Just looking at the end score in the review for ANYTHING is useless. The usefulness in a review is in reading the comments of the reviewer and understanding the reviewers preferences in games by looking at their reviews of other games you're interested in. The trick is to find a reviewer with similar thoughts on genres and such as your own, that way their review is relevant to you. The other trick is finding well thought out, well explained reviews--ones that tell you EXACTLY what the shortcomings and pros of the title were, this way you can decide if the shortcomings are shortcomings to you or if you just think the reviewer is being anal.
If it's from all over the world then that would include the Middle East and Asia (which it does as archaelogists from those locations do not like grave robbers either). There are other ways of making a living that don't include robbing your own country of its cultural history (which grave robbers do). The archaeologists I've spoken to (admittedly just a handful) don't seem very interested in 'career changing' discoveries but more so in uncovering the mysteries of the past without destroying the site (which includes trying to avoid digging when possible)--this way when new techniques/technologies arrive int he future the ability to understand these sites will not be lost by digging them up or doing some other destructive means of trying to uncover part of the past now but destroying future knowledge of the past later. The archaeologists seeking a 'career changing' discovery are normally the 'celebrity archaeologists' (like that one Egyptian who took a sledgehammer to a tomb on national TV...) as opposed to the academic arachaeologists.
Thank you for saying that because the summary was great until that line which made me upset because my class on archaeology beat it into my head fairly well that the "search for buried treasure" has destroyed an incredible amount of history and has caused other artificats to be lost or altered (due to the "art market").
Cool Spot for Genesis and other systems was a platformer AND a blatant advertisement through licensing of the "7UP Spot" but there isn't anybody who can convince me it wasn't at least a decent game. It did well enough to earn itself at least one sequel, if not more... I'm not saying it was the best game ever, but it was at least fun at the time.
I find it really sad that the parent was modded insightful... not so much because I don't think it's true, but because it's so true that the moderators chose to mod it insightful instead of funny... Now I almost feel bad about laughing at this piece of comic gold...
It's early and I don't care to argue most of these points... But the handheld thing I will comment on: I didn't fail to notice Nintendo's innovation; I just noticed more that Sony's entry into the handheld market wasn't designed for the handheld market nor was it offering anythign to draw a huge new crowd of handheld gamers into the handheld market. Handhelds are successful when they're inexpensive and can last for long trips (to entertain the kids and such). The ability to play movies and throwing a lot of horsepower into a machine is nice and all, but that's more of a thing that works for consoles than handhelds. The handheld market is (and has) been completely different than the console market and Sony in their arrogance ignored that fact.
As for the American market, let's not forget that the reason Sega Genesis was as successful as it was had a lot to do with the American market--it was never as successful in Japan. The original Nintendo owed a good amount of its success to the American market as well.
Also, price alone does not sell consoles--if it did then the Gamecube would have been more successful (admittedly the price difference was nowhere as huge as this time, but it was still the least expensive console)--you can only sell so many game consoles on price but you sell more based upon what's "cool" and which one has "that awesome game".
I wasn't trying to rip on Nintendo, so don't take it that way and don't rip me apart because you think I'm being anti-Nintendo. The first console I plan on buying this generation is a Nintendo Wii and the only handheld I've ever liked was the the DS. I've owned every Nintendo system since the NES and the GameCube was my 2nd favorite game system (due almost entirely to Nintendo's games)--the XBox was my favorite only because as a college student it had more of the multiplayer games that other people at college tended to play, plus I think XBox Live was a great feature (Microsoft's one true "innovation"--which they borrowed fromt he Dreamcast but did correctly and integrated better--plus a lot of 3rd party games that were on all consoles looked better on the XBox and had additional online features that the others didn't have; or at least those 3rd party games I wanted). The PS2 I sold to my younger brother because I hadn't bought any new games for it for 2 years--all my gaming money was going into GameCube and XBox games; and then the DS... I'm definetly rooting for Nintendo though in this new generation now that they've overcome their arrogance and have entered a new era of innovation (they've always innovative, but lately they're innovating by leaps and bounds). I've also been working on converting Sony/XBox fanboys to at least CONSIDER Nintendo products--partially by showing them how cool and successful the DS is. However, I try to keep things balanced and I definitely think it would be bad if there's only one dominant player in the industry.
