Halo does not = success in any way. I'll cop to playing a few games, but really, it gets old after a bit.
And after they redid the ranking system, I think everyone I knew that played the game quit.
Aside from the obvious grammar error, that's more time than recorded human history by a factor of... I don't know, 12? 14? Whatever, I'm not a math major. Imagine if all of those people had done something worth a god damn instead...
While I think you have the best angle possible for the N-Gage pinned down, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good angle and it really doesn't mean that it will work.
The whole "teen branding" thing has been proven to more or less not work when it comes to technology. Teens often do not have the technological savvy (knowing how to use MySpace and an IM program to propagate the decay of the English language is not the same as possessing sound technological abilities and understanding, a point that is lost on most people when they discuss how knowledgeable today's 20 and Under group is on technological issues) to have new technology effectively marketed to them, and they almost never have the financial resources to actually purchase anything without begging their parents or working a shitty job that makes them appreciate money and realize what is and isn't worth their cash. (See: The Hip-e computer, if you can find it anywhere)
On the sound of the name N-Gage, I was never sold on that one, especially if you're trying to market it to the teen crowd. Basically, you need a target to not only know that there is a word "Engage", but that is savvy enough to understand the play on words associated with it here, and to think that reworked English is cool. These are not typically things you will find in one package.
On the youth not knowing the name "N-Gage", you have a valid point, most of today's teens probably won't remember the name. However, they will probably have some friends who do remember and who will brief them. Additionally, and this goes back to the undesirably of a demographic that usually has to beg its way to purchases, their parents will stand some kind of chance of remembering the N-Gage as that shitty Game Boy knock off that cost to much and seems to have died out quickly. This will only be helped by the aggressive advertising campaign that Nokia ran for the N-Gage the first time around. All told, friends and parents of teens will likely veto either the purchase or financing of N-Gage branded products. Like another poster replied, it's the same thing that would happen if you called a HD-DVD format BetaMax II. It would be dead in the water from the foul taste it left in everyone's mouth that was around for it the first time.
There is nothing good, or even old really, about the N-Gage brand. While 4 years may have been a while ago, Nokia has actually done a very good job of keeping news about shitty N-Gage products in the main stream over the years, so really, N-Gage has been a more or less common concept for the last 4 years. They should just call future versions the Death Stick or something. They can't do any worse than N-Gage.
I think that the N-Gage brand is already firmly entrenched in the minds of gamers, but for all of the wrong reasons. I know that as soon as I read the title, the first thing that came into my mind was "not again". Anyone who bought an N-Gage when they first came out is probably still very bitter about how that all went down, and most people, I'd venture, will at least remember what a mess the whole thing was.
I don't know why Nokia is so dedicated to the brand, but they seem determined to get every cent possible out of it. Though at this point, I think they might as well just start trying to sell rebranded industrial waste as a child's toy. It seems to work pretty well for most places...
This story is retarded and points out why communications is crap. If you need to get ahold of someone, you do it however you need to. However, you know damn good and well that person to person is always the way to have a discussion if you want the maximum impact, as it's a lot harder to ignore someone in person, while it is fairly easy to not pay attention or to skim their points via email/phone/etc.
After a while in college, and several required communications classes, I came to the conclusion that communications is what you major in if:
You're not smart enough to be an English major, and
You're not practical/creative enough to be a business/marketing (both of which are also a bit on the bunk side, hence why they get no capitals in my world) major, and
You're lazy and don't want to do real college level work, and
You know that you're not very intelligent, but you really want to sound like it (see: half the posts in this topic, they spend 5 paragraphs trying to sound intelligent, but all they really succeed in doing is talking out of their asses for 5 paragraphs).
And the best part, for being people that are such great communicators, they get very pissed when you tell them that their major/degree is crap and they really don't know how to respond to the smash mouth policies or the good old fashioned logic you learn in other disciplines that you use to kindly point out why it is crap. If they can't take Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle out of context and apply them to some dumb point they're trying (and usually failing) to make, they don't know what to do.
But I guess they do serve some purpose, they bring everyone else together. Political Science, History, English, Math, Physics, Engineering, Economics, and all other big boy majors all enjoy a good harping on the crap that is communications. Here's to you, the great unifiers, the commtards...
I'm all for innovation, but if I was a student at wherever this guy works, I would be incredibly pissed off that any amount of time was spent even talking about this idea. College tuition and fees are already unnecessarily high pretty much everywhere, and crap like this, which at least two people had to have spent time on the clock talking about and this guy has apparently spent time "researching" (Read As: Playing Second Life) on the student's (and possibly tax payer's) dime, are part of the reason why. Though, in all fairness, this is probably the single dumbest thing I have ever heard come out of a college IT department.
"Distance Learning" is already kind of stupid, as a big part of the college experience is learning how to interact with other people in a meaningful and productive way that simply cannot be done via chat rooms and message boards, but god damn. I'm actually going to elevate this to the dumbest thing I have ever heard come from any college anywhere.
Also, as just about everyone else posting to the topic seems to agree, this idea is, in fact, so retarded that it could possibly damage the reputation of whatever school is looking into it. Just the mention that it was even on the table could be painful for the school. Even by the standards of the borderline diploma mills (DeVry, "University" of Phoenix, etc.), this idea is beyond moronic.
The only thing I want to know is where this guy works, so in that I can stay way the hell away from wherever it is.
A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games.... The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty.
No, the result is often not a "jumbo size bite" taken out of anything artistic or liberty related. The result is often a "jumbo sized bite" taken out of:
1. The time of the legislative branches of the states that approve these bills. Thanks to various politically aspiring politicians that write up, debate, and vote on these bills that they know will get overturned but make them look like they give a shit about your children, state legislators, who often don't work very much anyway, waste time that could be spent on anything else, maybe even stuff that would be constitutional.
2. The time of both state and federal judiciaries. They have to take the time to issue injunctions against these laws and hear the cases that result in said laws being found unconstutional 100% of the time, further bogging down an already vastly overburdened court system.
... some states are now having to foot the legal bills of the parties who took them to court in the first place. The ESA is trying to extract the $500,000 that Illinois still owes it and this past week Michigan got a bill from the ESA for $180,000 in legal fees.
And this story in particular:
To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees.
And let's not forget it's not just the tax payers in the states in question that have to pay for fucktard legislation, though they do front the lion's share, everyone gets a little. When these cases come before Federal Courts on appeal, as is often the case, remember, someone pays the salaries of the Federal employees.
Not to mention the loss of all credibility a state suffers when it passes one of these bills, as it has been shown that these get shot down every time and do nothing but cost time and money that could be spent on anything else.
