I've already answered this elsewhere, but I'll say it again: Clean beaches aren't free.
They get paid for somehow, and if you don't charge admission, you have to charge taxes. Why should people who never go to the beach have to pay for it? I personally hate it (phobia) and never go. When I used to go, nobody ever complained about the admission fee.
I think maybe you've been spoonfed by the government too much if you think everything 'public' should be 'free'. I feel exactly the opposite and people that wish to use a public service should be the ones supporting it. Emergency services/etc are the obvious exception, of course.
The only beaches I've been to that DIDN'T have a fee were pretty gross and littered.
Those fees go towards cleanup (and other maintenance) and lifeguards.
If you haven't been paying fees to the beach where you are, it's because it's included in the tax you already pay, whether you go to the beach or not. I'd rather pay for my own trips to the beach than pay for everyone's, whether I go or not. (And I don't, generally.)
Maybe it's not logic but experience. I'm sure the beaches can compare the number of theft complaints when they had lockers to when they didn't and see the difference. (Comparing different beaches is harder, of course.)
There are quite a few thieves out there that see unattended storage as a beacon, where leaving your wallet in your car or house or hotel room, hidden, isn't so much of a beacon.
I'm sure the headache of people that lose their key/combination or are just plain scamming is another large part of the problem.
I was wondering how long that post would take to appear.
Unfortunately, I have to agree... -sigh- While this would be great to find your children, should they be unruly or kidnapped, nobody else has a use for this. And the kids would rip it off if they didn't want to be tracked (they're unruly) and the kidnapper would rip it off, too. It's no better than the slips of paper, and probably quite a bit more expensive to implement -and- maintain.
So who is it better for? People that want to track you. That's it. You can't very well throw anyone out that managed to break theirs (on purpose or not) as they paid their money and can't be held accountable for the technology failing.
While it might be possible to use the code to create a more efficient multi-processor aware compiler, that wouldn't mean much to the compiled programs.
You are correct that Intel's code would be used by the final program. (I hesitate to say 'become part of' because it's still a seperate library, just used by the program. When you wear glasses, they don't become part of you, no matter how necessary they are to your continued existance.)
Re:I'm curious...
on
Project Arcade
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I disagree that it would be irresponsible. Anyone that is into this enough to want to spend the money to make a cabinet already KNOWS the legal situation of what they are doing. The ones that believe the 'abandonware myth' won't listen to you when you try to tell them it's illegal, and if you ever DO get them to listen, they'll just justify it to themselves and carry on.
On the other hand, there ARE legal alternatives other than owning a cabinet and playing MAME.
GameTap, for instance, has quite a few arcade games like Joust that work very well with a good stick, like the X-Arcade Tankstick.
Another interesting idea is to buy a broken cabinet, or even just the board, of the game you particularly want, and then playing it in MAME. You -have- the hardware legally and it probably won't cost near as much as a real cabinet, and definitely won't cost you as much shipping.
The fact that you ask that means you don't understand the GPL as it regards works created by GPL'd software.
Simply put, anything created BY the software does not matter. The GPL says nothing about that.
If you make a Word document in Open Office, is that document GPL'd? No. It's the same here. The binary that is created does not fall under the GPL as it is merely considered a document.
Again: The GPL3'd GCC can still compile programs that use ANY license, just as the GPL'd GCC can do today. The only difference is that you will not be allowed to run the GPL3'd GCC on a device that doesn't comply with the GPL V3's requirements.
Gaming news sites like Joystiq, Kotaku and QJ cover the new games for each system, including boxed games, VC, XBLA, and PSN. I watch the feeds for those and morn and often have to read the same announcement about the XBLA games several times.
I agree that they are not properly marketing to casual gamers, but that's different from having nothing offered.
I agree. There's a saying for it already: 'There's a time and place for everything.' Buttons, like everything else, have proper uses and can be abused. It's up to the designer to design it properly.
I just checked with my friend who has an iPhone, and it -does- have hard buttons for volume on the side. So as much as he hates them, he didn't go crazy.
It depends on which version of the GPL you use. There's a 'runtime exception' version (That Intel chose for this project) that allows you MORE freedom than the LGPL in the case of libraries.
Simply put, you can link in the code as a library without worrying about LGPL's library requirements. (Namely the need to be able to replace the library with an upgraded version.) Intel notes that this is necessary for C++ libraries because of the way they have to be linked.