The NES and SNES had a lot of 3rd party support... But that was partially due to a lack of choice and Nintendo's Iron Fist policy. If you control the market, there's no need to court them because you already have them. They DID used to have 3rd party support though--it just wasn't necessarily willing support.
Live Arcade is on the original XBox as well, it just wasn't as successful for the original XBox (perhaps because it didn't roll out until much later in the console's life). MarketPlace still needs to prove itself a bit more than items you would be able to get for free on the PC version using mods. The achievements are similar to the rankings in games like Halo 2, although it is nice to have a more integrated apporach to it. I wasn't aware of the USB storage device connectivity, but that's a nice to have feature (although it's not really about the games as much...). The original XBox could play pictures and movies (there was a media center kit you could get for it). The iPod connectivity has nothing to do with games, but I suppose it's a nice to have feature (although I, personally could care less about it). The auto-update of games is definitely nice, but really the game should be created correctly the first time and not issue out patches, what do you do if you have the version without a harddrive?) Calling the marketplace and Live Arcade the "biggest financial success of the gaming industry for the last 10 years" is the biggest hyperbole I've heard in the last 10 years. Especially since I think the success of the DS and Brain Age would be more likely to take that crown in the past 1-2 years of gaming history (perhaps you didn't see Nintendo's huge increase in profit for the last quarter... as opposed to Microsoft Game Division's still negative balance--although supposedly they'll actually turn a profit come 2007 sometime, which is much better than the XBox which never made it to the black). I'm not saying the 360 isn't good, I'm just saying that it really is the closest thing to a "2.0" the game industry has seen in awhile (the GameBoy Color would be the other big contender, but that's probably more a version 1.2 or 1.5).
You're ignoring the changes in controllers--the SNES controller is radically different from the NES controller which in turn is radically different from the Atari 2600 controller. The N64 controller was radically different from the SNES controller (the GCN controller was admittedly kind of a hybrid between the Dual Shock and N64 controller though). Also, the PS2 was the first to add DVD playback and the PS1 was the first to use DUAL analog joysticks. The Dreamcast was the first console that used the memory card to display information and allow you to play minigames on it.
In other words, hardware innovation happens all the time and his assessment of the 360 as just massively upgraded hardware is fairly accurate--XBox Live Arcade was on the original XBox, it has the same controller design (just wireless now), new new storage medium, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing--I'll probably pick up a 360 after the price drops (to be my secondary console--with the Wii being my primary). If and when the PS3 drops down to an affordable price (I'm a grad student, so my funds are limited... and if I had $500-600 I would be buying a flatter TV with a widescreen and not a PS3... as the TV would last longer and give me more use than the PS3 and would compliment my Wii nicely) then I'll probably pick that up as well for any games that haven't been ported to the other consoles by that time.
Voice input isn't simple... And it has been done. Nintendogs has it and does it decently. Brain Age has it, but has a "bug" for the word "blue" (I never experienced this issue but many people I've had play the game have had that problem). The PS2 game LifeLine (by Konami) had it and failed miserably--it was basically a text adventure where you talk to it but they didn't give it a large enough vocabulary and the speech recognition was subpar. The previous two games worked because the words/phrases you use are simple and they have limited vocabularies so its easy to get it right. But making something more complex, like LifeLine is much more difficult as voice recognition still has issues, otherwise you'd be talking to type instead of using a keyboard (although I hear the new version of DragonSpeak is supposed to be fairly good). For additional voice controls, try Apple's speech commands (fairly good, but far from flawless) or Opera's speech commands (mediocre, but a nice touch).
Part of Nintendo's strategy with the Wii (pronounced 'we' as opposed to 'Y') is diversifying the game library. They have admitted that the last generation or two they have lacked diversity and they are trying to increase the diversity of titles through both new internal projects and by actively courting 3rd parties (something they failed to do with the last two generations). I'm not going to do the stereotypical pointing to the DS--that's a handheld and almost entirely a different market and one Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated (pointing to the success of the DS only points to Nintendo's continued dominance of the handheld market--although I will say its the first handheld I've actually ever enjoyed...) I will, however, point to the fact that EA (even though I hate them) and other publishers are pledging more titles to the Wii then they have in the past and some publishers are delaying/waiting to support the PS3.
