Actually I think you have really hit the mark here with your comment on the spacial controller. With regard to the NES controller I hope never to see or hold this again (think painful hands) although there was an add-on jacket that made it look sort-of like the Sega controller and was much more comfortable.
My following rant is slightly off-topic and one of the reasons I would be more attracted to the Wii over the PS3.
My biggest annoyance on the PS3 (Sony are you listening) is the controller not the price which I think is reasonable (think Blu-ray payer as well). I think I speak for many console gamers when I say that most games are more immersive with a rumble controller than a motion sensitive one, in-fact with the exception of racing, flying and some specialty games (debatable) I think (IMOH) a motion sensitive controller is as exciting as a light gun (great for the few games that support it it but!). I think having the dual shock even as an separate type of controller or at least selectable (manual or auto) on the new one, many people would buy it if sold separately and vendors would support it (think older PS1 and PS1 games) over a motion sensitive one.
The Xbox 360 and Wii both have vibrating controllers why does the PS3 not support this? I know all about the court case but that is a debate for later.
Motion sensitive controllers have been made before and have not been all that successful when you compare them to the vibrating controller. A simple trip to your favorite game store will confirm this.
I agree with you since I am also an Electronics Engineer so when I want to relax I prefer to play a console game (PC's don't cut it for me and pay and free to air TV is getting boring) and not spend more than a few minutes setting up. I have always liked the Nintendo machines having got the NES as my first game system (for my kids and the big kid of course). My eldest son has a Game Cube (not living at home now) and some of those games are great. I even have some older GC games gathering dust so I would be very tempted to get the Wii when it comes out.
I have looked at the other two game machines and will most likely buy the PS3 but not immediately since I have still got some games on the PS2 that I have not played yet and I don't have a HD flat panel TV yet but I do have a flat wide-screen 76cm TV which was excellent when I brought it 4 years ago and will look really great with any of the new machines. So next year I will most likely shell out AU$8k to AU10k for a home entertainment system which will include the Wii and possibly a PS3. I will keep the other TV as a spare when my wife wants to watch TV. I would not have to move the PS3 and/or the Wii since they have wireless controllers.
And if the PS3 had 2 HDMI slots would everyone rush out and buy 2 HD TV's? Sony is no fool, one HDMI slot is adequate, however there are those people who would buy 5 HD TV's if the PS3 supported 5 HDMI slots, they are the ones who buy $500,000 plus cars, have a few mansions and a private jet while we the unwashed masses have barely enough money for bread.
Oh! you mean that FPS that is much the same as other FPS's - No idea.
I think you should ask when will MS put out Halo 4, talk about a sausage factory.
I live in Australia and when the PS2 came out it was AU$730.00 but the AU$ was only approx US$0.55. Even then the PS2 sold very well because DVD players were in the order of AU$500 rapidly going upwards.
Now the PS3 is coming out at US$600 (forget about the US$500 one since AU$130 is not a huge amount) but this now translates to AU$780.00 which is not much more than the original PS2 price. The XBOX 360 is approx AU600.00 here so even if the PS3 (60GB disk) is between AU$800.00 and AU$900.00 it will still sell because this time it will have Blu-ray. People are paying this for Hard Disk DVD recorders. Now I hear "well you have to get a HD TV" and my answer to that is if you want to get the best out of the XBOX 360 then you really have to get a HD TV as well and considering that a 106 cm (42 inch) HD plasma TV in Australia is around AU$3000.00 (720p) to AU$7000 (1080p). LCD is approx 30% dearer, although for smaller HD TV's you can get an LCD HD TV (66 cm) for approx $AU1200. In Australia the move to flat screen is picking up and once the PS3 comes out I can only see this trend accelerating, although without decent statistical evidence this is only conjecture.
For people who have little money then all this is moot, but in Australia there are many people who do have the money, or will get into debt just to get something trendy. If you want a very good home HD TV (1080p) including a 6.1 or 7.1 sound entertainment system plus a cabinet and including a game machine (ie. XBOX 360 or PS3 or even a Wii) then you would spend between AU$7,000 and AU$12,000 so the difference of 2 or 3 hundred dollars is not much and since you get a Blu-ray player the PS3 looks quite attractive. So those people who say that the XBOX 360 is cheaper, well where is the HD-DVD add-on and how much will it cost?
I think the best way to sum this up is if you have the money to buy a HD TV then you would get a machine which can display to the resolution of your TV without buying add-ons and the PS3 does exactly this.
Personally I think from November things are going to get interesting. I will most likely buy the PS3 and the Wii but not the XBOX 360 (hey this is Slashdot you know!).
One thing I always see with MS Windows is the almighty "file-association". As a long time Unix user/admin I have never used this concept and find this quite annoying in MS Windows. In *nix you can always find out what a file is with the "file" command which uses the/etc/magic file (get the latest if yours is not up to date).
Once you get away from the concepts of "file-association" then life does become so much easier. As an example any text file or executable I create under *nix I never use extensions unless it is generated by an application. As for double click why press twice when a single click (what I use) will do.
I think the bottom line with *nix compared to MS Windows is *nix expects you to at least make an attempt to think. I use to see this through the early to mid 1980's but when MS Windows came along I saw the "dumbing down" of desktop computer (we used Graphical Workstations or X terminals in the 1980's) use and the "Oh it's not like Windows" mentality. If a computer user really thinks like that then please stick to MS Windows because they will never be happy in a *nix environment and MS will love them for it and charge them appropriately.
Well I live in Sydney and I don't have a death wish. There are cycle lanes but there ain't that many of them. Sydney's hilly terrain can make riding a push bike a chore, although that depends were you live and how far to your work. Even riding a motor bike can be deadly because it seems to me that motorists don't want to see you.
Public transport in Sydney leaves a lot to be desired however if you work in the City then it can be much faster, cheaper and less stressfull to take a bus or train although this will depend on what you do and where you live.
I will have to agree that parking a bicycle is easier although it depends were you park it. One thing I have noticed in Sydney is the increase in the number of parking meters in places that seem to be just a way of raising revenue.
I normally leave for work at 9:15 and and usually get to work within 25 minutes (by car) since I only drive 22km (14 miles). If I leave between 7:00 and 8:30 it can take me about 1 hour although that also depends on which way I go. I prefer leaving late (approx 7:00 pm) and can be home in 25 minutes. There is a tollway but surprisingly that can add 10 to 20 minutes to my driving time since I would have to travel an additional 10 minutes to get on it and then pay for the privilege so I usually get on (no toll) further down for the last 10 km (7 miles) home. So for me leaving late and getting home late works and is less stressful and that is good for your overall health.
