The iPhone might have hardware 3D graphics, but only the C64 had hardware sprites.
This Flash C64 emulator is pretty nifty. It still needs some work though. I guess the iPhone doesn't support flash, but other phones might be able to run it.
If you want to run a little C64 basic on that emulator, be aware that the key for the double quote character is SHIFT-2. (I can't believe I remembered that!) 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD" 20 GOTO 10 RUN
I can understand some punitive damages, but they need to be brought down to reality. Certainly the fine for downloading and sharing some songs should be LESS than the fine for stealing a few CDs from Walmart.
Also, the music industry should not be receiving the punitive damages. They should be receiving the $2 per song they were owed, and the punitive fee should go towards law enforcement or perhaps towards the national debt.
I've noticed many depressing stories today. This ridiculously excessive fine. The sad state of US math education. People going uninsured, and insurance companies dropping people on technicalities right when they need the insurance.
All these stories have a theme. There are people being let down, and there are serious problems to be faced. And yet, these problems are not unsolvable. We already have figured out pretty good solutions! However, knowing the solutions doesn't seem to matter, since we can't change how things are run, or get those in charge to listen to common sense.
It's like watching that scene in Saving Private Ryan, in which a cowardly character hides rather than walking up the stairs, thus allowing his fellow soldier to be killed. We know what that character should do. We can scream at the screen all we like, but it won't change a thing.
I agree that "expresses the human experience" is a better way to look at it than simple emotion. Another way to look at it is that art expresses something internal to the audience - they recognize something in it that connects to their internal experience of being human.
I also think that for something to be art, there needs to be some sort of applied, creative intelligence behind it. A beautiful sunset can be profoundly moving, but whether it is art is a theological question. Similarly, a child crying in the supermarket is not art, even though the child is conveying emotion to an audience. Though the child may be intelligent, there is no creative process behind the exhibition.
The overall effect and meaning of an artistic work, as experienced by the audience, is not always intentional. It might be vastly different than what the artist intended, and (as you said) the artist might not have been thinking of art at all. But there must be some personal intent present behind a work to qualify it as art. Even in the case of Homer's grill, he did something more creative than simply throwing the parts in the trash.
I suppose that what a person considers to be art will be based on that person's perspective on life, and so we're bound to have a variety of definitions.
To put this in perspective, $400 trillion is about 7-8 times the entire planet's GDP.
For the music industry to make $400 trillion in the U.S., they would need each man, woman, and child to purchase 1.3 million dollars worth of music. (Or, about 16 songs???)
Demo mode is certainly superior to a game which makes you grind through an overly difficult section over and over again. But using demo mode feels like cheating and is not a satisfying way to win.
I think it would be much better to have some mechanic within the game which makes a section easier when you die there repeatedly. If you fall in a pit three times in a row, or get beat up by a bad guy three times, a little angel could come along and add some platforms to make the jump easier, or start dropping powerups.
However, there would be a cost for this help - you would get a lower score, or you wouldn't unlock a new hat for your character, etc. The hardcore gamers would practice so that they became good enough to win without help. Those who just want to play the whole game wouldn't have to give up because of one little section which gave them problems.
I really like their approach of creating one codebase which runs on multiple platforms, as opposed to writing for one console and then porting to other platforms. That should make the process of updating the code and adding new features very streamlined. If they're really good, they've set up a system which will make it much faster to develop other cross-platform games as well.
I can't understand why Google didn't take this approach with Chrome. It would have pushed back the initial release date, but in the long run it would give them a flexible system with huge savings in development time.
Laws which help businesses can make sense. The issue here is laws which are protecting old, outdated business models. These laws have the effect of holding the industry back when it should be moving forward to new business methods which would benefit both the industry and the consumers.
When cars first started rolling off the assembly line, it was a real threat to the horse cart industry. However, we didn't make a bunch of laws to prop up the horse cart industry and to restrict the auto industry. The horse carts simply were outdated, and it was time to move forward for everyone's benefit. Now it's the copy-restricted music CD which is outdated.
