Wow, typo-riffic. I meant to say the USSR tried *for decades*.
Anyway, point still applies: if you want to solve a problem, you need to find a solution that works in this reality. If your solution relies on mutant humans who don't behave like normal humans, or a time machine, or some kind of sci-fi technology, it's unworkable.
If your solution to the problem involves changing people's behavior, you'll never solve the problem. The USSR tried for dictators to get rid of consumerism, and it didn't work-- despite having the power to send anybody to a prison camp.
What makes you think you'll succeed at your little plan here?
It's impossible to talk games on Slashdot, because everybody on Slashdot is:
1) Completely ignorant of the games market. (Like the guy who asked for a remake of Aliens vs. Predator using 2010 technology-- you know, like the one that came out 8 months ago!)
2) Don't play modern games, or, rather, they *think* they play modern games, but they define "modern" as "Unreal 2.0 games". I get the sense they're all too busy playing Quake 1 and Nethack and nothing else.
3) Are so consumed by nostalgia that, inevitably, the modern games they've played always are going to suck compared to the older games.
Is Bioshock the same game as System Shock? No, of course not. Does it fill the same niche? Yes.
Look, the real point is: there's no point in remaking Bioshock (or Aliens vs. Predator, or Daggerfall), because its genre is alive and well. Many classic games are not. If you're going to ask a studio to sink millions of dollars into a remake, ask them to remake something you can't just go to the store and buy right now.
And even if a studio spent millions, created an accurate remake of System Shock, released it on every reasonable platform at a reasonable price, you know what Slashdot would say? "It sucks." You know how I know that? Because that exact scenario happened a couple years ago with Fallout 3.
This forum is so full of nostalgia-riddled gamers, and "gamers" who read and post here but don't actually play games, that here's really no point in discussing it. I should have anticipated your reply.
It was solid after about... a year or so. The release was a complete disaster--
* it didn't work at all on a significant percentage of computers, on the rest the maps chugged enough to make your high-end machine look like a Commodore-64. It didn't work reliably on a given computer for at least 6 months after release.
* They spent GOD KNOWS how many thousands of man-hours installing misguided "community" features, none of which any players actually wanted, and most of which they had to remove to get a ESRB certification anyway.
* They *never* got the wheeled physics working right-- the deployable base only worked because it was so fucking slow (and even then it was prone to getting stuck and spontaneously exploding), the motorcycles and tanks became "hovercycles" and "hovertanks" because that was easier than fixing the physics properly.
* And in addition to that, the game had *fewer* features than most Tribes 1 mods. I will say that Tribes 2 Base was more fun than Tribes 1 Base, but who was playing Base?
Eventually they fixed all these problems, but by that time the community was dead... moved on to other games, which actually worked correctly. (Or just sticking with Tribes 1.) They fatally injured their own fanbase through buggy releases.
There's also Global Agenda, which is already out. The developers of Global Agenda have successfully obtained the license for the next Tribes game, so I'm hoping for good things.
I never heard of Firefall, but you should check out Global Agenda.
Tribes 1 with the Shifter V.1 mod was much better than Tribes 2. I always said Tribes 2 *should* have been the Shifter mod with new graphics, bam, game done.
Tribes 2's real claim to fame is "most botched game sequel ever."
More and more Japanese game studios and publishers are looking toward the West. But as the industry becomes more global, is this really such a bad thing?
Are we supposed to assume that's a bad thing? What's the connection between the first sentence here and the second? I'm so confused...
Because you can hack together a close approximation of a feature that's in an unreleased upcoming kernel? A feature that every other OS has had for 3+ years now?
Old legends never die. They just get repeated over and over until people treat them like fact...
Windows used DOS as a bootloader; once Windows was booted, if there were no DOS TSRs or 16-bit drivers it needed for compatibility purposes, it killed-off DOS entirely. Which is... something about 99% of systems from about 1998 on. (Windows 95 systems usually still had DOS CD drivers.)
Think about the alternative if they hadn't implemented it that way: nobody can run Windows 95 without buying brand new hardware with 32-bit drivers. They wouldn't have sold a single copy.
I mean, I guess if you see "ran on top of" meaning "bootloader", then your statement is technically correct, although really misleading. Not that you'd care about that, since you're only here to bash Microsoft.
Am I having major deja-vu or was this discussed on Slashdot before?