Only a few PC owners seem to think about backups and then only after loosing their data. Even with a 1PB (not a typo) disk there will be people who won't backup. Now in business if you don't backup they have a very good chance of going bankrupt if they have a hard disk failure. It must be rembered that even mirrored or SAN disks can and do fail.
For home use a huge disk is mainly used for pawn, movies, games....etc, so disk performance is not normally an issue, however when you are running a database you need to use RAID or a SAN to increase the speed of the (now virtual) disk. So 10 x 72GB disks in a raid array will outperform 1 x 720GB disk.
Backing up a business system is expensive and time consuming so currently tapes (eg: super DLT's.... etc) are used and even then tapes can fail for a variety of reasons. What is really needed is a replacement for tape and currently only the Holographic Versatile Disk (HVD) has the potential to do this with 300GB/disks to be available this year. Forget about CD, DVD, HD-DVD and Bluray these technologies have their own niche and will most likely work well within it.
Even with the potential of 1.6TB/disk (40MB/sec write) for HVD the increase in storage will still cause issues in the future until people learn to tidy up their messes and that I don't see happening anytime soon. The larger the available storage the more it will be filled up with what is most likely junk, although my idea of junk (or goodness) will most likely differ from others.
With modern diesel cars and trucks it is actually possible to mix 50/50 petroleum diesel and vegetable oil. With the right equipment you can even run a diesel off used frying oil (alright you need to clean it) but it is basically free.
The only issue you may have is when the Government insists on you paying the diesel tax:
In fact just do a Google search on "diesel cars" (refine if you wish) since there is a huge amount of reading on the subject of diesel and bio-diesel. In fact diesel cars are starting to become very popular in many countries, although the US and Australia are lagging behind but even there, slow and steady shifts are being made towards diesel cars. What slows down the purchase of diesel cars it the false perception that they are dirty, underpowered and more expensive. this is not true anymore, although before you rush out and get rid of your petrol driven car you should do a bit of homework.
I have a feeling that things are going to get very interesting, when petroleum companies start to wake up to the potential loss of revenue if too many people purchase machines that can use cheap bio-fuel.
Well if enough people did this maybe business would realise that there are other document formats other than Microsoft's *.doc format (it is NOT a standard just something that has been erroneously accepted as one) and they better support it. Sometimes you just have to make a stand and I think this is what the EU is trying to do.
It never ceases to amaze me the lemming mentality of Business when it come to using propriety formats and how they seem to think that it allows for portability and interoperability (Biz talk) when that format is under the control (ie. Intellectual Property) of one company. What is even stranger is that format sometimes cannot even be read properly by the same companies software after a few years. So if you are part of a council, hall of records.... etc were they need to be able to keep documents for 100's of years then using something that has a closed format is a rather a stupid move, hence the need for an Open, Portable Document format.
Please look at the history of standards, get yourself in the right frame of mind before you do and it is quite fascinating, particularly when you relate it to today's society.
Yes I have worked in a Standards Laboratory hence my signature.
I could not agree more with the use of dumb tty or smart graphical terminals. These are very easy to setup and forget and almost impossible to put off line baring cutting their network connection and that would hopefully be setup in a way to facilitate quick repairs.
There is too much emphasis placed on active terminals (ie. read PC's) which may be cheaper although that can be debated. Get a virus or worm and a PC becomes a brick and requires quite a few man hours to get rid of the problem, not to mention the agro', now translate that to 100's or more PC's and fixing the problem becomes very expensive. If a PC is used in just a client/server or just dumb client configuration then why not go for a dumb or even an intelligent graphical terminal.
The only useful thing a PC has over a dumb/smart terminal when its prime use is to connect to centralised secure server(s) is the fact that you can play solitaire. Before telling me you need a PC for "Office and Outlook" then I suggest you read some history. Full graphical Office/mailer suites were available for *nix in the mid 1980's when MS Word was a joke, admittedly they weren't cheap but they did have network licenses which did reduce overall costs. Today *nix Office or Productivity suites have got even better and they conform to Open Standards (some cost and others don't).
On a side-note I still remember the time (late 1980's)when I was called by a very aggravated women who said she setup her display for proportional spaced fonts and why could she not see her fonts. She was using a dumb tty terminal at the time and no she was not blond. I was quite nice about the whole thing and did not embarrass her in front of her colleagues, although it was very hard not to laugh. Her document did print properly though which impressed everyone, later we did organise an 1024x1024 colour X terminal (cost was $4000 compared to a $5000 PC with Windows 3.1 and VGA screen) for her. Wordperfect under X11 had a Framemaker look and feel which was very impressive. Hmmm I can see a Dilbert joke here.
Comparing (very loosely) the CAD/CAM packages: Autocad - developed for PC's (late 1980's). Initially expensive eye-candy. Pro Engineer - Developed under Unix in the early 1980's. Initially very expensive but highly usable and functional. Solidworks - never used but appears to be another CAD package. Electronics Workbench - never used but used "Spice" (early 1980's) and it may have some similarities.
For many so-called "Windows" packages there are normally Linux/Unix equivalents. Some *nix applications may not have as much eye-candy as an equivalent Windows application but they are normally quite functonal. The problem I always encounter is the quote "Oh! it's not like Windows". I am at an age now were I just shake my head and just walk away because you are better off talking to a brick wall than trying to convince these people. I think the Dilbert cartoons are very appropriate here.
If Lucent wins then Microsoft will have to shell out some big cash and with their deep pockets they can afford it. Unfortunately this set precedence and some other party (think Sony, Nintendo.. ) are also going to be sued as well. It does no one any good (except Lucent of course).
There is a dilemma here. If Microsoft fights this and wins, the US patent system will be given quite a serious shake and with enough shaking maybe it will be reformed. For us (the little people) this may seem like a victory but for big business it would be a disaster. Given this I think Microsoft will make a deal and it will mostly go over like this 'Ok you hit us with this patent but we will hit you with ours "eventually" so we we will cross license and fork over a little slush money so you can now go after those other people who are infringing your "god given IP" (hands list of competitors)'. In other words Big business wins and the small inventor is shafted again.