Nintendo seems to be forming themselves an excellent position in terms of diversity. Sony still has the support but the first signs of wavering of publishers can be seen--so if sales are less than expected than you better believe Sony will lose a decent amount of their diversity. Microsoft still hasn't learned how to either buy a large Japanese developer (like Capcom or Konami) or successfully court them and as such will never have the same amount of diversity--although that's not to say the console/games on the 360 won't still be pretty good, they'll just lack some of the diversity (see the almost total lack of Eastern RPGs on the original XBox; although they are making an effort to fix this for the 360). Regardless, this looks like a generation where there may not actually be one dominant player and the market may actually be fairly well spread out among the Big Three (which should be a good thing for gamers--competition leads to fewer exclusive titles so you can play the game on the system of your choice and should also, hopefully, lead to further innovation and price wars).
But I consider the sneaking around to be action... Metal Gear Solid is mostly sneaking around as well... I actually prefer a good balance of sneaking around + fighting to balance the gameplay as it's often harder to sneak than to just fight your way through. Although my second playthrough of BG&E I fought my way through because I was seeing how quickly I could beat it--there are times when you HAVE to sneak though--just like in Zelda: Four Swords (GameCube) there are times when you HAVE to sneak.
BG&E is a great game... However, to claim it's non-linear is a total lie. I've played it twice and it's in my list of top 5 games of this past generation, but the game is pretty much one path (with a few side quests to collect additional items--much like the side quests in Zelda to collect additional hearts and such).
I forgot to note that there's also a nice splattering of Metal Gear type stealth in this game. So basically you get a Zelda-Metal Gear hybrid game with a pretty strong 1984-ish storyline (and a little bit of Pokemon Snap thrown in for flavor). This combination may not have worked in a longer game, but for this 5-12 hour game (5 hours if you've played it before and know what you're doing--I think records even show that some people have even beaten it in 3 hours or less.
I have moderator points and I was going to use them for comments in this story... But this game is in my top five games of the current (or last) gen (depending upon how you look at it). It is the only game besides the original Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Darkness that I thought was awesome (and short) enough that I took the time to play through it more than once. The game can easily be beaten the first time in 10-12 hours (similar to Metal Gear Solid), but the storyline is great (very 1984ish). The gameplay is a mix of Zelda and (as strange as this may be) that Pokemon Snap game (where you took pictures of the Pokemon). The puzzles weren't as challenging as maybe they could have been, but they were pretty solid. The battles were more difficult, and I think more action packed than either Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. This really was an incredible game and anybody who hasn't played it should really at LEAST borrow it from a friend or rent it--you won't regret it.
Newegg.com has the same policy about only selling XP MCE 2005 with hardware (utilizing the loophole) and I don't think anybody on Slashdot would say they're not a reputable online vendor...
Maybe the bottleneck isn't on the last-mile in Europe with the multiple mbps and gbps connections... but here in the US "high speed internet" is defined by the providers as 512kbps (possibly even less than that...) The average home here is normally hard pressed to find 3 mbps at an affordable rate... Damn the telco's and their stealing $200 Billion that was supposed to upgrade the network...
Personally, I like the electoral college. I think preventing the masses from actually being in control is a good thing. I wasn't bashing the founding father's, just stating what their history (Free Mason association, various writings of the time, public sentiment BEFORE the propaganda began, etc.) leads me to believe. Let's not be deceived by what their actual motivations were--each of them took a place of power after the dust had cleared. They also all saved money on taxes;-)
I was actually thinking the same thing as I was typing it up (in regards to 'Dubya')... especially since he also weakened our world position by overextending our forces, angering our allies, and (arguably) weakening our economic influence (or at least allowed the growth to slow--mostly in terms of science and technology). If we want to stay on the forefront of science/technology and therefore the modern economy, we NEED to keep our resources (e.g. people) inside this country, give more federal grants to research, remove bans on stem cell and other types of research, and actively recruit PhDs of other nationalities (like we used to--now we just give H1-Bs out and send them back home after they've made their money so they can set themselves up as competition to Americans).
