Having talked to people at demo, what it pretty much came down to is this... is this a product we should be excited about? Definitely... is it something that will do well right away? Not at all.
The price has to drop before this becomes a really valid and useful tool for the GENERAL PUBLIC / Company. But there are a lot of companies out there willing to pay too much money to get these. Hopefully these big companies buy these up and fund this project as QUICKLY as possible. 7 of these side by side at 320/640 gigs a piece is a SCARY/powerful server.
That being said, a few of the guys there said that they pretty much expect these (at the beginning) to do the best sales for companies that are looking to get really really fast database servers going. NOT for scsi san replacements (it's silly to spend $100,000 for something you could get for 10,000 hard drive space wise). Eventually as the price drops... i know of a handful of people who would EASILY pay 1000$ to get one of these on a gaming rig even if it was only 100 gigs. But that right there is already 1/3rd of the price of what it currently is. (assuming it's around 30$ a gig).
Another thing to keep in mind that came up in the conversations... since these are tiny, think about the cost per server rack... and think of the cost per electricity to run. If you take those into consideration, these are actually less expensive that most people would think! A massive rack of hard drives could cost a lot of money in a co-location... and a lot of electricity to run it all... But then again, we're talking about savings on servers, not general in home use.
When this gets to about 1/3rd of it's current price, that's when you will see these things become TRUELY mainstream both to the average company and home users (be it rich ones who need the latest and greatest).
The problem here is that we are going after the wrong people. If this was a DOUBLE suit, then it would work. The reason that this isn't going to work is that it will cause the inevitable... "it's not my fault, it's theirs" arguments. Let me give an example...
ESPN. Few on slashdot watch it. Why should we pay right? Horribly expensive to have for the cable companies to provide it... so they force everyone to pay a little so that it can be there. This lawsuit will fail because all the cable companies will point at ESPN and say... "well, you wanted it, and they're expensive. So unless you all want to pay 40$ a month and only get ESPN and MTV and THAT'S IT.. then we have to do it." Of course, the cable companies don't want that to happen. Way too much over head costs for a-la-carte set up PER PERSON (technology might be there, but new training and software would have to be built/upgraded to allow for it), as well as rising costs overall because of the previously mentioned issue. The finger will be pointed at the content providers (the tv networks like mtv and espn) saying that THEY are charging way too much money.
Flip the table now. Look at it from the point of view of the network. They WANT all the crappy little channels out there, because that's how they advertise. I'm not talking about commercials. Example, i love discovery. Why the heck would i ever have signed up for travel channels or animal planet. I don't own a pet. I live in an apartment... and while i care about traveling, why would i ever get the travel channel? If i wanted to see europe, i'd save up and go there!
Yet... the channels WERE there in the bundle, and i DID watch them and now... i might pay for them because they are a lot better than i thought they would be. As a result, Discovery has now gotten me to watch another one of their networks / shows. ESPN is the same with their shows. That's how they make more money... by giving you the option to watch something else (hopefully their stuff) when something you don't like is on. IF we go a-la-carte.... these networks will now sue cable companies because they are making it too difficult for the networks to expand and make money... and they'll claim that cable companies are the problem now.
... then the cable companies will say it's the networks because they're so expensive... and then networks say it's the cable companies because they have a monopoly and it too hard for them.. etc... In the end, the networks would probably start to sub contract to specific cable companies... and to the end users (us watching tv) not all channels will be available... and they might potentially sky rocket in price.
The question i have comes here:
Lots of online "networks" and "broadcast" websites are currently out there and more and more are being made. I guess the best hope is for people to start investing time into looking for online alternatives? But most of those are amateur and don't have the financial backing to making insane shows like myth busters... Honestly, If it costs 1$ (pulling this number out of my butt) for the cable companies to have discovery in the bundle, i'd gladly pay like 2 or 3$ a month to DISCOVERY themselves... be able to stream the discovery channel to my computer.. or be able to get it in HD stream (as it normally would look on tv) and just completely bypass the cable TV companies themselves. Keep the cable company, and get rid of the cable TV portion of the cable companies... make them just provide data transmission over a cable wire only... be it a tv channel or just internet? I'd invest in this if it was possible... but is it possible? Cut out the middle man. They were there before the internet was popular (useful then).. but now, everyone is online, and can get to these networks themselves (i'm also thinking 10 years in the future)... but is it possible?
I've been to many a lock-in. Most people can't stay up that long (24 hours)... and it's obvious to see who the ones are who ARE trying to stay up that long (72+ hours). How can the other "100 people" who were in there a) not notice or say anything... and b) (more importantly) wtf is the cafe doing allowing someone to play for that long? I mean, i know the money might be good... but "another death in booth #6" doesn't make for good advertising.
Somehow, i'm thinking that this "addiction issue" isn't what it seems to be...
I assume that when you got the computer, you were given a vista dvd with it?
Here is an interesting question. What SPECIFICALLY is being claimed? If they say that the OS is NOT the same as the PRE-INSTALLED one, that means that they can potentially void the warranty if you format the hard drive and RE-INSTALL the OS from the disk that was given to you when you bought the computer! As it is now NOT the same as the PRE-INSTALLED one (complete with all the crappy adds they like to stick in there). How can they offer you a disk with the OS on it and not expect people to use to to 1) dual boot, 2) format and re-install... 3) CHANGE OS's with the intention of possibly (or never) going back to the one that came with it... OR 4) Re-install windows if it was hit with a ton of viruses or a (i know.. it's windows.. it'll NEVER happen...) full system crash.
Again... this is a nit-picky question, but depending on what they told you, it's fuel for the fire if you push a law suit!
Honestly.... I know of about 4 people with vista. Three of the 3 people recently bought new dell computers. 2 of those 4 got a copy with the new computer, and as soon as they got the new laptop, erased vista and put XP on... so they OWN a copy, but aren't using it. Meaning that i only know 2 people who actually own a legal copy and are using it. I know quite a few computer techies and pretty much all have TRIED it, but have erased it and re-installed xp....
Just curious... Does anyone know a handful of people who have installed it, kept it.. and actually like it? I'm not trying to flamebait here, i'm honestly curious about this.
We had a teacher that really pushed us in the right way. He was actually a science teacher who subbed the entire year teaching english due to a lack of teachers. But he did something that was phenominal. He made us IMAGINE things. How did he do that? First he made us watch the movie Johnny Nmemonic. That failed horribly... a few of us loved it.. but we were shadowrun fans already), everyone else just rolled their eyes and complained. What he did then, instead of making us read ALL the boring books that were part of the curriculum (we still read a few), he brought in news broadcasts. Crazy stuff you see on the discovery channel like future cars, medical procedures, cloning things, robots (usually in the form of robot cats and dogs... need to keep the girls happy). He then made us write papers on things WE thought would be cool if we had in the future... and then follow that up with getting into groups and actually writing a second paper on "how would you do it". Most of these papers were completely wrong and would never work, but the point is... we thought about it! My favorite story to date, was written by a cheerleader in the class. She wrote about a makeup kit with a screen on the side that had lots of pictures for pre-defined sets of makeup, and when you put your face to it, it recognizes your face, and added the makeup on (think of the 5th element movie.. but for your whole face, not just the eyes). But she went into a LOT of detail, and it just wasn't expected from a girl like that... Everyone was excited for her, and we actually spent a day in class discussing how to go about trying to invent something like this. Of course, the next year we went back to a normal curriculum where we have to read stories like a girl getting raped at age 13 and how horrible her life was.. and then she killed herself. yay... i could feel my creative juices flowing? nono... nm, that was the blood from when i slit my wrists....
