It was SEGA demoing Super Monkey Ball, not Nintendo.
Why would Nintendo risk their own mobile gaming market (on the off-chance the iPod gaming scene ever took off)? They'd be sawing off their own foot, it makes no strategic sense.
In any case, we Mac users remember Game Sprockets. Apple's moved in this direction before, and they failed completely and utterly. Hell, Bungie (their main Game Sprockets partner) sold to Microsoft, that's how thoroughly they failed. There's no reason to believe they'd succeed this time.
But wait, didn't I say something about games? Well, if you're selling a computer with a Cell in it already, along with a graphics card, (how long could it be before Apple starts offering Blu-ray on Mac Pros...), could they license PS3 compatibility from Sony? They wouldn't even have to license it, Sony could sell a PS3 compatibility client for Mac Pros. Before you say "Sony would never do that," remember that Sony loses money on each PS3- they're in this for market dominance, not hardware profits.
Charging $2200 for a gaming machine severely limits your market. Hell, Sony found out a couple years ago that charging $600 severely limits your market. Additionally, I don't think Apple and Sony have ever worked on anything together since the original Macintosh 3.5" floppy drive, so I don't really see that relationship happening.
My first post got modded down as "redundant", despite it not being responded to or re-stated anywhere else in the thread, so I'm going to ironically create a new posting.
Can you provide some examples of "DRM and restriction overload" in Vista? (That didn't already exist in XP.)
I can't speak for everyone, but some mornings I like to listen to Adam Corolla's show on 107.7 The End in Seattle. I couldn't listen to the live show with my iPod, just the day-old podcasts.
I have one. 80gb. It's pretty slick, bigger screen than my iPod, FM radio, and much longer battery life. (Given, the iPod was a couple years old, so its battery might have been dying.) It has nice controls, a good menu system (although it's a little weak in the playlist features compared to iTunes), and good smooth video playback. I haven't encountered any DRM issues yet, but I have a lot of DVD rips on it, so if this code gets added it might cause me problems. (Then again, this is Slashdot which frequently lies about the evils of DRM, so it's just as likely this code is completely innocent and won't change a thing.)
I like "power tools" There is no "undo" for a drill or a saw. There is no undo for hammer. I HATE the idea that everything that I try to use doesn't do what its told because someone wants to protect me from myself.
If you are unsure, use Gnome or KDE, they use a trash can metaphor that allows undelete. Otherwise, grow a pair and just be careful.
So don't use Undo if you don't want to use it. That doesn't have anything to do with whether it should exist or not.
I mean, if you want a really really hard game set the difficulty to "nightmare." If I don't, I can use "normal" and everybody's happy, right?
Yes, but everything should have it. The CLI too. In DOS, OS X Darwin, Linux, whatever. The option to Undo should *always* be available for *every* action (if technically possible; i.e. there's enough disk space left). Right now, the closest we have is OS X's Time Machine and Vista's Shadow Copy.
Yes, but if a hostile script ran in your user account, it would delete them "using the commandline" (i.e. programmatically) and they'd be gone forever. That was my point.
Windows Shadow Copy helps prevent this by keeping track of last revisions of files regardless of how they were deleted. OS X has "Time Machine" which provides much of the same capability.
Security experts on computers are always so concerned about "the system." Will a virus be able to corrupt your system files? Can a worm screw with the bootloader? Is the system secure? Screw the system. The system is worth maybe two hours, the amount of time it takes to reinstall, the only *really* important files in the computer are the ones the user creates and uses to run their life. Computer permissions are currently designed entirely bass-ackwards for home computers.
Wouldn't know, don't have one. Worse than other cross-platform tools as it seems to be Mac users are never happy with anything not native Mac?
Appearance is important, but more important is behavior. Most if not all cross-platform toolkits get a LOT of basic behaviors completely wrong, including Firefox. (Disclaimer: haven't been a heavy OS X user in about a year.)
