When $600 gets you a six-core desktop with 8 GB of RAM and a decent video card, why would you waste your time with a crippled tablet that costs more? The PC is a versatile machine that can do *anything*
... except be portable.
I'm against tablets costing over $400
Miniaturization costs money and tablets require some extra R&D because they need an OS/apps that aren't already on store shelves.
It's fun to rant and all, but products aren't priced just by how many FLOPs they perform.
If you're really serious about putting Mary Kate and Ashley's head on Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse's bodies, like it says in TFS, you'd use RAW.
Uh, yeah, by 'use RAW' you mean: "take photos of these celebrities yourself".
...so it would have the compression artifacts whether it's been altered or not.
Unless you took the RAW photos yourself, there would still be different artifacts from each of the pictures you used to do the composite. More artifacts won't change that. Besides that, Facebook resizes the image THEN saves it, again altering the new artifacts in a not-so-subtle way.
You haven't shot this down at all and it's obvious that people with mod points don't understand this topic.
I'm sorry man, I accidentally modded your post as troll when trying to mod it as insightful. I'm posting here to remove that moderation.
You're absolutely correct. When you take a screengrab of a JPEG and save it as a JPEG again, you're re-compressing it. It's a bit like playing a 128kbit MP3 from your iPod, hooking it up to your computer via the audio cable, recording it, then compressing it again at 128k. You're going to have accumulated information loss.
Badran and a couple of twits with mod points must be confused and think this is a story about preventing people from downloading JPGs.
I'm not a fan of that approach because it damages inventory and it unfairly (IMHO) drags Amazon (or whichever retailer it is) into the battle, I think you're right that it'd work, it attaches a dollar amount to the DRM, I'm just worried about bloodying up the fight. There's no guarantee that the retailer wouldn't just disallow returns.
The third option, whining about it and doing nothing, is viable but not really worthwhile.
Not true. People bitched about Spore, went to Amazon and gave it one-star ratings, and they loosened the restrictions. It's a matter of fighting back and it can be effective.
Avoiding any kind of monetary support toward the DRMing publisher is just one way you can act on your objection.
Right, it's viable, just not a very worthwhile and can potentially work against you. They are using DRM BECAUSE they think sales are going down. They have to know why which means they have to be able to discern the difference between "didn't buy" and "actively not buying".
So? never mind who the hell they blame, if enough people stop giving capcom money, capcom will fold.
And then DRM from every other game company gets stronger.
Even if boycotting them doesnt cause them to fold, i prefer the feeling of not bowing my heads to these kind of shitty DRM-laden products over just going along with the crowd.
Those aren't your only two options. Step one is raising awareness of it. Step two is biting them where it hurts. Go look up what happened to Spore.
The only new feature is that it has 3D without a glasses...
Uh, no. It's a huge bump in graphical performance plus it has the iPhone'esque tilt controls. It also has the analog stick, which is pretty slick.
....which in my mind means that it is blurry and you need to look at it carefully from one direction....
Sort of true. You're holding the console so you're already in charge of which direction you're holding it in. If you've been gaming for a while you've already been trained to do this back in the days of color LCDs not looking so hot from various angles not all that long ago. Stereo's not going to be for everybody, so you can just turn off the 3d mode and play the games in higher res.
Probably not going to run right out and get one of these.
You shouldn't. Yeah, I know, that's counter-intuitive to what I was just saying. But you're best off buying a game console when it already has stuff you want to play on it. There are people out there that keep treating these things like they're an investment and getting burned on them. If you're not sold, don't buy it.
If you're curious, ask questions. It'll get you a lot farther than deciding your not interested and cooking up a list reasons why you won't like it.
So either it really does increase sales, or they are crazy. No one spends millions on some tech (DRM in this case) when there is no return.
They see a game on bittorrent, they assume that it has been downloaded eleventy million times and nobody there is paying for it. They then assume that had that game not appeared there, they'd have more money in their pockets. Essentially, yes, they are crazy.
"Not smart enough" isn't a petty reason, it's on the short list of really good reasons.
Heh. Oh, come on.. a mistake on the road isn't an IQ test, none of us would pass. Besides, we're Slashdot nerds! Our standards aren't anything like "she must be a problem solver", they're more like "She cannot have a mustache."
I don't want to watch old movies or flops all the time.