Thanks, that's fantastic! I didn't realize that a 2TB drive was now available. The prices for 1TB and 1.5TB have really dropped, though it looks like the low priced 1.5TB drive has some issues.
I purchased a 1TB drive on 10/8/2007 for $329.99. A 1TB drive now costs $74.99. Ouch! That's not even two years.
On the plus side, in another 1.5 years the price for a 2TB drive should have dropped from $239.00 to under $100. I think that's when I'll be upgrading.
This is exactly right. I wish some phone company would start simply charging for all services based on what those services actually cost to provide. Text messages would be (nearly) free. Data transfer would be charged a basic rate, regardless of the type of data and whether or not is was tethered.
There would be no need to choose a "plan." Why should a customer have to make a GUESS as to how much data transfer they will use in a month? Currently, if a person guesses too low or too high, they get overcharged either way.
If all the providers ran this way, they would have to compete on price, and would be motivated to find ways to bring prices down.
That's not much of a criticism of the PS3. Are you upset that it plays BD discs? Do you think it can't do that and also have good games? It has been a little slow in getting a broad range of top-notch games, but it's getting there quickly.
One thing I'd love to see is for a console to open up their development process and create an App Store similar to the iPhone. There would be an explosion of freeware, indie games, and assorted applications.
For example, imagine a Slashdot viewer optimized for TV usage. I can currently read/. on the PS3's web browser, but trying to navigate through it is a pain. If someone made a nice viewer with big text, easy navigation, ability to mark stories as read, etc., I'd pay $2.99 for that.
So what do we call it when a nanotech company announces that are going to release some amazing new vaporware soon, but they have no proof and no demo yet? Vacuumware? Dukenukemware?
True, we are already building electronic components at nanometer scales. But when people talk about nanotechnology, they are usually thinking of mechanical devices built from nanometer scale components, or larger structures which exhibit new properties based on manufactured, nanometer scale features.
The industry for these applications has hardly even begun.
I've had a better experience. I bought a PS3, which is the best Blu-Ray player out there. It plays perfectly with none of the glitches you described, and if there are any future firmware updates needed, it will be the first to get them. I also play games, so I get a lot of value from it.
I don't buy movies anymore, since I realized how rarely I re-watch movies. I also don't get cable. I have a Netflix subscription with Blu-Ray, which provides me with all the movies I could want. I really prefer watching TV shows on disc, where I don't have to worry about commercials and scheduling.
I can watch anything in hi def, I'm paying a low amount per month, and if I want to switch to a different technology in the future, it won't be painful. It's hard to beat that.
I think the traditional car analogy applies well here. Imagine Amoco complaining to auto makers that their cars are using too much gasoline and driving up gas prices, and therefore they should give Amoco money to subsidize the cost of gas.
Anyone can see that is ridiculous, and the idea of charging the BBC for the costs of running an ISP is just as absurd.
I can certainly see the potential here, but I think they're making a mistake if they try to ditch the controller entirely. Some games will simply function better with more precise controls. And motion sensing will not work well in every situation. Someone who is disabled, or fat, or in a small space, or wearing a funky shirt that messes with the motion recognition, or just tired after a long day, might prefer traditional controls. Ideally, games will be designed so that they can be controlled by motion and/or with the controller, according to the user's preference.
As a side note, the end of this demo video is unintentionally creepy. The young married couple at the end finish watching their movie and turn off the system. It looks as if they're probably going to make love and go to bed. The camera switches to a close up on the twin eyes of the 360, still watching intently despite being turned off. Fade to black.
Everyone - both authors and readers - would be better off if there was an easy way to search through all books online, and to read or download books which are abandoned or out of print. Unfortunately, the law is focused on how to restrict people, rather than being focused on how to make written works as accessible as possible.
It just makes me sad to think that we have the technical capacity to create something amazing like a public, global book search, but we can't make it happen due to legal and human factors. It's not ideal to allow a private company to have exclusive rights to such a project, but I'd rather see Google be allowed to continue than to see it simply not exist.