Score another point for dumbocracy and the retards that put these retards into power and keep them there.
I have it on the XBox360 and I agree with basically everything you said, as much as I can given the console difference. Good game, yes, I've spent about 40 hours on it and can easilly play it for a while longer. Great... eh, graphically, yes, maybe in the non-graphical departments if you get the numerous bugs on it fixed.
That said, the only thing about the game that has really pissed me off is the need to play it power gamer style to "correctly" level up if you want your character to be even remotely usable by the time you get around level 13 or 14. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I was always under the impression that your 7 major skills should be things that help you and that you use almost exclusively, not that hinder you because they're all you use and now you're suddenly hosed when the game's enemies level up with you, but because you leveled "poorly" a wolf is now a problem for you, and imps and other humans are almost able to kill you in two hits.
I tried the whole power gamer thing for a few hours and realized how retarded it is, since then it just feels like work, but then I discovered the magic of the difficulty slider. Sure, you kind of feel like a bitch for a few minutes after turning it down to 1/4th of the maximum, but then the game is fun again and you get over it.
All told, I'd gladly buy it for $45 used again, but I certainly wouldn't pay the full $60 for it. Though, out of principal, I refuse to buy any game over $50.
While you are correct to some degree, it's like I said, there is a wide range of reasons that any case made with evidence collected in this fashion will be, if not dead in the water from the very start, overturned somewhere down the line.
Ovbious 4th Amendment challenges aside, which I agree probably wouldn't hold much weight, there is still a large number of reasons these cases will never hold. The first and most ovbious being the defense that many others have pointed out already, if the hacker in question can put a trojan on your computer, what is to stop them from placing some kiddy porn on there as well or directing your computer to download the porn in the first place? I forget the exact case, but I do recall a man beating a child porn rap due to the fact that his computer had something like 50 viruses on it and he claimed that they must have downloaded the porn. I think it was in Canada or England, but there's no reason it wouldn't work here in the US every single time.
And in case that doesn't fit the bill, this particular method of collecting evidence probably violates at least a few state's laws on wiretapping/unlawful entry/various computer crimes. It varies from place to place, and I don't pretend to know the laws of all 50 states, but I'm sure that this approach would get this evidence thrown out in at least some of the prosecuting jurisdictions.
Not to mention that the hacker could be compelled to appear in court by the defense, and if they didn't, the evidence again is likely to becomes trash. There should be quite a few other ways to attack this evidence, but between the few I've pointed out, you'd be able to get this evidence trashed almost everywhere.
Basically, my point is that there is a very good reason agencies have very well documented and followed procedures for collecting evidence, and that they tend to discourage civilians from doing this exact thing, and that is because ill gotten evidence, even when it is clear as day that it would lead to an air tight conviction, is illegal and as such useless evidence. There's something they teach you in law school, and that is that if you follow the letter of the law every single time when it comes to procedure, you will get a conviction that will hold every single time. If you don't, you won't. This sort of shit might net a conviction in a local court in Alabama, but when it comes to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and remember, federal appellate courts exist solely to hear appeals to cases based on improper procedure at a lower level, it will be overturned and the offender will be let go, as the prosecution will then not have the evidence to reprosecute.
It doesn't matter if this evidence nets 1 or 1,000 convictions, every last one of them will be overturned on any number of grounds and the prosecuting agencies that utlizie this evidence will open themselves up to quite a bit of litigation and will probably eat some heavy judgments against them.
Any even remotely intelligent agency will turn away from "help" like this, because it will only jack their asses up in the end.
Only two I'm interested in the entire list are DMC4 and AC4. Even so, neither are enough to make me interested in blowing $600.
$600... for the system. $720 (probably) if you actually get the two games, and let's just assume 7% sales tax, so you can escape for around $774.20 assuming you don't want any other controllers, memory cards, etc., which would easily push the total over $800.
And you're still doing better than me on games that would make you want a PS3. Only AC4 appeals to me, though I remember Warhawk being fun, though I don't know how well it would transition into the brave new Blu-Ray world. And with FIFA heading over to X-Box, that's one less reason to buy a PS3 for me.
My brother finally managed to justify buying an X-Box 360 and 3 games today... after he won $8,000 (after taxes) at a casino on Monday (seriously). So maybe Sony is gunning for the lottery winners market? Untapped, I tell you.:)
The oldest example I can think of (about 10 years old, give or take a year or two) off the top of my head of this is the Myth games (at least Myth 2, and I think the first one had it as well), which actually did the spectator mode (and pretty much everything else) surprisingly well. You could control the cameras, save the replays, everything this patent sounds like it covers.
Since Myth was a creation of Bungie, who got bought out by MS some time ago, I think, as loathe as I am to admit it, that MS might actually have a legitimate claim to this patent. Well, as legitimate as any software patent can be, anyway.
The AC series are about the only games I've ever played where you needed access to all of the information that you could get through the HUD. And while I haven't played any released in the last 2 or 3 years, on the PS2, they've also always had the best options for the HUD. You can customize it to display any of about 20 different items, including next to none at all. Sort of makes things more interesting if you can't see your ammo remaining.:)
What is bullshit about it? That would have really been a much more productive angle of attack here, unstead of you just complaining but giving no reasons.
And shit, if the mods hate Bush, I'd probably be modded down since I just said that if the ends can be made, pretty much any means is justified to achieve them. Though, I guess you could read that as me saying Bush is slacking by not going balls to the wall and dropping the moon or something, so maybe they'd like that part?
This is easily the most intelligent, most well informed post I've read in a while. Especially the part about the potential divestment of US capital. I've been saying that is a major problem for years, probably the biggest one facing the US right now, and no one seems to be able to understand it to save their fucking lives.
I'd only add the point that the Iraqi invasion, aside from the reasons you cited, is also to establish a strong military presence in the region for the foreseeable future. To see proof of this, look no further than Iran. Note how all the same talk you heard prior to the Iraqi war of WMD that were never found is now being kicked around about Iranian nukes and that after our recent wars against Iraq and Afganistan, we now essentially have Iran, the closest thing to a "real" military we've fought in a while (and still not much more sophisticated than the Iraqi military of ex-Soviet hardware, just we haven't been policing them via no fly zones for the last decade, so they're not as pre-broken down for an invasion) surrounded. From the CIA World Factbook:
Land boundaries:
total: 5,440 km
border countries: Afghanistan 936 km, Armenia 35 km, Azerbaijan-proper 432 km, Azerbaijan-Naxcivan exclave 179 km, Iraq 1,458 km, Pakistan 909 km, Turkey 499 km, Turkmenistan 992 km
Coastline:
2,440 km; note - Iran also borders the Caspian Sea (740 km)
So on land, we (the US) contol about 2,500 km of Iran's borders (Iraq in the West, Afganistan in the East), and our puppet Pakistan contols almost another 1,000 km (East), leaving about 2,000 km out of our control. But wait! All of the remaining countries are having economic problems of their own that could easily be remedied by some American aid money! So, we contol about 100% of Iran's border now in reality. On coastline, the entire Southern border of Iran is made up of the Persian Gulf and the way into it, the Gulf of Oman, where I believe we've had at least one aircraft carrier always stationed for the last 15ish years and might have as many as 3 right now (haven't checked lately, and about to go to bed after this). The Caspian Sea occupies a fair part of Iran's North border, and I'm sure we can handle that issue somehow.