PS. Sony is not exactly small and they also have patents so a deal could be reached with them as well - oh to be a patent lawyer!
Well back in the early eighties I used elm (pine did not exist) and I found it an excellent mail client because I (as a System Admin) could wade through lots of system and personal mail quickly and efficiently. What I found was that while our Scientists and Engineers (I was one) had no issues with elm our Clerical staff hated it because it a learning curve of a few hours.
When pine came out made it available to our Clerical people and they found it initiative and very easy to learn. The default editor (pico) was very easy for them as well. In fact for casual users of our system who needed to edit something on a Unix system then pico was excellent, of course vi was what all Sys Admins (they still do) and programmers used. Then along came Emacs and for those people that really needed a bells and whistle editor then this was it, however the learning curve was very high.
As far as choosing an email client or an editor this is really dependent on the expertise of the user and the requirements for using them. If you need to read email from a computer intranet then using Google to read your mail is stupid so a client like pine, elm, mh, xmail...... etc is the best way to go and yes you can forward that mail to your PC or to another mail repository however this is rather pointless and in some instances a security breach.
I myself can use any mailer graphic or otherwise but I do have a soft spot for pine (not the best but if you have had to use "mail" or "mailx" then you would love it) and actually use it on the machines I manage. I also use Exchange (sigh!! - corporate only) and in addition use Gmail for test purposes and for private use.
Actually this pine vs Gmail is not much more different to the vi/Emacs wars (rants) of the mid eighties except those were really passionate. My feeling then and now is you really should use the right tool for the right job providing the tool you use is suitable and you are comfortable and proficient in it's use.
Well I sort of agree with you about solid state storage but there are a few flaws in your logic.
I will answer with a question. Why do people or organisations backup their data?
Most PC uses may backup their data to floppy (now obsolete) or to zip (getting obsolete) or CD or DVD but rarely to tape because it is not cheap and it is inconvenient.
Most organisation backup their data (from a few 10's of GB to 1000's of TB) mainly with tape devices (super DLT's can save approx 400 to 600 GB per tape) with approx 50MB/sec through put. This solution can be very expensive ($10k to $100M). Solid state storage can do this but the cost would get quite expensive. Even disk storage would be cheaper than solid state however any company that wants to stay in business should have a Disaster Recovery Program for their IT department and this means off-site storage of backup media.
Government organisation (ie. Tax Department) require data retention for seven years and some even longer. Now solid state and even disk backups become so expensive you need to have the budget of NASA for even a small company. If the company requires off-site backups then at the moment tapes are the only solution.
What is important here is the potential of the Holographic Versatile Disk (HVD). They are starting with 300GB @ 20MB/sec and assuming the writers/readers are say $2k each (guessing here but reasonable) you could get a multi-stacker silo (say 6 heads and 50 disks) for say $20k that would have a through-put of 120MB/s which would be fine for small to medium sized companies. An equivalent tape machine would cost close to $50 and up depending on your tape silo and not only would it would be much larger it would have a slower response for the robot stacker.
Assuming a HVD multi-stacker library of similar performance to it's tape/cartridge equivalent the overall cost now comes down to the media and I am quite sure HVD disks will be at least 10 to 20 times cheaper than the equivalent tape/cartridge. Coupled with that will be the potential longer life and small storage area of the HVD, not to mention "near-line recovery" capabilities.
What we are seeing with HVD is a change away from tape backup units and anyone who has worked in this area will welcome that.
On an interesting note. It looks like the VHS tape recorders are being phased out by HD and/or DVD recorders. I am sure the same will happen when HVD are pushed as the new backup strategy. Think thin DVD's (even in a protective case) compared to bulky VHS cassettes.
Note: You should not compare CD's, DVD, HD-DVD and BluRay with HVD since they are aimed at different areas of IT, however that is a subject for another day.
As far as the PS3 goes I think (can anyone confirm this) that game manufacturers can still produce their games on DVD and even CD since the PS2 can do this and the PS3 is still backwards compatible. After-all it is rather wasteful, not to mention initially expensive to put a game on a Blu-Ray disk if the total capacity of the game can fit on a standard DVD or even a CD. I think if the game has HDTV data then a Blu-Ray disk will be needed.
You also have to remember that what we the general public would pay for a Blu-Ray disk is not what a manufacturer would pay since they would get substantial (possibly $1/disk) discounts for volume purchases.
You could even compare DVD disk prices when the PS2 initially came out (DVD's were about $10 to $20 each for just write once), yet except for a few games on CD (ie. Half Life) most came out on DVD. I think manufacturers (at that time) felt that DVD's were more difficult to copy than CD's, if that was true then the same will be for Blu-Ray until prices come down.
Actually we should not just compare DVD vs Blu-Ray (or HD DVD) on price just yet. What we have here is a capacity comparison. Lets start with the following:
Floppy disk (1.2MB) - yes you can get larger but they are now pretty much obsolete. However they were good for their day. Lets not go into 5.25 inch, 8 inch or even (gasp) 12 inch floppies .
CD (650 - 800MB) - still useful for Music, install software and some backups. Look like hanging around for a long time. I doubt we will see a Music DVD put out by the Music Industry anytime soon.
DVD (4.7GB) - at the moment this media is very cheap (sometimes cheaper than a CD). Dual density is a lot more expensive though. Still 4.7GB is a very useful size (PC and small size backups including movies) although certain companies would like to see this killed off, I personally this won't happen for some time, since there are a lot of DVD/Hard-Disk player/recorders on the market which have really started to kill off VHS recorders. You could probably start a new Slashdot article just on this alone.
HD-DVD (15GB) - this is single layer proposed for HDTV.
Blu-Ray (25GB) - this is single layer proposed for HDTV.
For HDTV the industry is proposing 15GB to 30GB and this is were the above two fit in. You won't be able to put a HDTV show on standard DVD without some loss (normally considerable) and this is what the Entertainment Industry wants. In addition what is also wanted by the Industry is DRM and the best one will have a definite edge, although the PS3 will be will be the Trojan Horse that puts BluRay in the living room.
Holographic DVD (1.6TB) - http://www.betanews.com/article/Holographic_DVD_to _Hold_16_Terabytes/1133197797 The specs are incredible however I cannot see HDTV being put on this. Where this will shine is in Small to Enterprise backup solutions and this is exactly what it is aiming at. Basically this puts the backup tape industry on notice since it now becomes very possible to have close to "near-line" recovery. Those people who are responsible for serious backups should welcome this.