For example, position the text cursor at the bottom of a multi-line text field, then hit the down arrow. What happens on Windows? What happens on OS X? How come your supposedly cross-platform toolkit gets this wrong?
The greatest feature of modern software is "Undo." Everything I can screw up on the computer should have an Undo-- that's what the Recycle Bin (or Trash Can for Mac users) is there for, although it's a bit more awkward than pressing control-Z.
Call it stupidity if you want, but my system files (you know, the ones that file permissions actually protect from malware) are worth approximately zero, and my personal files (the ones that malware can delete no question asked) are worth hundreds of man-hours, if not thousands, and ten times that in dollar value.
Windows Shadow Copy has an exact template on how to implement it, now go implement it.
(And yes, I keep backups, as should everybody. But there's no excuse not to use spare disk space as another layer of defense.)
M$ has some low-level employees who feel that their great company is insulted because somebody used a punctuation mark in an abbreviation and thus makes the horrible grivious insulting impression that M$ might have something to do with *money*, when in fact M$ is a totally benevolent act of god.
Of course, anybody who questions "M$" must be an employee. Probably paid specifically to post on Slashdot as an "astroturfer!"
Perhaps you're defining "computer software" as "Microsoft software." But even then, are you saying that Windows Vista has no innovative features over Windows 95 because they use a similar GUI? I don't understand your argument at all.
No, they're "investments that haven't paid off." Period. Full stop. And that's plenty of evidence that Ballmer's doing a bad job. In contrast, you have absolutely zero evidence for that "yet!"
No, I just hate all your pent-up anger over a media player and a video game console. You'd think the Xbox was specifically designed to kill endangered species and the Zune had a special chip to give cancer to orphans. Calm the hell down. Seriously.
Maybe the investments will pay off, and maybe they won't, but it's far to early to call. And considering the marketshare and mindshare the Xbox has pulled off in the few years its been around, I think it would be foolish to think it'll never pay off for Microsoft in any way.
But, I'm not as angry about it as you are. I just play my Zune on my way to work and my Xbox 360 at home, and I'm happy with both products.
What's your interest? Are you a stockholder, and you're upset with Ballmer's performance? I mean seriously, why do you care enough to get in shouting matches with people on Slashdot over the use of the word "yet?"
How many of the 14.65% for Vista are actual Vista installs and how many are just XP installs on Vista licenses?
If you install XP and use a Vista license, suddenly Vista begins telling websites that it's XP? Is that what you seriously believe? And if you use a corporate license, suddenly it tells websites that it's Windows 2000.
The OS version doesn't depend on what licenses key is used, that's ridiculous.
Second question, how do you get these numbers?
Google Analytics, it says right in his post. Christ.
Are they based on actual polling of the current number of users or this years sales figures?
Neither, it's based on web site visitors.
If it is the latter, Vista is actually doing pretty damn bad given the number of Vista OEMs.
You're just pulling things out of your ass to "ruin" this clear set of data that virtually everybody in the thread (with actual data!) agrees with.
To make the point short: Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed in is INCAPABLE of connecting to the INTERNET when installed on my desktop computer. Neither onboard LAN (standard nForce setup), nor wireless card (obscure brand) has any driver support without downloading it off the INTERNET. See the problem there? No such problem in Linux.
Oh, well, surely that disproves the experience of every single person on Slashdot who has tried Linux and couldn't get the goddamned wifi to work. Congratulations on owning the only computer on Earth, BTW, that Windows XP SP2 doesn't have driver support for.
My 14" iBook didn't sleep, and wifi didn't work when I installed Ubuntu. If Linux is really good at working on "arbitrary hardware" then it should be excellent working on iBooks, since they're all nearly identical, right? And yet it doesn't.
Seriously, I know this whole conversation is based on personal experiences, and obviously none of this is really statistically valid and, frankly, without statistics it's kind of stupid and pointless to talk about it. From my own personal experience, I've never had Linux fully support a computer I've owned, PC or Mac.
