Completely agree, on rereading I realise I misunderstood the last line of your post as implying that if you don't want to use C++ you're not a professional. Mea culpa:)
Speaking as a professional who doesn't use (or want to use) C++, I disagree. Whilst I agree that there are tiers of languages, and there are plenty I certainly wouldn't want to use on a regular basis, C++ is by no means the only one worthy of serious consideration. Java is one other obvious candidate, also (as much as I hate to say it) C#. And I'm sure we all know a 20+ year pro who uses Perl for everything:)
But Xbox Live does everything Wii does now for free too (silver membership). You only have to pay if you want to play online (gold membership), and there are no online Wii games. So right now, XBL wins hands down. Of course, when online Wii games come out, we'll see how that is.
It's working fine here, I was able to do updates and purchase games Sunday afternoon, it seemed pretty quick. But, I am somewhat annoyed at the News and Weather channels being unavailable, particularly as the message first says you need to update, then says you're already updated. Then you notice the small print : "Not yet available".
And the whole friend/wii code thing sucks. It's a pain exchanging 16-digit numbers with people. Xbox Live does thing MUCH better in that regard.
You just stated that huge numbers of people are buying lo def tv's today every hour. No, I didn't. I stated that lots of people are buying TVs, I made no mention of what type other than that the proportion which are HD will obviously rise going forward. Your assertion that it's currently a very low percentage is not backed up by my own experience, or what I am reading. As an example, this article says that 1 in 6 homes already have at least 1 HDTV. And this one says that HDTV sales are expected to exceed SDTV sales next year.
any HD tv without HDMI soon won't be able to decode HD signals That's simply not true. Nothing (short of a hammer) is going to stop my existing TV from being able to display the same signals it can now. Whilst new devices and new formats (e.g. BluRay) may have the capability to block non-HDMI output there is a growing feeling that the studios are in reality unlikley to ever use that capability. Time will tell. What is perfectly evident is that in 2 or 3 years HD will be entirely mainstream, and the Wii will be the only console on the market which doesn't support it. I think that's a mistake, but again, only time will tell.
In the end it's better to wait, stick with your lo def tv that's been fine for the past 20 years, and see what stabilizes. YYou save time, headaches, and money Well duh. Of course you save money by waiting, that's always the way with technology. In fact, taken to it's natural conclusion you could decide to never buy anything ever and save all your money. I could have saved $2k by buying my main TV now instead of 3 years ago, but then I wouldn't have been watching HD for the last 3 years. Likewise, I spent $600 on an Intel PII some years ago - if only I'd waited! It's a pointless argument - there's always something better and cheaper around the corner.
Okay, I know... you shell out through the nose just to have your plasma/LCD/DLP screen and you want to see the reason you paid so much. It's natural.
Not quite - I know the reason I paid so much. It's because I want to see a great picture.
You get what you paid for. Caveat emptor, peeps. If you get an HDTV, prepare to seek out the content made for HDTV. Otherwise, it's just another TV, now isn't it?
And that's the point. People will seek out that content, and they'll get it from Xbox360 and PS3, but not from the Wii. You may think that's not important now (I disagree) but in a couple of years time it's going to look bad.
Seriously, I can get a quality CRT television--fully loaded features--for a fraction of what it costs to get a same-size HDTV. On average, the ratio appears to be 10:1 (If I can get the CRT for $50, the same HD model costs $500) and it's not changing very quickly.
Rubbish. Here is a 27" SDTV at BestBuy. $300 is a pretty decent price for a good quality CRT screen of that size, I think you'll agree. And here is the HD version of the same model. It's a whopping $80 (or 25%) more expensive. Even the HD LCD of the same size is only $600, which is twice the CRT price.
Believe me - HDTV is here right now and people are buying it. It was early adopter 3 years ago when I bought my plasma (and I paid the premium, belive me) but it's mainstream now.
Have you ever been to BestBuy on a saturday afternoon? The lines of people loading huge brown boxes containing TVs into their cars would suggest plenty of "normal" people are buying new TVs every day. And over time, and increasingly large number of them will be HD.
A bank a/c number is not secret, it's written on every cheque for one thing. If someone can get money from your bank account just by knowing the number then you have much more serious problems, and you should be switching bank. It's simple - the bank are 100% responsible for any unauthorised transfer from your account. And the burden of proof is on them.
Most EA games have extensive soundtracks of popular (and not so popular) artists. For example the Burnout games (lots of indie rock), SSX (lots of BT), Need for Speed, etc.
The various CSI shows also have a reputation for excellent music selection. Again, however, there's little or no credit given and so tracking down the song played during DNA sequencing scene #2554 can be virtually impossible.