Please don't come back at me suggesting disks to actually do backups. All I can say to that is try to backup 100TB and put that off-site cheaply, while taking into account possible disaster and recovery scenarios.
Comparing DVD to any of the above is rather silly and as far as costs go, the new media will come down eventually. Even today if you compare RW DVD to Write once DVD you are looking at approx 10 to 1 in cost so if the new disks are say $15 to $20 each for writable only it does not take much effort to imagine what the price of the RW ones would initially be.
I sort of agree with you but the new consoles are going to be even better than the PS2. I personally will wait for the PS3 and the Revolution to come out before I decide but I have quite a few PS1/2 games that I still play and new games are still coming out so I am quite happy to wait. Some PS2 games do support the USB ports (Unreal Tournament does support a wheel mouse - not sure about keyboard)
I have played PC games (mainly RPG's) but I have found them too time consuming, this is especially true for Strategy games (my view only) and FPS games (like Halo) are good for an adrenaline rush for a hour or so but do get boring quickly. Oh dear I know I am going to get flamed for that.
So you buy a new Mac with a view to putting MS windows on it under a dual boot or run under virtualisation. Now I know we are all "Cough!!" Honest people and we would go out and buy a new sparkling MS Windows install CD, not to mention a copy of MS Office. So let me ask the question again why to you even want to put MS Windows (dual boot or even virtualisation) on a machine designed for a Mac?
I know some people will say because of games, but if you have all these games you surely have a MS windows machine, again see above.
Re:It may function but will be fatter than ever
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Basically when a new console comes out Game Makers wind down support for the older console. They very rarely stop making games immediately after-all they do have an investment on the previous console. How long this support lasts depends on how popular the new console is.
And you assume that users really know what they want. All this is a grab for more money. At least with a Linux distribution you have everything you need for a newbie right through to a professional and you don't have to change anything, although you may want to add things.
With regard to driver support, if a driver for a particular device is not available (Linux uses modules and you normally don't need a new kernel) then you can download it (the same as MS Windows) providing one is available. Were MS Windows wins here is many vendors write drivers for MS Windows but not many write drivers for Linux although this is starting to change.
The most important reason why people complain that Linux is not as good as MS Windows is due to the fact that when people buy a PC it comes with MS Windows loaded and most people won't switch, in fact most people have no idea an alternative OS exists. It is different in the server market though.
It never ceases to amaze me that people buy an Operating System (you really do one way or another) and then have to buy software to keep malware and other nasties out. At least with Unix/Linux OS's you can get security updates for the OS and in may cases, unless you have a subscription (good value for large corporations and even some small business) it can be free.
To actually require virus protection is really a damming indictment of the Operating System and yet Business actually spend billions of dollars a year on this rather than look at other OS's and yes I do know the excuses and they IMHO are very short sighted (rather like lemmings).
Not being a lawyer and getting cross-eyed looking at the legalese:
- open (3) Pretrial Disclosures.
In addition to the disclosures required by Rule 26(a)(1) and (2), a party must provide to other parties and promptly file with the court the following information regarding the evidence that it may present at trial other than solely for impeachment: - close
I am fairly sure you need to get a court injunction prior to the police (I assume Paramount did this because the article did not say) raiding your house at least that is what I suppose is done in a non-totalitarian country.
Anyway the article seems to have compromised any law case.
From the article: - open Russell Lee is either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description.
Paramount, which distributes "Coach Carter," presents an unflattering picture of him, saying he not only obtained the movie illegally, but that he uploaded it to an online system called eDonkey so others could steal it, too.
"I don't even know what they're talking about," Lee said. "I didn't do it." - close
Where is that hanging judge? We need to convene a kangaroo court quickly before anyone wakes up to what is going on.
I suppose we can call this the use of "non-lethal force", however this type of action opens the flood gates for litigation.
Some things the military/police have to consider when using force to incapacitate a person who is threatening you or a another persons life and cannot be calmed (try to define this??) down.
You cannot stab a person with a rusty bayonet, however a clean one is ok.
It is illegal to fire a 0.222 bullet with a cross tip (dum-dum) but there is no problem if you use a 50 cal machine gun.
The use of a tazer can kill a person with a heart issue, but its ok to fire bullets at him.
Now the latest. If you blind a person with your laser weapon you will most likely face litigation, so you better make sure the selection switch is changed from "stun/blind" to "crispy".
I happen to work on all major Unix machines and some sites refuse to have installed software other than what comes with the vendors distribution.
in alphabetical order:
* ssh - Not on all *nix machines - get it by any means possible.
* rsh - try not to use this now, was ok in it's day.
* cron - 0n all *nix machine. Totally agree.
* grep - 0n all *nix machine. Totally agree.
* less - Not on all *nix machines. The pager "more" is the standard and is identical or close to less with the exception of SUN's default one. You can use "pg" (never liked this) but I would say you have only worked on SUN systems.
* man - All *nix machines - essential.
* perl - Not on all *nix machines but get it anyway.
* rsync - Not on all *nix machines - very useful if you need to synch file-systems locally or remotely (has support for ssh).
* telnet - You won't have arguments from me here.
* vim - I agree with you but this is not available on all *nix machines. Like it or not "vi" is still the standard. Emacs is excellent if you have the time to learn it but again emacs is not on all *nix machines.
* zsh - Not on all *nix machines
*/dev/null - No arguments here
* Honorable mention -/bin/sh - no arguments here. However ksh is on all Unix machines (in Linux just change #!/bin/ksh to #!/bin/bash).
Some others I find essential:
top - not on all but there is a similar command in AIX, Solaris and HPUX. Not difficult getting this for all machines.
netstat - your general purpose network tool. Yes I know there are better ones but you will have this on all machines.
du, df (bdf in HPUX) - disk usage at a glance.
ls - need I say anything on this.
find - your standard (check your manual) Swiss Army knife, 1000+ uses.
The beauty of *nix is the enormous amount of tools you have and can get to do your work. You may not use a particular tool for years then all of a sudden it becomes essential.
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Actually I think you have really hit the mark here with your comment on the spacial controller. With regard to the NES controller I hope never to see or hold this again (think painful hands) although there was an add-on jacket that made it look sort-of like the Sega controller and was much more comfortable.