Moral: Iran is fucked right now and by March 2007, I bet we just merge our current Afgany and Iraqi forces into Iran and control a whole big ass swath of the Middle East. As soon as I hear about increased troop deployments to Afganistan for whatever bullshit reason, I'll know I'm right.
But really, I'm ok with that. I don't like Bush, and I don't like anything he's done at this point in time. In fact, I think he's THE most corrupt President in US history, I still think he actually lost the election to John Kerry (see my blog for reasons, and do some Googling on DieBold), I firmly believe 9-11 was planned (Operation Northwoods) by the US government, and I think overall, at his current pace, he will be a miserable failure and quite possibly drag America down with him. However, if I'm wrong about his failure, and he (or his puppet masters) manage to orchestrate all of this and make it work out so that America has bought another 100 or 200 years in the Sun, I will gladly sing his praises. I couldn't give a shit less what it takes, if we can run the World for another couple of centuries, I'd gladly see 10 more Septemeber 11s and another 20 Iraqi Wars (and no, these aren't hollow words, I joined the Air Force knowing full well what I was getting into and that it was a possibillity I might be in that body count from Afganistan, Iraq, or anywhere else we may go in the future). A small price to pay for continued American prosperity in my opinion.
While it may seem shallow, I'm ok with that as well. I want to live in the America of today (well, maybe of about 6 years ago when gas was reasonable, but I've always sayed Clinton was the best), not the China of 20 years ago, the Africa of today, or what I worry the US will be in 20 years when our little Dragon of Ch
Just as bad as this little gem from 3 months ago. Check out the only comment scored a 5...
Man, how the fuck does this jive mother fucker stay employed? Seriously, I don't, for the life of me, get it. How? How, god damn it, how? I mean, at least frequent dupes by the other editors generate page hits. Zonk's shit can't even do that.
Tomorrow, I'm deleting all of my old journal entries, just on the off chance someone may read them and give this place more hits than it deserves, which has been a number very, very close to 0 lately. Thanks again, Zonk, for causing me to lose even more faith in Slashdot than I already had, you worthless pile of crap.
I note that you failed to even attempt to refute any point in my post (though you did do a good job of getting the karma martyr point of I await downward moderation for daring to criticise the infallible US. in there, good work), other than the one about other countries just as soon glassing Iraq than dealing with the insurgents. I will give that one to you though on account of the technicality that I assumed, incorrectly, that people would be able to read that as it was meant that, if they were in the same position as us, wheather or not they would actually get themselves there in the first place, most other countries would just nuke (well, probably not nuke, but use some heavy ordinance) and pave.
And what bit about Rome was delusional? Our Empire (Even if we don't call it as much, it is. It's just a shame we only do cultural imperialism now and got out of the land taking business long ago) is much bigger than theirs ever was, we maintain control on levels they could not, and technology wise... well, our Lancers might do slighty better than theirs.;)
But seriously, Rome had their day in the sun, and now that day is done. While they were there though, they pretty much owned everything around them (save a few pesky Germanic tribes, but that's besides the point) and that's about where we are in the world. We can decimate any foe militarily, and, as your post points out, we have such a level of power that we can drag numerous other countries that otherwise would be smart enough to stay home into pointless (especially for said non-American countries) wars with a few phone calls and a speech or two. Now that is power the Romans never had. And, considering the fact that things on all fronts change much more quickly nowadays, our 229 years of existance, about 203 (and counting) of which I'd consider to be our "time in the sun" (time since Louisiana Purchase, effectively giving us control over the North American continent) is especially impressive. Now, if you consider all of its various forms, including the Republic and later being divided into 2 unique countries, "Rome" lasted for about 1,963 years, but really only about 314 of those years (23-337 AD) saw Rome as the real powerhouse we've come to know and love. While a good run, that would be incredible by today's standards. Consider Germany, which had a good, solid run of about 12 years not to long ago and almost took over the world. Imperialism ain't what it used to be, it's a lot faster now.
Thank you for proving to me once again that, unless you explicitly cover each and every single possible way a person could read a statement, they will read it in a way that is not intended and really is not even in context with the rest of said statement. And this, Virginia, is why everything in society reads like a legally binding contract.
I'm amazed by your complete failure to comprehend that there is quite a difference between fighting an actual standing military and fighting a bunch of whack jobs with AKs and IEDs that run around the country blowing shit up. What did it take us? 1, maybe 2 weeks to basically decimate the Iraqi army and air force? I mean, they weren't exactly a top shelf military, but their technology wasn't horrible (light years ahead of the Taliban) and they did have some battle hardend troops still from the Iran-Iraq war.
The US is not Rome, and can't pull of what Rome did.
Yes, we're not Rome. We're what Rome would have been had they been several thousand times more powerful. For some reason that still escapes me, despite many efforts to figure it out, people continue fail to understand that, whether or not you like it, the United States is, in fact, the single most powerful entity in the history of the known Universe. The fact that we are allowing the insurgency in Iraq to go on is proof of that. I think most other nations would just as soon blast the country and be done with it, but we don't even need to. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a die hard Patriot (that's always a bad mentality to have, no matter your country), and I think there's a lot of shit going on in the US right now that is seriously fucked up and threatens our long term future viability, but I also call it as I see it. And what I'm calling is horse shit whenever anyone goes on a tangent about how the Iraqi insurgency is proof our military is weak or that China would smoke our asses. Iraq is nothing. Iraq is Vietnam (somewhere else that we should have just glassed...) with the strong military backing of Russia and a then newly communist China and good (for the defenders) terrain replaced with rabble from Syria and Saudi heading in with their family AKs and a little bit of cash and dense jungle replaced by buildings and sand. As for China, let them do what they're doing for another 20-30 years, and then maybe they'll be a real threat.