Oh crap, sorry to reply to myself but I just realized my numbers don't total to 100% because I forgot to include older versions of Windows. That missing 4.whatever percent are Windows versions older than Windows XP.
Lets see some numbers to back up those claims eh smarty pants?
I got some numbers. I just queried logs on a news site with a nice cross-section of users, and I came up with: 74.53% XP 10.78% Vista 8.91% Macintosh 0.82% Other (Linux, iPod, iPhone, Sun, Symbian, Unix, misc.)
And that data's about two weeks stale, so yes, Vista has become the number 2 OS in very short order.
Anyways, Vista may be "the 2nd most used OS in the world for desktop PC's", but how bout we compare its lifespan to ANY other OS release.
Uh... how? It hasn't been out as long as any other OS releases. (Except the latest OS X version, I suppose.) Are you suggesting we put this conversation "on hold" for 10 years so we'll know how many people are still using Vista at that time? Or... well, what the hell are you talking about?
I would still be using Windows 2000 if there werent a few select applications(mainly games) that I cant trick into running on it.
Ok, so you're a single geek who hates trying new things, to the extent you'll actually modify software to avoid upgrading. That says what about the computer market in general? Nothing.
I know there are several others out there who are the same.
Yes, and that still says nothing about the computer market in general. Congratulations on having a fan club, though.
Because there are lots of people using something doesn't mean its a quality product.
True. But it's also really stupid to call the second most popular OS in use today "a disaster."
An "Interesting" analysis from someone who can't even spell the word "Microsoft?" (Hint: $ isn't a letter in the English alphabet.) Needless-to-say, it's also entirely wrong about why Gates left Microsoft (damage to his personal reputation? that is some legendary ass-pulling there.)
Frankly, Ballmer isn't doing that bad a job running Microsoft. Seriously. So far all of the "evidence" against him has been people griping about making strategic investments that haven't paid off yet (like Xbox and Zune) and a single product that, which it's not a bad product, has some bad press. At least on Slashdot it does.
I'll be worried about Microsoft when they lay someone off. I'm pretty sure they've never done that in their entire history. Right now, they're doing just fine.
Not to mention the fact that Anime tend towards trying to make animation as real as possible,
The huh?
You'd think if anime was going for "as real as possible" they'd raise the budget above $100 an episode. And make the eyes smaller. And not draw giant beads of swear or red X-marks on people's foreheads. Or... any of the 14 million other reasons anime is about as far from real as possible (including the entire existence of Fooly Cooly.)
It's telling how you got two long, complex, multi-paragraph, responses when you were looking for a brand and model number. Christ, no wonder you can't get a concrete answer, if that's the best Slashdot can give you-- and you won't find any people who know more about Linux anywhere else on the web.
Anyway, this has always been an incredibly stupid argument. Windows is HORRIBLE with out of the box support for anything other than a very specific set of hardware.
Actually, the post you're responding to doesn't contain the word "Windows" or "Microsoft" at all. For all you know, the parent was comparing Linux hardware support to Mac OS X, Solaris, or a rotten orange peel at the bottom of his trashcan. You're the one who brought Windows into it, not the parent.
Of course, I agree with your first sentence: Your argument is incredibly stupid. You're basically arguing that Linux should stop improving once it reaches the point where, when any complaint it brought against it, you can respond "well Windows has the same problem!" Linux is never going to succeed on the desktop if it has all the same flaws that Windows does, duh!
Slashdot Mirror
It was SEGA demoing Super Monkey Ball, not Nintendo.
Why would Nintendo risk their own mobile gaming market (on the off-chance the iPod gaming scene ever took off)? They'd be sawing off their own foot, it makes no strategic sense.
In any case, we Mac users remember Game Sprockets. Apple's moved in this direction before, and they failed completely and utterly. Hell, Bungie (their main Game Sprockets partner) sold to Microsoft, that's how thoroughly they failed. There's no reason to believe they'd succeed this time.