My following rant is slightly off-topic and one of the reasons I would be more attracted to the Wii over the PS3.
My biggest annoyance on the PS3 (Sony are you listening) is the controller not the price which I think is reasonable (think Blu-ray payer as well). I think I speak for many console gamers when I say that most games are more immersive with a rumble controller than a motion sensitive one, in-fact with the exception of racing, flying and some specialty games (debatable) I think (IMOH) a motion sensitive controller is as exciting as a light gun (great for the few games that support it it but!). I think having the dual shock even as an separate type of controller or at least selectable (manual or auto) on the new one, many people would buy it if sold separately and vendors would support it (think older PS1 and PS1 games) over a motion sensitive one.
The Xbox 360 and Wii both have vibrating controllers why does the PS3 not support this? I know all about the court case but that is a debate for later.
Motion sensitive controllers have been made before and have not been all that successful when you compare them to the vibrating controller. A simple trip to your favorite game store will confirm this.
I agree with you since I am also an Electronics Engineer so when I want to relax I prefer to play a console game (PC's don't cut it for me and pay and free to air TV is getting boring) and not spend more than a few minutes setting up. I have always liked the Nintendo machines having got the NES as my first game system (for my kids and the big kid of course). My eldest son has a Game Cube (not living at home now) and some of those games are great. I even have some older GC games gathering dust so I would be very tempted to get the Wii when it comes out.
I have looked at the other two game machines and will most likely buy the PS3 but not immediately since I have still got some games on the PS2 that I have not played yet and I don't have a HD flat panel TV yet but I do have a flat wide-screen 76cm TV which was excellent when I brought it 4 years ago and will look really great with any of the new machines. So next year I will most likely shell out AU$8k to AU10k for a home entertainment system which will include the Wii and possibly a PS3. I will keep the other TV as a spare when my wife wants to watch TV. I would not have to move the PS3 and/or the Wii since they have wireless controllers.
Decisions decisions!
And if the PS3 had 2 HDMI slots would everyone rush out and buy 2 HD TV's? Sony is no fool, one HDMI slot is adequate, however there are those people who would buy 5 HD TV's if the PS3 supported 5 HDMI slots, they are the ones who buy $500,000 plus cars, have a few mansions and a private jet while we the unwashed masses have barely enough money for bread.
Oh! you mean that FPS that is much the same as other FPS's - No idea. I think you should ask when will MS put out Halo 4, talk about a sausage factory.
I live in Australia and when the PS2 came out it was AU$730.00 but the AU$ was only approx US$0.55. Even then the PS2 sold very well because DVD players were in the order of AU$500 rapidly going upwards.
Now the PS3 is coming out at US$600 (forget about the US$500 one since AU$130 is not a huge amount) but this now translates to AU$780.00 which is not much more than the original PS2 price. The XBOX 360 is approx AU600.00 here so even if the PS3 (60GB disk) is between AU$800.00 and AU$900.00 it will still sell because this time it will have Blu-ray. People are paying this for Hard Disk DVD recorders. Now I hear "well you have to get a HD TV" and my answer to that is if you want to get the best out of the XBOX 360 then you really have to get a HD TV as well and considering that a 106 cm (42 inch) HD plasma TV in Australia is around AU$3000.00 (720p) to AU$7000 (1080p). LCD is approx 30% dearer, although for smaller HD TV's you can get an LCD HD TV (66 cm) for approx $AU1200. In Australia the move to flat screen is picking up and once the PS3 comes out I can only see this trend accelerating, although without decent statistical evidence this is only conjecture.
For people who have little money then all this is moot, but in Australia there are many people who do have the money, or will get into debt just to get something trendy. If you want a very good home HD TV (1080p) including a 6.1 or 7.1 sound entertainment system plus a cabinet and including a game machine (ie. XBOX 360 or PS3 or even a Wii) then you would spend between AU$7,000 and AU$12,000 so the difference of 2 or 3 hundred dollars is not much and since you get a Blu-ray player the PS3 looks quite attractive. So those people who say that the XBOX 360 is cheaper, well where is the HD-DVD add-on and how much will it cost?
I think the best way to sum this up is if you have the money to buy a HD TV then you would get a machine which can display to the resolution of your TV without buying add-ons and the PS3 does exactly this.
Personally I think from November things are going to get interesting. I will most likely buy the PS3 and the Wii but not the XBOX 360 (hey this is Slashdot you know!).
Note: As of today AU$1.00 = US$0.768
One thing I always see with MS Windows is the almighty "file-association". As a long time Unix user/admin I have never used this concept and find this quite annoying in MS Windows. In *nix you can always find out what a file is with the "file" command which uses the /etc/magic file (get the latest if yours is not up to date).
Once you get away from the concepts of "file-association" then life does become so much easier. As an example any text file or executable I create under *nix I never use extensions unless it is generated by an application. As for double click why press twice when a single click (what I use) will do.
I think the bottom line with *nix compared to MS Windows is *nix expects you to at least make an attempt to think. I use to see this through the early to mid 1980's but when MS Windows came along I saw the "dumbing down" of desktop computer (we used Graphical Workstations or X terminals in the 1980's) use and the "Oh it's not like Windows" mentality. If a computer user really thinks like that then please stick to MS Windows because they will never be happy in a *nix environment and MS will love them for it and charge them appropriately.
Well I live in Sydney and I don't have a death wish. There are cycle lanes but there ain't that many of them. Sydney's hilly terrain can make riding a push bike a chore, although that depends were you live and how far to your work. Even riding a motor bike can be deadly because it seems to me that motorists don't want to see you.
Public transport in Sydney leaves a lot to be desired however if you work in the City then it can be much faster, cheaper and less stressfull to take a bus or train although this will depend on what you do and where you live.
I will have to agree that parking a bicycle is easier although it depends were you park it. One thing I have noticed in Sydney is the increase in the number of parking meters in places that seem to be just a way of raising revenue.
I normally leave for work at 9:15 and and usually get to work within 25 minutes (by car) since I only drive 22km (14 miles). If I leave between 7:00 and 8:30 it can take me about 1 hour although that also depends on which way I go. I prefer leaving late (approx 7:00 pm) and can be home in 25 minutes. There is a tollway but surprisingly that can add 10 to 20 minutes to my driving time since I would have to travel an additional 10 minutes to get on it and then pay for the privilege so I usually get on (no toll) further down for the last 10 km (7 miles) home. So for me leaving late and getting home late works and is less stressful and that is good for your overall health.
