money instead of it being spent on lawsuits and red-tape.
I mean, that's like winning the $100M lottery and only getting $5 out of it because someone decided that they'd use the rest of the money to sue other people to make sure someone doesn't steal my $5.
I guess I just don't see how the RIAA isn't a wholy owned subsidiary of the Mafia.
I'm glad someone made the reference. It wouldn't be a good slashdot day if obscure references to pink floyd songs weren't made. Now if I could just skip the meat and go right for the pudding I'll be set!
I agree. However, the gun it's attached to will also have to be made more accurate, and the scope may have to take into acount other things as well (wind, distance, movement, etc..). However this would be a nice part of the system. Hopefully whoever's shooting at me didn't buy one.
I completely agree on this one. I used to think that my fianceé's computer was going to be too old and slow (an AMD XP 1700+) to run her new favorite game (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3), but I realized that it's not as CPU intensive as I figured. She had a GeForce 440 MX in there and I had to scale everything back. I borrowed a GF4200 from a friend and dropped it in there and now I can crank pretty much every detail setting through the roof and still make it play fast enough for her (picky) tastes.
Lesson here, a newer graphics AGP card can help breathe life into an old system, don't discount it.