This isn't an OUTSIDE example, but I think it helps to... illuminate the point? hehe.
I got married 2 years ago. I'm a computer nerd. I was the stereotypical shootem up gamer at 4 am, or writing code at 4am, with few lights on. Computer radiation screen tans are common place for me. But the weirdest thing to date about getting married... is getting used to having to constantly turn lights OFF. My wife (who says that most of her female friends are the same)... are constantly wanting the lights ON. In the middle of a bright and beautifully sunny day with the windows all open, my wife will walk into a room and turn the lights on. She says that she doesn't even realize that she does it, and that she learned to do it because she's scared of being in the dark alone. As a result it ended up becoming a habit, even in the middle of the day...
What would he do then, after lying to a police officer, saying that he doesn't have a license... Get in his car and drive away in front of the cop?
Nono, this is one of those situations where you need to send letters to your senators to help this guy, and cheer him on as he rides the money wave (think scrooge mcduck surfing in that big bank of his).
If the guy is able to outsmart a cop over a law that should have been well know, then i really say huzzah to him. On the other hand, he's obviously a dick for refusing to show any of his information. But, that was his prerogative... I know that i never saw a sign or signed a paper saying that MY PRODUCTS (They are officially yours after purchase) could be allowed to be 1. searched, and 2. Publicly searched no less.
I think that to be able to "fix"/"improve" linux... we have to fix the way that we develop for linux. I love the open source community... but lets be honest. It's pretty useless at times. It seems like a lot of projects get 70-80% done... and then interest dies in it... or when it comes to the really hard / boring things like driver development... no one wants to do it. So... I feel that to "fix/improve linux" we need to change the way that things are developed. How can this be done? Pay the coders!
Why is it that OS X / Windows is "better" and "winning"?.... easy... $$ = motivation. Their employees are getting paid more. Hell, some open source developers aren't paid at ALL. (damn but we do love you all for doing it anyways!)
My solution to all of this, is to pay the "best" programmer(s)/group(s) to get individual pieces done. This can be done in the following way:
Step 1. Set up a foundation or an organization of some kind that has the financial responsibility to hold on to a chunk of money. (This could be the official linux dev. Group, but preferably NOT a distro, as they will be biased. This has to be unbiased towards any distro)
Step 2. Set up ye olde competition of the week / month. Think X Prize (maybe call it the linuX Prize? hehe).... the $ reward will be voted on by the developers of the linux kernel as WELL as the whole open source community. Things like wifi and sound (oss) would be weighted higher than say, getting a good pdf reading system to work. BUT! Still give a prize for the PDF thing. Say... 30-40K for the top winner of the Wifi competition, and say... 5-10K for the PDF one? Then maybe give something to the 2nd and 3rd place winners too. Hell, maybe not even put a cap on it... donate X for this cause... there might be such a huge call for something like wifi drivers that over 100K+ might be raised. Hellz yes!
Step 3. Generate money. This can be done in a ton of ways. Example: Community support. I'd for example be HAPPY to give 20$ into a pot for someone to come up with a good working easy to use and "out of the box" wifi driver / recognition set. Then add in sponsors. I'm sure we can generate lots of money to keep this going.
Step 4. Advertise. Make a single website. Professional looking, lots of feedback on LINUX. Explain why linux should be used and it's major features (do NOT give specifics on the main pages or you will scare people away. Make the specifics easy to find as a separate tab). This is NOT for a specific distro, but for linux in general. That being said... have a wiki like set of info for each distro... but don't overload it with details (distro watch is very cluttered). Show the BASIC pro's and cons... and have users put their ratings on it. That way when a person decides they want to use "linux"... they can easily find/see that the most popular or best rated disto is X (this caused me a huge headache when I first got into it). Also add daily / weekly / monthly (potentially all 3?) user polls. Example: "What is the next big thing we should compete for? Option 1,2,3,4,5 or 6)"
Step 5. Reap the benefits. If we have 10 people/groups submit what they think will win them the best prize, we'd have 10 pieces of code that (arguably) will all work. Even if we choose the "best" one, we (the community) might rip them all apart, and take the best aspects from all entries to make a new complete even BETTER version!
Rules for code: a. GOOD documentation for the code. This means "readme's" as WELL as good IN code documentation. b. Portability / Expandability. Is it generic enough to work for everything / most everything? (example: wifi drivers that recognize at least 80% of wifi devices?) c. Speed/optimization. Portability is nice... but if it slows everything else down to a crawl.. then it's really not that useful. d. 3rd party integration. How easy is it to take this code and build on top of it.
... Motivation is the key to making linux better. What better way to get people motivated than to reward them for their hard work with some tangible materials. $$$
I'm 25. I started college at 18. I've gone to 3 different universities and i dropped out of all 3 (always due to financial issues... 16K for my first year to live in a dorm, with tuition, and books is a little ridiculous). My father is a minister and with 4 people in our family on a total salary of around 25K (cash salary) it wasn't easy to get by. That being said, i had to TRY to put myself through college. I was a computer engineer. Having to work a minimum of 20 hours a week to pay bills, and then having 18-21 credit hours handed to me by my school for engineering classes (my first quarter consisted of Calculus 1 (/w lab), Physics 1(/w lab), Chem 1(/w lab), intro to college crap, English 1, and Engineering Concepts, that was 21 credit hours to ease me into college. Each lab was 3 hours. That was a total of 27 actual hours in class. Not including study time, not including any tutoring time etc.
Did i complain about that? Hell yes i did. Was it "too hard"? Not really. My problem was that the guy next door to me had a full ride because he played the flute, while on the other side i had an education major who's best friend (a senior at the time in college) had the extremely difficult senior project of making a paper mache dinosaur to prove that he could come up with with fun stuff for 2nd graders to do... He didn't even need to PAINT it!
I support the music scene full heartedly... don't misunderstand me... but at my second university, i lived on the engineer floor and only 2 people had scholarships, everyone else was raking up huge debt bills or spending a bunch of time outside of classes working to try and pay for school/food/clothing... or was really lucky with rich parents. One of the two kids never left his room except to go to class, and then came right back to his room. He literally just sat in front of books for about 5-7 hours a day (that's not including class time). The other kid was a black jew. Apparently he found some black jew scholarship in the area, so it wasn't even an engineering scholarship, or a good grade scholarship, it was simply 1000$ because he was a black jew.
Do i think this will help? I think it would be PHENOMENAL for our country. To date, the #1 reason that my friends who dropped out of engineering college dropped out, is because of the effort needed (working, and schooling) wasn't worth the outcome. Why be a computer engineer (having to work outside of class just to pay bills), when i get an IT (information Technologies) degree, where the classes are easier, the degree on the wall will still says BS, more scholarships due to better grades, and a better looking resume when you can claim you had a 3.5+ GPA because you actually had time to study (not having to work outside of school) on TOP of it being easier. In the past 7 years working in the computer industry, the engineers were NOT making that much more (if they were making any more at ALL) than a bunch of guys without any degrees =/
I personally at least, would have studied my butt off and finished school at the FIRST school if i actually had the time to dedicate to studying, knew that i would graduate with no bills AND that i would have the prestige of calling my self an engineer. 4 year commitment after? Garunteed job? (i'd assume the school would help you look for a job to fulfill the commitment)? I'm not seeing a downfall to this....
Vista is the abusive one to the world. Always causing trouble and hurting the people around them...