Though, that's why we're even talking about this in the first place, the initial story of the US gaining the ability to jam comm. systems from space. In regards to fighting a more modernized foe, this is a necessary step to take. China (who, outside of European nations, would probably be our best match at this point in time) wouldn't be a push over, but I'd imagine head to head, our ground forces would likely take theirs, and we still have naval (I think the carrier matchup is the US with ~20, China with 1 under construction) and (even more so) air superiority over them, and now that we are pushing into space, I don't think we'd have much of a problem at all. But, then again, they're also a nuke nation, so that could make for some interesting times...
Though, like I said, 20-30 years. We're taking bigger military steps into space right now, but China is catching its space program and military up rather quickly (proof that democracy holds countries back, as they are flying up in the world right now under a dictatorship) and might just pass us by then. And the best part? China is a Dragon of our own creation. Just keep the stat in mind that if Wal-Mart was a nation, they would be China's 6th largest trading partner, and I'll let you guess where the US as a whole sits in the remaining top 5. They've built their country as they've seen fit, and have done a very good job of it so far. We've just been giving them the money to do it.
100% agreed. The only reason this insurgency is going on is because we are allowing it to. If we wanted it to be so, we could have it ended by this time tomorrow. Of course, that would really only be practical if someone started listening to my calls for imperialism, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. A shame really, the British had it right once upon a time... ah, the good ol' days... Maybe it's a good thing I got out of the glorious USAF before I received any real say in things.
As for the original post that got you started, I'm amazed by their complete failure to comprehend that there is quite a difference between fighting an actual standing military and fighting a bunch of whack jobs with AKs and IEDs that run around the country blowing shit up. What did it take us? 1, maybe 2 weeks to basically decimate the Iraqi army and air force? I mean, they weren't exactly a top shelf military, but their technology wasn't horrible (light years ahead of the Taliban) and they did have some battle hardend troops still from the Iran-Iraq war.
And that's what makes the initial story so important. In regards to fighting a more modernized foe, this is a necessary step to take. China (who, outside of European nations, would probably be our best match at this point in time) wouldn't be a push over, but I'd imagine head to head, our ground forces would likely take theirs, and we still have naval and (even more so) air superiority over them, and now that we are pushing into space, I don't think we'd have much of a problem at all. But, then again, they're also a nuke nation, so that could make for some interesting times...
Wow, I've seen stories on Slashdot For Grownups get more comments than this, despite them having something on the order of 1/100th of the user base of this quickly devolving pit.
Remember when Slashdot actually did post stuff that mattered? I bet if your user ID is more than 50,000 more than mine, you don't, as I barely do, including my IDless days.
And so Slashdot continued to decay, crappy story by crappy story, 10 dupes a day.
Here though, I want to at least earn my karma hit, since I know it's coming. I don't particularly give a shit, but I figure I might as well get some bang for my buck... ahem...
Also, while it is bad form to bitch about moderation, I would again, as I have about 386,749 other times, like to point out that the moderators need to learn what the fuck trolling is and isn't. The above is Flamebait if anything (though it's not, it's the truth), trolling is what the article itself is, but I'll let you morons read the FAQ about that, as I already know the difference and moderate correctly.
I applaud this fine piece (you know, pIEce, not pEAce, timothy, you dipshit) of trolling.
And I now have my vote for the next (first), "Which/. Editor Needs His Ass Turbo-Fired?" poll.
Wow, just fucking wow. It's shit like this that will ensure/. never sees a single cent of my money and why their ads don't exactly reach my browser window. Not like I don't get enough of them in the stories around here any damn way...
I'm going to have to go with Mac OS X on this one all the way for a couple of reasons.
First, and probably most importantly, it's what I've mainly used for a long time now and over that period of time (About 12 years I'd guess) things have been pretty consistant, even though I've lived through everything from 7.5 to now.
Back during the days of Classic, I still prefered Apples over PCs, but I think back then it was more a matter of personal taste. Both platforms worked ok, crashed way to much, and had inconsistant software. I still liked the Mac better, but I don't think I really would have been any worse for ware on a PC. However, all the various little nuances of the Mac have stayed pretty consistant over time and now most live on in OS X, so I've been able to transition very well from version to version over time and have simply built upon the core skills I had before with each new upgrade.
Along with consistancy in the OS, applications on OS X seem to me to be much more consistant in design and function than on other OSes. I've had experience in plenty of other OSes and have never found anything that has worked as well (or looked as pretty, but that's not what we're talking about) as OS X and had the level of consistancy. Granted, I've never used any other non-Mac OS to the extent I've used OS X, but I'm very comfortable in any version of Windows (to comfortable really, but more on that later), can work fine in most flavors of Linux, am not scared of any sort of command line and have even dabbled in the olden days of OS/2 and whatever the first Commadores with an OS ran (Amiga?).
Even thrid party applications all seem to follow the same basics of design and function. The menus are all where you expect them to be. Key commands are basically standardized. They even usually have similar looks which lends itself to a sense of unity throughout the OS. My favorite example of consistancy has to be that on Macs, all the CD burning applications have always more or less worked the same way, compared to a Windows machine, where I have yet to come across 2 diffent apps that behave the same. Hell, I've yet to cross 2 people with the same app. to burn CDs, and I've only found a small handful who even knew how to make a CD using their app. I learned Toast a long time ago to burn CDs (my first burner was a 4x2, no re-writeability), and while the process has advanced to a real no brainer level, iTunes more or less works the same to make music CDs and OS X to make data CDs as Toast did probably 6 or 7 years ago. It's this and a million other examples that add up for me and make it so that I dont have to spend huge amounts of time learning how to use every new little app that crops up.
And then there's the usual OS X advantages. It really is rock solid (I've had 2 crashes ever using it, and those we're back in the early days of the OS), even most applications never have issues and the OS is disturbingly efficent. I have a friend who is a die hard Windows fan. One day, he saw me use Apple's Expose feature to rapidly sort through and work in about 10 windows in no time and actually said, "Wow. Your operating system is disgustingly efficent." It kind of made me all warm and tingley inside.
But, thinking as I go, probably the biggest proof for me that OS X is the most productive OS for me comes not from me personally, but from other users. Being the most technology savvy person I know, I get to play mobile IT support guy to every one I know. I can think of, give or take, about 7 other Mac users I know and talk to about their computers and about 20 PC (All Windows) users. Funnily enough, as an aside, only a couple of the Mac users are even remotely aware of Linux and none of the Windows folk have even really heard of it besides my occasional threat to make them learn it.
Anyway, out of all the Mac users, I've only ever had to show 3 of them how to do ANYTHING on their computer and 2 had legitmate problems and the other 1 is mentally retarded and should be banned from compu
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Halo does not = success in any way. I'll cop to playing a few games, but really, it gets old after a bit. And after they redid the ranking system, I think everyone I knew that played the game quit.