For the parent's code, I doubt he chose to have this clause in the GPL he chose, and it wouldn't be possible with his.
It's the experience they are rating, not just the content. That includes plot, language, visuals, narration, etc. The ESRB doesn't give a fsck about how much lag you experience. That doesn't affect their rating at all. 12 year olds drawing penises on Madden's jersey and cursing like sailors would, if they were rating the online experience.
Yeah, because XBox Live Arcade is for hardcore gamers. -roll eyes-
I just looked through the games list on EBGames.com to see how things stack up for boxed games. The 360 has a ton of shooters and action games, and so-so amount of other games. So then I looked at the PS3 and PS2. Surprise, surprise... The same thing. Maybe not -quite- as thick on shooters, but the actions games are there in full force. I'm including both of those because GTA/etc are considered Action. (Because they are not strictly first-person, I guess.)
Don't let Slashdot spin let you think that all games on ANY console are of 1 genre. It's not even close to that.
So yes, measured per dollar per year, unless they account for inflation, clock speed increase is misleading, but not nearly so much as you'd have people believe.
You DO realize that all scientific 'laws' are just observations turned into a hypothesis that have withstood the test of time?
From dictionary.com: "A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity."
The law of gravity has never yet been broken, but that doesn't mean it won't be. It's the same for Moore's Law.
While I'm sure it was called a 'law' initially as a jest (ala Murphy's law) it has held up amazingly, and is close to deserving the name.
Stop comparing features for a moment and compare what they do for the person who buys it.
A gamer wants to play GAMES, not movies. In terms of that, the $400 360 and the 'fire-sale' PS3 are the ones to compare. (The cheapest 360 is crap without the hard drive, as you cannot download demos and saving is -much- less hassle with a hard drive than a memory card.) Yes, it's a nice bonus to be able to play Blu-ray, but that also assumes the person has an HDMI-capable TV as well. Otherwise, it's just a glorified DVD player.
Notice that Wii doesn't even play DVD. It's just not necessary.
As for being popular with Developers, the PS3 is famous for how hard it is to program for already. The PS2 wasn't exactly easy, but the PS3 managed to trump it. There were even vendors at E3 talking about how hard it was to get things to run on the PS3 while they were giving demos on BOTH other systems. Epic has also had issues getting their Unreal Engine stable on it and has violated some contracts over it. I seriously doubt it's just a matter of understanding the hardware.
And in 2 years... If the PS3 doesn't gain some SERIOUS momentum right now, publishers won't have any interest in the PS3 and it'll only get crappy ports from other systems to gain a few bucks. With few owners, there's no point in trying to make exclusive games for it. Each console basically gets a grace period at launch and if they haven't got a compelling user base in a reasonable amount of time, the console is dead.
For movie enthusiasts, the PS3 is obviously the console of choice, I'll admit. The blu-ray player is cheaper than the stand-alones, the interface works well (only 1 complaint so far) and it can even stream from the network. They are planning more features soon such as cellphone-based control of the system that can only improve it. The bluetooth remote is a bit odd, but I find I really like it. It's a good remote, and no line-of-sight crap is -very- nice.
My complaint on the interface? Fast forward speeds are 1.5x, 10x, and upwards from there. No 2x? No 4x? 1.5 is hardly worthwhile, and 10x is too fast and almost never works over the network. A firmware update could fix that, though.
Sony has shown they are willing to help developers get on track (Epic) and they may just be able to pull this off... Momentum from the PS2 helps a lot, too. But the lack of games will still kill them if they don't get on the ball.
I'll save everyone some time from reading the article:
New games need story. Stories need writers. Writers need to think about the audience.
Some games already have stories.
There's a lot of plugs for the Haze game, for some reason.
And that's it... There's nothing else. They act all philosphical about how FPS's need story/etc, but it's absolutely no different than how other games need story, except in scale. RPGs need more, puzzle games need less.
Yeah, it's about time they gave up the platform that got them and kept them #1 in the market for some many years. What are they thinking?
If Linux or OSX ever manage to take over a dominant market share, I fully expect to see a 'nix-based Windows that has a WINE-like compatibility layer. Until then, Microsoft is probably best served by continuing as they have.
I love the idea of easy porting of my favorite KDE apps (K3B, Quanta Plus, etc) to Windows, but I just don't see a complete Windows rewrite as being worth anyone's time, especially Microsoft's, under these conditions. Your stated security issues would even be moot, as Windows that doesn't run Windows programs is useless, and the compatibility layer would be just as bad as Windows itself for bugs, as rushed as it would be.