And what about us *nix and osx people? We're the "friends".. the person you go to when you have troubles or just need to talk. Will we ever be "relationship" material? Will we ever just be USED by the abused one? (oh.. just to be used even once... we could show them how amazing we really are). God forbid they get seen using a mac or a linux box though! OMFGBBQLOLZWTF! What a horrible thought, what would the general society think?!!
But... they always go back to the abusive one... *sighs*
While i have windows XP now installed (and i'm running a gentoo server here in the room and i used OSX for development at work)... I can tell you that the reason i believe that vista is a flop... is because it seems that the general users don't like using it.
By general users, i'm talking about every day non-computer-techy types... like my wife, my parents, my in laws, and brother. All of them use computers, but for little more than looking up general info like movies and wikis, email, some gaming and word processing. My mother is the prime example, she is the least computer literate, and when things suddenly "change" on the screen, she freaks out thinking that she broke something. While i've convinced her that a random popups window are OK (for passwords).. the fact that the whole screen in vista flickers and the background changes (the password overlay) really gets to her. My brother, wife and i can't get out games to play correctly (video drivers for my nvidia 7800gs play games like halo 2 with horrible graphic glitchs, and even some lag in games like oblivion that i didn't have in XP, Medieval II crashed on me at least once an hour...). That's not even mentioning how vista itself seems to take up more memory which slows down the games. My father who is a minister, couldn't get some of his old files to work properly (which he needs for work). The new office (2007) actually messed more things up for him than fixed, and i had to install open office for him just to get some of his old files to OPEN so that he could then use them in 2007.
In the end... It's not that i hate windows, it's that it looks like vista was not thought out to be easier on/for the user... instead it looks like it was just planned look better on paper (BETTER SECURITY! BETTER NETWORKING! BETTER ETC!). Now add in the fact that we have to pay a TON of money just to get this stuff on our computers and it still doesn't work properly? For my parents, i actually installed (k)ubuntu for them about a month ago (KDE). They went to linux because they told ME they didn't want Vista anymore, but they didn't have money to spend on another set of MS licenses just to go back to XP. Go figure... after showing my mom for an hour how to open a browser, and open up gaim to chat and how to go into her home folder.... i've actually heard her complain LESS than when she had XP.
I'm an IT guy. My daily routine is as following:
- wake up at 6:30... be at work at 7:30 (commute = 25-40 minutes of SITTING)
- 7:30-6:00 pm i'm at work SITTING. I'm over worked and therefor can't take my two 15 minute breaks, and i bearly have time to either go get lunch or to eat what i make in the morning.
- 6-7pm is driving bad home in worse traffic than before.
- 7+ i'm on CALL should anything happen. I have a wife and no children. I do on the other hand have in-laws with kids who ge dropped off every so often.
- 7-7:30pm is dinner.
- 7:30-8:30 pm is daily chores, Washing clothing, dishs, mowing grass, cleaning house (to keep healthier of course)
Now let's look at health standards. Certain criteria SHOULD be kept, and if they are going to set rules, they will KEEP adding rules until all the "healthy guidelines" are met (this list was created and set after talking with 4 doctors and after a year worth of research)
Since the insurance companies are being "unbiased" and "generalized" to fit the average person... here is the "average" health criteria list.
1. Minimum of 8 hours of sleep for full body recovery. No less.
2. Do not eat 3 hours before going to sleep.
3. Drink a minimum amount of water according to the following equation: (Bodyweight (in pounds) / 2) oz. of water. 200lbs? 100oz of water MINUMUM
4. Do not exercise rigerously for more than 1.5-2 hours in a day. The body needs recovery time. Instead, workout for no less than 30 minutes a day, a minimum of 3-4 times a week if you are already "healthy". For overweight people should workout for about an hour ever 3-4 days (not super heavy workouts either), perferably 4 days.
5. Do no workout within 2 hours of going to sleep as you have to much adrenaline and will cause sleep issue
6. Eat smaller portions, and eat about 5 times a day.
7. Have at least an hour of "Down Time" or "Personal Time" where you can do something you really enjoy every day for psychological health. (this is more like hobbies than just sitting around and being bored watching tv).
Summary:
- Working out every day would not give me time to meet: #7. If I do pass #7, and I goto gym after work, I fail #5, if I only go Saturday and Sunday, I fail #4.
- Gym membership in my area costs about 1000$ a year. They close at 10-11pm. They open at 6am. I cannot go in the morning, and I cannot go after work. The gym membership is not supplied by my workplace either. Money is an issue there.
- I'm not allowed to eat at my computer, or drink around it. I fail #6 due to being overworked ( I was told I wasn't even alowed to take my vacation days all in a row).
- I have to go to sleep at 10pm to meet #1. This makes me fail many of the things if I go workout.
- If i DO go to the gym AND want to spend time with my wife, then i fail #1 because i goto sleep at 11 (under 8 hours of sleep)
The only way for all these criteria to be met, is if my job cuts back on the work I have to do (Hahahahahah), let me take 40 minute breaks Daily (or 3 times a week) to do exercise (be it jogging, running, biking etc... of course, those are all health risks on their own... so technically we would need to constantly buy new shoes and we'd only be able to walk in a circle else we'd be a health risk) (that's 5 minutes before and after to change / get to the workout place and 30 minutes to workout)...
In other words, the company would have to make us work less to be healthier (because that's their overall plan of course! they want us all healthy and happy!)... else they would get more money. Welcome to capitalism where they make it near impossible to meet guidelines and criteria to NOT have to pay more money... then make you pay more money and smile while doing so claiming it's u're fault. They're fuck you over to fuck you over. The only way to win in this situation for me is to give up any family time that I already almost don't have, else I have to pay more money? And pretty much... that means that i can't have kids because i don't have time for it?? Oh wait! I get to pay more because i don't have kids!!! YIPPY!!
First off... before reading the criticism below, understand that i use gentoo, (k)ubuntu, mac and windows at home. I love the package system describe above, and i FULLY support this project... but...
As a web / software develloper myself, i fear i run into the age old question with this. Who would even use this? The/. community who already mostly looks up open source software? Users who already use gentoo / debian type software? Not likely... why would they be using windows in the first place (other than for gaming)? =) I have mac,linux and windows systems at home, and i run vlc / firefox / open office on my systems. I'm already converted. The problem you have is that the people this NEEDS to get to is the people who don't CARE. My parents for example. They just want to check their mail... or check cnn / reuters for news. They don't care what browser they use. Windows "conveniantly" gives them a browser already. While i did install firefox for them, if i hadn't... they never would have downloaded anything new. This type of software also has the problem of potential information overload. if i just want a "mail program"... which one do i use? The default windows one? The one from Office? Thunderbird? Eudora? People like my parents... who sadly make up a HUGE portion of the population don't care to look everything up and choose the "best" (best suited for them)... they just want anything that is there and will give them their mail. As a result, they will use the first thing they find (usually office products that came with their ridculously overpriced HP / Dell / Compact computers). They don't want to have to look at a list of stuff.
The only suggestion i would have for this system to work... and to achieve the goals that many described here on the/. forums... is that you have to make this "Macish". What do i mean by that? Make it pretty... make it so that it by DEFAULT only shows the "featured".. or "most downloaded" items... no more than say... 3 on the beginning list (per section).... show pictures for EVERYTHING (show off how pretty the products can look / be)... descriptions... etc... but the key here is to make it PRETTY and do NOT overload the information. If you show everything at once like the file managers in ubuntu where it lists EVERYTHING you can download (by default it shows a ton of stuff per section)... that would be a garunteed way to get people to NOT use the the software (understand, i'd want an ADVANCED mode where i can do just that...see all options type thing...but not by default... aim for the weakest link). Someone who already accepts the idea of open source (like me) will be using this software from day one.... someone who is new, or doesn't think they NEED to change, or doesn't know about open source... needs to be persuaded by "Save money" and "easy / friendly gui" things. All achievable by this project... Especially with someone like google helping to advertise it! Port this GUI program over to mac / linux (same look and feel, but different backends per os/distro)... and you have a cross-platform open source godsent program.
