A can of beer is one thing, a decent can of beer is another! These days there are many breweries putting out cans of beer with a special lining inside to protect the deliciousness from the aluminum. Is there anyone out there who can testify to the effect such a lining might have on the do-it-yourself project in question?
Or at least speculate?
Worst case I suppose I'll have to get a sixer of High Life and a sixer of Brew Free or Die. You know, for science.
When a music/video piracy article pops up here it seems like somebody always points out that copyright infringement isn't theft. Nobody is being deprived of something, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, you know the arguments.
It seems like there's no stealing or theft involved here either; it's just a copy and nobody is being deprived of anything. Don't recall anybody pointing that out before in this context.
Case A) Copying bits, but it's not theft it's copyright infringement. Case B) Copying bits, but it *is* theft.
It would seem that there might be a distinction, and I'm curious where people draw the line.
Great question. It's such a broad field, and so often every facet of it is just lumped together under the generic label of IT.
Imagine this exchange: "What do you do?" "Oh, I work in cars." Cars (like IT) covers a heck of a lot of ground. You can assemble cars, create individual bits of cars, service cars, sell cars, drive cars, wreck cars, write about cars, and wash cars. There are many different types of cars too.
But nobody (that I've ever heard, anyway) says that they "work in cars." These days I try to avoid the generalization of IT and make a point of being a bit more specific, unless I don't want the conversation to go that direction. Mostly because I think that IT sounds about as general as 'cars'.
I had the exact opposite reaction to Mario Kart Wii. I find the Wiimote klunky, imprecise, and unresponsive. After a couple of days trying to use the Wiimote I switched to the Gamecube controller. My son, who usually loves using the Wiimote (mostly for Sports), gave up after only 1 play session and will only use the Gamecube controller.
Until picking up Mario Kart for the Wii, I hadn't played any of the MK games for nearly a decade. If I had played any of them more recently then I'm sure that I wouldn't like the Wii-Wheel control scheme either. However, because it has been so long I don't miss the old controls, and any muscle memory I had for the old controller is long gone.
I've been tempted to try racing using the nunchuck controller to steer, but personally I find the wheel to be fun and so I'm sticking with it. My wife certainly doesn't have any problems using the wheel, she blasted right through the 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc classes and never expressed any desire for a different control mechanism.
In the end, your anecdotes vs mine, it doesn't really matter because we're given a choice of four (!) different control schemes: Wii Wheel, Wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller, and GameCube controller. That's a whole lot of choice and I'm glad that we're given the options.
Lots of talk about not enough buttons on the Wii-mote. Sounds like people are after six plus the d-pad? I haven't played fighting games since Street Fighter 2 came out, but here's my take on how fighting could work for the Wii.
Punch with A, kick with B. Aim the Wii-mote at the top of the screen for a high attack, the middle of the screen for a middle attack, and at the bottom of the screen for a low attack. That ignores left and right, which could factor into special moves or blocking.
A Nunchuck attachment also comes with the standard package. This means that the joystick could be used to control movement. There are also a couple more buttons which could be used for jumping, special attacks, taunts, whatever.
That's just off the top of my head. I wouldn't be shocked if there's a game out for the Wii that uses a similar control scheme already.
On behalf of my wife, please offer to hook up the ladies over at The Nest. Perhaps they'll date you just long enough for you to get the hardware set up.
Wife: Does Slashdot ever slow down this bad?
Me: No honey, Slashdot *causes* slowdowns that bad.
I am curious: does this block Blizzard's WoW patching utility?
The central IT staff at Washington State makes exceptions for WoW related P2P activity. Students complained about their (in)ability to patch, and IT listened. Now when patches are expected the rules loosen up a bit.
If the students at Missouri are concerned about it then they should express their concerns to IT. Can't hurt, might help.
When I first saw the title of the article, I couldn't help but think of the cartoons I watched as a kid. While I greatly enjoyed them, they were basically just advertisements for related merchandise.