Only a few PC owners seem to think about backups and then only after loosing their data. Even with a 1PB (not a typo) disk there will be people who won't backup. Now in business if you don't backup they have a very good chance of going bankrupt if they have a hard disk failure. It must be rembered that even mirrored or SAN disks can and do fail.
....etc, so disk performance is not normally an issue, however when you are running a database you need to use RAID or a SAN to increase the speed of the (now virtual) disk. So 10 x 72GB disks in a raid array will outperform 1 x 720GB disk.
.... etc) are used and even then tapes can fail for a variety of reasons. What is really needed is a replacement for tape and currently only the Holographic Versatile Disk (HVD) has the potential to do this with 300GB/disks to be available this year. Forget about CD, DVD, HD-DVD and Bluray these technologies have their own niche and will most likely work well within it.
For home use a huge disk is mainly used for pawn, movies, games
Backing up a business system is expensive and time consuming so currently tapes (eg: super DLT's
Even with the potential of 1.6TB/disk (40MB/sec write) for HVD the increase in storage will still cause issues in the future until people learn to tidy up their messes and that I don't see happening anytime soon. The larger the available storage the more it will be filled up with what is most likely junk, although my idea of junk (or goodness) will most likely differ from others.
There are many articles on this concept (see below):
l .html
s pl
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
With modern diesel cars and trucks it is actually possible to mix 50/50 petroleum diesel and vegetable oil. With the right equipment you can even run a diesel off used frying oil (alright you need to clean it) but it is basically free.
The only issue you may have is when the Government insists on you paying the diesel tax:
http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/biofue
In fact just do a Google search on "diesel cars" (refine if you wish) since there is a huge amount of reading on the subject of diesel and bio-diesel. In fact diesel cars are starting to become very popular in many countries, although the US and Australia are lagging behind but even there, slow and steady shifts are being made towards diesel cars. What slows down the purchase of diesel cars it the false perception that they are dirty, underpowered and more expensive. this is not true anymore, although before you rush out and get rid of your petrol driven car you should do a bit of homework.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1951524,00.a
http://www.kirotv.com/consumer/8834497/detail.htm
I have a feeling that things are going to get very interesting, when petroleum companies start to wake up to the potential loss of revenue if too many people purchase machines that can use cheap bio-fuel.
Well if enough people did this maybe business would realise that there are other document formats other than Microsoft's *.doc format (it is NOT a standard just something that has been erroneously accepted as one) and they better support it. Sometimes you just have to make a stand and I think this is what the EU is trying to do.
.... etc were they need to be able to keep documents for 100's of years then using something that has a closed format is a rather a stupid move, hence the need for an Open, Portable Document format.
It never ceases to amaze me the lemming mentality of Business when it come to using propriety formats and how they seem to think that it allows for portability and interoperability (Biz talk) when that format is under the control (ie. Intellectual Property) of one company. What is even stranger is that format sometimes cannot even be read properly by the same companies software after a few years. So if you are part of a council, hall of records
Please look at the history of standards, get yourself in the right frame of mind before you do and it is quite fascinating, particularly when you relate it to today's society.
Yes I have worked in a Standards Laboratory hence my signature.
I could not agree more with the use of dumb tty or smart graphical terminals. These are very easy to setup and forget and almost impossible to put off line baring cutting their network connection and that would hopefully be setup in a way to facilitate quick repairs.
There is too much emphasis placed on active terminals (ie. read PC's) which may be cheaper although that can be debated. Get a virus or worm and a PC becomes a brick and requires quite a few man hours to get rid of the problem, not to mention the agro', now translate that to 100's or more PC's and fixing the problem becomes very expensive. If a PC is used in just a client/server or just dumb client configuration then why not go for a dumb or even an intelligent graphical terminal.
The only useful thing a PC has over a dumb/smart terminal when its prime use is to connect to centralised secure server(s) is the fact that you can play solitaire. Before telling me you need a PC for "Office and Outlook" then I suggest you read some history. Full graphical Office/mailer suites were available for *nix in the mid 1980's when MS Word was a joke, admittedly they weren't cheap but they did have network licenses which did reduce overall costs. Today *nix Office or Productivity suites have got even better and they conform to Open Standards (some cost and others don't).
On a side-note I still remember the time (late 1980's)when I was called by a very aggravated women who said she setup her display for proportional spaced fonts and why could she not see her fonts. She was using a dumb tty terminal at the time and no she was not blond. I was quite nice about the whole thing and did not embarrass her in front of her colleagues, although it was very hard not to laugh. Her document did print properly though which impressed everyone, later we did organise an 1024x1024 colour X terminal (cost was $4000 compared to a $5000 PC with Windows 3.1 and VGA screen) for her. Wordperfect under X11 had a Framemaker look and feel which was very impressive. Hmmm I can see a Dilbert joke here.
Fully agree.
Comparing (very loosely) the CAD/CAM packages:
Autocad - developed for PC's (late 1980's). Initially expensive eye-candy.
Pro Engineer - Developed under Unix in the early 1980's. Initially very expensive but highly usable and functional.
Solidworks - never used but appears to be another CAD package.
Electronics Workbench - never used but used "Spice" (early 1980's) and it may have some similarities.
For many so-called "Windows" packages there are normally Linux/Unix equivalents. Some *nix applications may not have as much eye-candy as an equivalent Windows application but they are normally quite functonal. The problem I always encounter is the quote "Oh! it's not like Windows". I am at an age now were I just shake my head and just walk away because you are better off talking to a brick wall than trying to convince these people. I think the Dilbert cartoons are very appropriate here.
If Lucent wins then Microsoft will have to shell out some big cash and with their deep pockets they can afford it. Unfortunately this set precedence and some other party (think Sony, Nintendo.. ) are also going to be sued as well. It does no one any good (except Lucent of course).
There is a dilemma here. If Microsoft fights this and wins, the US patent system will be given quite a serious shake and with enough shaking maybe it will be reformed. For us (the little people) this may seem like a victory but for big business it would be a disaster. Given this I think Microsoft will make a deal and it will mostly go over like this 'Ok you hit us with this patent but we will hit you with ours "eventually" so we we will cross license and fork over a little slush money so you can now go after those other people who are infringing your "god given IP" (hands list of competitors)'. In other words Big business wins and the small inventor is shafted again.