I can just see it now: people standing in public, making ridiculous and distracting swooping motions, so they can post pointless and misspelled updates to twitter. "This lne at coffe shop is 2 long"
Birds hate cats, so simply mount a few dozen cats outside the plane near the engines. Don't forget to mount the cats with their feet pointed down, or the plane will flip when you try to land.
Chaff rounds packed with bird seed could also work, but the cats should be more cost effective.
Two points: First, all we've ever been able to buy is a license to a game, not the game itself. Why is it that just because the distribution model changes from bits on a disc to bits on a wire, the consumer should lose their rights to resell? Perhaps the companies can be held liable for denying consumer rights, or perhaps we do need a new law to cover this.
Second, if these new products cannot be resold and they have no physical component, then they are less valuable. They are cheaper to produce, cheaper to distribute, and less valuable to the consumer since the purchase cannot be recouped in any way. Therefore, they should be priced at a much lower point. I won't hold my breath though.
First of all, why did you subtract $99 rather than add it? Second, most estimates I've found online put the minimum TCO at $2000 - $2200, and it's easy to spend much more than that.
You'll end up spending $1000 extra for a shiny toy you can play with when you're stuck waiting somewhere. If you enjoy it that much, go for it. Personally, I'm content to read a book when I have to wait somewhere, and I can listen to my $30 mp3 player at the gym. I can get online when I'm at home on a nice full sized monitor.
I probably sound like I'm anti-technology. That's not the case, but I do think there's a sort of freedom in not always having to have a screen and an internet connection at the ready.
Or even better, they could offer to buy back used games for a little more than what Gamestop offers, and then simply destroy them. It would be a harsh strategy, but it would help keep their prices and sales up.
I hope they don't, because I enjoy getting deals on used games. I'm enjoying it while I can, because soon they will all be downloads and the first sale doctrine will be circumvented. (I already can't sell the games I purchased and downloaded on my PS3.)
Slashdot Mirror
The iPhone might have hardware 3D graphics, but only the C64 had hardware sprites.
This Flash C64 emulator is pretty nifty. It still needs some work though. I guess the iPhone doesn't support flash, but other phones might be able to run it.
If you want to run a little C64 basic on that emulator, be aware that the key for the double quote character is SHIFT-2. (I can't believe I remembered that!)
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
I can understand some punitive damages, but they need to be brought down to reality. Certainly the fine for downloading and sharing some songs should be LESS than the fine for stealing a few CDs from Walmart.
Also, the music industry should not be receiving the punitive damages. They should be receiving the $2 per song they were owed, and the punitive fee should go towards law enforcement or perhaps towards the national debt.
I've noticed many depressing stories today. This ridiculously excessive fine. The sad state of US math education. People going uninsured, and insurance companies dropping people on technicalities right when they need the insurance.
All these stories have a theme. There are people being let down, and there are serious problems to be faced. And yet, these problems are not unsolvable. We already have figured out pretty good solutions! However, knowing the solutions doesn't seem to matter, since we can't change how things are run, or get those in charge to listen to common sense.
It's like watching that scene in Saving Private Ryan, in which a cowardly character hides rather than walking up the stairs, thus allowing his fellow soldier to be killed. We know what that character should do. We can scream at the screen all we like, but it won't change a thing.
That's what I find depressing.
I agree that "expresses the human experience" is a better way to look at it than simple emotion. Another way to look at it is that art expresses something internal to the audience - they recognize something in it that connects to their internal experience of being human.
I also think that for something to be art, there needs to be some sort of applied, creative intelligence behind it. A beautiful sunset can be profoundly moving, but whether it is art is a theological question. Similarly, a child crying in the supermarket is not art, even though the child is conveying emotion to an audience. Though the child may be intelligent, there is no creative process behind the exhibition.
The overall effect and meaning of an artistic work, as experienced by the audience, is not always intentional. It might be vastly different than what the artist intended, and (as you said) the artist might not have been thinking of art at all. But there must be some personal intent present behind a work to qualify it as art. Even in the case of Homer's grill, he did something more creative than simply throwing the parts in the trash.