I can not tell the difference between a high bit rate.WMA file (or even one of the "lossless" compression ones.) and the same song playing from CD Well you're not supposed to be able to tell the difference with the lossless one, because it's, well, lossless. It is the exact same audio data as from the CD. The regular WMA one on the other hand is easily discernible with the right system and ears. If you can't tell the difference, great, that makes your life a lot easier:)
Just to clarify for those who don't know (the summary is a little misleading I think) the GoW trailer in question will be available to Silver subscribers, it just isn't yet. Major Nelson was quoted as saying that this (delayed access to trailers etc for Silver members) will be getting more common place. I haven't yet seen any mention (other than speculation) of plans to actually prevent Silver members getting specific content, and to be honest that would be a big turn around as MS have consistently said that Silver members will get full access to the marketplace. Rather, I think they've realised that trailers and demos are very valuable commodities and having access to them right away will appeal to a certain segment of the userbase, and might encourage them to sign up for Gold.
You sir, are an pedant. Let me clarify for you and your kind - anything you create *which is copyrightable* (which includes pretty much all non-trivial works) is automatically copyrighted. Happy now? If you want to challenge this, please take the trouble to supply a link.
All videos contain copyrighted information, as everything anyone creates is automatically copyrighted. The question is not "is this copyrighted" but "do the copyright holders give their permission for this to be posted" - which is, unfortunatly, even harder to answer.
Alas, it seems that "monetization" is the latest in (mis)management speak.
Uh-huh. You know, just because you aren't familiar with a word doesn't mean it's "management speak". It's been around since 1875, is derived from the Latin "moneta" and as far as I can tell is in every major dictionary.
Lets see...18000 packages, we'll say 500 bytes per package to include name, description, version numbers, etc. So that's 9mb. We'll be optimistic and say that we can compress that 50%, so 4.5mb. Now we have to shove 4.5mb to every client every time they check for updates (once a day typically). No big deal for you and I with a nice connection, but that could take 15 minutes on a modem! Don't forget that MS are catering to a much greater diversity of users than most vendors.
Again, Linux and Mac do not have ActiveX, which is just a fancy name for "run random executable files from other places on your system". There's no way to arbitrarily and usually automatically execute code just by surfing to a web page on these OSes. That's the problem with MS-ware.
Areyousure?
There are a number of technologies available for Linux & Mac which could easily be (and in many cases have been) attack vectors of the "download and run arbitrary code" type.
Slashdot Mirror
Completely agree, on rereading I realise I misunderstood the last line of your post as implying that if you don't want to use C++ you're not a professional. Mea culpa :)
Speaking as a professional who doesn't use (or want to use) C++, I disagree. Whilst I agree that there are tiers of languages, and there are plenty I certainly wouldn't want to use on a regular basis, C++ is by no means the only one worthy of serious consideration. Java is one other obvious candidate, also (as much as I hate to say it) C#. And I'm sure we all know a 20+ year pro who uses Perl for everything :)
You're seriously comparing being a couple inches taller than most people to being blind?
But Xbox Live does everything Wii does now for free too (silver membership). You only have to pay if you want to play online (gold membership), and there are no online Wii games. So right now, XBL wins hands down. Of course, when online Wii games come out, we'll see how that is.
It's working fine here, I was able to do updates and purchase games Sunday afternoon, it seemed pretty quick. But, I am somewhat annoyed at the News and Weather channels being unavailable, particularly as the message first says you need to update, then says you're already updated. Then you notice the small print : "Not yet available".
And the whole friend/wii code thing sucks. It's a pain exchanging 16-digit numbers with people. Xbox Live does thing MUCH better in that regard.
There is an updated Windows available, it's called XP SP2. The OP just wasn't using it.
You just stated that huge numbers of people are buying lo def tv's today every hour.
No, I didn't. I stated that lots of people are buying TVs, I made no mention of what type other than that the proportion which are HD will obviously rise going forward. Your assertion that it's currently a very low percentage is not backed up by my own experience, or what I am reading. As an example, this article says that 1 in 6 homes already have at least 1 HDTV. And this one says that HDTV sales are expected to exceed SDTV sales next year.
any HD tv without HDMI soon won't be able to decode HD signals
That's simply not true. Nothing (short of a hammer) is going to stop my existing TV from being able to display the same signals it can now. Whilst new devices and new formats (e.g. BluRay) may have the capability to block non-HDMI output there is a growing feeling that the studios are in reality unlikley to ever use that capability. Time will tell. What is perfectly evident is that in 2 or 3 years HD will be entirely mainstream, and the Wii will be the only console on the market which doesn't support it. I think that's a mistake, but again, only time will tell.
In the end it's better to wait, stick with your lo def tv that's been fine for the past 20 years, and see what stabilizes. YYou save time, headaches, and money
Well duh. Of course you save money by waiting, that's always the way with technology. In fact, taken to it's natural conclusion you could decide to never buy anything ever and save all your money. I could have saved $2k by buying my main TV now instead of 3 years ago, but then I wouldn't have been watching HD for the last 3 years. Likewise, I spent $600 on an Intel PII some years ago - if only I'd waited! It's a pointless argument - there's always something better and cheaper around the corner.
Okay, I know... you shell out through the nose just to have your plasma/LCD/DLP screen and you want to see the reason you paid so much. It's natural.