Their streaming selection is ok for TV shows, but for movies it's fairly poor. This is no doubt directly due to the MPAA restricting what they can stream.
The flip side of that, though, is that you can find stuff to watch while you're waiting for the next batch of stuff to arrive.
I agree with you whole-heartedly, but it hasn't been as impactful as I first imagined.
Yeah, I think we more or less agree. I do see a distinction between Sonic and SMB, but the main reason for that is with Sonic you just keep going and going and going. With SMB, you go, stop, go, stop etc. That make sense?
What I mean by that is that the term 'unoriginal' in this context is vague. You have to ignore the fact that the gameplay is distinct in order to call the unoriginal. You could call Super Mario 64 unoriginal using the same rationale.
The point of the game isn't the goal, it's the gameplay. In the example you gave, Crush the Castle and Angry Birds are not identical. In fact, the difference isn't even subtle. What's similar, to you, is the presentation of the game. If you were watching those games on Youtube, it'd be very easy to say that they're virtually identical. However, when you have the controls in your hot little hands, they are not. What you learn playing Angry Birds does not apply to Crush the Castle.
I'll give you credit that the game is more similar to Angry Birds is than Scorched Earth is, but it is not 'almost identical'. You can't, for example, master Crush the Castle then suddenly be an expert at Angry Birds. It doesn't work the other way, either. The way the games are played is that different.
Slashdot Mirror
Who would buy this?
Several million people.
When $600 gets you a six-core desktop with 8 GB of RAM and a decent video card, why would you waste your time with a crippled tablet that costs more? The PC is a versatile machine that can do *anything*
... except be portable.
I'm against tablets costing over $400
Miniaturization costs money and tablets require some extra R&D because they need an OS/apps that aren't already on store shelves.
It's fun to rant and all, but products aren't priced just by how many FLOPs they perform.
If you're really serious about putting Mary Kate and Ashley's head on Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse's bodies, like it says in TFS, you'd use RAW.
Uh, yeah, by 'use RAW' you mean: "take photos of these celebrities yourself".
...so it would have the compression artifacts whether it's been altered or not.
Unless you took the RAW photos yourself, there would still be different artifacts from each of the pictures you used to do the composite. More artifacts won't change that. Besides that, Facebook resizes the image THEN saves it, again altering the new artifacts in a not-so-subtle way.
You haven't shot this down at all and it's obvious that people with mod points don't understand this topic.
I'm sorry man, I accidentally modded your post as troll when trying to mod it as insightful. I'm posting here to remove that moderation.
You're absolutely correct. When you take a screengrab of a JPEG and save it as a JPEG again, you're re-compressing it. It's a bit like playing a 128kbit MP3 from your iPod, hooking it up to your computer via the audio cable, recording it, then compressing it again at 128k. You're going to have accumulated information loss.
Badran and a couple of twits with mod points must be confused and think this is a story about preventing people from downloading JPGs.
I'm not a fan of that approach because it damages inventory and it unfairly (IMHO) drags Amazon (or whichever retailer it is) into the battle, I think you're right that it'd work, it attaches a dollar amount to the DRM, I'm just worried about bloodying up the fight. There's no guarantee that the retailer wouldn't just disallow returns.
The third option, whining about it and doing nothing, is viable but not really worthwhile.
Not true. People bitched about Spore, went to Amazon and gave it one-star ratings, and they loosened the restrictions. It's a matter of fighting back and it can be effective.
Avoiding any kind of monetary support toward the DRMing publisher is just one way you can act on your objection.
Right, it's viable, just not a very worthwhile and can potentially work against you. They are using DRM BECAUSE they think sales are going down. They have to know why which means they have to be able to discern the difference between "didn't buy" and "actively not buying".
I just wish people would quit treating it like there's only two options.
So? never mind who the hell they blame, if enough people stop giving capcom money, capcom will fold.
And then DRM from every other game company gets stronger.
Even if boycotting them doesnt cause them to fold, i prefer the feeling of not bowing my heads to these kind of shitty DRM-laden products over just going along with the crowd.
Those aren't your only two options. Step one is raising awareness of it. Step two is biting them where it hurts. Go look up what happened to Spore.
You mean 'forwards' compatible, and no, the DS won't run 3DS games.
So did this guy forget about Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and (technically) Super Mario Bros Wii?