I suppose that what a person considers to be art will be based on that person's perspective on life, and so we're bound to have a variety of definitions.
To put this in perspective, $400 trillion is about 7-8 times the entire planet's GDP.
For the music industry to make $400 trillion in the U.S., they would need each man, woman, and child to purchase 1.3 million dollars worth of music. (Or, about 16 songs???)
Demo mode is certainly superior to a game which makes you grind through an overly difficult section over and over again. But using demo mode feels like cheating and is not a satisfying way to win.
I think it would be much better to have some mechanic within the game which makes a section easier when you die there repeatedly. If you fall in a pit three times in a row, or get beat up by a bad guy three times, a little angel could come along and add some platforms to make the jump easier, or start dropping powerups.
However, there would be a cost for this help - you would get a lower score, or you wouldn't unlock a new hat for your character, etc. The hardcore gamers would practice so that they became good enough to win without help. Those who just want to play the whole game wouldn't have to give up because of one little section which gave them problems.
I really like their approach of creating one codebase which runs on multiple platforms, as opposed to writing for one console and then porting to other platforms. That should make the process of updating the code and adding new features very streamlined. If they're really good, they've set up a system which will make it much faster to develop other cross-platform games as well.
I can't understand why Google didn't take this approach with Chrome. It would have pushed back the initial release date, but in the long run it would give them a flexible system with huge savings in development time.
Laws which help businesses can make sense. The issue here is laws which are protecting old, outdated business models. These laws have the effect of holding the industry back when it should be moving forward to new business methods which would benefit both the industry and the consumers.
When cars first started rolling off the assembly line, it was a real threat to the horse cart industry. However, we didn't make a bunch of laws to prop up the horse cart industry and to restrict the auto industry. The horse carts simply were outdated, and it was time to move forward for everyone's benefit. Now it's the copy-restricted music CD which is outdated.
Thanks, that's fantastic! I didn't realize that a 2TB drive was now available. The prices for 1TB and 1.5TB have really dropped, though it looks like the low priced 1.5TB drive has some issues.
I purchased a 1TB drive on 10/8/2007 for $329.99. A 1TB drive now costs $74.99. Ouch! That's not even two years.
On the plus side, in another 1.5 years the price for a 2TB drive should have dropped from $239.00 to under $100. I think that's when I'll be upgrading.
But at least you can feel... secure? This looks like satire, but scarily enough, it is real:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toasty/2171185463/sizes/l/
This is exactly right. I wish some phone company would start simply charging for all services based on what those services actually cost to provide. Text messages would be (nearly) free. Data transfer would be charged a basic rate, regardless of the type of data and whether or not is was tethered.
There would be no need to choose a "plan." Why should a customer have to make a GUESS as to how much data transfer they will use in a month? Currently, if a person guesses too low or too high, they get overcharged either way.
If all the providers ran this way, they would have to compete on price, and would be motivated to find ways to bring prices down.
Yo dawg, I heard you like surfing, so we put a web server in your browser so you can surf while your surf!
That's not much of a criticism of the PS3. Are you upset that it plays BD discs? Do you think it can't do that and also have good games? It has been a little slow in getting a broad range of top-notch games, but it's getting there quickly.
One thing I'd love to see is for a console to open up their development process and create an App Store similar to the iPhone. There would be an explosion of freeware, indie games, and assorted applications.
For example, imagine a Slashdot viewer optimized for TV usage. I can currently read /. on the PS3's web browser, but trying to navigate through it is a pain. If someone made a nice viewer with big text, easy navigation, ability to mark stories as read, etc., I'd pay $2.99 for that.
So what do we call it when a nanotech company announces that are going to release some amazing new vaporware soon, but they have no proof and no demo yet? Vacuumware? Dukenukemware?
True, we are already building electronic components at nanometer scales. But when people talk about nanotechnology, they are usually thinking of mechanical devices built from nanometer scale components, or larger structures which exhibit new properties based on manufactured, nanometer scale features.
The industry for these applications has hardly even begun.