The purpose of the electoral college is to keep power in the hands of an oligarchy, as it should be. If you look at the composition of the Constitution then its pretty obvious that the Founder's never meant the nation to be ruled by the mindless horde. The Founder's were all middle/upper class citizens who were fed up by not having power, so like many before them (and many after them) they convinced the masses that the current power was wrong, used the masses to fight their war, and then took power for themselves regulating the masses to more of a symbolic role (which is better than the masses get in most other "people's revolutions"). The electoral college is part of a checks and balance system designed to ensure that the mindless horde does not elect an imbecile who would tear this country apart and destroy the Union (or later on diminish its economic power in the world--as that was how our nation rose to power... now we just shoot anything that moves... oh, and we also use the UN, which if you read the Charter is also more of an oligarchy then anything else--placing the 5 super powers of the itme of its creation in a place of permanent power, thus cementing their super power status well beyond the time that their influence should be little or none... like Russia...)
What would also be nice is if they also pressured ATI to create good drivers in general. Their Windows drivers suck as well, but I concur that it's more important to have driver's that aren't a royal pain in the ass (it's the number one thing that makes me think twice before installing another new Linux distro or makes me wait to upgrade to the latest version of my current Linux distros--although Linspire handles my ATI card fairly gracefully, but I have other issues with Linspire...) to get to work in Linux than to have non-crappy drivers for Windows. Still, it would be nice if we could have both... or maybe they should just open source the drivers and that way both problems can be fixed at little to no cost to them?
I don't know the specifics, but based on this fact: "# Later in June 2003, the NSA extended their support for AES beyond belief. AES becomes NSA-approved for all US Government Departments and Agencies. In See paragraph (6) of the NSA National Policy on the Use AES to Protect National Security Systems and National Security Information. we read:
* AES 128 bits and more are approved for up to "SECRET level".
* AES with 192 and 256-bit keys were approved even for "TOP SECRET level" (later it has changed, and now it has to be 256 bits, see here).
* The implementation must be reviewed and certified by the NSA.
* AES is now part of suite B of recommended cryptographic algorithms (suite A, contains classified algorithms for National security).
" (Google Cache
I would have to assume that the NSA has a way of cracking it themselves, as historically the NSA does not approve any encryption method unless they can crack it themselves. Similarly, "The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths. The implementation of AES in products intended to protect national security systems and/or information must be reviewed and certified by NSA prior to their acquisition and use." (a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryp tion_Standard">Wikipedia) confirms that it is the most secure currently used encryption standard, but it can still be cracked by the NSA and their crypto experts and multiple super computers. They would not encourage something to be a worldwide standard if they could not crack it themselves, but they also wouldn't approve the encryption for government documents unless they felt that few governments/people other than themselves could crack it. Just because a crack has not been published does not mean the NSA doesn't have a way of breaking the encryption.
I know about encryption and decryption. I took courses that explained how PGP and other such encryption algorithms worked. I've also had discussion about both with people in charge of researching how to break these encryption methods and those trying to find ways of better securing networks and finding better encryption techniques. I'm definitely not an expert on the matter, but I'm at least above the total layman level. I also know that just about any encrypted internet packet out there, the NSA has the ability to break if they want to. Some of the encryption methods, obviously, take them longer than others, but they can break it if they really want to--encryption just slows them down. If you just don't want a casual eavesdropper or any non-government agency listening in on your conversation, then yeah there are many encryption methods out there that would take them much too long to try to decrypt without having the key (assuming they can't do a man in the middle attack).
On the OS X client I don't see anything about encryption under the Advanced tab. I only just installed the client on my Windows Desktop (since my headset doesn't work with my MacBook), but maybe that client has the RPT encryption (since I think they updated it more recently).
Slashdot Mirror
Just looking at the end score in the review for ANYTHING is useless. The usefulness in a review is in reading the comments of the reviewer and understanding the reviewers preferences in games by looking at their reviews of other games you're interested in. The trick is to find a reviewer with similar thoughts on genres and such as your own, that way their review is relevant to you. The other trick is finding well thought out, well explained reviews--ones that tell you EXACTLY what the shortcomings and pros of the title were, this way you can decide if the shortcomings are shortcomings to you or if you just think the reviewer is being anal.
If it's from all over the world then that would include the Middle East and Asia (which it does as archaelogists from those locations do not like grave robbers either). There are other ways of making a living that don't include robbing your own country of its cultural history (which grave robbers do). The archaeologists I've spoken to (admittedly just a handful) don't seem very interested in 'career changing' discoveries but more so in uncovering the mysteries of the past without destroying the site (which includes trying to avoid digging when possible)--this way when new techniques/technologies arrive int he future the ability to understand these sites will not be lost by digging them up or doing some other destructive means of trying to uncover part of the past now but destroying future knowledge of the past later. The archaeologists seeking a 'career changing' discovery are normally the 'celebrity archaeologists' (like that one Egyptian who took a sledgehammer to a tomb on national TV...) as opposed to the academic arachaeologists.