I'm Googling it, but I'm not finding anything... but I swear this exact blog posting has been discussed before. And yes, I came to the same conclusion before: 1) IE removing dead-code = good (whether or not you call it "cheating".) 2) IE not removing dead-code for a near-identical function = bad 3) The most likely explanation is that the algorithm for removing dead-code was written based on the SunSpider tests 4) I don't see that as constituting "cheating", since... well, see #1
Your president has the power to pardon anyone he likes for any reason, completely outside the judiciary.
Yes.
Your president has just decided that it's not politically expedient to allow some 200 people accused of terrorism a fair trial. So instead he'll just allow them to be held indefinitely without charge. Even China has the decency to charge their political prisoners with a crime and giving them a day in court.
I'm sorry, you'd rather have show trials, like China's?
Look, the people in Gitmo were in a weirdly bad situation. They aren't uniformed soldiers. They aren't US Citizens. They *are* a huge threat to US Citizens... what the hell are we supposed to do? We can't take them as POWs because they aren't unformed soldiers and there's no declared war. We can't run them through the US legal system because they aren't US citizens.
Is our solution wrong and bad? Possibly, yes. But what were we *supposed* to do in this situation? Say "oh you're not US Citizens... go ahead, carry on" and ignore them?
Your president can order anyone he likes - US citizen or not - to be placed on a "kill list", which gives the CIA the authority to kill them without any judicial oversight. Don't even bother mentioning a fair trial.
Slashdot Mirror
First we need to get that toothbrush mustache back. Then we can focus on the swastikas!
Incidentally, I lost access completely to my work's Exchange server after they enabled provisioning, as did everyone using Android.
Why? Android supports it. Well, 2.x Android does at least... I haven't used older versions.
Wow, typo-riffic. I meant to say the USSR tried *for decades*.
Anyway, point still applies: if you want to solve a problem, you need to find a solution that works in this reality. If your solution relies on mutant humans who don't behave like normal humans, or a time machine, or some kind of sci-fi technology, it's unworkable.
If your solution to the problem involves changing people's behavior, you'll never solve the problem. The USSR tried for dictators to get rid of consumerism, and it didn't work-- despite having the power to send anybody to a prison camp.
What makes you think you'll succeed at your little plan here?
I have a cat who figured out the laser pointer. When I try to use it, she just stares at my hand with a look that says, "seriously?"
It's impossible to talk games on Slashdot, because everybody on Slashdot is:
1) Completely ignorant of the games market. (Like the guy who asked for a remake of Aliens vs. Predator using 2010 technology-- you know, like the one that came out 8 months ago!)
2) Don't play modern games, or, rather, they *think* they play modern games, but they define "modern" as "Unreal 2.0 games". I get the sense they're all too busy playing Quake 1 and Nethack and nothing else.
3) Are so consumed by nostalgia that, inevitably, the modern games they've played always are going to suck compared to the older games.
Is Bioshock the same game as System Shock? No, of course not. Does it fill the same niche? Yes.
Look, the real point is: there's no point in remaking Bioshock (or Aliens vs. Predator, or Daggerfall), because its genre is alive and well. Many classic games are not. If you're going to ask a studio to sink millions of dollars into a remake, ask them to remake something you can't just go to the store and buy right now.
And even if a studio spent millions, created an accurate remake of System Shock, released it on every reasonable platform at a reasonable price, you know what Slashdot would say? "It sucks." You know how I know that? Because that exact scenario happened a couple years ago with Fallout 3.
This forum is so full of nostalgia-riddled gamers, and "gamers" who read and post here but don't actually play games, that here's really no point in discussing it. I should have anticipated your reply.
I think another Aliens vs Predator with Crysis class tech could be good.
Uh, didn't that come out in February?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_vs._Predator_(video_game)
Or are you doing a gag, and I missed the joke?
Halo has absolutely nothing to do with Tribes... it's an extension of Bungie's previous Marathon series (which also had nothing to do with Tribes.)
The *only* thing Halo and Tribes have in common is power armor, but dozens of games have that.
Anyway, Global Agenda kind of gives the Tribes feel right now, but it's pretty small-scale. (8x8 matches max. Tribes could handle 64 players.)
I think Bioshock, which is alive and well, kind of fills that niche, don't you?
It was solid after about... a year or so. The release was a complete disaster--
* it didn't work at all on a significant percentage of computers, on the rest the maps chugged enough to make your high-end machine look like a Commodore-64. It didn't work reliably on a given computer for at least 6 months after release.
* They spent GOD KNOWS how many thousands of man-hours installing misguided "community" features, none of which any players actually wanted, and most of which they had to remove to get a ESRB certification anyway.