It hurts, but it's not entirely unexpected. The 360 has hit the point where a new buyer can pick up the console and has almost 2 years worth of titles to choose from, and the last 6 months to a year have had some very very good titles.
The PS3 is almost a year old and still has very very few exclusive titles, with the majority of them being ports of 360 games and released up to a year later.
Add to that the price difference and people have many reasons to buy a 360 over a PS3.
I'll even hazard a guess that a good portion of PS3 owners also own a 360 and simply HAVE to have everything. (I'm usually in this category, but this time I only bought a PS3 already because I got one dirt-cheap, used. There are no compelling games yet for me.)
Sales for the PS3 will pick up nearer to Christmas as some good, compelling games are released for it. Folklore (TBA, probably not this year), Heavenly Sword, Echochrome... I'm sure there are others coming. I can't help but restate that I wish they would release Persona and Persona 2 (PSX Games) for download. Maybe they'll hear me eventually. Persona is supposedly getting a PSP remake, so I'm not holding my breath.
I'd also like to take a moment to express my anger that Persona 3 was delayed because the paper was good enough in the art booklet. Next time, ship the booklet separately and give us the game on time. -sigh-
"Well, video, for example, has been supported by forever, in all browsers, and in an open way (so it works on Linux). There was absolutely no reason for YouTube etc to go with Flash, except (maybe) that it makes it (slightly) harder to copy the video."
Actually, there is: Interface. The generic interface that comes with the browse is not only different on each browser, but on each system, and if they have certain plugins installed. The Youtube interface not only unifies these, but adds to it with the other suggested clips at the end, etc.
"That's no excuse for it being retardedly slow."
I've never found Flash to be slow on any system I've ever used it on. Maybe it took up a crazy amount of resources, as noted, but not slow. I've never had it make other things slow to a crawl, either.
"As for not working on IE, people would download Firefox if they needed it for Youtube or something like that."
Put the cart before the horse, there. People go to Youtube because it works well, not because it's there. If Youtube hadn't targetted IE, someone else would have and that would be the site that was used. I think the number is still something like 78% for IE. That an enormous percentage, and if you're developing an application, ignoring that needs a -very- good reason.
Oh, so it -is- insurance then. Everyone I know basically considers the AAA as cheap road insurance. (Flat tire, out of gas, etc.) They don't give 2 flips about all the rest of that stuff.
What the hell is an automobile association, and why did we need them?
That sounds like a joke, but it's not really. At first I thought you meant insurance or something, but now I realize that's not the case. I can only assume you mean it's like a fanclub for... automobiles.
I've driven a car for half my life and never heard of such a thing. I mean, there's the people that have classic cars and travel to different 'shows' to show them off, but I've always heard them called clubs, not associations, and I've never ever considered joining one.
It's like User Groups... There's generic PC User Groups (well, used to be anyhow) but no Windows User Groups... Why? Because it's mainstream. As Linux becomes more mainstream, available, and easy to use, specific groups become less useful.
The internet is another nail in the coffin, of course. If I'm having trouble configuring Sendmail, I'm not gonna wait for the next meeting and hope someone is there that knows what I need. I'm going to search the net and have the answer in minutes, or join a forum and have it in hours. days is just not an option.
Wait, I get why you can't share beverages over email lists, but brainstorming and experience exchanges? That's almost exactly what they were designed to do.
Brainstorming: Pose a problem and everyone can (after thinking a bit) post a possible attack on the problem. Unlike in-person brainstorming sessions, not everyone has to be there at the same time and everyone can have time to think a bit before screaming answers.
Experience exchanges: As with brainstorming, there's time to think and answer, and no requirement for physical presence. As a bonus, the wisdom is generally cached by the mailing list for future users to benefit from, unlike a LUG which only remembers it if individual members accurately recall it.
The beverage thing is, sadly, insurmountable at this time.
Slashdot Mirror
I've already answered this elsewhere, but I'll say it again: Clean beaches aren't free.
They get paid for somehow, and if you don't charge admission, you have to charge taxes. Why should people who never go to the beach have to pay for it? I personally hate it (phobia) and never go. When I used to go, nobody ever complained about the admission fee.
