What bothers me most is that Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, which I bought maybe a month before I bought my 360, I can't play on my 360.
I don't really mind the 360 not being able to play titles like Panzer Dragoon Orta (as it was basically a release title for the original Xbox, IMO, it should be near last-priority), but it should *certainly* be able to play all original Xbox titles released *after* the 360 was released! If only to not confuse shoppers looking for new games.
So now I can't pack up my old Xbox until they either add PoP: TT support, or I beat the game. Annoying.
That said, Panzer Dragoon Orta is an *awesome* game, and I wouldn't mind seeing it in 360-style HDTV or playing through it at least once more.
It's like the HAL -> IBM thing in Clarke and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both men have denied, over and over and over again, that HAL was any attempt to spoof IBM, and that the acronym stood for "Heuristic ALgorithmic" and the match up with IBM was nothing but coincidence.
It doesn't stop morons from repeating the HAL -> IBM every goddamned time you read anything about the book/movie, though.
OS X is that easy, with the caveat that the updates come on DVD and you have to stick the disk in first and double-click the icon.
But anyway, if the GUI way is so easy... why would you bother giving the techie instructions? "Click update" is going to be a hell of a lot faster than opening a terminal window, whether or not you're a techie. So why bother with the sudo crap?
This is pretty much my entire criticism of Linux users: they always recommend the hard way of doing things so they can look 1337 and get geekcred or whatever. It's basically the "high priesthood of technology" all over again.
That's true, EXCEPT there are always GPL supporters here on Slashdot and other places that try to convince me that GPL licensing is "more free" than BSD licensing or stuff in the public domain, which is pure bunk.
You mean like Syberia? Syberia II? The Longest Journey? Dreamfall?
There are plenty of adventure games still being made, most of which are very high quality. The problem is that the people like you who constantly say "bring back graphical adventure games!" don't actually go to the store and buy them. If you really cared about adventures one iota, you'd know that there's a half-dozen adventure games released a year, at least.
I'm guessing you've never played Conker's Bad Fur Day or Metal Arms. They're comedic games. I'd also add to the list Whiplash, a game about an insane weasel tied to an invulnerable rabbit which made me crack up in many different places.
He's not saying the protests against sex in games are *effective* or *ideal*, he's just explaining *why* people do it. Since so many Slashdotters apparently don't get it.
There are tons and tons of non-violent games. I was playing Spyro the Dragon on Xbox just a couple days ago. And note that I'm in my late 20s, and single, and I still find it fun as hell to play despite being non-violent.
In short, if you have a gripe, gripe with consumers that the violent games are more popular and therefore get more press, both positive and negative.
I've lived in both western and eastern Washington. My assertion is that when they were splitting up the territories, they did it in the wrong direction; Washington should be a long narrow state like California, entirely west of the Cascades, and Oregon should be a bigger yet less-populous state east of the Cascades. Then each state would probably have a much easier time governing itself. But alas.
I wouldn't buy one simply because I had no need to watch DVD movies on my PC and both my CD drives still worked just fine. No sense in tossing out a CD drive that works great.
BS. UT2004 comes shipped on 6 CDs (if you buy the CD version instead of the DVD version) and even with a huge amount of compression, there's no way it comes even remotely close to 22 GB of data. I doubt it's more than 6 GB. You must have a huge amount of mods, more than the original install by several times. Or perhaps all the patches you downloaded are stored in there somewhere... either way, the game isn't even remotely close to 22 GB
Oh, and you know what? UT2004 was ported (more or less) to original Xbox-- look at Unreal Championship-- and it fits easily on a single 9GB DVD.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this point, except for a few things:
1) There's no difference between everybody in the game calling you Gordon, or everybody in the game calling you Arbiter/Master Chief. Additionally, I don't think there's a difference between everybody calling you Gordon or the camera pulling back to show that you are controlling Arbiter/Master Chief... either way immersion is busted, because you're reminded that it's not YOU in the game, but just a character you control.
If you really want to be the character, a game like System Shock 2 is superior because it makes no assumptions about what your character is (unless you're doing multiplayer.) Doom 3 only makes the assumption that your character is male and Caucasian, but nothing more than that (and the part that shows that is about 15 seconds at the very beginning that they should have cut.) All the Elder Scrolls games are excellent at this, as well, with fantasy races to represent almost every race, and many appearance options to change.