But wait, didn't I say something about games? Well, if you're selling a computer with a Cell in it already, along with a graphics card, (how long could it be before Apple starts offering Blu-ray on Mac Pros...), could they license PS3 compatibility from Sony? They wouldn't even have to license it, Sony could sell a PS3 compatibility client for Mac Pros. Before you say "Sony would never do that," remember that Sony loses money on each PS3- they're in this for market dominance, not hardware profits.
Charging $2200 for a gaming machine severely limits your market. Hell, Sony found out a couple years ago that charging $600 severely limits your market. Additionally, I don't think Apple and Sony have ever worked on anything together since the original Macintosh 3.5" floppy drive, so I don't really see that relationship happening.
My first post got modded down as "redundant", despite it not being responded to or re-stated anywhere else in the thread, so I'm going to ironically create a new posting.
Can you provide some examples of "DRM and restriction overload" in Vista? (That didn't already exist in XP.)
I own Vista, and I've yet to see any sign of any DRM that wasn't already in XP (i.e. product activation.)
I repeatedly see this claim on Slashdot with absolutely NO evidence of the "DRM and restriction overload" I'm supposedly being faced with.
What, exactly, is the problem with DRM in Vista?
I can't speak for everyone, but some mornings I like to listen to Adam Corolla's show on 107.7 The End in Seattle. I couldn't listen to the live show with my iPod, just the day-old podcasts.
I have one. 80gb. It's pretty slick, bigger screen than my iPod, FM radio, and much longer battery life. (Given, the iPod was a couple years old, so its battery might have been dying.) It has nice controls, a good menu system (although it's a little weak in the playlist features compared to iTunes), and good smooth video playback. I haven't encountered any DRM issues yet, but I have a lot of DVD rips on it, so if this code gets added it might cause me problems. (Then again, this is Slashdot which frequently lies about the evils of DRM, so it's just as likely this code is completely innocent and won't change a thing.)
I didn't buy it, though, got it as a gift.
I like "power tools" There is no "undo" for a drill or a saw. There is no undo for hammer. I HATE the idea that everything that I try to use doesn't do what its told because someone wants to protect me from myself.
If you are unsure, use Gnome or KDE, they use a trash can metaphor that allows undelete. Otherwise, grow a pair and just be careful.
So don't use Undo if you don't want to use it. That doesn't have anything to do with whether it should exist or not.
I mean, if you want a really really hard game set the difficulty to "nightmare." If I don't, I can use "normal" and everybody's happy, right?
Yes, but everything should have it. The CLI too. In DOS, OS X Darwin, Linux, whatever. The option to Undo should *always* be available for *every* action (if technically possible; i.e. there's enough disk space left). Right now, the closest we have is OS X's Time Machine and Vista's Shadow Copy.
Yes, but if a hostile script ran in your user account, it would delete them "using the commandline" (i.e. programmatically) and they'd be gone forever. That was my point.
Windows Shadow Copy helps prevent this by keeping track of last revisions of files regardless of how they were deleted. OS X has "Time Machine" which provides much of the same capability.
Security experts on computers are always so concerned about "the system." Will a virus be able to corrupt your system files? Can a worm screw with the bootloader? Is the system secure? Screw the system. The system is worth maybe two hours, the amount of time it takes to reinstall, the only *really* important files in the computer are the ones the user creates and uses to run their life. Computer permissions are currently designed entirely bass-ackwards for home computers.
Wouldn't know, don't have one. Worse than other cross-platform tools as it seems to be Mac users are never happy with anything not native Mac?
Appearance is important, but more important is behavior. Most if not all cross-platform toolkits get a LOT of basic behaviors completely wrong, including Firefox. (Disclaimer: haven't been a heavy OS X user in about a year.)
For example, position the text cursor at the bottom of a multi-line text field, then hit the down arrow. What happens on Windows? What happens on OS X? How come your supposedly cross-platform toolkit gets this wrong?