* They *never* got the wheeled physics working right-- the deployable base only worked because it was so fucking slow (and even then it was prone to getting stuck and spontaneously exploding), the motorcycles and tanks became "hovercycles" and "hovertanks" because that was easier than fixing the physics properly.
* And in addition to that, the game had *fewer* features than most Tribes 1 mods. I will say that Tribes 2 Base was more fun than Tribes 1 Base, but who was playing Base?
Eventually they fixed all these problems, but by that time the community was dead... moved on to other games, which actually worked correctly. (Or just sticking with Tribes 1.) They fatally injured their own fanbase through buggy releases.
A sane person who bought Tribes 2 would not also buy Tribes: Vengeance. Therefore, I've never played it.
There's also Global Agenda, which is already out. The developers of Global Agenda have successfully obtained the license for the next Tribes game, so I'm hoping for good things.
I never heard of Firefall, but you should check out Global Agenda.
Tribes 1 with the Shifter V.1 mod was much better than Tribes 2. I always said Tribes 2 *should* have been the Shifter mod with new graphics, bam, game done.
Tribes 2's real claim to fame is "most botched game sequel ever."
More and more Japanese game studios and publishers are looking toward the West. But as the industry becomes more global, is this really such a bad thing?
Are we supposed to assume that's a bad thing? What's the connection between the first sentence here and the second? I'm so confused...
Because you can hack together a close approximation of a feature that's in an unreleased upcoming kernel? A feature that every other OS has had for 3+ years now?
Yah, I'm bowled over.
That's your defense? Seriously? That's, that's the best thing you got?
Old legends never die. They just get repeated over and over until people treat them like fact...
Windows used DOS as a bootloader; once Windows was booted, if there were no DOS TSRs or 16-bit drivers it needed for compatibility purposes, it killed-off DOS entirely. Which is... something about 99% of systems from about 1998 on. (Windows 95 systems usually still had DOS CD drivers.)
Think about the alternative if they hadn't implemented it that way: nobody can run Windows 95 without buying brand new hardware with 32-bit drivers. They wouldn't have sold a single copy.
I mean, I guess if you see "ran on top of" meaning "bootloader", then your statement is technically correct, although really misleading. Not that you'd care about that, since you're only here to bash Microsoft.
With apologies to Red Dwarf, I think his primary goal is really to become the slobbiest entity in the universe.
Am I having major deja-vu or was this discussed on Slashdot before?
I'm Googling it, but I'm not finding anything... but I swear this exact blog posting has been discussed before. And yes, I came to the same conclusion before:
1) IE removing dead-code = good (whether or not you call it "cheating".)
2) IE not removing dead-code for a near-identical function = bad
3) The most likely explanation is that the algorithm for removing dead-code was written based on the SunSpider tests
4) I don't see that as constituting "cheating", since... well, see #1
and confused replies routinely get interpreted as unfunny sarcasm and moderated down as Troll or Overrated.
How do replies with extremely long, boring and pedantic "corrections" of obvious jokes fare?
Aw, you've finally learned that capitalization matters! How's your uncle Jack?
OpenOffice is bloated but it is supposed to be. It's feature rich and designed to be an alternative to the 800lb Gorilla known as Microsoft Office,
The problem isn't that it's bloated. The problem is that it's *more* bloated than Microsoft Office, and has fewer features.
Your president has the power to pardon anyone he likes for any reason, completely outside the judiciary.
Yes.
Your president has just decided that it's not politically expedient to allow some 200 people accused of terrorism a fair trial. So instead he'll just allow them to be held indefinitely without charge. Even China has the decency to charge their political prisoners with a crime and giving them a day in court.
I'm sorry, you'd rather have show trials, like China's?
Look, the people in Gitmo were in a weirdly bad situation. They aren't uniformed soldiers. They aren't US Citizens. They *are* a huge threat to US Citizens... what the hell are we supposed to do? We can't take them as POWs because they aren't unformed soldiers and there's no declared war. We can't run them through the US legal system because they aren't US citizens.
Is our solution wrong and bad? Possibly, yes. But what were we *supposed* to do in this situation? Say "oh you're not US Citizens... go ahead, carry on" and ignore them?
Your president can order anyone he likes - US citizen or not - to be placed on a "kill list", which gives the CIA the authority to kill them without any judicial oversight. Don't even bother mentioning a fair trial.
Wrong.
Ironically enough I reskilled from C# and other .NET oddities to PHP a few years ago purely out of personal preference.
You like PHP better than C#.net? Are you INSANE!?
My advice: do not listen to the ramblings of an OBVIOUSLY INSANE man.