2) MMORPGs? Yikes. I've never seen a MMORPG with even the slightest bit of immersion. Partly because characters can clip right through each other willy-nilly. Partly because the games are so focused on numbers and dice rolls. But mostly because most of the players are morons who shout, "WTB ELVIS WIG HAHAHA" on global chat channels.
It's the same logic as saying that including x.cpp requiring me to release the source to my entire project somehow gives me more "freedom" than public domain code I can include without condition. It's all 1984-esque double-think.
Why shouldn't I be free to use DRM if I want to for my own products? What the hell business is it of Stallman's what I do with *my* computer and *my* files? (Or what Apple does with their iTunes servers and iTunes files, for that matter?)
I'm goddamned sick of this misuse of the word "free." Adding the restriction that you can't include the source file without releasing the source of your own program makes me LESS free, not more. Similarly, the restriction that if I include that source file, I can't use my program to handle DRMed files.
1) This Precision 340 is well over 2 years old. Dell has been putting the model name/number on the front of the case for as long as I've been buying them.
2) Dell computers, at least all the ones we've purchased recently, have come with a Windows XP CD and a separate Restore Disk. If you want to JUST install Windows with no drivers, you can use the XP CD. Then when you need drivers, you can put in the Restore Disk and install only the drivers you need from it. Or, you can eschew the Restore Disk and just go to Dell's site and download them.
Look, I agree it's not trivial to get a Windows XP install up and running, and it's something that should never have to be done more than once, but don't give me that 4 hour FUD.
So? If artists wouldn't sign contracts with these companies that send everyone to the Four Seasons, those companies would be forced to tighten the belt and compete more fairly. What they're doing now isn't wrong at all; they're selling a service (music promotion, production, distribution) and artists are 'buying' it.
Maybe the artist is getting swindled, maybe they could get the same service elsewhere for less money... but that is the *artists* decision to make. Like it or not, they *voluntarily* signed up with this big Four Seasons-staying record label.
If I want to use DRM for some of my data, why shouldn't I be able to? It's just a technology, a tool, like anything else. Say I'm doing some designing for a business, and I want to show them what my design looks like but not allow them to print it out (because I suspect they might steal it and use it without paying me.) How am I going to accomplish that without DRM?
The problem is that the complaint is too broad... it's not DRM that's the issue; DRM is just a technology, equally usable by everybody to solve their problems. If I want to use DRM for something, I should be able to, and screw the FSF if they think I shouldn't.
It reminds me of the people on this site and elsewhere who protest against RFID tags. RFID tags are harmless; they're just barcodes you can read from a short distance. What they're *really* protesting against is tracking consumers-- but you can track consumers without using RFID tags; Safeway has been doing it for years now.
Yeah. Of all the "domain squatting sucks" posts (5 on the front page, as of this count, none of them marked "redundant"), I suppose yours is above average. But god I get sick of reading the same goddamned thing over and over and over again... especially when I can tell from the question that I'll be reading them over and over and over again. It's obvious that the Slashdot moderation system doesn't work, or at least doesn't work well.
But seriously, if people don't have anything relevant to add to the question, then they shouldn't post. And if they do, moderators should mark it either off-topic or redundant, as needed. The question is, "what's the best way to negotiate a price?" not "please Slashdot, tell me how much you hate domain squatters for the ten-thousandth time, please!?"
Ok, 99.9%. But that doesn't really change my point; either way, the *majority* of Kerry voters were voting against Bush, and the majority of Bush voters were voting for Bush, and therefore it's more correct for Bush to be in office right now.
If the Democrats had some balls and had run Dean, I might have had a little bit more respect for that campaign.
It's written ON THE FRONT OF THE CASE. I have a Dell sitting not three yards from me, and on the front of the case it clearly says: "Dell Precision 340". The front of the case! Right by the power button used to turn the damned thing on! If the people you're doing tech support for are too stupid to read, and/or if you're too stupid to read yourself, I recommend just giving up on it now-- it's hopeless.
Really digging at the bottom of the barrel to come up with a counter-argument, aren't you?
First of all, I think your problem is that you're putting too much faith in the media which is always pessimistic and pretty much hates everything. There's a good chance that there's more than a little anti-American sentiment already in play in New Zealand, and the media's going to just glom on to that and inflate it as far as it can go.