Aside from the obvious grammar error, that's more time than recorded human history by a factor of... I don't know, 12? 14? Whatever, I'm not a math major. Imagine if all of those people had done something worth a god damn instead...
Thank you for being the one person in this thread to have any common, not to mention legal, sense. You rock. Seriously.
While I think you have the best angle possible for the N-Gage pinned down, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good angle and it really doesn't mean that it will work.
The whole "teen branding" thing has been proven to more or less not work when it comes to technology. Teens often do not have the technological savvy (knowing how to use MySpace and an IM program to propagate the decay of the English language is not the same as possessing sound technological abilities and understanding, a point that is lost on most people when they discuss how knowledgeable today's 20 and Under group is on technological issues) to have new technology effectively marketed to them, and they almost never have the financial resources to actually purchase anything without begging their parents or working a shitty job that makes them appreciate money and realize what is and isn't worth their cash. (See: The Hip-e computer, if you can find it anywhere)
On the sound of the name N-Gage, I was never sold on that one, especially if you're trying to market it to the teen crowd. Basically, you need a target to not only know that there is a word "Engage", but that is savvy enough to understand the play on words associated with it here, and to think that reworked English is cool. These are not typically things you will find in one package.
On the youth not knowing the name "N-Gage", you have a valid point, most of today's teens probably won't remember the name. However, they will probably have some friends who do remember and who will brief them. Additionally, and this goes back to the undesirably of a demographic that usually has to beg its way to purchases, their parents will stand some kind of chance of remembering the N-Gage as that shitty Game Boy knock off that cost to much and seems to have died out quickly. This will only be helped by the aggressive advertising campaign that Nokia ran for the N-Gage the first time around. All told, friends and parents of teens will likely veto either the purchase or financing of N-Gage branded products. Like another poster replied, it's the same thing that would happen if you called a HD-DVD format BetaMax II. It would be dead in the water from the foul taste it left in everyone's mouth that was around for it the first time.
There is nothing good, or even old really, about the N-Gage brand. While 4 years may have been a while ago, Nokia has actually done a very good job of keeping news about shitty N-Gage products in the main stream over the years, so really, N-Gage has been a more or less common concept for the last 4 years. They should just call future versions the Death Stick or something. They can't do any worse than N-Gage.
I think that the N-Gage brand is already firmly entrenched in the minds of gamers, but for all of the wrong reasons. I know that as soon as I read the title, the first thing that came into my mind was "not again". Anyone who bought an N-Gage when they first came out is probably still very bitter about how that all went down, and most people, I'd venture, will at least remember what a mess the whole thing was.
I don't know why Nokia is so dedicated to the brand, but they seem determined to get every cent possible out of it. Though at this point, I think they might as well just start trying to sell rebranded industrial waste as a child's toy. It seems to work pretty well for most places...
After a while in college, and several required communications classes, I came to the conclusion that communications is what you major in if:
- You're not smart enough to be an English major, and
- You're not practical/creative enough to be a business/marketing (both of which are also a bit on the bunk side, hence why they get no capitals in my world) major, and
- You're lazy and don't want to do real college level work, and
- You know that you're not very intelligent, but you really want to sound like it (see: half the posts in this topic, they spend 5 paragraphs trying to sound intelligent, but all they really succeed in doing is talking out of their asses for 5 paragraphs).
And the best part, for being people that are such great communicators, they get very pissed when you tell them that their major/degree is crap and they really don't know how to respond to the smash mouth policies or the good old fashioned logic you learn in other disciplines that you use to kindly point out why it is crap. If they can't take Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle out of context and apply them to some dumb point they're trying (and usually failing) to make, they don't know what to do.But I guess they do serve some purpose, they bring everyone else together. Political Science, History, English, Math, Physics, Engineering, Economics, and all other big boy majors all enjoy a good harping on the crap that is communications. Here's to you, the great unifiers, the commtards...
Why not?
Because it's retarded.
I'm all for innovation, but if I was a student at wherever this guy works, I would be incredibly pissed off that any amount of time was spent even talking about this idea. College tuition and fees are already unnecessarily high pretty much everywhere, and crap like this, which at least two people had to have spent time on the clock talking about and this guy has apparently spent time "researching" (Read As: Playing Second Life) on the student's (and possibly tax payer's) dime, are part of the reason why. Though, in all fairness, this is probably the single dumbest thing I have ever heard come out of a college IT department.
"Distance Learning" is already kind of stupid, as a big part of the college experience is learning how to interact with other people in a meaningful and productive way that simply cannot be done via chat rooms and message boards, but god damn. I'm actually going to elevate this to the dumbest thing I have ever heard come from any college anywhere.
Also, as just about everyone else posting to the topic seems to agree, this idea is, in fact, so retarded that it could possibly damage the reputation of whatever school is looking into it. Just the mention that it was even on the table could be painful for the school. Even by the standards of the borderline diploma mills (DeVry, "University" of Phoenix, etc.), this idea is beyond moronic.
The only thing I want to know is where this guy works, so in that I can stay way the hell away from wherever it is.
A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games. ... The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty.
... some states are now having to foot the legal bills of the parties who took them to court in the first place. The ESA is trying to extract the $500,000 that Illinois still owes it and this past week Michigan got a bill from the ESA for $180,000 in legal fees.
No, the result is often not a "jumbo size bite" taken out of anything artistic or liberty related. The result is often a "jumbo sized bite" taken out of:
1. The time of the legislative branches of the states that approve these bills. Thanks to various politically aspiring politicians that write up, debate, and vote on these bills that they know will get overturned but make them look like they give a shit about your children, state legislators, who often don't work very much anyway, waste time that could be spent on anything else, maybe even stuff that would be constitutional.
2. The time of both state and federal judiciaries. They have to take the time to issue injunctions against these laws and hear the cases that result in said laws being found unconstutional 100% of the time, further bogging down an already vastly overburdened court system.
3. The tax payer's ass. From this earlier story's linked to article:
And this story in particular:
To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees.
And let's not forget it's not just the tax payers in the states in question that have to pay for fucktard legislation, though they do front the lion's share, everyone gets a little. When these cases come before Federal Courts on appeal, as is often the case, remember, someone pays the salaries of the Federal employees.
Not to mention the loss of all credibility a state suffers when it passes one of these bills, as it has been shown that these get shot down every time and do nothing but cost time and money that could be spent on anything else.
Score another point for dumbocracy and the retards that put these retards into power and keep them there.