Not quite - I know the reason I paid so much. It's because I want to see a great picture.
You get what you paid for. Caveat emptor, peeps. If you get an HDTV, prepare to seek out the content made for HDTV. Otherwise, it's just another TV, now isn't it?
And that's the point. People will seek out that content, and they'll get it from Xbox360 and PS3, but not from the Wii. You may think that's not important now (I disagree) but in a couple of years time it's going to look bad.
Seriously, I can get a quality CRT television--fully loaded features--for a fraction of what it costs to get a same-size HDTV. On average, the ratio appears to be 10:1 (If I can get the CRT for $50, the same HD model costs $500) and it's not changing very quickly.
Rubbish. Here is a 27" SDTV at BestBuy. $300 is a pretty decent price for a good quality CRT screen of that size, I think you'll agree. And here is the HD version of the same model. It's a whopping $80 (or 25%) more expensive. Even the HD LCD of the same size is only $600, which is twice the CRT price.
Believe me - HDTV is here right now and people are buying it. It was early adopter 3 years ago when I bought my plasma (and I paid the premium, belive me) but it's mainstream now.
Have you ever been to BestBuy on a saturday afternoon? The lines of people loading huge brown boxes containing TVs into their cars would suggest plenty of "normal" people are buying new TVs every day. And over time, and increasingly large number of them will be HD.
A bank a/c number is not secret, it's written on every cheque for one thing. If someone can get money from your bank account just by knowing the number then you have much more serious problems, and you should be switching bank. It's simple - the bank are 100% responsible for any unauthorised transfer from your account. And the burden of proof is on them.
You obviously missed the part where a Nintendo spokesperson confirmed the "rumor". It's right there in the summary.
Most EA games have extensive soundtracks of popular (and not so popular) artists. For example the Burnout games (lots of indie rock), SSX (lots of BT), Need for Speed, etc.
The various CSI shows also have a reputation for excellent music selection. Again, however, there's little or no credit given and so tracking down the song played during DNA sequencing scene #2554 can be virtually impossible.
Yes, they've added support for playing WMV (only) from MediaConnect (aka UPnP) and USB.
I can not tell the difference between a high bit rate .WMA file (or even one of the "lossless" compression ones.) and the same song playing from CD :)
Well you're not supposed to be able to tell the difference with the lossless one, because it's, well, lossless. It is the exact same audio data as from the CD. The regular WMA one on the other hand is easily discernible with the right system and ears. If you can't tell the difference, great, that makes your life a lot easier
Just to clarify for those who don't know (the summary is a little misleading I think) the GoW trailer in question will be available to Silver subscribers, it just isn't yet. Major Nelson was quoted as saying that this (delayed access to trailers etc for Silver members) will be getting more common place. I haven't yet seen any mention (other than speculation) of plans to actually prevent Silver members getting specific content, and to be honest that would be a big turn around as MS have consistently said that Silver members will get full access to the marketplace. Rather, I think they've realised that trailers and demos are very valuable commodities and having access to them right away will appeal to a certain segment of the userbase, and might encourage them to sign up for Gold.
You sir, are an pedant. Let me clarify for you and your kind - anything you create *which is copyrightable* (which includes pretty much all non-trivial works) is automatically copyrighted. Happy now? If you want to challenge this, please take the trouble to supply a link.
All videos contain copyrighted information, as everything anyone creates is automatically copyrighted. The question is not "is this copyrighted" but "do the copyright holders give their permission for this to be posted" - which is, unfortunatly, even harder to answer.
Alas, it seems that "monetization" is the latest in (mis)management speak.
Uh-huh. You know, just because you aren't familiar with a word doesn't mean it's "management speak". It's been around since 1875, is derived from the Latin "moneta" and as far as I can tell is in every major dictionary.
Does not appear in my dictionary.
Really? According to Random House it's been in use since 1875. I guess it's time to retire that 1874 dictionary!
And you do this over a 56k dialup line?
Lets see...18000 packages, we'll say 500 bytes per package to include name, description, version numbers, etc. So that's 9mb. We'll be optimistic and say that we can compress that 50%, so 4.5mb. Now we have to shove 4.5mb to every client every time they check for updates (once a day typically). No big deal for you and I with a nice connection, but that could take 15 minutes on a modem! Don't forget that MS are catering to a much greater diversity of users than most vendors.
Are you sure? There are a number of technologies available for Linux & Mac which could easily be (and in many cases have been) attack vectors of the "download and run arbitrary code" type.
My current FF instance has been running maybe 30 mins, and currently has only this Slashdot page open. It's taking 120mb.
what you think does not matter, *reality* matters = .NET working out of the box since Win XP.
.NET is not included as standard on WinXP.
Rubbish -
Who is Xbox's Japanese leading man???
I don't know his real name but his GT is "Strawberry".
Japan is a market about as big as the U.S. right?
I can't find any real figures but my impression is that it's somewhat smaller, but not hugely so.