Secondly, we're a hell of a lot less spied-upon than, say, the UK is. And we're a hell of a lot less deluded than, for instance, Iran.
Thirdly, last time I was in New Zealand, most of the news centered around the "brain drain"-- i.e. college professors leaving the islands in droves. There was also quite a bit of news about your pot-smoking MP. Is he still around? Point is, no country is perfect, and having studied the governments of both the US and New Zealand, I would say that he US system of checks and balances is superior to the kiwi equivalent.
You're welcome to your opinion of course, but try to lay off the doom and gloom, eh?
You're going to get flamed to hell and back on Slashdot for saying that. That said, I agree with you completely and I've also voted for Bush twice.
Al Gore is a single-minded environmental whackjob, as far as I can see. Fark is linking to an article about his new film (about how the world is going to end tomorrow because I drive a gas powered car) stating that there are lies in the film, that Al Gore *knows* there are lies in the film, and that he doesn't care because it serves a "higher purpose." Uh, what? So Gore just purposely puts himself in the footsteps of Michael Moore? Great move, there.
The second election I look at like this (complete with simplified New Math):
Most of the people voting *for* Kerry were actually voting *against* Bush and not necessarily for anything. Let's say that 75% of the Kerry voters were just voting against Bush. That means that only 25% of Kerry voters wanted Kerry in office. On the other hand, 100% of those who voted for Bush actually want Bush in office, and Bush gets 50% of the votes.
So we could either have a President that 50% of the voters actually wanted, or a President that only 12.5% of the voters actually wanted... makes more sense to go with the majority decision and vote for Bush in this situation.
Ok, yes, we know Slashdot hates domain squatters, yes, yes, but stop posting the same damned thing over and over again! And moderators, stop moderating every single goddamned one to +5! We only need to see it once, everything after that is redundant.
Slashdot Mirror
What bothers me most is that Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, which I bought maybe a month before I bought my 360, I can't play on my 360.
I don't really mind the 360 not being able to play titles like Panzer Dragoon Orta (as it was basically a release title for the original Xbox, IMO, it should be near last-priority), but it should *certainly* be able to play all original Xbox titles released *after* the 360 was released! If only to not confuse shoppers looking for new games.
So now I can't pack up my old Xbox until they either add PoP: TT support, or I beat the game. Annoying.
That said, Panzer Dragoon Orta is an *awesome* game, and I wouldn't mind seeing it in 360-style HDTV or playing through it at least once more.
It's like the HAL -> IBM thing in Clarke and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both men have denied, over and over and over again, that HAL was any attempt to spoof IBM, and that the acronym stood for "Heuristic ALgorithmic" and the match up with IBM was nothing but coincidence.
It doesn't stop morons from repeating the HAL -> IBM every goddamned time you read anything about the book/movie, though.
OS X is that easy, with the caveat that the updates come on DVD and you have to stick the disk in first and double-click the icon.
But anyway, if the GUI way is so easy... why would you bother giving the techie instructions? "Click update" is going to be a hell of a lot faster than opening a terminal window, whether or not you're a techie. So why bother with the sudo crap?
This is pretty much my entire criticism of Linux users: they always recommend the hard way of doing things so they can look 1337 and get geekcred or whatever. It's basically the "high priesthood of technology" all over again.
That's true, EXCEPT there are always GPL supporters here on Slashdot and other places that try to convince me that GPL licensing is "more free" than BSD licensing or stuff in the public domain, which is pure bunk.
You mean like Syberia? Syberia II? The Longest Journey? Dreamfall?
There are plenty of adventure games still being made, most of which are very high quality. The problem is that the people like you who constantly say "bring back graphical adventure games!" don't actually go to the store and buy them. If you really cared about adventures one iota, you'd know that there's a half-dozen adventure games released a year, at least.
I'm guessing you've never played Conker's Bad Fur Day or Metal Arms. They're comedic games. I'd also add to the list Whiplash, a game about an insane weasel tied to an invulnerable rabbit which made me crack up in many different places.
He's not saying the protests against sex in games are *effective* or *ideal*, he's just explaining *why* people do it. Since so many Slashdotters apparently don't get it.
There are tons and tons of non-violent games. I was playing Spyro the Dragon on Xbox just a couple days ago. And note that I'm in my late 20s, and single, and I still find it fun as hell to play despite being non-violent.