I have it on the XBox360 and I agree with basically everything you said, as much as I can given the console difference. Good game, yes, I've spent about 40 hours on it and can easilly play it for a while longer. Great... eh, graphically, yes, maybe in the non-graphical departments if you get the numerous bugs on it fixed.
That said, the only thing about the game that has really pissed me off is the need to play it power gamer style to "correctly" level up if you want your character to be even remotely usable by the time you get around level 13 or 14. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I was always under the impression that your 7 major skills should be things that help you and that you use almost exclusively, not that hinder you because they're all you use and now you're suddenly hosed when the game's enemies level up with you, but because you leveled "poorly" a wolf is now a problem for you, and imps and other humans are almost able to kill you in two hits.
I tried the whole power gamer thing for a few hours and realized how retarded it is, since then it just feels like work, but then I discovered the magic of the difficulty slider. Sure, you kind of feel like a bitch for a few minutes after turning it down to 1/4th of the maximum, but then the game is fun again and you get over it.
All told, I'd gladly buy it for $45 used again, but I certainly wouldn't pay the full $60 for it. Though, out of principal, I refuse to buy any game over $50.
While you are correct to some degree, it's like I said, there is a wide range of reasons that any case made with evidence collected in this fashion will be, if not dead in the water from the very start, overturned somewhere down the line.
Ovbious 4th Amendment challenges aside, which I agree probably wouldn't hold much weight, there is still a large number of reasons these cases will never hold. The first and most ovbious being the defense that many others have pointed out already, if the hacker in question can put a trojan on your computer, what is to stop them from placing some kiddy porn on there as well or directing your computer to download the porn in the first place? I forget the exact case, but I do recall a man beating a child porn rap due to the fact that his computer had something like 50 viruses on it and he claimed that they must have downloaded the porn. I think it was in Canada or England, but there's no reason it wouldn't work here in the US every single time.
And in case that doesn't fit the bill, this particular method of collecting evidence probably violates at least a few state's laws on wiretapping/unlawful entry/various computer crimes. It varies from place to place, and I don't pretend to know the laws of all 50 states, but I'm sure that this approach would get this evidence thrown out in at least some of the prosecuting jurisdictions.
Not to mention that the hacker could be compelled to appear in court by the defense, and if they didn't, the evidence again is likely to becomes trash. There should be quite a few other ways to attack this evidence, but between the few I've pointed out, you'd be able to get this evidence trashed almost everywhere.
Basically, my point is that there is a very good reason agencies have very well documented and followed procedures for collecting evidence, and that they tend to discourage civilians from doing this exact thing, and that is because ill gotten evidence, even when it is clear as day that it would lead to an air tight conviction, is illegal and as such useless evidence. There's something they teach you in law school, and that is that if you follow the letter of the law every single time when it comes to procedure, you will get a conviction that will hold every single time. If you don't, you won't. This sort of shit might net a conviction in a local court in Alabama, but when it comes to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and remember, federal appellate courts exist solely to hear appeals to cases based on improper procedure at a lower level, it will be overturned and the offender will be let go, as the prosecution will then not have the evidence to reprosecute.
It doesn't matter if this evidence nets 1 or 1,000 convictions, every last one of them will be overturned on any number of grounds and the prosecuting agencies that utlizie this evidence will open themselves up to quite a bit of litigation and will probably eat some heavy judgments against them.
Any even remotely intelligent agency will turn away from "help" like this, because it will only jack their asses up in the end.
Only two I'm interested in the entire list are DMC4 and AC4. Even so, neither are enough to make me interested in blowing $600.
:)
$600... for the system. $720 (probably) if you actually get the two games, and let's just assume 7% sales tax, so you can escape for around $774.20 assuming you don't want any other controllers, memory cards, etc., which would easily push the total over $800.
And you're still doing better than me on games that would make you want a PS3. Only AC4 appeals to me, though I remember Warhawk being fun, though I don't know how well it would transition into the brave new Blu-Ray world. And with FIFA heading over to X-Box, that's one less reason to buy a PS3 for me.
My brother finally managed to justify buying an X-Box 360 and 3 games today... after he won $8,000 (after taxes) at a casino on Monday (seriously). So maybe Sony is gunning for the lottery winners market? Untapped, I tell you.
The oldest example I can think of (about 10 years old, give or take a year or two) off the top of my head of this is the Myth games (at least Myth 2, and I think the first one had it as well), which actually did the spectator mode (and pretty much everything else) surprisingly well. You could control the cameras, save the replays, everything this patent sounds like it covers.
Since Myth was a creation of Bungie, who got bought out by MS some time ago, I think, as loathe as I am to admit it, that MS might actually have a legitimate claim to this patent. Well, as legitimate as any software patent can be, anyway.
The AC series are about the only games I've ever played where you needed access to all of the information that you could get through the HUD. And while I haven't played any released in the last 2 or 3 years, on the PS2, they've also always had the best options for the HUD. You can customize it to display any of about 20 different items, including next to none at all. Sort of makes things more interesting if you can't see your ammo remaining. :)
What is bullshit about it? That would have really been a much more productive angle of attack here, unstead of you just complaining but giving no reasons.
And shit, if the mods hate Bush, I'd probably be modded down since I just said that if the ends can be made, pretty much any means is justified to achieve them. Though, I guess you could read that as me saying Bush is slacking by not going balls to the wall and dropping the moon or something, so maybe they'd like that part?
This is easily the most intelligent, most well informed post I've read in a while. Especially the part about the potential divestment of US capital. I've been saying that is a major problem for years, probably the biggest one facing the US right now, and no one seems to be able to understand it to save their fucking lives.
I'd only add the point that the Iraqi invasion, aside from the reasons you cited, is also to establish a strong military presence in the region for the foreseeable future. To see proof of this, look no further than Iran. Note how all the same talk you heard prior to the Iraqi war of WMD that were never found is now being kicked around about Iranian nukes and that after our recent wars against Iraq and Afganistan, we now essentially have Iran, the closest thing to a "real" military we've fought in a while (and still not much more sophisticated than the Iraqi military of ex-Soviet hardware, just we haven't been policing them via no fly zones for the last decade, so they're not as pre-broken down for an invasion) surrounded. From the CIA World Factbook:
Land boundaries:
total: 5,440 km border countries: Afghanistan 936 km, Armenia 35 km, Azerbaijan-proper 432 km, Azerbaijan-Naxcivan exclave 179 km, Iraq 1,458 km, Pakistan 909 km, Turkey 499 km, Turkmenistan 992 km
Coastline:
2,440 km; note - Iran also borders the Caspian Sea (740 km)
So on land, we (the US) contol about 2,500 km of Iran's borders (Iraq in the West, Afganistan in the East), and our puppet Pakistan contols almost another 1,000 km (East), leaving about 2,000 km out of our control. But wait! All of the remaining countries are having economic problems of their own that could easily be remedied by some American aid money! So, we contol about 100% of Iran's border now in reality. On coastline, the entire Southern border of Iran is made up of the Persian Gulf and the way into it, the Gulf of Oman, where I believe we've had at least one aircraft carrier always stationed for the last 15ish years and might have as many as 3 right now (haven't checked lately, and about to go to bed after this). The Caspian Sea occupies a fair part of Iran's North border, and I'm sure we can handle that issue somehow.