I think maybe you've been spoonfed by the government too much if you think everything 'public' should be 'free'. I feel exactly the opposite and people that wish to use a public service should be the ones supporting it. Emergency services/etc are the obvious exception, of course.
The only beaches I've been to that DIDN'T have a fee were pretty gross and littered.
Those fees go towards cleanup (and other maintenance) and lifeguards.
If you haven't been paying fees to the beach where you are, it's because it's included in the tax you already pay, whether you go to the beach or not. I'd rather pay for my own trips to the beach than pay for everyone's, whether I go or not. (And I don't, generally.)
Maybe it's not logic but experience. I'm sure the beaches can compare the number of theft complaints when they had lockers to when they didn't and see the difference. (Comparing different beaches is harder, of course.)
There are quite a few thieves out there that see unattended storage as a beacon, where leaving your wallet in your car or house or hotel room, hidden, isn't so much of a beacon.
I'm sure the headache of people that lose their key/combination or are just plain scamming is another large part of the problem.
I was wondering how long that post would take to appear.
Unfortunately, I have to agree... -sigh- While this would be great to find your children, should they be unruly or kidnapped, nobody else has a use for this. And the kids would rip it off if they didn't want to be tracked (they're unruly) and the kidnapper would rip it off, too. It's no better than the slips of paper, and probably quite a bit more expensive to implement -and- maintain.
So who is it better for? People that want to track you. That's it. You can't very well throw anyone out that managed to break theirs (on purpose or not) as they paid their money and can't be held accountable for the technology failing.
While it might be possible to use the code to create a more efficient multi-processor aware compiler, that wouldn't mean much to the compiled programs.
You are correct that Intel's code would be used by the final program. (I hesitate to say 'become part of' because it's still a seperate library, just used by the program. When you wear glasses, they don't become part of you, no matter how necessary they are to your continued existance.)
I disagree that it would be irresponsible. Anyone that is into this enough to want to spend the money to make a cabinet already KNOWS the legal situation of what they are doing. The ones that believe the 'abandonware myth' won't listen to you when you try to tell them it's illegal, and if you ever DO get them to listen, they'll just justify it to themselves and carry on.
On the other hand, there ARE legal alternatives other than owning a cabinet and playing MAME.
GameTap, for instance, has quite a few arcade games like Joust that work very well with a good stick, like the X-Arcade Tankstick.
Another interesting idea is to buy a broken cabinet, or even just the board, of the game you particularly want, and then playing it in MAME. You -have- the hardware legally and it probably won't cost near as much as a real cabinet, and definitely won't cost you as much shipping.
The fact that you ask that means you don't understand the GPL as it regards works created by GPL'd software.
Simply put, anything created BY the software does not matter. The GPL says nothing about that.
If you make a Word document in Open Office, is that document GPL'd? No. It's the same here. The binary that is created does not fall under the GPL as it is merely considered a document.
Again: The GPL3'd GCC can still compile programs that use ANY license, just as the GPL'd GCC can do today. The only difference is that you will not be allowed to run the GPL3'd GCC on a device that doesn't comply with the GPL V3's requirements.
Gaming news sites like Joystiq, Kotaku and QJ cover the new games for each system, including boxed games, VC, XBLA, and PSN. I watch the feeds for those and morn and often have to read the same announcement about the XBLA games several times.
I agree that they are not properly marketing to casual gamers, but that's different from having nothing offered.
I agree. There's a saying for it already: 'There's a time and place for everything.' Buttons, like everything else, have proper uses and can be abused. It's up to the designer to design it properly.
I just checked with my friend who has an iPhone, and it -does- have hard buttons for volume on the side. So as much as he hates them, he didn't go crazy.
It depends on which version of the GPL you use. There's a 'runtime exception' version (That Intel chose for this project) that allows you MORE freedom than the LGPL in the case of libraries.
Simply put, you can link in the code as a library without worrying about LGPL's library requirements. (Namely the need to be able to replace the library with an upgraded version.) Intel notes that this is necessary for C++ libraries because of the way they have to be linked.
For the parent's code, I doubt he chose to have this clause in the GPL he chose, and it wouldn't be possible with his.
It's the experience they are rating, not just the content. That includes plot, language, visuals, narration, etc. The ESRB doesn't give a fsck about how much lag you experience. That doesn't affect their rating at all. 12 year olds drawing penises on Madden's jersey and cursing like sailors would, if they were rating the online experience.