The details in the background can be read by most of the other posts on here =)
I've played pretty much every MMO out there from Underlight, EQ, UO... to the Current set of Vanguard, WoW, D&D Online and tons in between... I'm not saying i'm an expert, but here is my opinions of Vanguard as a whole
First off, Brad himself said many times in the forums that this game was NOT ment to replace WoW and hopefully would NOT bring in the crowds from WoW. This was intended to be a "Mature Crowd" game where you didn't have a bunch of really obnoxious people running around just annoying people the whole time. This was done VERY well, and i can say that i haven't had this much fun interacting with random people in quite a while. The crowd that plays really is rather fun to get along with.
How does game play work? Honestly, there really are some glitches. Some are just annoying like the screen views changing from 3rd person to first as you change the invisible "zone lines". The game really was released early, but i can say rather confidently that this is no where NEAR the worst release... All things considered, i think that this release was rather... Decent.
The Game play on the other hand is really nice. TONS of quests (which i personally honestly detracts a little bit at times from the over all game play)... BUT makes it really convenient for people with limited time to play. The difference between this game and others... is that the diplomacy option makes it actually really fun to read the HUGE amount of game lore that exists. Some people beat on this because "it's a card game". There is some chance involved, but there is actual logic involved in playing it too. Makes it rather fun in my personal opinion. And the Key behind this one? My WIFE is playing vanguard with me now. She played only WoW before.. and not for more than 2 months because she said herself that it was kind of boring... she hated grouping with people because most were so annoying. But she actually looks for groups in VG:SOH AND loves to log in and do diplomacy stuff because it's really fun to find all these gossip / background stories to all the cities and towns.
All in all, the game was released early.. But it has HUGE potential. It will never replace WoW, and believe me when many people i played with said that they liked it that way. As the game is worked on more, i can see many more people joining up and having fun in the game... there is TONS to do. Easy enough so that my wife with little gaming experience can get into it and have lots of fun.... but hard enough, so that folks like me who thought that WoW really was too "spoon feeding"-like can have fun also. Eventually all the bugs will be smoothed out and more and more GREAT features will be released to make the game an overall fun experience. Right now, it still is more like an "open beta". Give it a little more time, let it get out of this "open beta" phase... and give it a try in a few months. I doubt you'll be disappointed!
I see people posting articles saying why "They're going to win".... Yet... they're looking for an excuse as to WHY they want their side to win.
I AM a gamer, and i won't state my opinion as to which consoles i own or which i assume will win. Instead i will take a neutral stance and point out the things that it seems people dont want to point out.
1) Who will win the "dvd format / movie war"? No one. http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/01/04/lg/index.p hp Unlike DVD vs. Betamax back in the day, the new formats are similar enough that they are already making dual compatible players. Who wins? Who looses? Both. The "winner" is the company (for movies anyways) that makes the hardware to do both at the same time. So who wins the movie format? Who cares if both are available and both work on one movie player (since most people will STILL buy a movie player and not watch ALL their movies on a console)
2) Who wins the console wars? The ones with the best games. I've heard this argument SO many times... "M$ has a ton more games AND the system is cheaper! WIN WIN!".... "Wii is better because it's just so random and FUN to jump around"... "Sony will win, because sony has held the market and they have ties to all the best games / game makers"....
I'll be honest. Why the hell is everyone conserned with who the winner is. Are guys really so hypnotized by the market, or egotistical to believe that your opinions matter when you say "my X is better than yours"? WTF.
Microsoft is currently "winning" and has more games. Wii is more "fun" though. But Sony does/will have "better" games.
If you love your 360, yay for you. Go play it. If you love your wii... yay, go play it.... same with the ps3 if you ever get ahold of one...
For the "last gen" consoles.... PS2 was "the winner". Can someone explain to me why tons of people i know WANTED.. and DID buy a gamecube then? Or an xBox?
The winner is the one that will (eventually at least) have the most amount of games that you WANT. And that doesn't make it better vs any of the others systems, it just means that for YOU... it's better.
Finally.... since the "losers" will still always be available to the market... why is this argument honestly so mind-provoking to everyone that they must know the answer and argue about it. If we defined a winner right now? Would you throw away your other consoles and only get the "winner" one? Of course not...
When playing monopoly, are you content on owning half of the board when playing against 4 others? What if you never owned 3 of any of the pieces on the board, so you were never able to built those crazy hotels... would you be content then?
Microsoft IS in fact being threatened. As you yourself said, they are a software company. Google, is a software company. Microsoft made itself known by creating a fantastic piece of business software (hate to admit that.. bleh) called Office. This Program made everyone want their OWN software. You could now do your OWN taxes at home (assuming you knew how). You could write your own papers efficiently, or make a pretty slide show easily. People bought PERSONAL computers to do that. Google on the other hand took the complete opposite route on this. They represent the internet. The collective of information from EVERYONE. In a future where everything is being based on multi-tasking and the ability to do many things at once (cellphone / pda / mp3 players combo's anyone?) Google is leading the way. Need to learn something new? Google it. Want to download something new and exciting? Google it. Most importantly... who can use google? Everyone... which means less market share for microsoft.
My point is this. Microsoft is the toy you got when you were 5. It taught you a lot of things, and you had fun with it. But eventually, something new and more exciting came out. Microsoft is doing what it can, even if it doesn't make too much profit on it (if any)... to keep itself as a household name. To keep people buying Microsoft because they know the name AND it has a bunch of "features"... even if they aren't as good, or as useable by everyone else.
All this talk about which consoles will "win" is a total waste of time at this current time. I had many friend boycott the PS2 when it first game out. Crap customer service, only X units in the store made them look like elitists.. etc. They went xbox, and eventually they even went nintendo for the game cube. 2 years later they all had ps2's with more games on that one console than they other 2 combined.
The point i'm trying to make is that even after the systems come out... say.. around new years and in jan 2007, there will be MORE slash dot posts saying "SEE! 360 for the win! Nintendo wins! Sony didn't sell as much!"... Except that they don't NEED to at the beginning. They have a rather large backing by some very well known game makers, and from what all reports claim.. and if the specs are really as good as they claim... then the system is a solid system.
It doesn't come down to the system. It comes down to the games that go with the system. That is the key to remember. If you only want to get an xbox because you dislike sony.... Yet, you like RPG's and dislike sports games... That's like buying a mac for games because you don't like or don't want to support windows. Sure it has games, but probably not many of the types you are going to actually want to play.
... Our reports find that the most time spent in game is for World of Warcraft. Apperently this is a popular game. Note: Insert more advertisements on the backs of player clothing and on the rumps of Animals they can ride.
-- We find that the most Loaded game is sims 2 with the nudity patch. This is loaded 2 or 3 times a time, and usually played for no more than 1 or 2 minutes. Note: Try and figure out this strange gamer phenomenon.
--The most played game by troubled youths is Grand Theft Auto.
Final Note:
----------
Send Jack Thompson a fruitcake for the few millions he gave us to come up with this total bogus and not-proveable report.
I can tell you know, i support this. My child running without a helmet or pads on? I think not!