In short, if you have a gripe, gripe with consumers that the violent games are more popular and therefore get more press, both positive and negative.
Online casinos are all overseas. You're not benefitting any local economy by gambling in them.
Not that I disagree with you; I think this is a moronic law. I'm just pointing out that the 'contributing to the economy' argument doesn't hold water.
I've lived in both western and eastern Washington. My assertion is that when they were splitting up the territories, they did it in the wrong direction; Washington should be a long narrow state like California, entirely west of the Cascades, and Oregon should be a bigger yet less-populous state east of the Cascades. Then each state would probably have a much easier time governing itself. But alas.
I'm actually surprised that Washington of all places was the first to pass this bill.
With our thousands of tribal casinos? This bill is pretty obvious when you think about that particular Washington industry and their lobbying efforts.
I wouldn't buy one simply because I had no need to watch DVD movies on my PC and both my CD drives still worked just fine. No sense in tossing out a CD drive that works great.
BS. UT2004 comes shipped on 6 CDs (if you buy the CD version instead of the DVD version) and even with a huge amount of compression, there's no way it comes even remotely close to 22 GB of data. I doubt it's more than 6 GB. You must have a huge amount of mods, more than the original install by several times. Or perhaps all the patches you downloaded are stored in there somewhere... either way, the game isn't even remotely close to 22 GB
Oh, and you know what? UT2004 was ported (more or less) to original Xbox-- look at Unreal Championship-- and it fits easily on a single 9GB DVD.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this point, except for a few things:
1) There's no difference between everybody in the game calling you Gordon, or everybody in the game calling you Arbiter/Master Chief. Additionally, I don't think there's a difference between everybody calling you Gordon or the camera pulling back to show that you are controlling Arbiter/Master Chief... either way immersion is busted, because you're reminded that it's not YOU in the game, but just a character you control.
If you really want to be the character, a game like System Shock 2 is superior because it makes no assumptions about what your character is (unless you're doing multiplayer.) Doom 3 only makes the assumption that your character is male and Caucasian, but nothing more than that (and the part that shows that is about 15 seconds at the very beginning that they should have cut.) All the Elder Scrolls games are excellent at this, as well, with fantasy races to represent almost every race, and many appearance options to change.
2) MMORPGs? Yikes. I've never seen a MMORPG with even the slightest bit of immersion. Partly because characters can clip right through each other willy-nilly. Partly because the games are so focused on numbers and dice rolls. But mostly because most of the players are morons who shout, "WTB ELVIS WIG HAHAHA" on global chat channels.
It's the same logic as saying that including x.cpp requiring me to release the source to my entire project somehow gives me more "freedom" than public domain code I can include without condition. It's all 1984-esque double-think.
Why shouldn't I be free to use DRM if I want to for my own products? What the hell business is it of Stallman's what I do with *my* computer and *my* files? (Or what Apple does with their iTunes servers and iTunes files, for that matter?)
I'm goddamned sick of this misuse of the word "free." Adding the restriction that you can't include the source file without releasing the source of your own program makes me LESS free, not more. Similarly, the restriction that if I include that source file, I can't use my program to handle DRMed files.
1) This Precision 340 is well over 2 years old. Dell has been putting the model name/number on the front of the case for as long as I've been buying them.
2) Dell computers, at least all the ones we've purchased recently, have come with a Windows XP CD and a separate Restore Disk. If you want to JUST install Windows with no drivers, you can use the XP CD. Then when you need drivers, you can put in the Restore Disk and install only the drivers you need from it. Or, you can eschew the Restore Disk and just go to Dell's site and download them.
Look, I agree it's not trivial to get a Windows XP install up and running, and it's something that should never have to be done more than once, but don't give me that 4 hour FUD.
So? If artists wouldn't sign contracts with these companies that send everyone to the Four Seasons, those companies would be forced to tighten the belt and compete more fairly. What they're doing now isn't wrong at all; they're selling a service (music promotion, production, distribution) and artists are 'buying' it.
Maybe the artist is getting swindled, maybe they could get the same service elsewhere for less money... but that is the *artists* decision to make. Like it or not, they *voluntarily* signed up with this big Four Seasons-staying record label.