Anyone who allows their browser to cache and keep a history is stupid? Perhaps your tin foil hat is a size too small.
I've had a better experience. I bought a PS3, which is the best Blu-Ray player out there. It plays perfectly with none of the glitches you described, and if there are any future firmware updates needed, it will be the first to get them. I also play games, so I get a lot of value from it.
I don't buy movies anymore, since I realized how rarely I re-watch movies. I also don't get cable. I have a Netflix subscription with Blu-Ray, which provides me with all the movies I could want. I really prefer watching TV shows on disc, where I don't have to worry about commercials and scheduling.
I can watch anything in hi def, I'm paying a low amount per month, and if I want to switch to a different technology in the future, it won't be painful. It's hard to beat that.
I think the traditional car analogy applies well here. Imagine Amoco complaining to auto makers that their cars are using too much gasoline and driving up gas prices, and therefore they should give Amoco money to subsidize the cost of gas.
Anyone can see that is ridiculous, and the idea of charging the BBC for the costs of running an ISP is just as absurd.
I can certainly see the potential here, but I think they're making a mistake if they try to ditch the controller entirely. Some games will simply function better with more precise controls. And motion sensing will not work well in every situation. Someone who is disabled, or fat, or in a small space, or wearing a funky shirt that messes with the motion recognition, or just tired after a long day, might prefer traditional controls. Ideally, games will be designed so that they can be controlled by motion and/or with the controller, according to the user's preference.
As a side note, the end of this demo video is unintentionally creepy. The young married couple at the end finish watching their movie and turn off the system. It looks as if they're probably going to make love and go to bed. The camera switches to a close up on the twin eyes of the 360, still watching intently despite being turned off. Fade to black.
Everyone - both authors and readers - would be better off if there was an easy way to search through all books online, and to read or download books which are abandoned or out of print. Unfortunately, the law is focused on how to restrict people, rather than being focused on how to make written works as accessible as possible.
It just makes me sad to think that we have the technical capacity to create something amazing like a public, global book search, but we can't make it happen due to legal and human factors. It's not ideal to allow a private company to have exclusive rights to such a project, but I'd rather see Google be allowed to continue than to see it simply not exist.
I can just see it now: people standing in public, making ridiculous and distracting swooping motions, so they can post pointless and misspelled updates to twitter. "This lne at coffe shop is 2 long"
Birds hate cats, so simply mount a few dozen cats outside the plane near the engines. Don't forget to mount the cats with their feet pointed down, or the plane will flip when you try to land.
Chaff rounds packed with bird seed could also work, but the cats should be more cost effective.
Two points: First, all we've ever been able to buy is a license to a game, not the game itself. Why is it that just because the distribution model changes from bits on a disc to bits on a wire, the consumer should lose their rights to resell? Perhaps the companies can be held liable for denying consumer rights, or perhaps we do need a new law to cover this.
Second, if these new products cannot be resold and they have no physical component, then they are less valuable. They are cheaper to produce, cheaper to distribute, and less valuable to the consumer since the purchase cannot be recouped in any way. Therefore, they should be priced at a much lower point. I won't hold my breath though.
First of all, why did you subtract $99 rather than add it? Second, most estimates I've found online put the minimum TCO at $2000 - $2200, and it's easy to spend much more than that.
You'll end up spending $1000 extra for a shiny toy you can play with when you're stuck waiting somewhere. If you enjoy it that much, go for it. Personally, I'm content to read a book when I have to wait somewhere, and I can listen to my $30 mp3 player at the gym. I can get online when I'm at home on a nice full sized monitor.
I probably sound like I'm anti-technology. That's not the case, but I do think there's a sort of freedom in not always having to have a screen and an internet connection at the ready.
Or even better, they could offer to buy back used games for a little more than what Gamestop offers, and then simply destroy them. It would be a harsh strategy, but it would help keep their prices and sales up.
I hope they don't, because I enjoy getting deals on used games. I'm enjoying it while I can, because soon they will all be downloads and the first sale doctrine will be circumvented. (I already can't sell the games I purchased and downloaded on my PS3.)