I don't want my children hurt. The fact that they have to go to a building where i'm not alowed to stare at them... where they use things like "papers" and "pencils" that others might poke them with (my child would never accidently harm himself of course)... This unnerves me.
I don't want writting utensils like that, or papers either because that increases chances that a terrorist might kill my child with.
In fact, i don't even let them use the computer because it might be harmful to their eyes....
Is it wrong that i keep my child in a room with no windows, blend all his food into a paste or soup, and only feed him when a professional doctor is around??
I'm currently working on Japanese as my 4th langauge. I speak Hungarian and French fluently (obviously I speak english too). This was a trick taught to me by a linguist I'd met. The best way to START learning a language is actually with 2 books. A travelers dictionary, and an actual english-spanish dictionary. In the first few pages of the travelers dictionary you will a BUNCH of very important phrase starters. For example: "Where is _____." "What is ___ in english." "How much is ____".
A Ton of phrases can be created with this simple intro. It will also teach you the basic grammer ideas in the travelers dictionary (and you can always look up sentances later in the books as guidelines). After that... you can walk around on the streets, look up one single word in the translation dictionary like... post-office... and you can already as a bunch of questions relating to a post-office (like where it is!)
After that comes the hardest part of learning a language. Vocabulary. This is what kills most people. My honest best suggestion to you is to buy post-it notes, and stick them all over your house with the english / spanish translation. Literally everywhere. Even on the milk jug inside your fridge. While it is embarrasing, being exposed to all those words will help you learn them MUCH faster then just staring at note cards or words on a screen. With a good computer program (hopefully someone will suggest a good one) you can learn many other vocab words WHILE being exposed to all the common things inside the house that have post-its on it (shoes, tv, books, computer, paper, house, door... lots of things to put all over your house that can be useful in daily conversation).
Slashdot Mirror
That being said, a few of the guys there said that they pretty much expect these (at the beginning) to do the best sales for companies that are looking to get really really fast database servers going. NOT for scsi san replacements (it's silly to spend $100,000 for something you could get for 10,000 hard drive space wise). Eventually as the price drops... i know of a handful of people who would EASILY pay 1000$ to get one of these on a gaming rig even if it was only 100 gigs. But that right there is already 1/3rd of the price of what it currently is. (assuming it's around 30$ a gig).
Another thing to keep in mind that came up in the conversations... since these are tiny, think about the cost per server rack... and think of the cost per electricity to run. If you take those into consideration, these are actually less expensive that most people would think! A massive rack of hard drives could cost a lot of money in a co-location ... and a lot of electricity to run it all... But then again, we're talking about savings on servers, not general in home use.
When this gets to about 1/3rd of it's current price, that's when you will see these things become TRUELY mainstream both to the average company and home users (be it rich ones who need the latest and greatest).
Fusioni-io -- Link to their site.
ESPN. Few on slashdot watch it. Why should we pay right? Horribly expensive to have for the cable companies to provide it ... so they force everyone to pay a little so that it can be there. This lawsuit will fail because all the cable companies will point at ESPN and say... "well, you wanted it, and they're expensive. So unless you all want to pay 40$ a month and only get ESPN and MTV and THAT'S IT .. then we have to do it." Of course, the cable companies don't want that to happen. Way too much over head costs for a-la-carte set up PER PERSON (technology might be there, but new training and software would have to be built/upgraded to allow for it), as well as rising costs overall because of the previously mentioned issue. The finger will be pointed at the content providers (the tv networks like mtv and espn) saying that THEY are charging way too much money.
Flip the table now. Look at it from the point of view of the network. They WANT all the crappy little channels out there, because that's how they advertise. I'm not talking about commercials. Example, i love discovery. Why the heck would i ever have signed up for travel channels or animal planet. I don't own a pet. I live in an apartment... and while i care about traveling, why would i ever get the travel channel? If i wanted to see europe, i'd save up and go there! ... the channels WERE there in the bundle, and i DID watch them and now... i might pay for them because they are a lot better than i thought they would be. As a result, Discovery has now gotten me to watch another one of their networks / shows. ESPN is the same with their shows. That's how they make more money... by giving you the option to watch something else (hopefully their stuff) when something you don't like is on. IF we go a-la-carte .... these networks will now sue cable companies because they are making it too difficult for the networks to expand and make money... and they'll claim that cable companies are the problem now.
Yet
The question i have comes here: .. but now, everyone is online, and can get to these networks themselves (i'm also thinking 10 years in the future)... but is it possible?
Lots of online "networks" and "broadcast" websites are currently out there and more and more are being made. I guess the best hope is for people to start investing time into looking for online alternatives? But most of those are amateur and don't have the financial backing to making insane shows like myth busters... Honestly, If it costs 1$ (pulling this number out of my butt) for the cable companies to have discovery in the bundle, i'd gladly pay like 2 or 3$ a month to DISCOVERY themselves... be able to stream the discovery channel to my computer.. or be able to get it in HD stream (as it normally would look on tv) and just completely bypass the cable TV companies themselves. Keep the cable company, and get rid of the cable TV portion of the cable companies... make them just provide data transmission over a cable wire only... be it a tv channel or just internet? I'd invest in this if it was possible... but is it possible? Cut out the middle man. They were there before the internet was popular (useful then)
Somehow, i'm thinking that this "addiction issue" isn't what it seems to be ...
Here is an interesting question. What SPECIFICALLY is being claimed? If they say that the OS is NOT the same as the PRE-INSTALLED one, that means that they can potentially void the warranty if you format the hard drive and RE-INSTALL the OS from the disk that was given to you when you bought the computer! As it is now NOT the same as the PRE-INSTALLED one (complete with all the crappy adds they like to stick in there). How can they offer you a disk with the OS on it and not expect people to use to to 1) dual boot, 2) format and re-install ... 3) CHANGE OS's with the intention of possibly (or never) going back to the one that came with it... OR 4) Re-install windows if it was hit with a ton of viruses or a (i know.. it's windows .. it'll NEVER happen...) full system crash.
Again ... this is a nit-picky question, but depending on what they told you, it's fuel for the fire if you push a law suit!
Just curious ... Does anyone know a handful of people who have installed it, kept it.. and actually like it? I'm not trying to flamebait here, i'm honestly curious about this.
We had a teacher that really pushed us in the right way. He was actually a science teacher who subbed the entire year teaching english due to a lack of teachers. But he did something that was phenominal. He made us IMAGINE things. How did he do that? First he made us watch the movie Johnny Nmemonic. That failed horribly ... a few of us loved it .. but we were shadowrun fans already), everyone else just rolled their eyes and complained. What he did then, instead of making us read ALL the boring books that were part of the curriculum (we still read a few), he brought in news broadcasts. Crazy stuff you see on the discovery channel like future cars, medical procedures, cloning things, robots (usually in the form of robot cats and dogs... need to keep the girls happy). He then made us write papers on things WE thought would be cool if we had in the future... and then follow that up with getting into groups and actually writing a second paper on "how would you do it". Most of these papers were completely wrong and would never work, but the point is... we thought about it! My favorite story to date, was written by a cheerleader in the class. She wrote about a makeup kit with a screen on the side that had lots of pictures for pre-defined sets of makeup, and when you put your face to it, it recognizes your face, and added the makeup on (think of the 5th element movie.. but for your whole face, not just the eyes). But she went into a LOT of detail, and it just wasn't expected from a girl like that... Everyone was excited for her, and we actually spent a day in class discussing how to go about trying to invent something like this. Of course, the next year we went back to a normal curriculum where we have to read stories like a girl getting raped at age 13 and how horrible her life was .. and then she killed herself. yay... i could feel my creative juices flowing? nono... nm, that was the blood from when i slit my wrists....