If I want to use DRM for some of my data, why shouldn't I be able to? It's just a technology, a tool, like anything else. Say I'm doing some designing for a business, and I want to show them what my design looks like but not allow them to print it out (because I suspect they might steal it and use it without paying me.) How am I going to accomplish that without DRM?
The problem is that the complaint is too broad... it's not DRM that's the issue; DRM is just a technology, equally usable by everybody to solve their problems. If I want to use DRM for something, I should be able to, and screw the FSF if they think I shouldn't.
It reminds me of the people on this site and elsewhere who protest against RFID tags. RFID tags are harmless; they're just barcodes you can read from a short distance. What they're *really* protesting against is tracking consumers-- but you can track consumers without using RFID tags; Safeway has been doing it for years now.
Yeah. Of all the "domain squatting sucks" posts (5 on the front page, as of this count, none of them marked "redundant"), I suppose yours is above average. But god I get sick of reading the same goddamned thing over and over and over again... especially when I can tell from the question that I'll be reading them over and over and over again. It's obvious that the Slashdot moderation system doesn't work, or at least doesn't work well.
But seriously, if people don't have anything relevant to add to the question, then they shouldn't post. And if they do, moderators should mark it either off-topic or redundant, as needed. The question is, "what's the best way to negotiate a price?" not "please Slashdot, tell me how much you hate domain squatters for the ten-thousandth time, please!?"
Ok, 99.9%. But that doesn't really change my point; either way, the *majority* of Kerry voters were voting against Bush, and the majority of Bush voters were voting for Bush, and therefore it's more correct for Bush to be in office right now.
If the Democrats had some balls and had run Dean, I might have had a little bit more respect for that campaign.
It's written ON THE FRONT OF THE CASE. I have a Dell sitting not three yards from me, and on the front of the case it clearly says: "Dell Precision 340". The front of the case! Right by the power button used to turn the damned thing on! If the people you're doing tech support for are too stupid to read, and/or if you're too stupid to read yourself, I recommend just giving up on it now-- it's hopeless.
Really digging at the bottom of the barrel to come up with a counter-argument, aren't you?
I thought that was extraordinarily boring. At least traditional cut scenes:
1) have dynamic visuals and editing, so they're not dull to watch
2) are skippable.
The first-person-cut-scenes in HL2 were just dull, IMO. Especially the seemingly hour-long one in that lab. Of course, opinions vary.
Ok.
First of all, I think your problem is that you're putting too much faith in the media which is always pessimistic and pretty much hates everything. There's a good chance that there's more than a little anti-American sentiment already in play in New Zealand, and the media's going to just glom on to that and inflate it as far as it can go.
Secondly, we're a hell of a lot less spied-upon than, say, the UK is. And we're a hell of a lot less deluded than, for instance, Iran.
Thirdly, last time I was in New Zealand, most of the news centered around the "brain drain"-- i.e. college professors leaving the islands in droves. There was also quite a bit of news about your pot-smoking MP. Is he still around? Point is, no country is perfect, and having studied the governments of both the US and New Zealand, I would say that he US system of checks and balances is superior to the kiwi equivalent.
You're welcome to your opinion of course, but try to lay off the doom and gloom, eh?
You're going to get flamed to hell and back on Slashdot for saying that. That said, I agree with you completely and I've also voted for Bush twice.
Al Gore is a single-minded environmental whackjob, as far as I can see. Fark is linking to an article about his new film (about how the world is going to end tomorrow because I drive a gas powered car) stating that there are lies in the film, that Al Gore *knows* there are lies in the film, and that he doesn't care because it serves a "higher purpose." Uh, what? So Gore just purposely puts himself in the footsteps of Michael Moore? Great move, there.
The second election I look at like this (complete with simplified New Math):
Most of the people voting *for* Kerry were actually voting *against* Bush and not necessarily for anything. Let's say that 75% of the Kerry voters were just voting against Bush. That means that only 25% of Kerry voters wanted Kerry in office. On the other hand, 100% of those who voted for Bush actually want Bush in office, and Bush gets 50% of the votes.
So we could either have a President that 50% of the voters actually wanted, or a President that only 12.5% of the voters actually wanted... makes more sense to go with the majority decision and vote for Bush in this situation.
Ok, yes, we know Slashdot hates domain squatters, yes, yes, but stop posting the same damned thing over and over again! And moderators, stop moderating every single goddamned one to +5! We only need to see it once, everything after that is redundant.