PS. Sony is not exactly small and they also have patents so a deal could be reached with them as well - oh to be a patent lawyer!
Well back in the early eighties I used elm (pine did not exist) and I found it an excellent mail client because I (as a System Admin) could wade through lots of system and personal mail quickly and efficiently. What I found was that while our Scientists and Engineers (I was one) had no issues with elm our Clerical staff hated it because it a learning curve of a few hours.
...... etc is the best way to go and yes you can forward that mail to your PC or to another mail repository however this is rather pointless and in some instances a security breach.
When pine came out made it available to our Clerical people and they found it initiative and very easy to learn. The default editor (pico) was very easy for them as well. In fact for casual users of our system who needed to edit something on a Unix system then pico was excellent, of course vi was what all Sys Admins (they still do) and programmers used. Then along came Emacs and for those people that really needed a bells and whistle editor then this was it, however the learning curve was very high.
As far as choosing an email client or an editor this is really dependent on the expertise of the user and the requirements for using them. If you need to read email from a computer intranet then using Google to read your mail is stupid so a client like pine, elm, mh, xmail
I myself can use any mailer graphic or otherwise but I do have a soft spot for pine (not the best but if you have had to use "mail" or "mailx" then you would love it) and actually use it on the machines I manage. I also use Exchange (sigh!! - corporate only) and in addition use Gmail for test purposes and for private use.
Actually this pine vs Gmail is not much more different to the vi/Emacs wars (rants) of the mid eighties except those were really passionate. My feeling then and now is you really should use the right tool for the right job providing the tool you use is suitable and you are comfortable and proficient in it's use.
Well I sort of agree with you about solid state storage but there are a few flaws in your logic.
I will answer with a question. Why do people or organisations backup their data?
Most PC uses may backup their data to floppy (now obsolete) or to zip (getting obsolete) or CD or DVD but rarely to tape because it is not cheap and it is inconvenient.
Most organisation backup their data (from a few 10's of GB to 1000's of TB) mainly with tape devices (super DLT's can save approx 400 to 600 GB per tape) with approx 50MB/sec through put. This solution can be very expensive ($10k to $100M). Solid state storage can do this but the cost would get quite expensive. Even disk storage would be cheaper than solid state however any company that wants to stay in business should have a Disaster Recovery Program for their IT department and this means off-site storage of backup media.
Government organisation (ie. Tax Department) require data retention for seven years and some even longer. Now solid state and even disk backups become so expensive you need to have the budget of NASA for even a small company. If the company requires off-site backups then at the moment tapes are the only solution.
What is important here is the potential of the Holographic Versatile Disk (HVD). They are starting with 300GB @ 20MB/sec and assuming the writers/readers are say $2k each (guessing here but reasonable) you could get a multi-stacker silo (say 6 heads and 50 disks) for say $20k that would have a through-put of 120MB/s which would be fine for small to medium sized companies. An equivalent tape machine would cost close to $50 and up depending on your tape silo and not only would it would be much larger it would have a slower response for the robot stacker.
Assuming a HVD multi-stacker library of similar performance to it's tape/cartridge equivalent the overall cost now comes down to the media and I am quite sure HVD disks will be at least 10 to 20 times cheaper than the equivalent tape/cartridge. Coupled with that will be the potential longer life and small storage area of the HVD, not to mention "near-line recovery" capabilities.
What we are seeing with HVD is a change away from tape backup units and anyone who has worked in this area will welcome that.
On an interesting note. It looks like the VHS tape recorders are being phased out by HD and/or DVD recorders. I am sure the same will happen when HVD are pushed as the new backup strategy. Think thin DVD's (even in a protective case) compared to bulky VHS cassettes.
Note: You should not compare CD's, DVD, HD-DVD and BluRay with HVD since they are aimed at different areas of IT, however that is a subject for another day.
As far as the PS3 goes I think (can anyone confirm this) that game manufacturers can still produce their games on DVD and even CD since the PS2 can do this and the PS3 is still backwards compatible. After-all it is rather wasteful, not to mention initially expensive to put a game on a Blu-Ray disk if the total capacity of the game can fit on a standard DVD or even a CD. I think if the game has HDTV data then a Blu-Ray disk will be needed.
You also have to remember that what we the general public would pay for a Blu-Ray disk is not what a manufacturer would pay since they would get substantial (possibly $1/disk) discounts for volume purchases.
You could even compare DVD disk prices when the PS2 initially came out (DVD's were about $10 to $20 each for just write once), yet except for a few games on CD (ie. Half Life) most came out on DVD. I think manufacturers (at that time) felt that DVD's were more difficult to copy than CD's, if that was true then the same will be for Blu-Ray until prices come down.
Actually we should not just compare DVD vs Blu-Ray (or HD DVD) on price just yet. What we have here is a capacity comparison. Lets start with the following:
o _Hold_16_Terabytes/1133197797 The specs are incredible however I cannot see HDTV being put on this. Where this will shine is in Small to Enterprise backup solutions and this is exactly what it is aiming at. Basically this puts the backup tape industry on notice since it now becomes very possible to have close to "near-line" recovery. Those people who are responsible for serious backups should welcome this.
Floppy disk (1.2MB) - yes you can get larger but they are now pretty much obsolete. However they were good for their day. Lets not go into 5.25 inch, 8 inch or even (gasp) 12 inch floppies .
CD (650 - 800MB) - still useful for Music, install software and some backups. Look like hanging around for a long time. I doubt we will see a Music DVD put out by the Music Industry anytime soon.
DVD (4.7GB) - at the moment this media is very cheap (sometimes cheaper than a CD). Dual density is a lot more expensive though. Still 4.7GB is a very useful size (PC and small size backups including movies) although certain companies would like to see this killed off, I personally this won't happen for some time, since there are a lot of DVD/Hard-Disk player/recorders on the market which have really started to kill off VHS recorders. You could probably start a new Slashdot article just on this alone.
HD-DVD (15GB) - this is single layer proposed for HDTV.
Blu-Ray (25GB) - this is single layer proposed for HDTV.