Moral: Iran is fucked right now and by March 2007, I bet we just merge our current Afgany and Iraqi forces into Iran and control a whole big ass swath of the Middle East. As soon as I hear about increased troop deployments to Afganistan for whatever bullshit reason, I'll know I'm right.
But really, I'm ok with that. I don't like Bush, and I don't like anything he's done at this point in time. In fact, I think he's THE most corrupt President in US history, I still think he actually lost the election to John Kerry (see my blog for reasons, and do some Googling on DieBold), I firmly believe 9-11 was planned (Operation Northwoods) by the US government, and I think overall, at his current pace, he will be a miserable failure and quite possibly drag America down with him. However, if I'm wrong about his failure, and he (or his puppet masters) manage to orchestrate all of this and make it work out so that America has bought another 100 or 200 years in the Sun, I will gladly sing his praises. I couldn't give a shit less what it takes, if we can run the World for another couple of centuries, I'd gladly see 10 more Septemeber 11s and another 20 Iraqi Wars (and no, these aren't hollow words, I joined the Air Force knowing full well what I was getting into and that it was a possibillity I might be in that body count from Afganistan, Iraq, or anywhere else we may go in the future). A small price to pay for continued American prosperity in my opinion.
While it may seem shallow, I'm ok with that as well. I want to live in the America of today (well, maybe of about 6 years ago when gas was reasonable, but I've always sayed Clinton was the best), not the China of 20 years ago, the Africa of today, or what I worry the US will be in 20 years when our little Dragon of Ch
This was, easily, the single most intelligent thing I've read in a very, very long time around here.
9 comments...
Wow.
Just as bad as this little gem from 3 months ago. Check out the only comment scored a 5...
Man, how the fuck does this jive mother fucker stay employed? Seriously, I don't, for the life of me, get it. How? How, god damn it, how? I mean, at least frequent dupes by the other editors generate page hits. Zonk's shit can't even do that.
Tomorrow, I'm deleting all of my old journal entries, just on the off chance someone may read them and give this place more hits than it deserves, which has been a number very, very close to 0 lately. Thanks again, Zonk, for causing me to lose even more faith in Slashdot than I already had, you worthless pile of crap.
Self delusion, or truth?
;)
I note that you failed to even attempt to refute any point in my post (though you did do a good job of getting the karma martyr point of I await downward moderation for daring to criticise the infallible US. in there, good work), other than the one about other countries just as soon glassing Iraq than dealing with the insurgents. I will give that one to you though on account of the technicality that I assumed, incorrectly, that people would be able to read that as it was meant that, if they were in the same position as us, wheather or not they would actually get themselves there in the first place, most other countries would just nuke (well, probably not nuke, but use some heavy ordinance) and pave.
And what bit about Rome was delusional? Our Empire (Even if we don't call it as much, it is. It's just a shame we only do cultural imperialism now and got out of the land taking business long ago) is much bigger than theirs ever was, we maintain control on levels they could not, and technology wise... well, our Lancers might do slighty better than theirs.
But seriously, Rome had their day in the sun, and now that day is done. While they were there though, they pretty much owned everything around them (save a few pesky Germanic tribes, but that's besides the point) and that's about where we are in the world. We can decimate any foe militarily, and, as your post points out, we have such a level of power that we can drag numerous other countries that otherwise would be smart enough to stay home into pointless (especially for said non-American countries) wars with a few phone calls and a speech or two. Now that is power the Romans never had. And, considering the fact that things on all fronts change much more quickly nowadays, our 229 years of existance, about 203 (and counting) of which I'd consider to be our "time in the sun" (time since Louisiana Purchase, effectively giving us control over the North American continent) is especially impressive. Now, if you consider all of its various forms, including the Republic and later being divided into 2 unique countries, "Rome" lasted for about 1,963 years, but really only about 314 of those years (23-337 AD) saw Rome as the real powerhouse we've come to know and love. While a good run, that would be incredible by today's standards. Consider Germany, which had a good, solid run of about 12 years not to long ago and almost took over the world. Imperialism ain't what it used to be, it's a lot faster now.
Thank you for proving to me once again that, unless you explicitly cover each and every single possible way a person could read a statement, they will read it in a way that is not intended and really is not even in context with the rest of said statement. And this, Virginia, is why everything in society reads like a legally binding contract.
I'm amazed by your complete failure to comprehend that there is quite a difference between fighting an actual standing military and fighting a bunch of whack jobs with AKs and IEDs that run around the country blowing shit up. What did it take us? 1, maybe 2 weeks to basically decimate the Iraqi army and air force? I mean, they weren't exactly a top shelf military, but their technology wasn't horrible (light years ahead of the Taliban) and they did have some battle hardend troops still from the Iran-Iraq war.
The US is not Rome, and can't pull of what Rome did.
Yes, we're not Rome. We're what Rome would have been had they been several thousand times more powerful. For some reason that still escapes me, despite many efforts to figure it out, people continue fail to understand that, whether or not you like it, the United States is, in fact, the single most powerful entity in the history of the known Universe. The fact that we are allowing the insurgency in Iraq to go on is proof of that. I think most other nations would just as soon blast the country and be done with it, but we don't even need to. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a die hard Patriot (that's always a bad mentality to have, no matter your country), and I think there's a lot of shit going on in the US right now that is seriously fucked up and threatens our long term future viability, but I also call it as I see it. And what I'm calling is horse shit whenever anyone goes on a tangent about how the Iraqi insurgency is proof our military is weak or that China would smoke our asses. Iraq is nothing. Iraq is Vietnam (somewhere else that we should have just glassed...) with the strong military backing of Russia and a then newly communist China and good (for the defenders) terrain replaced with rabble from Syria and Saudi heading in with their family AKs and a little bit of cash and dense jungle replaced by buildings and sand. As for China, let them do what they're doing for another 20-30 years, and then maybe they'll be a real threat.