I got married 2 years ago. I'm a computer nerd. I was the stereotypical shootem up gamer at 4 am, or writing code at 4am, with few lights on. Computer radiation screen tans are common place for me. But the weirdest thing to date about getting married... is getting used to having to constantly turn lights OFF. My wife (who says that most of her female friends are the same) ... are constantly wanting the lights ON. In the middle of a bright and beautifully sunny day with the windows all open, my wife will walk into a room and turn the lights on. She says that she doesn't even realize that she does it, and that she learned to do it because she's scared of being in the dark alone. As a result it ended up becoming a habit, even in the middle of the day...
Nono, this is one of those situations where you need to send letters to your senators to help this guy, and cheer him on as he rides the money wave (think scrooge mcduck surfing in that big bank of his).
If the guy is able to outsmart a cop over a law that should have been well know, then i really say huzzah to him. On the other hand, he's obviously a dick for refusing to show any of his information. But, that was his prerogative... I know that i never saw a sign or signed a paper saying that MY PRODUCTS (They are officially yours after purchase) could be allowed to be 1. searched, and 2. Publicly searched no less.
Why is it that OS X / Windows is "better" and "winning"? .... easy... $$ = motivation. Their employees are getting paid more. Hell, some open source developers aren't paid at ALL. (damn but we do love you all for doing it anyways!)
My solution to all of this, is to pay the "best" programmer(s)/group(s) to get individual pieces done. This can be done in the following way:
Step 1. Set up a foundation or an organization of some kind that has the financial responsibility to hold on to a chunk of money. (This could be the official linux dev. Group, but preferably NOT a distro, as they will be biased. This has to be unbiased towards any distro)
Step 2. Set up ye olde competition of the week / month. Think X Prize (maybe call it the linuX Prize? hehe).... the $ reward will be voted on by the developers of the linux kernel as WELL as the whole open source community. Things like wifi and sound (oss) would be weighted higher than say, getting a good pdf reading system to work. BUT! Still give a prize for the PDF thing. Say... 30-40K for the top winner of the Wifi competition, and say ... 5-10K for the PDF one? Then maybe give something to the 2nd and 3rd place winners too. Hell, maybe not even put a cap on it... donate X for this cause... there might be such a huge call for something like wifi drivers that over 100K+ might be raised. Hellz yes!
Step 3. Generate money. This can be done in a ton of ways. Example: Community support. I'd for example be HAPPY to give 20$ into a pot for someone to come up with a good working easy to use and "out of the box" wifi driver / recognition set. Then add in sponsors. I'm sure we can generate lots of money to keep this going.
Step 4. Advertise. Make a single website. Professional looking, lots of feedback on LINUX. Explain why linux should be used and it's major features (do NOT give specifics on the main pages or you will scare people away. Make the specifics easy to find as a separate tab). This is NOT for a specific distro, but for linux in general. That being said... have a wiki like set of info for each distro... but don't overload it with details (distro watch is very cluttered). Show the BASIC pro's and cons... and have users put their ratings on it. That way when a person decides they want to use "linux" ... they can easily find/see that the most popular or best rated disto is X (this caused me a huge headache when I first got into it). Also add daily / weekly / monthly (potentially all 3?) user polls. Example: "What is the next big thing we should compete for? Option 1,2,3,4,5 or 6)"
Step 5. Reap the benefits. If we have 10 people/groups submit what they think will win them the best prize, we'd have 10 pieces of code that (arguably) will all work. Even if we choose the "best" one, we (the community) might rip them all apart, and take the best aspects from all entries to make a new complete even BETTER version!
Rules for code: a. GOOD documentation for the code. This means "readme's" as WELL as good IN code documentation. b. Portability / Expandability. Is it generic enough to work for everything / most everything? (example: wifi drivers that recognize at least 80% of wifi devices?) c. Speed/optimization. Portability is nice... but if it slows everything else down to a crawl.. then it's really not that useful. d. 3rd party integration. How easy is it to take this code and build on top of it.
Did i complain about that? Hell yes i did. Was it "too hard"? Not really. My problem was that the guy next door to me had a full ride because he played the flute, while on the other side i had an education major who's best friend (a senior at the time in college) had the extremely difficult senior project of making a paper mache dinosaur to prove that he could come up with with fun stuff for 2nd graders to do ... He didn't even need to PAINT it!
I support the music scene full heartedly... don't misunderstand me... but at my second university, i lived on the engineer floor and only 2 people had scholarships, everyone else was raking up huge debt bills or spending a bunch of time outside of classes working to try and pay for school/food/clothing... or was really lucky with rich parents. One of the two kids never left his room except to go to class, and then came right back to his room. He literally just sat in front of books for about 5-7 hours a day (that's not including class time). The other kid was a black jew. Apparently he found some black jew scholarship in the area, so it wasn't even an engineering scholarship, or a good grade scholarship, it was simply 1000$ because he was a black jew.
Do i think this will help? I think it would be PHENOMENAL for our country. To date, the #1 reason that my friends who dropped out of engineering college dropped out, is because of the effort needed (working, and schooling) wasn't worth the outcome. Why be a computer engineer (having to work outside of class just to pay bills), when i get an IT (information Technologies) degree, where the classes are easier, the degree on the wall will still says BS, more scholarships due to better grades, and a better looking resume when you can claim you had a 3.5+ GPA because you actually had time to study (not having to work outside of school) on TOP of it being easier. In the past 7 years working in the computer industry, the engineers were NOT making that much more (if they were making any more at ALL) than a bunch of guys without any degrees =/
I personally at least, would have studied my butt off and finished school at the FIRST school if i actually had the time to dedicate to studying, knew that i would graduate with no bills AND that i would have the prestige of calling my self an engineer. 4 year commitment after? Garunteed job? (i'd assume the school would help you look for a job to fulfill the commitment)? I'm not seeing a downfall to this....
Vista is the abusive one to the world. Always causing trouble and hurting the people around them...
And what about us *nix and osx people? We're the "friends" .. the person you go to when you have troubles or just need to talk. Will we ever be "relationship" material? Will we ever just be USED by the abused one? (oh.. just to be used even once... we could show them how amazing we really are). God forbid they get seen using a mac or a linux box though! OMFGBBQLOLZWTF! What a horrible thought, what would the general society think?!!
But ... they always go back to the abusive one... *sighs*
By general users, i'm talking about every day non-computer-techy types ... like my wife, my parents, my in laws, and brother. All of them use computers, but for little more than looking up general info like movies and wikis, email, some gaming and word processing. My mother is the prime example, she is the least computer literate, and when things suddenly "change" on the screen, she freaks out thinking that she broke something. While i've convinced her that a random popups window are OK (for passwords) .. the fact that the whole screen in vista flickers and the background changes (the password overlay) really gets to her. My brother, wife and i can't get out games to play correctly (video drivers for my nvidia 7800gs play games like halo 2 with horrible graphic glitchs, and even some lag in games like oblivion that i didn't have in XP, Medieval II crashed on me at least once an hour...). That's not even mentioning how vista itself seems to take up more memory which slows down the games. My father who is a minister, couldn't get some of his old files to work properly (which he needs for work). The new office (2007) actually messed more things up for him than fixed, and i had to install open office for him just to get some of his old files to OPEN so that he could then use them in 2007.