"you care nothing for casual gamers"
Yeah, because XBox Live Arcade is for hardcore gamers. -roll eyes-
I just looked through the games list on EBGames.com to see how things stack up for boxed games. The 360 has a ton of shooters and action games, and so-so amount of other games. So then I looked at the PS3 and PS2. Surprise, surprise... The same thing. Maybe not -quite- as thick on shooters, but the actions games are there in full force. I'm including both of those because GTA/etc are considered Action. (Because they are not strictly first-person, I guess.)
Don't let Slashdot spin let you think that all games on ANY console are of 1 genre. It's not even close to that.
Say WHAT? You're telling me that in 3 years, this dollar I'm holding will only buy half as much? And that 3 years ago, it would buy twice as much?
_ Index/CurrentCPI.asp That shows us that inflation is nowhere NEAR the 15% you claim it is. (3 years, etc etc.)
Electronics sure don't follow that.
Food doesn't follow that. (Especially fast food.)
Gas does... But that's a special case.
In fact, let's give up on the specific examples. http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Consumer_Price
So yes, measured per dollar per year, unless they account for inflation, clock speed increase is misleading, but not nearly so much as you'd have people believe.
You DO realize that all scientific 'laws' are just observations turned into a hypothesis that have withstood the test of time?
From dictionary.com: "A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity."
The law of gravity has never yet been broken, but that doesn't mean it won't be. It's the same for Moore's Law.
While I'm sure it was called a 'law' initially as a jest (ala Murphy's law) it has held up amazingly, and is close to deserving the name.
Stop comparing features for a moment and compare what they do for the person who buys it.
A gamer wants to play GAMES, not movies. In terms of that, the $400 360 and the 'fire-sale' PS3 are the ones to compare. (The cheapest 360 is crap without the hard drive, as you cannot download demos and saving is -much- less hassle with a hard drive than a memory card.) Yes, it's a nice bonus to be able to play Blu-ray, but that also assumes the person has an HDMI-capable TV as well. Otherwise, it's just a glorified DVD player.
Notice that Wii doesn't even play DVD. It's just not necessary.
As for being popular with Developers, the PS3 is famous for how hard it is to program for already. The PS2 wasn't exactly easy, but the PS3 managed to trump it. There were even vendors at E3 talking about how hard it was to get things to run on the PS3 while they were giving demos on BOTH other systems. Epic has also had issues getting their Unreal Engine stable on it and has violated some contracts over it. I seriously doubt it's just a matter of understanding the hardware.
And in 2 years... If the PS3 doesn't gain some SERIOUS momentum right now, publishers won't have any interest in the PS3 and it'll only get crappy ports from other systems to gain a few bucks. With few owners, there's no point in trying to make exclusive games for it. Each console basically gets a grace period at launch and if they haven't got a compelling user base in a reasonable amount of time, the console is dead.
For movie enthusiasts, the PS3 is obviously the console of choice, I'll admit. The blu-ray player is cheaper than the stand-alones, the interface works well (only 1 complaint so far) and it can even stream from the network. They are planning more features soon such as cellphone-based control of the system that can only improve it. The bluetooth remote is a bit odd, but I find I really like it. It's a good remote, and no line-of-sight crap is -very- nice.
My complaint on the interface? Fast forward speeds are 1.5x, 10x, and upwards from there. No 2x? No 4x? 1.5 is hardly worthwhile, and 10x is too fast and almost never works over the network. A firmware update could fix that, though.
Sony has shown they are willing to help developers get on track (Epic) and they may just be able to pull this off... Momentum from the PS2 helps a lot, too. But the lack of games will still kill them if they don't get on the ball.
I'll save everyone some time from reading the article:
New games need story. Stories need writers. Writers need to think about the audience.
Some games already have stories.
There's a lot of plugs for the Haze game, for some reason.
And that's it... There's nothing else. They act all philosphical about how FPS's need story/etc, but it's absolutely no different than how other games need story, except in scale. RPGs need more, puzzle games need less.
Yeah, it's about time they gave up the platform that got them and kept them #1 in the market for some many years. What are they thinking?
If Linux or OSX ever manage to take over a dominant market share, I fully expect to see a 'nix-based Windows that has a WINE-like compatibility layer. Until then, Microsoft is probably best served by continuing as they have.
I love the idea of easy porting of my favorite KDE apps (K3B, Quanta Plus, etc) to Windows, but I just don't see a complete Windows rewrite as being worth anyone's time, especially Microsoft's, under these conditions. Your stated security issues would even be moot, as Windows that doesn't run Windows programs is useless, and the compatibility layer would be just as bad as Windows itself for bugs, as rushed as it would be.
It hurts, but it's not entirely unexpected. The 360 has hit the point where a new buyer can pick up the console and has almost 2 years worth of titles to choose from, and the last 6 months to a year have had some very very good titles.
The PS3 is almost a year old and still has very very few exclusive titles, with the majority of them being ports of 360 games and released up to a year later.
Add to that the price difference and people have many reasons to buy a 360 over a PS3.
I'll even hazard a guess that a good portion of PS3 owners also own a 360 and simply HAVE to have everything. (I'm usually in this category, but this time I only bought a PS3 already because I got one dirt-cheap, used. There are no compelling games yet for me.)
Sales for the PS3 will pick up nearer to Christmas as some good, compelling games are released for it. Folklore (TBA, probably not this year), Heavenly Sword, Echochrome... I'm sure there are others coming. I can't help but restate that I wish they would release Persona and Persona 2 (PSX Games) for download. Maybe they'll hear me eventually. Persona is supposedly getting a PSP remake, so I'm not holding my breath.
I'd also like to take a moment to express my anger that Persona 3 was delayed because the paper was good enough in the art booklet. Next time, ship the booklet separately and give us the game on time. -sigh-
"Well, video, for example, has been supported by forever, in all browsers, and in an open way (so it works on Linux). There was absolutely no reason for YouTube etc to go with Flash, except (maybe) that it makes it (slightly) harder to copy the video."
Actually, there is: Interface. The generic interface that comes with the browse is not only different on each browser, but on each system, and if they have certain plugins installed. The Youtube interface not only unifies these, but adds to it with the other suggested clips at the end, etc.
"That's no excuse for it being retardedly slow."
I've never found Flash to be slow on any system I've ever used it on. Maybe it took up a crazy amount of resources, as noted, but not slow. I've never had it make other things slow to a crawl, either.
"As for not working on IE, people would download Firefox if they needed it for Youtube or something like that."
Put the cart before the horse, there. People go to Youtube because it works well, not because it's there. If Youtube hadn't targetted IE, someone else would have and that would be the site that was used. I think the number is still something like 78% for IE. That an enormous percentage, and if you're developing an application, ignoring that needs a -very- good reason.
Crap. I'll try harder next time. Fix-a-flat maybe? Wouldn't need much change in the wording, either.
Oh, so it -is- insurance then. Everyone I know basically considers the AAA as cheap road insurance. (Flat tire, out of gas, etc.) They don't give 2 flips about all the rest of that stuff.
Good thinking! (Considering I already said that...)
It's like a condom... It's not there because it's necessary every time. It's there for the one time you really really need it.
What the hell is an automobile association, and why did we need them?
That sounds like a joke, but it's not really. At first I thought you meant insurance or something, but now I realize that's not the case. I can only assume you mean it's like a fanclub for... automobiles.
I've driven a car for half my life and never heard of such a thing. I mean, there's the people that have classic cars and travel to different 'shows' to show them off, but I've always heard them called clubs, not associations, and I've never ever considered joining one.
It's like User Groups... There's generic PC User Groups (well, used to be anyhow) but no Windows User Groups... Why? Because it's mainstream. As Linux becomes more mainstream, available, and easy to use, specific groups become less useful.
The internet is another nail in the coffin, of course. If I'm having trouble configuring Sendmail, I'm not gonna wait for the next meeting and hope someone is there that knows what I need. I'm going to search the net and have the answer in minutes, or join a forum and have it in hours. days is just not an option.
Wait, I get why you can't share beverages over email lists, but brainstorming and experience exchanges? That's almost exactly what they were designed to do.
Brainstorming: Pose a problem and everyone can (after thinking a bit) post a possible attack on the problem. Unlike in-person brainstorming sessions, not everyone has to be there at the same time and everyone can have time to think a bit before screaming answers.
Experience exchanges: As with brainstorming, there's time to think and answer, and no requirement for physical presence. As a bonus, the wisdom is generally cached by the mailing list for future users to benefit from, unlike a LUG which only remembers it if individual members accurately recall it.
The beverage thing is, sadly, insurmountable at this time.