Thank you for saying that because the summary was great until that line which made me upset because my class on archaeology beat it into my head fairly well that the "search for buried treasure" has destroyed an incredible amount of history and has caused other artificats to be lost or altered (due to the "art market").
Cool Spot for Genesis and other systems was a platformer AND a blatant advertisement through licensing of the "7UP Spot" but there isn't anybody who can convince me it wasn't at least a decent game. It did well enough to earn itself at least one sequel, if not more... I'm not saying it was the best game ever, but it was at least fun at the time.
I find it really sad that the parent was modded insightful... not so much because I don't think it's true, but because it's so true that the moderators chose to mod it insightful instead of funny... Now I almost feel bad about laughing at this piece of comic gold...
As for the American market, let's not forget that the reason Sega Genesis was as successful as it was had a lot to do with the American market--it was never as successful in Japan. The original Nintendo owed a good amount of its success to the American market as well.
Also, price alone does not sell consoles--if it did then the Gamecube would have been more successful (admittedly the price difference was nowhere as huge as this time, but it was still the least expensive console)--you can only sell so many game consoles on price but you sell more based upon what's "cool" and which one has "that awesome game".
I wasn't trying to rip on Nintendo, so don't take it that way and don't rip me apart because you think I'm being anti-Nintendo. The first console I plan on buying this generation is a Nintendo Wii and the only handheld I've ever liked was the the DS. I've owned every Nintendo system since the NES and the GameCube was my 2nd favorite game system (due almost entirely to Nintendo's games)--the XBox was my favorite only because as a college student it had more of the multiplayer games that other people at college tended to play, plus I think XBox Live was a great feature (Microsoft's one true "innovation"--which they borrowed fromt he Dreamcast but did correctly and integrated better--plus a lot of 3rd party games that were on all consoles looked better on the XBox and had additional online features that the others didn't have; or at least those 3rd party games I wanted). The PS2 I sold to my younger brother because I hadn't bought any new games for it for 2 years--all my gaming money was going into GameCube and XBox games; and then the DS... I'm definetly rooting for Nintendo though in this new generation now that they've overcome their arrogance and have entered a new era of innovation (they've always innovative, but lately they're innovating by leaps and bounds). I've also been working on converting Sony/XBox fanboys to at least CONSIDER Nintendo products--partially by showing them how cool and successful the DS is. However, I try to keep things balanced and I definitely think it would be bad if there's only one dominant player in the industry.
The NES and SNES had a lot of 3rd party support... But that was partially due to a lack of choice and Nintendo's Iron Fist policy. If you control the market, there's no need to court them because you already have them. They DID used to have 3rd party support though--it just wasn't necessarily willing support.
Live Arcade is on the original XBox as well, it just wasn't as successful for the original XBox (perhaps because it didn't roll out until much later in the console's life). MarketPlace still needs to prove itself a bit more than items you would be able to get for free on the PC version using mods. The achievements are similar to the rankings in games like Halo 2, although it is nice to have a more integrated apporach to it. I wasn't aware of the USB storage device connectivity, but that's a nice to have feature (although it's not really about the games as much...). The original XBox could play pictures and movies (there was a media center kit you could get for it). The iPod connectivity has nothing to do with games, but I suppose it's a nice to have feature (although I, personally could care less about it). The auto-update of games is definitely nice, but really the game should be created correctly the first time and not issue out patches, what do you do if you have the version without a harddrive?) Calling the marketplace and Live Arcade the "biggest financial success of the gaming industry for the last 10 years" is the biggest hyperbole I've heard in the last 10 years. Especially since I think the success of the DS and Brain Age would be more likely to take that crown in the past 1-2 years of gaming history (perhaps you didn't see Nintendo's huge increase in profit for the last quarter... as opposed to Microsoft Game Division's still negative balance--although supposedly they'll actually turn a profit come 2007 sometime, which is much better than the XBox which never made it to the black). I'm not saying the 360 isn't good, I'm just saying that it really is the closest thing to a "2.0" the game industry has seen in awhile (the GameBoy Color would be the other big contender, but that's probably more a version 1.2 or 1.5).