Though, that's why we're even talking about this in the first place, the initial story of the US gaining the ability to jam comm. systems from space. In regards to fighting a more modernized foe, this is a necessary step to take. China (who, outside of European nations, would probably be our best match at this point in time) wouldn't be a push over, but I'd imagine head to head, our ground forces would likely take theirs, and we still have naval (I think the carrier matchup is the US with ~20, China with 1 under construction) and (even more so) air superiority over them, and now that we are pushing into space, I don't think we'd have much of a problem at all. But, then again, they're also a nuke nation, so that could make for some interesting times...
Though, like I said, 20-30 years. We're taking bigger military steps into space right now, but China is catching its space program and military up rather quickly (proof that democracy holds countries back, as they are flying up in the world right now under a dictatorship) and might just pass us by then. And the best part? China is a Dragon of our own creation. Just keep the stat in mind that if Wal-Mart was a nation, they would be China's 6th largest trading partner, and I'll let you guess where the US as a whole sits in the remaining top 5. They've built their country as they've seen fit, and have done a very good job of it so far. We've just been giving them the money to do it.
100% agreed. The only reason this insurgency is going on is because we are allowing it to. If we wanted it to be so, we could have it ended by this time tomorrow. Of course, that would really only be practical if someone started listening to my calls for imperialism, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. A shame really, the British had it right once upon a time... ah, the good ol' days... Maybe it's a good thing I got out of the glorious USAF before I received any real say in things.
As for the original post that got you started, I'm amazed by their complete failure to comprehend that there is quite a difference between fighting an actual standing military and fighting a bunch of whack jobs with AKs and IEDs that run around the country blowing shit up. What did it take us? 1, maybe 2 weeks to basically decimate the Iraqi army and air force? I mean, they weren't exactly a top shelf military, but their technology wasn't horrible (light years ahead of the Taliban) and they did have some battle hardend troops still from the Iran-Iraq war.
And that's what makes the initial story so important. In regards to fighting a more modernized foe, this is a necessary step to take. China (who, outside of European nations, would probably be our best match at this point in time) wouldn't be a push over, but I'd imagine head to head, our ground forces would likely take theirs, and we still have naval and (even more so) air superiority over them, and now that we are pushing into space, I don't think we'd have much of a problem at all. But, then again, they're also a nuke nation, so that could make for some interesting times...
For this entire, lame ass story are right here.
Wow, I've seen stories on Slashdot For Grownups get more comments than this, despite them having something on the order of 1/100th of the user base of this quickly devolving pit.
Remember when Slashdot actually did post stuff that mattered? I bet if your user ID is more than 50,000 more than mine, you don't, as I barely do, including my IDless days.
And so Slashdot continued to decay, crappy story by crappy story, 10 dupes a day.
Here though, I want to at least earn my karma hit, since I know it's coming. I don't particularly give a shit, but I figure I might as well get some bang for my buck... ahem...
FUCK YOU, SLASHDOT!
And Zonk can go suck a big dick, too.
Thank you.
Also, while it is bad form to bitch about moderation, I would again, as I have about 386,749 other times, like to point out that the moderators need to learn what the fuck trolling is and isn't. The above is Flamebait if anything (though it's not, it's the truth), trolling is what the article itself is, but I'll let you morons read the FAQ about that, as I already know the difference and moderate correctly.
I applaud this fine piece (you know, pIEce, not pEAce, timothy, you dipshit) of trolling.
/. Editor Needs His Ass Turbo-Fired?" poll.
/. never sees a single cent of my money and why their ads don't exactly reach my browser window. Not like I don't get enough of them in the stories around here any damn way...
And I now have my vote for the next (first), "Which
Wow, just fucking wow. It's shit like this that will ensure
I'm going to have to go with Mac OS X on this one all the way for a couple of reasons.
First, and probably most importantly, it's what I've mainly used for a long time now and over that period of time (About 12 years I'd guess) things have been pretty consistant, even though I've lived through everything from 7.5 to now.
Back during the days of Classic, I still prefered Apples over PCs, but I think back then it was more a matter of personal taste. Both platforms worked ok, crashed way to much, and had inconsistant software. I still liked the Mac better, but I don't think I really would have been any worse for ware on a PC. However, all the various little nuances of the Mac have stayed pretty consistant over time and now most live on in OS X, so I've been able to transition very well from version to version over time and have simply built upon the core skills I had before with each new upgrade.
Along with consistancy in the OS, applications on OS X seem to me to be much more consistant in design and function than on other OSes. I've had experience in plenty of other OSes and have never found anything that has worked as well (or looked as pretty, but that's not what we're talking about) as OS X and had the level of consistancy. Granted, I've never used any other non-Mac OS to the extent I've used OS X, but I'm very comfortable in any version of Windows (to comfortable really, but more on that later), can work fine in most flavors of Linux, am not scared of any sort of command line and have even dabbled in the olden days of OS/2 and whatever the first Commadores with an OS ran (Amiga?).
Even thrid party applications all seem to follow the same basics of design and function. The menus are all where you expect them to be. Key commands are basically standardized. They even usually have similar looks which lends itself to a sense of unity throughout the OS. My favorite example of consistancy has to be that on Macs, all the CD burning applications have always more or less worked the same way, compared to a Windows machine, where I have yet to come across 2 diffent apps that behave the same. Hell, I've yet to cross 2 people with the same app. to burn CDs, and I've only found a small handful who even knew how to make a CD using their app. I learned Toast a long time ago to burn CDs (my first burner was a 4x2, no re-writeability), and while the process has advanced to a real no brainer level, iTunes more or less works the same to make music CDs and OS X to make data CDs as Toast did probably 6 or 7 years ago. It's this and a million other examples that add up for me and make it so that I dont have to spend huge amounts of time learning how to use every new little app that crops up.
And then there's the usual OS X advantages. It really is rock solid (I've had 2 crashes ever using it, and those we're back in the early days of the OS), even most applications never have issues and the OS is disturbingly efficent. I have a friend who is a die hard Windows fan. One day, he saw me use Apple's Expose feature to rapidly sort through and work in about 10 windows in no time and actually said, "Wow. Your operating system is disgustingly efficent." It kind of made me all warm and tingley inside.
But, thinking as I go, probably the biggest proof for me that OS X is the most productive OS for me comes not from me personally, but from other users. Being the most technology savvy person I know, I get to play mobile IT support guy to every one I know. I can think of, give or take, about 7 other Mac users I know and talk to about their computers and about 20 PC (All Windows) users. Funnily enough, as an aside, only a couple of the Mac users are even remotely aware of Linux and none of the Windows folk have even really heard of it besides my occasional threat to make them learn it.
Anyway, out of all the Mac users, I've only ever had to show 3 of them how to do ANYTHING on their computer and 2 had legitmate problems and the other 1 is mentally retarded and should be banned from compu