In the end... It's not that i hate windows, it's that it looks like vista was not thought out to be easier on/for the user... instead it looks like it was just planned look better on paper (BETTER SECURITY! BETTER NETWORKING! BETTER ETC!). Now add in the fact that we have to pay a TON of money just to get this stuff on our computers and it still doesn't work properly? For my parents, i actually installed (k)ubuntu for them about a month ago (KDE). They went to linux because they told ME they didn't want Vista anymore, but they didn't have money to spend on another set of MS licenses just to go back to XP. Go figure... after showing my mom for an hour how to open a browser, and open up gaim to chat and how to go into her home folder.... i've actually heard her complain LESS than when she had XP.
- wake up at 6:30
- 7:30-6:00 pm i'm at work SITTING. I'm over worked and therefor can't take my two 15 minute breaks, and i bearly have time to either go get lunch or to eat what i make in the morning.
- 6-7pm is driving bad home in worse traffic than before.
- 7+ i'm on CALL should anything happen. I have a wife and no children. I do on the other hand have in-laws with kids who ge dropped off every so often.
- 7-7:30pm is dinner.
- 7:30-8:30 pm is daily chores, Washing clothing, dishs, mowing grass, cleaning house (to keep healthier of course)
Now let's look at health standards. Certain criteria SHOULD be kept, and if they are going to set rules, they will KEEP adding rules until all the "healthy guidelines" are met (this list was created and set after talking with 4 doctors and after a year worth of research)
Since the insurance companies are being "unbiased" and "generalized" to fit the average person... here is the "average" health criteria list.
1. Minimum of 8 hours of sleep for full body recovery. No less.
2. Do not eat 3 hours before going to sleep.
3. Drink a minimum amount of water according to the following equation: (Bodyweight (in pounds) / 2) oz. of water. 200lbs? 100oz of water MINUMUM
4. Do not exercise rigerously for more than 1.5-2 hours in a day. The body needs recovery time. Instead, workout for no less than 30 minutes a day, a minimum of 3-4 times a week if you are already "healthy". For overweight people should workout for about an hour ever 3-4 days (not super heavy workouts either), perferably 4 days.
5. Do no workout within 2 hours of going to sleep as you have to much adrenaline and will cause sleep issue
6. Eat smaller portions, and eat about 5 times a day.
7. Have at least an hour of "Down Time" or "Personal Time" where you can do something you really enjoy every day for psychological health. (this is more like hobbies than just sitting around and being bored watching tv).
Summary:
- Working out every day would not give me time to meet: #7. If I do pass #7, and I goto gym after work, I fail #5, if I only go Saturday and Sunday, I fail #4.
- Gym membership in my area costs about 1000$ a year. They close at 10-11pm. They open at 6am. I cannot go in the morning, and I cannot go after work. The gym membership is not supplied by my workplace either. Money is an issue there.
- I'm not allowed to eat at my computer, or drink around it. I fail #6 due to being overworked ( I was told I wasn't even alowed to take my vacation days all in a row).
- I have to go to sleep at 10pm to meet #1. This makes me fail many of the things if I go workout.
- If i DO go to the gym AND want to spend time with my wife, then i fail #1 because i goto sleep at 11 (under 8 hours of sleep)
The only way for all these criteria to be met, is if my job cuts back on the work I have to do (Hahahahahah), let me take 40 minute breaks Daily (or 3 times a week) to do exercise (be it jogging, running, biking etc... of course, those are all health risks on their own... so technically we would need to constantly buy new shoes and we'd only be able to walk in a circle else we'd be a health risk) (that's 5 minutes before and after to change / get to the workout place and 30 minutes to workout) ... ... that means that i can't have kids because i don't have time for it?? Oh wait! I get to pay more because i don't have kids!!! YIPPY!!
In other words, the company would have to make us work less to be healthier (because that's their overall plan of course! they want us all healthy and happy!)... else they would get more money. Welcome to capitalism where they make it near impossible to meet guidelines and criteria to NOT have to pay more money... then make you pay more money and smile while doing so claiming it's u're fault. They're fuck you over to fuck you over. The only way to win in this situation for me is to give up any family time that I already almost don't have, else I have to pay more money? And pretty much
WHERE IS THE HUMANITY PEOPLE!?
First off... before reading the criticism below, understand that i use gentoo, (k)ubuntu, mac and windows at home. I love the package system describe above, and i FULLY support this project... but...
As a web / software develloper myself, i fear i run into the age old question with this. Who would even use this? The /. community who already mostly looks up open source software? Users who already use gentoo / debian type software? Not likely... why would they be using windows in the first place (other than for gaming)? =) I have mac,linux and windows systems at home, and i run vlc / firefox / open office on my systems. I'm already converted. The problem you have is that the people this NEEDS to get to is the people who don't CARE. My parents for example. They just want to check their mail... or check cnn / reuters for news. They don't care what browser they use. Windows "conveniantly" gives them a browser already. While i did install firefox for them, if i hadn't... they never would have downloaded anything new. This type of software also has the problem of potential information overload. if i just want a "mail program" ... which one do i use? The default windows one? The one from Office? Thunderbird? Eudora? People like my parents... who sadly make up a HUGE portion of the population don't care to look everything up and choose the "best" (best suited for them)... they just want anything that is there and will give them their mail. As a result, they will use the first thing they find (usually office products that came with their ridculously overpriced HP / Dell / Compact computers). They don't want to have to look at a list of stuff.
The only suggestion i would have for this system to work... and to achieve the goals that many described here on the /. forums... is that you have to make this "Macish". What do i mean by that? Make it pretty... make it so that it by DEFAULT only shows the "featured" .. or "most downloaded" items... no more than say... 3 on the beginning list (per section) .... show pictures for EVERYTHING (show off how pretty the products can look / be)... descriptions... etc... but the key here is to make it PRETTY and do NOT overload the information. If you show everything at once like the file managers in ubuntu where it lists EVERYTHING you can download (by default it shows a ton of stuff per section) ... that would be a garunteed way to get people to NOT use the the software (understand, i'd want an ADVANCED mode where i can do just that...see all options type thing...but not by default... aim for the weakest link). Someone who already accepts the idea of open source (like me) will be using this software from day one .... someone who is new, or doesn't think they NEED to change, or doesn't know about open source... needs to be persuaded by "Save money" and "easy / friendly gui" things. All achievable by this project... Especially with someone like google helping to advertise it! Port this GUI program over to mac / linux (same look and feel, but different backends per os/distro)... and you have a cross-platform open source godsent program.
The details in the background can be read by most of the other posts on here =)
Me I'm not the one who is untidy, you are. Have you seen the mess of boxes and crap you left on the floor in the shed?!
The philosophical question to ask here is... "If your spouse hides crap in boxes ... Does it really make things 'tidy'?"
I've played pretty much every MMO out there from Underlight, EQ, UO ... to the Current set of Vanguard, WoW, D&D Online and tons in between... I'm not saying i'm an expert, but here is my opinions of Vanguard as a whole
First off, Brad himself said many times in the forums that this game was NOT ment to replace WoW and hopefully would NOT bring in the crowds from WoW. This was intended to be a "Mature Crowd" game where you didn't have a bunch of really obnoxious people running around just annoying people the whole time. This was done VERY well, and i can say that i haven't had this much fun interacting with random people in quite a while. The crowd that plays really is rather fun to get along with.
How does game play work? Honestly, there really are some glitches. Some are just annoying like the screen views changing from 3rd person to first as you change the invisible "zone lines". The game really was released early, but i can say rather confidently that this is no where NEAR the worst release... All things considered, i think that this release was rather... Decent.