How would this translate to the companies in the summary? The Cisco League of America? The Green Intel Corps 2 Duo? The Microsoft Source Force? Oh, right.
While it sounds silly enough, it has been done. How it'll go for an audience more advanced in years is beyond me, but I suppose that's why I perfer tech to marketing.
It's legal for you to do work on your own car, but the manufacturer wont give you the code that allows you to open the hood and it's illegal for you to circumvent the hood-locking mechanism.
My mom got me a Wii for my birthday, and she has all but come out and said that she wants it back. She threatened to buy her own if I didn't bring mine for Thanksgiving (in retrospect I should have called her bluff).
My aunts and uncles went absolutely nuts over Wii Sports Boxing. In 33 years I've never seen them get so worked up over any kind of game, much less heard them yelling and shrieking like they were.
So yeah, I'd say that they're going to be hard to find. My mom hates consoles in general, but she'd really like a Wii.
First, I'd like to see something that really takes on Outlook/Exchange.
Second, I'd like to see something along the lines of OpenX: a competitor for DirectX. Sure openGL competes with Direct3d, and there's openAL for DirectSound... But why not bundle up a bunch of open goodness the way DirectX packages together graphics, sound, networking, and input? Wrap it all up in a nice tight IDE and what've you got? Something that'll write games for Linux, Mac, Windows, Wii, and PS3. Compare that to DirectX, which does Windows and xBox, and frankly the only hurting party is the xBox. Sure, sure, it's more complicated than that, but damnit, that's what I want to see.
The more I think about it, the more I think there was an XML based UI modding system for EQ as well...
Correct. I would argue that the only revolutionary aspect of WoW was the decision to focus on art rather than on spiffy graphics. That decision not only made for a nice looking game, but enabled said nice looking game to play well with older hardware.
While it might be infeasable to count the number of people using linux, it would be nice to be able to point some game development companies at a nice, large digit and say could we get some openGL games, please?
While I'd love to see more native linux clients out there, right now I'd be thrilled to just see more games using openGL because they seem to work so much better with WINE.
Whenever I read something like this, I get a reminder how poor is biologists' comprehension of Computer Science, Information Theory, and languages.
Don't assume that the biologists are doing the computer science. Some may, but I can guarentee that not all of them are. My brother has been working on this project for the last several years, he has a Masters in Computer Science. It is he, not the biologists, who writes the software that analyzes the data produced in thier lab.
The biologists aren't writing the code, and the computer scientists aren't doing the biology. They're working together.
There are NASCAR fans who base their purchasing decisions soley on what logos are sported by their favorite NASCAR driver. If they see that penguin on the car, then see that penguin on a Dell at Wal-Mart, they'll take that penguin over the Dell with Windows.
Somewhat sadly, after a moment of thinking about company metaverse-meetings, I pictured a conference table surrounded by WoW, EQ2, Anarchy Online, and SL avatars.
And you just know that some people would show up with opposite-sex avatars too.
The video game industry has suffered from this for ages. No matter how crappy or buggy the game, it would get good reviews from the rags and web sites. The reason for this is that the gaming companies would threaten to pull advance copies of their next game if any game got a bad review.
That's the #2 reason I let my subscription to PC Gamer expire. The #1 reason was that they ran ads for companies that sold gold|plat|whatever in MMOs.
They knowingly ran ads for services that willingly undermined the spirit of the games, and was against the games EULAs. Yay for advertising.
I seem to remember hearing that PC Gamer has stopped running those ads, but it still makes me sick.
The problem with Windows machines is that you don't just get Windows; you get Windows and a pile of craplets, which companies are paying Dell to supply to you. Windows can have a negative price tag on low-end computers because the cost is offset by all the garbage your computer comes filled with.
Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that if the Ubuntu machines sell well, then advertisers will write linux-compatible gcraplets (or kcraplets, if that's your thing)? Then the price of these machines would fall for the same reason that the price of Windows machines is already reduced.