How did you enable the stereo view on Super Mario 64?
The only new feature is that it has 3D without a glasses...
Uh, no. It's a huge bump in graphical performance plus it has the iPhone'esque tilt controls. It also has the analog stick, which is pretty slick.
....which in my mind means that it is blurry and you need to look at it carefully from one direction....
Sort of true. You're holding the console so you're already in charge of which direction you're holding it in. If you've been gaming for a while you've already been trained to do this back in the days of color LCDs not looking so hot from various angles not all that long ago. Stereo's not going to be for everybody, so you can just turn off the 3d mode and play the games in higher res.
Probably not going to run right out and get one of these.
You shouldn't. Yeah, I know, that's counter-intuitive to what I was just saying. But you're best off buying a game console when it already has stuff you want to play on it. There are people out there that keep treating these things like they're an investment and getting burned on them. If you're not sold, don't buy it.
If you're curious, ask questions. It'll get you a lot farther than deciding your not interested and cooking up a list reasons why you won't like it.
That wasn't a Mario game, it was a game with Mario in it. As I recall Mario Clash was more of a dodge ball sort of game.
Wario Land is a better example of what you're trying to say. Even so, Mario != Wario.
Confirmed != presumed.
So either it really does increase sales, or they are crazy.
No one spends millions on some tech (DRM in this case) when there is no return.
They see a game on bittorrent, they assume that it has been downloaded eleventy million times and nobody there is paying for it. They then assume that had that game not appeared there, they'd have more money in their pockets. Essentially, yes, they are crazy.
Even corporations. Let's boycott Capcom's games, Capcom's gadgets, and Capcom's websites.
-1 over-rated??? More like: +1 insightful.
I am with you 100%. Boycott them.
Sorry, it is overrated. Boycotting content companies doesn't work. They blame piracy instead of noticing that people aren't handing them money.
Google's idea of 'apps' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks.'
Back in the 'good old days of bookmarks' we weren't using our browsers to create spreadsheets.
Isn't the use of the acronym "PC" extremely misused as well?
15 years ago, sure. There really ought to be a statute of limitations on this complaint.
"Not smart enough" isn't a petty reason, it's on the short list of really good reasons.
Heh. Oh, come on.. a mistake on the road isn't an IQ test, none of us would pass. Besides, we're Slashdot nerds! Our standards aren't anything like "she must be a problem solver", they're more like "She cannot have a mustache."
Is she your ex-girlfriend because you realized that someone who doesn't notice snow on the road ahead isn't the sharpest pencil in the drawer?
Wow, Slashdot nerds really do enjoy a good fantasy about being choosey enough to dump chicks for petty reasons.
I don't want to watch old movies or flops all the time.
Their streaming selection is ok for TV shows, but for movies it's fairly poor. This is no doubt directly due to the MPAA restricting what they can stream.
The flip side of that, though, is that you can find stuff to watch while you're waiting for the next batch of stuff to arrive.
I agree with you whole-heartedly, but it hasn't been as impactful as I first imagined.
Yeah, I think we more or less agree. I do see a distinction between Sonic and SMB, but the main reason for that is with Sonic you just keep going and going and going. With SMB, you go, stop, go, stop etc. That make sense?
Have a good evening.
What I mean by that is that the term 'unoriginal' in this context is vague. You have to ignore the fact that the gameplay is distinct in order to call the unoriginal. You could call Super Mario 64 unoriginal using the same rationale.
The point of the game isn't the goal, it's the gameplay. In the example you gave, Crush the Castle and Angry Birds are not identical. In fact, the difference isn't even subtle. What's similar, to you, is the presentation of the game. If you were watching those games on Youtube, it'd be very easy to say that they're virtually identical. However, when you have the controls in your hot little hands, they are not. What you learn playing Angry Birds does not apply to Crush the Castle.
Not "virtually identical", we were talking about "unoriginal"...
That's not exactly a big distinction. Any inspired piece of work would not be considered 'original' then.
You could use the same argument to say that men and women are virtually identical.
I'll give you credit that the game is more similar to Angry Birds is than Scorched Earth is, but it is not 'almost identical'. You can't, for example, master Crush the Castle then suddenly be an expert at Angry Birds. It doesn't work the other way, either. The way the games are played is that different.