For HDTV the industry is proposing 15GB to 30GB and this is were the above two fit in. You won't be able to put a HDTV show on standard DVD without some loss (normally considerable) and this is what the Entertainment Industry wants. In addition what is also wanted by the Industry is DRM and the best one will have a definite edge, although the PS3 will be will be the Trojan Horse that puts BluRay in the living room.
Holographic DVD (1.6TB) - http://www.betanews.com/article/Holographic_DVD_t
Please don't come back at me suggesting disks to actually do backups. All I can say to that is try to backup 100TB and put that off-site cheaply, while taking into account possible disaster and recovery scenarios.
Comparing DVD to any of the above is rather silly and as far as costs go, the new media will come down eventually. Even today if you compare RW DVD to Write once DVD you are looking at approx 10 to 1 in cost so if the new disks are say $15 to $20 each for writable only it does not take much effort to imagine what the price of the RW ones would initially be.
I sort of agree with you but the new consoles are going to be even better than the PS2. I personally will wait for the PS3 and the Revolution to come out before I decide but I have quite a few PS1/2 games that I still play and new games are still coming out so I am quite happy to wait. Some PS2 games do support the USB ports (Unreal Tournament does support a wheel mouse - not sure about keyboard)
I have played PC games (mainly RPG's) but I have found them too time consuming, this is especially true for Strategy games (my view only) and FPS games (like Halo) are good for an adrenaline rush for a hour or so but do get boring quickly. Oh dear I know I am going to get flamed for that.
So you buy a new Mac with a view to putting MS windows on it under a dual boot or run under virtualisation. Now I know we are all "Cough!!" Honest people and we would go out and buy a new sparkling MS Windows install CD, not to mention a copy of MS Office. So let me ask the question again why to you even want to put MS Windows (dual boot or even virtualisation) on a machine designed for a Mac?
I know some people will say because of games, but if you have all these games you surely have a MS windows machine, again see above.
Basically when a new console comes out Game Makers wind down support for the older console. They very rarely stop making games immediately after-all they do have an investment on the previous console. How long this support lasts depends on how popular the new console is.
And you assume that users really know what they want. All this is a grab for more money. At least with a Linux distribution you have everything you need for a newbie right through to a professional and you don't have to change anything, although you may want to add things.
With regard to driver support, if a driver for a particular device is not available (Linux uses modules and you normally don't need a new kernel) then you can download it (the same as MS Windows) providing one is available. Were MS Windows wins here is many vendors write drivers for MS Windows but not many write drivers for Linux although this is starting to change.
The most important reason why people complain that Linux is not as good as MS Windows is due to the fact that when people buy a PC it comes with MS Windows loaded and most people won't switch, in fact most people have no idea an alternative OS exists. It is different in the server market though.
It never ceases to amaze me that people buy an Operating System (you really do one way or another) and then have to buy software to keep malware and other nasties out. At least with Unix/Linux OS's you can get security updates for the OS and in may cases, unless you have a subscription (good value for large corporations and even some small business) it can be free.
To actually require virus protection is really a damming indictment of the Operating System and yet Business actually spend billions of dollars a year on this rather than look at other OS's and yes I do know the excuses and they IMHO are very short sighted (rather like lemmings).
Excellent site for Business doublespeak. http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/
Not being a lawyer and getting cross-eyed looking at the legalese:
- open
(3) Pretrial Disclosures.
In addition to the disclosures required by Rule 26(a)(1) and (2), a party must provide to other parties and promptly file with the court the following information regarding the evidence that it may present at trial other than solely for impeachment:
- close
I am fairly sure you need to get a court injunction prior to the police (I assume Paramount did this because the article did not say) raiding your house at least that is what I suppose is done in a non-totalitarian country.
Anyway the article seems to have compromised any law case.
From the article:
- open
Russell Lee is either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description.
Paramount, which distributes "Coach Carter," presents an unflattering picture of him, saying he not only obtained the movie illegally, but that he uploaded it to an online system called eDonkey so others could steal it, too.
"I don't even know what they're talking about," Lee said. "I didn't do it."
- close
Where is that hanging judge? We need to convene a kangaroo court quickly before anyone wakes up to what is going on.
I suppose we can call this the use of "non-lethal force", however this type of action opens the flood gates for litigation.
Some things the military/police have to consider when using force to incapacitate a person who is threatening you or a another persons life and cannot be calmed (try to define this??) down.
You cannot stab a person with a rusty bayonet, however a clean one is ok.
It is illegal to fire a 0.222 bullet with a cross tip (dum-dum) but there is no problem if you use a 50 cal machine gun.
The use of a tazer can kill a person with a heart issue, but its ok to fire bullets at him.
Now the latest. If you blind a person with your laser weapon you will most likely face litigation, so you better make sure the selection switch is changed from "stun/blind" to "crispy".
I am sure most people can add to this.
I happen to work on all major Unix machines and some sites refuse to have installed software other than what comes with the vendors distribution.
/dev/null - No arguments here
/bin/sh - no arguments here. However ksh is on all Unix machines (in Linux just change #!/bin/ksh to #!/bin/bash).
in alphabetical order:
* ssh - Not on all *nix machines - get it by any means possible.
* rsh - try not to use this now, was ok in it's day.
* cron - 0n all *nix machine. Totally agree.
* grep - 0n all *nix machine. Totally agree.
* less - Not on all *nix machines. The pager "more" is the standard and is identical or close to less with the exception of SUN's default one. You can use "pg" (never liked this) but I would say you have only worked on SUN systems.
* man - All *nix machines - essential.
* perl - Not on all *nix machines but get it anyway.
* rsync - Not on all *nix machines - very useful if you need to synch file-systems locally or remotely (has support for ssh).
* telnet - You won't have arguments from me here.
* vim - I agree with you but this is not available on all *nix machines. Like it or not "vi" is still the standard. Emacs is excellent if you have the time to learn it but again emacs is not on all *nix machines.
* zsh - Not on all *nix machines
*
* Honorable mention -
Some others I find essential:
top - not on all but there is a similar command in AIX, Solaris and HPUX. Not difficult getting this for all machines.
netstat - your general purpose network tool. Yes I know there are better ones but you will have this on all machines.
du, df (bdf in HPUX) - disk usage at a glance.
ls - need I say anything on this.
find - your standard (check your manual) Swiss Army knife, 1000+ uses.
The beauty of *nix is the enormous amount of tools you have and can get to do your work. You may not use a particular tool for years then all of a sudden it becomes essential.