(and i really despise how MMO's can charge for an expansion when you already pay a monthly fee - this is one thing EVE got very right). DAoC is another example of this, sure they have development costs but those dev's are there full time anyway, which means your $15/mon (or whatever) is already paying their incomes.
It is my understanding that Everquest 2 (at least) has two sets of developers. One set maintains the existing game, and the second set is responsible for putting together expansions. This would mean that the $15/mo goes towards paying the maintainance developers, infrastructure costs, etc, and that the cost of the expansion helps pay for the second set of developers.
This may be an exception to the rule, I'm not sure.
Slashdot Mirror
A can of beer is one thing, a decent can of beer is another! These days there are many breweries putting out cans of beer with a special lining inside to protect the deliciousness from the aluminum. Is there anyone out there who can testify to the effect such a lining might have on the do-it-yourself project in question?
Or at least speculate?
Worst case I suppose I'll have to get a sixer of High Life and a sixer of Brew Free or Die. You know, for science.
It's not a catchy name, but at least it's descriptive.
When a music/video piracy article pops up here it seems like somebody always points out that copyright infringement isn't theft. Nobody is being deprived of something, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, you know the arguments.
It seems like there's no stealing or theft involved here either; it's just a copy and nobody is being deprived of anything. Don't recall anybody pointing that out before in this context.
Case A) Copying bits, but it's not theft it's copyright infringement.
Case B) Copying bits, but it *is* theft.
It would seem that there might be a distinction, and I'm curious where people draw the line.
Great question. It's such a broad field, and so often every facet of it is just lumped together under the generic label of IT.
Imagine this exchange: "What do you do?" "Oh, I work in cars." Cars (like IT) covers a heck of a lot of ground. You can assemble cars, create individual bits of cars, service cars, sell cars, drive cars, wreck cars, write about cars, and wash cars. There are many different types of cars too.
But nobody (that I've ever heard, anyway) says that they "work in cars." These days I try to avoid the generalization of IT and make a point of being a bit more specific, unless I don't want the conversation to go that direction. Mostly because I think that IT sounds about as general as 'cars'.
Until picking up Mario Kart for the Wii, I hadn't played any of the MK games for nearly a decade. If I had played any of them more recently then I'm sure that I wouldn't like the Wii-Wheel control scheme either. However, because it has been so long I don't miss the old controls, and any muscle memory I had for the old controller is long gone.
I've been tempted to try racing using the nunchuck controller to steer, but personally I find the wheel to be fun and so I'm sticking with it. My wife certainly doesn't have any problems using the wheel, she blasted right through the 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc classes and never expressed any desire for a different control mechanism.
In the end, your anecdotes vs mine, it doesn't really matter because we're given a choice of four (!) different control schemes: Wii Wheel, Wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller, and GameCube controller. That's a whole lot of choice and I'm glad that we're given the options.
Lots of talk about not enough buttons on the Wii-mote. Sounds like people are after six plus the d-pad? I haven't played fighting games since Street Fighter 2 came out, but here's my take on how fighting could work for the Wii.
Punch with A, kick with B. Aim the Wii-mote at the top of the screen for a high attack, the middle of the screen for a middle attack, and at the bottom of the screen for a low attack. That ignores left and right, which could factor into special moves or blocking.
A Nunchuck attachment also comes with the standard package. This means that the joystick could be used to control movement. There are also a couple more buttons which could be used for jumping, special attacks, taunts, whatever.
That's just off the top of my head. I wouldn't be shocked if there's a game out for the Wii that uses a similar control scheme already.
On behalf of my wife, please offer to hook up the ladies over at The Nest. Perhaps they'll date you just long enough for you to get the hardware set up.
Wife: Does Slashdot ever slow down this bad?
Me: No honey, Slashdot *causes* slowdowns that bad.
The central IT staff at Washington State makes exceptions for WoW related P2P activity. Students complained about their (in)ability to patch, and IT listened. Now when patches are expected the rules loosen up a bit.
If the students at Missouri are concerned about it then they should express their concerns to IT. Can't hurt, might help.
When I first saw the title of the article, I couldn't help but think of the cartoons I watched as a kid. While I greatly enjoyed them, they were basically just advertisements for related merchandise.
How would this translate to the companies in the summary? The Cisco League of America? The Green Intel Corps 2 Duo? The Microsoft Source Force? Oh, right.
While it sounds silly enough, it has been done. How it'll go for an audience more advanced in years is beyond me, but I suppose that's why I perfer tech to marketing.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1^5.)
It's legal for you to do work on your own car, but the manufacturer wont give you the code that allows you to open the hood and it's illegal for you to circumvent the hood-locking mechanism.
Currently there are no licenses that require Morse code. PDF of announcement.
Got my Technician just last month. My grandpa was speechless (and not beceause he replied in Morse).
My mom got me a Wii for my birthday, and she has all but come out and said that she wants it back. She threatened to buy her own if I didn't bring mine for Thanksgiving (in retrospect I should have called her bluff). My aunts and uncles went absolutely nuts over Wii Sports Boxing. In 33 years I've never seen them get so worked up over any kind of game, much less heard them yelling and shrieking like they were. So yeah, I'd say that they're going to be hard to find. My mom hates consoles in general, but she'd really like a Wii.
First, I'd like to see something that really takes on Outlook/Exchange.
Second, I'd like to see something along the lines of OpenX: a competitor for DirectX. Sure openGL competes with Direct3d, and there's openAL for DirectSound... But why not bundle up a bunch of open goodness the way DirectX packages together graphics, sound, networking, and input? Wrap it all up in a nice tight IDE and what've you got? Something that'll write games for Linux, Mac, Windows, Wii, and PS3. Compare that to DirectX, which does Windows and xBox, and frankly the only hurting party is the xBox. Sure, sure, it's more complicated than that, but damnit, that's what I want to see.
Correct. I would argue that the only revolutionary aspect of WoW was the decision to focus on art rather than on spiffy graphics. That decision not only made for a nice looking game, but enabled said nice looking game to play well with older hardware.
While it might be infeasable to count the number of people using linux, it would be nice to be able to point some game development companies at a nice, large digit and say could we get some openGL games, please?
While I'd love to see more native linux clients out there, right now I'd be thrilled to just see more games using openGL because they seem to work so much better with WINE.
Since I'm tired of just saying "the RIAA":
Don't assume that the biologists are doing the computer science. Some may, but I can guarentee that not all of them are. My brother has been working on this project for the last several years, he has a Masters in Computer Science. It is he, not the biologists, who writes the software that analyzes the data produced in thier lab.
The biologists aren't writing the code, and the computer scientists aren't doing the biology. They're working together.
You appear to be just the sort of person I've been wanting to ask this question to for some time:
If the game was initially written for Windows and written with OpenGL (rather than DirectX), is it substantially easier to make the port?
The answer may seem obvious to many, but for me I'm ignorant of what all else is going on (in addition to graphics) in the making of such a port.
Off topic yes, but if you're using Opera then you can type /. into the bar and press enter, and get to slashdot.org.
So there is going to be a NASCAR sporting Linux, Dell is shipping Linux, and Wal-Mart is selling Dells [this.article].
There are NASCAR fans who base their purchasing decisions soley on what logos are sported by their favorite NASCAR driver. If they see that penguin on the car, then see that penguin on a Dell at Wal-Mart, they'll take that penguin over the Dell with Windows.
Good? Bad? I dunno.
Somewhat sadly, after a moment of thinking about company metaverse-meetings, I pictured a conference table surrounded by WoW, EQ2, Anarchy Online, and SL avatars.
And you just know that some people would show up with opposite-sex avatars too.
They knowingly ran ads for services that willingly undermined the spirit of the games, and was against the games EULAs. Yay for advertising.
I seem to remember hearing that PC Gamer has stopped running those ads, but it still makes me sick.
This may be an exception to the rule, I'm not sure.