The Game play on the other hand is really nice. TONS of quests (which i personally honestly detracts a little bit at times from the over all game play) ... BUT makes it really convenient for people with limited time to play. The difference between this game and others... is that the diplomacy option makes it actually really fun to read the HUGE amount of game lore that exists. Some people beat on this because "it's a card game". There is some chance involved, but there is actual logic involved in playing it too. Makes it rather fun in my personal opinion. And the Key behind this one? My WIFE is playing vanguard with me now. She played only WoW before.. and not for more than 2 months because she said herself that it was kind of boring... she hated grouping with people because most were so annoying. But she actually looks for groups in VG:SOH AND loves to log in and do diplomacy stuff because it's really fun to find all these gossip / background stories to all the cities and towns.
All in all, the game was released early.. But it has HUGE potential. It will never replace WoW, and believe me when many people i played with said that they liked it that way. As the game is worked on more, i can see many more people joining up and having fun in the game... there is TONS to do. Easy enough so that my wife with little gaming experience can get into it and have lots of fun.... but hard enough, so that folks like me who thought that WoW really was too "spoon feeding"-like can have fun also. Eventually all the bugs will be smoothed out and more and more GREAT features will be released to make the game an overall fun experience. Right now, it still is more like an "open beta". Give it a little more time, let it get out of this "open beta" phase... and give it a try in a few months. I doubt you'll be disappointed!
I see people posting articles saying why "They're going to win". ... Yet... they're looking for an excuse as to WHY they want their side to win.
I AM a gamer, and i won't state my opinion as to which consoles i own or which i assume will win. Instead i will take a neutral stance and point out the things that it seems people dont want to point out.
1) Who will win the "dvd format / movie war"? No one. http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/01/04/lg/index.p hp Unlike DVD vs. Betamax back in the day, the new formats are similar enough that they are already making dual compatible players. Who wins? Who looses? Both. The "winner" is the company (for movies anyways) that makes the hardware to do both at the same time. So who wins the movie format? Who cares if both are available and both work on one movie player (since most people will STILL buy a movie player and not watch ALL their movies on a console)
2) Who wins the console wars? The ones with the best games. I've heard this argument SO many times... "M$ has a ton more games AND the system is cheaper! WIN WIN!".... "Wii is better because it's just so random and FUN to jump around" ... "Sony will win, because sony has held the market and they have ties to all the best games / game makers" ....
I'll be honest. Why the hell is everyone conserned with who the winner is. Are guys really so hypnotized by the market, or egotistical to believe that your opinions matter when you say "my X is better than yours"? WTF.
Microsoft is currently "winning" and has more games. Wii is more "fun" though. But Sony does/will have "better" games.
If you love your 360, yay for you. Go play it. If you love your wii... yay, go play it.... same with the ps3 if you ever get ahold of one...
For the "last gen" consoles.... PS2 was "the winner". Can someone explain to me why tons of people i know WANTED .. and DID buy a gamecube then? Or an xBox?
The winner is the one that will (eventually at least) have the most amount of games that you WANT. And that doesn't make it better vs any of the others systems, it just means that for YOU... it's better.
Finally.... since the "losers" will still always be available to the market... why is this argument honestly so mind-provoking to everyone that they must know the answer and argue about it. If we defined a winner right now? Would you throw away your other consoles and only get the "winner" one? Of course not...
When playing monopoly, are you content on owning half of the board when playing against 4 others? What if you never owned 3 of any of the pieces on the board, so you were never able to built those crazy hotels... would you be content then?
Microsoft IS in fact being threatened. As you yourself said, they are a software company. Google, is a software company. Microsoft made itself known by creating a fantastic piece of business software (hate to admit that.. bleh) called Office. This Program made everyone want their OWN software. You could now do your OWN taxes at home (assuming you knew how). You could write your own papers efficiently, or make a pretty slide show easily. People bought PERSONAL computers to do that. Google on the other hand took the complete opposite route on this. They represent the internet. The collective of information from EVERYONE. In a future where everything is being based on multi-tasking and the ability to do many things at once (cellphone / pda / mp3 players combo's anyone?) Google is leading the way. Need to learn something new? Google it. Want to download something new and exciting? Google it. Most importantly... who can use google? Everyone... which means less market share for microsoft.
My point is this. Microsoft is the toy you got when you were 5. It taught you a lot of things, and you had fun with it. But eventually, something new and more exciting came out. Microsoft is doing what it can, even if it doesn't make too much profit on it (if any) ... to keep itself as a household name. To keep people buying Microsoft because they know the name AND it has a bunch of "features"... even if they aren't as good, or as useable by everyone else.
All this talk about which consoles will "win" is a total waste of time at this current time. I had many friend boycott the PS2 when it first game out. Crap customer service, only X units in the store made them look like elitists.. etc. They went xbox, and eventually they even went nintendo for the game cube. 2 years later they all had ps2's with more games on that one console than they other 2 combined.
The point i'm trying to make is that even after the systems come out... say.. around new years and in jan 2007, there will be MORE slash dot posts saying "SEE! 360 for the win! Nintendo wins! Sony didn't sell as much!" ... Except that they don't NEED to at the beginning. They have a rather large backing by some very well known game makers, and from what all reports claim.. and if the specs are really as good as they claim... then the system is a solid system.
It doesn't come down to the system. It comes down to the games that go with the system. That is the key to remember. If you only want to get an xbox because you dislike sony.... Yet, you like RPG's and dislike sports games... That's like buying a mac for games because you don't like or don't want to support windows. Sure it has games, but probably not many of the types you are going to actually want to play.
... Our reports find that the most time spent in game is for World of Warcraft. Apperently this is a popular game. Note: Insert more advertisements on the backs of player clothing and on the rumps of Animals they can ride.
-- We find that the most Loaded game is sims 2 with the nudity patch. This is loaded 2 or 3 times a time, and usually played for no more than 1 or 2 minutes. Note: Try and figure out this strange gamer phenomenon.
--The most played game by troubled youths is Grand Theft Auto.
Final Note:
----------
Send Jack Thompson a fruitcake for the few millions he gave us to come up with this total bogus and not-proveable report.
I can tell you know, i support this. My child running without a helmet or pads on? I think not! I don't want my children hurt. The fact that they have to go to a building where i'm not alowed to stare at them... where they use things like "papers" and "pencils" that others might poke them with (my child would never accidently harm himself of course)... This unnerves me. I don't want writting utensils like that, or papers either because that increases chances that a terrorist might kill my child with. In fact, i don't even let them use the computer because it might be harmful to their eyes. ...
Is it wrong that i keep my child in a room with no windows, blend all his food into a paste or soup, and only feed him when a professional doctor is around??
A Ton of phrases can be created with this simple intro. It will also teach you the basic grammer ideas in the travelers dictionary (and you can always look up sentances later in the books as guidelines). After that... you can walk around on the streets, look up one single word in the translation dictionary like... post-office... and you can already as a bunch of questions relating to a post-office (like where it is!)
After that comes the hardest part of learning a language. Vocabulary. This is what kills most people. My honest best suggestion to you is to buy post-it notes, and stick them all over your house with the english / spanish translation. Literally everywhere. Even on the milk jug inside your fridge. While it is embarrasing, being exposed to all those words will help you learn them MUCH faster then just staring at note cards or words on a screen. With a good computer program (hopefully someone will suggest a good one) you can learn many other vocab words WHILE being exposed to all the common things inside the house that have post-its on it (shoes, tv, books, computer, paper, house, door... lots of things to put all over your house that can be useful in daily conversation).
Good luck with your language learning resolution!