Please.
The greatest feature of modern software is "Undo." Everything I can screw up on the computer should have an Undo-- that's what the Recycle Bin (or Trash Can for Mac users) is there for, although it's a bit more awkward than pressing control-Z.
Call it stupidity if you want, but my system files (you know, the ones that file permissions actually protect from malware) are worth approximately zero, and my personal files (the ones that malware can delete no question asked) are worth hundreds of man-hours, if not thousands, and ten times that in dollar value.
Windows Shadow Copy has an exact template on how to implement it, now go implement it.
(And yes, I keep backups, as should everybody. But there's no excuse not to use spare disk space as another layer of defense.)
M$ is a company in Seattle.
They're headquartered in Redmond, actually.
M$ has some low-level employees who feel that their great company is insulted because somebody used a punctuation mark in an abbreviation and thus makes the horrible grivious insulting impression that M$ might have something to do with *money*, when in fact M$ is a totally benevolent act of god.
Of course, anybody who questions "M$" must be an employee. Probably paid specifically to post on Slashdot as an "astroturfer!"
Perhaps you're defining "computer software" as "Microsoft software." But even then, are you saying that Windows Vista has no innovative features over Windows 95 because they use a similar GUI? I don't understand your argument at all.
No, they're "investments that haven't paid off." Period. Full stop. And that's plenty of evidence that Ballmer's doing a bad job. In contrast, you have absolutely zero evidence for that "yet!"
No, I just hate all your pent-up anger over a media player and a video game console. You'd think the Xbox was specifically designed to kill endangered species and the Zune had a special chip to give cancer to orphans. Calm the hell down. Seriously.
Maybe the investments will pay off, and maybe they won't, but it's far to early to call. And considering the marketshare and mindshare the Xbox has pulled off in the few years its been around, I think it would be foolish to think it'll never pay off for Microsoft in any way.
But, I'm not as angry about it as you are. I just play my Zune on my way to work and my Xbox 360 at home, and I'm happy with both products.
What's your interest? Are you a stockholder, and you're upset with Ballmer's performance? I mean seriously, why do you care enough to get in shouting matches with people on Slashdot over the use of the word "yet?"
How many of the 14.65% for Vista are actual Vista installs and how many are just XP installs on Vista licenses?
If you install XP and use a Vista license, suddenly Vista begins telling websites that it's XP? Is that what you seriously believe? And if you use a corporate license, suddenly it tells websites that it's Windows 2000.
The OS version doesn't depend on what licenses key is used, that's ridiculous.
Second question, how do you get these numbers?
Google Analytics, it says right in his post. Christ.
Are they based on actual polling of the current number of users or this years sales figures?
Neither, it's based on web site visitors.
If it is the latter, Vista is actually doing pretty damn bad given the number of Vista OEMs.
You're just pulling things out of your ass to "ruin" this clear set of data that virtually everybody in the thread (with actual data!) agrees with.
Face it, Vista is the second most popular OS.
To make the point short: Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed in is INCAPABLE of connecting to the INTERNET when installed on my desktop computer. Neither onboard LAN (standard nForce setup), nor wireless card (obscure brand) has any driver support without downloading it off the INTERNET. See the problem there? No such problem in Linux.
Oh, well, surely that disproves the experience of every single person on Slashdot who has tried Linux and couldn't get the goddamned wifi to work. Congratulations on owning the only computer on Earth, BTW, that Windows XP SP2 doesn't have driver support for.
My 14" iBook didn't sleep, and wifi didn't work when I installed Ubuntu. If Linux is really good at working on "arbitrary hardware" then it should be excellent working on iBooks, since they're all nearly identical, right? And yet it doesn't.
Seriously, I know this whole conversation is based on personal experiences, and obviously none of this is really statistically valid and, frankly, without statistics it's kind of stupid and pointless to talk about it. From my own personal experience, I've never had Linux fully support a computer I've owned, PC or Mac.