In other words, hardware innovation happens all the time and his assessment of the 360 as just massively upgraded hardware is fairly accurate--XBox Live Arcade was on the original XBox, it has the same controller design (just wireless now), new new storage medium, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing--I'll probably pick up a 360 after the price drops (to be my secondary console--with the Wii being my primary). If and when the PS3 drops down to an affordable price (I'm a grad student, so my funds are limited... and if I had $500-600 I would be buying a flatter TV with a widescreen and not a PS3... as the TV would last longer and give me more use than the PS3 and would compliment my Wii nicely) then I'll probably pick that up as well for any games that haven't been ported to the other consoles by that time.
Voice input isn't simple... And it has been done. Nintendogs has it and does it decently. Brain Age has it, but has a "bug" for the word "blue" (I never experienced this issue but many people I've had play the game have had that problem). The PS2 game LifeLine (by Konami) had it and failed miserably--it was basically a text adventure where you talk to it but they didn't give it a large enough vocabulary and the speech recognition was subpar. The previous two games worked because the words/phrases you use are simple and they have limited vocabularies so its easy to get it right. But making something more complex, like LifeLine is much more difficult as voice recognition still has issues, otherwise you'd be talking to type instead of using a keyboard (although I hear the new version of DragonSpeak is supposed to be fairly good). For additional voice controls, try Apple's speech commands (fairly good, but far from flawless) or Opera's speech commands (mediocre, but a nice touch).
Nintendo seems to be forming themselves an excellent position in terms of diversity. Sony still has the support but the first signs of wavering of publishers can be seen--so if sales are less than expected than you better believe Sony will lose a decent amount of their diversity. Microsoft still hasn't learned how to either buy a large Japanese developer (like Capcom or Konami) or successfully court them and as such will never have the same amount of diversity--although that's not to say the console/games on the 360 won't still be pretty good, they'll just lack some of the diversity (see the almost total lack of Eastern RPGs on the original XBox; although they are making an effort to fix this for the 360). Regardless, this looks like a generation where there may not actually be one dominant player and the market may actually be fairly well spread out among the Big Three (which should be a good thing for gamers--competition leads to fewer exclusive titles so you can play the game on the system of your choice and should also, hopefully, lead to further innovation and price wars).
But I consider the sneaking around to be action... Metal Gear Solid is mostly sneaking around as well... I actually prefer a good balance of sneaking around + fighting to balance the gameplay as it's often harder to sneak than to just fight your way through. Although my second playthrough of BG&E I fought my way through because I was seeing how quickly I could beat it--there are times when you HAVE to sneak though--just like in Zelda: Four Swords (GameCube) there are times when you HAVE to sneak.
BG&E is a great game... However, to claim it's non-linear is a total lie. I've played it twice and it's in my list of top 5 games of this past generation, but the game is pretty much one path (with a few side quests to collect additional items--much like the side quests in Zelda to collect additional hearts and such).
I forgot to note that there's also a nice splattering of Metal Gear type stealth in this game. So basically you get a Zelda-Metal Gear hybrid game with a pretty strong 1984-ish storyline (and a little bit of Pokemon Snap thrown in for flavor). This combination may not have worked in a longer game, but for this 5-12 hour game (5 hours if you've played it before and know what you're doing--I think records even show that some people have even beaten it in 3 hours or less.
I have moderator points and I was going to use them for comments in this story... But this game is in my top five games of the current (or last) gen (depending upon how you look at it). It is the only game besides the original Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Darkness that I thought was awesome (and short) enough that I took the time to play through it more than once. The game can easily be beaten the first time in 10-12 hours (similar to Metal Gear Solid), but the storyline is great (very 1984ish). The gameplay is a mix of Zelda and (as strange as this may be) that Pokemon Snap game (where you took pictures of the Pokemon). The puzzles weren't as challenging as maybe they could have been, but they were pretty solid. The battles were more difficult, and I think more action packed than either Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. This really was an incredible game and anybody who hasn't played it should really at LEAST borrow it from a friend or rent it--you won't regret it.
Newegg.com has the same policy about only selling XP MCE 2005 with hardware (utilizing the loophole) and I don't think anybody on Slashdot would say they're not a reputable online vendor...
Maybe the bottleneck isn't on the last-mile in Europe with the multiple mbps and gbps connections... but here in the US "high speed internet" is defined by the providers as 512kbps (possibly even less than that...) The average home here is normally hard pressed to find 3 mbps at an affordable rate... Damn the telco's and their stealing $200 Billion that was supposed to upgrade the network...
Personally, I like the electoral college. I think preventing the masses from actually being in control is a good thing. I wasn't bashing the founding father's, just stating what their history (Free Mason association, various writings of the time, public sentiment BEFORE the propaganda began, etc.) leads me to believe. Let's not be deceived by what their actual motivations were--each of them took a place of power after the dust had cleared. They also all saved money on taxes ;-)
I was actually thinking the same thing as I was typing it up (in regards to 'Dubya')... especially since he also weakened our world position by overextending our forces, angering our allies, and (arguably) weakening our economic influence (or at least allowed the growth to slow--mostly in terms of science and technology). If we want to stay on the forefront of science/technology and therefore the modern economy, we NEED to keep our resources (e.g. people) inside this country, give more federal grants to research, remove bans on stem cell and other types of research, and actively recruit PhDs of other nationalities (like we used to--now we just give H1-Bs out and send them back home after they've made their money so they can set themselves up as competition to Americans).
The purpose of the electoral college is to keep power in the hands of an oligarchy, as it should be. If you look at the composition of the Constitution then its pretty obvious that the Founder's never meant the nation to be ruled by the mindless horde. The Founder's were all middle/upper class citizens who were fed up by not having power, so like many before them (and many after them) they convinced the masses that the current power was wrong, used the masses to fight their war, and then took power for themselves regulating the masses to more of a symbolic role (which is better than the masses get in most other "people's revolutions"). The electoral college is part of a checks and balance system designed to ensure that the mindless horde does not elect an imbecile who would tear this country apart and destroy the Union (or later on diminish its economic power in the world--as that was how our nation rose to power... now we just shoot anything that moves... oh, and we also use the UN, which if you read the Charter is also more of an oligarchy then anything else--placing the 5 super powers of the itme of its creation in a place of permanent power, thus cementing their super power status well beyond the time that their influence should be little or none... like Russia...)
What would also be nice is if they also pressured ATI to create good drivers in general. Their Windows drivers suck as well, but I concur that it's more important to have driver's that aren't a royal pain in the ass (it's the number one thing that makes me think twice before installing another new Linux distro or makes me wait to upgrade to the latest version of my current Linux distros--although Linspire handles my ATI card fairly gracefully, but I have other issues with Linspire...) to get to work in Linux than to have non-crappy drivers for Windows. Still, it would be nice if we could have both... or maybe they should just open source the drivers and that way both problems can be fixed at little to no cost to them?
I would have to assume that the NSA has a way of cracking it themselves, as historically the NSA does not approve any encryption method unless they can crack it themselves. Similarly, "The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths. The implementation of AES in products intended to protect national security systems and/or information must be reviewed and certified by NSA prior to their acquisition and use." (a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryp tion_Standard">Wikipedia) confirms that it is the most secure currently used encryption standard, but it can still be cracked by the NSA and their crypto experts and multiple super computers. They would not encourage something to be a worldwide standard if they could not crack it themselves, but they also wouldn't approve the encryption for government documents unless they felt that few governments/people other than themselves could crack it. Just because a crack has not been published does not mean the NSA doesn't have a way of breaking the encryption.
I know about encryption and decryption. I took courses that explained how PGP and other such encryption algorithms worked. I've also had discussion about both with people in charge of researching how to break these encryption methods and those trying to find ways of better securing networks and finding better encryption techniques. I'm definitely not an expert on the matter, but I'm at least above the total layman level. I also know that just about any encrypted internet packet out there, the NSA has the ability to break if they want to. Some of the encryption methods, obviously, take them longer than others, but they can break it if they really want to--encryption just slows them down. If you just don't want a casual eavesdropper or any non-government agency listening in on your conversation, then yeah there are many encryption methods out there that would take them much too long to try to decrypt without having the key (assuming they can't do a man in the middle attack).
On the OS X client I don't see anything about encryption under the Advanced tab. I only just installed the client on my Windows Desktop (since my headset doesn't work with my MacBook), but maybe that client has the RPT encryption (since I think they updated it more recently).
Yep, that's what I meant. My bad, sorry. Guess I should learn to use the preview button. Thanks for the correction!