Oh crap, sorry to reply to myself but I just realized my numbers don't total to 100% because I forgot to include older versions of Windows. That missing 4.whatever percent are Windows versions older than Windows XP.
Lets see some numbers to back up those claims eh smarty pants?
... well, what the hell are you talking about?
I got some numbers. I just queried logs on a news site with a nice cross-section of users, and I came up with:
74.53% XP
10.78% Vista
8.91% Macintosh
0.82% Other (Linux, iPod, iPhone, Sun, Symbian, Unix, misc.)
And that data's about two weeks stale, so yes, Vista has become the number 2 OS in very short order.
Anyways, Vista may be "the 2nd most used OS in the world for desktop PC's", but how bout we compare its lifespan to ANY other OS release.
Uh... how? It hasn't been out as long as any other OS releases. (Except the latest OS X version, I suppose.) Are you suggesting we put this conversation "on hold" for 10 years so we'll know how many people are still using Vista at that time? Or
I would still be using Windows 2000 if there werent a few select applications(mainly games) that I cant trick into running on it.
Ok, so you're a single geek who hates trying new things, to the extent you'll actually modify software to avoid upgrading. That says what about the computer market in general? Nothing.
I know there are several others out there who are the same.
Yes, and that still says nothing about the computer market in general. Congratulations on having a fan club, though.
Because there are lots of people using something doesn't mean its a quality product.
True. But it's also really stupid to call the second most popular OS in use today "a disaster."
An "Interesting" analysis from someone who can't even spell the word "Microsoft?" (Hint: $ isn't a letter in the English alphabet.) Needless-to-say, it's also entirely wrong about why Gates left Microsoft (damage to his personal reputation? that is some legendary ass-pulling there.)
Frankly, Ballmer isn't doing that bad a job running Microsoft. Seriously. So far all of the "evidence" against him has been people griping about making strategic investments that haven't paid off yet (like Xbox and Zune) and a single product that, which it's not a bad product, has some bad press. At least on Slashdot it does.
I'll be worried about Microsoft when they lay someone off. I'm pretty sure they've never done that in their entire history. Right now, they're doing just fine.
Microsoft has set back innovation in computer software by decades,
How do you figure/calculate that?
I've heard this a couple times on this site, and I'd like to hear an explanation.
Not to mention the fact that Anime tend towards trying to make animation as real as possible,
... any of the 14 million other reasons anime is about as far from real as possible (including the entire existence of Fooly Cooly.)
The huh?
You'd think if anime was going for "as real as possible" they'd raise the budget above $100 an episode. And make the eyes smaller. And not draw giant beads of swear or red X-marks on people's foreheads. Or
It's telling how you got two long, complex, multi-paragraph, responses when you were looking for a brand and model number. Christ, no wonder you can't get a concrete answer, if that's the best Slashdot can give you-- and you won't find any people who know more about Linux anywhere else on the web.
It looks like the real answer is: "nobody knows."
Apparently switching to Linux broke his Enter key!
Anyway, this has always been an incredibly stupid argument. Windows is HORRIBLE with out of the box support for anything other than a very specific set of hardware.
Actually, the post you're responding to doesn't contain the word "Windows" or "Microsoft" at all. For all you know, the parent was comparing Linux hardware support to Mac OS X, Solaris, or a rotten orange peel at the bottom of his trashcan. You're the one who brought Windows into it, not the parent.
Of course, I agree with your first sentence: Your argument is incredibly stupid. You're basically arguing that Linux should stop improving once it reaches the point where, when any complaint it brought against it, you can respond "well Windows has the same problem!" Linux is never going to succeed on the desktop if it has all the same flaws that Windows does, duh!
I think Charles Kane can afford to fund OLPC for awhile using the income from his newspaper empire.
It's sad the Tomb Raider reference comes before the Citizen Kane reference. Philistines! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane