Got a PSP, need more puzzle games...
on
PSP Launch Coverage
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· Score: 4, Informative
I picked up a PSP, and I must say I am impressed. The device is great, technically and asthetically.
I also picked up two games, Tony Hawk and Lumines. I've had the chance to play each for about 30 minutes, and I must say, the PSP needs more games like Lumines (which is a puzzle game similar to Tetris, for those unaware.)
The great thing about those types of games, is they are quick to play. You can pick it up and put it down at any time, without having to get into a story or finish some long drawn-out goal or mission. I'm hoping both Sony and the game studios see a benefit in creating more games like this, especially for the PSP, but also stand-alone consoles.
I've posted links to pictures and more info to my blog, if you are interested. More info will be posted as I get a chance.
leave it to a machead fanboi to assume certain things about other users and blindly try to convert others to their side by confusing a media player and an operating system.
Wow, let the assumptions start rolling. I wasn't confusing a media player and an operating system. I was showing that, while your argument may make sense for Winamp, the fact that you use Windows pretty much goes against everything you were arguing about.
I am by no means a "machead fanboi." I used Linux as my primary machine for years. Now, however, a Mac has taken over that roll, for varying reasons. Linux probably will regain that title soon however. I haven't set eyes on a Windows machine in months, and when I do, it is only at work.
Oh, and because I eschew bloat, all my Linux machines are custom rolled by hand from source.
Mac OS X does the same thing as Wndows for me, and doesn't take up as much memspace. Oh, and it also has really nice features which Windows doesn't have... like NOT LOADING services I don't need into memory. I could go on and on and on here.
Sounds like its time for you to make the switch to Mac OS X.
Where are all the hackers and geeks these days, anyways? I like using my own scripts to copy and file and sort all my data.
Probably working on more important things, since iTunes does its job really well and saves me untold hours of time, freeing me up to work on other projects besides maintaining a music collection.
First, lets alter genetics to eliminate the source of greed that drives everyone to fuck with everything they can. Maybe I'm the only one, but sometimes I think things are getting out of hand.
there wouldn't be worries about the altered genes entering the natural ecosystem because of the sterility.
And Microsoft produces bug-free code. No amount of engineering can produce "worry-free" systems.
When I dream, I want a pony. No software as complex as these players gets released bug free and feature complete.
I wasn't implying that they do. However, bug free and stable are two entirely different things. I've not once had my iPod lock up on me. I've seen my sister's do it, but she runs with it a lot and it has a couple nice dings in it from being dropped. However, even after all that, it runs flawlessly after a full reset.
My point was that if a company is shipping a product that has a lock-up problem (fairly obvious too, given the reviews) then you have to question the efforts of the development team and/or the marketing team. I know its not easy, but this points to a fundamental willingness to take advantage of your customers for the sake of profits.
People that wanted to buy an apple will just buy a windows pc, Cherry and OSX.
Yeah, that's exactly what will happen. People who really want something better won't do that. If they do, the will still be left by incessant plagues of viruses, horrible slow down over time, crashes, etc, etc, etc.
The beauty of OS X is that you get rid of a vast majority of these problems, but only when it is the base OS.
In any case, I doubt any mainstream person ever hears and remembers Cherry OS. I've never understood these things. Sure, they may be an interesting technical hack, but never has one taken a strong foothold in mainstream desktop usage. Never.
People who want to buy an Apple, will buy an Apple. Period. (And they'll be the better off for it.)
say what you will about Rio at least they keep the updates comming.
You make this seem like it's a good thing. Updates that come too frequently usually signal that something was wrong to begin with. And if their having troubles dealing with original problems, they are likely going to continue having them.
Personally, I'd rather have something that worked straight away. I've had an iPod for about a year, and I think I've applied two updates. Neither of these were necessary for *stability*. Instead, they actually added features.
I was running on a train of thought very similar to yours, but this is probably the exact effect he wants. For the record, while he does raise very interesting points and intriguing solutions, I don't agree with the his party's platform.
On to address these points (as I see them)...
Although this might improve accountability, this would drive the small investor right out of the stock market.
I think this is a necessary component of things. He is relying on this limitless liability to enforce corporate responsibility. This is obviously important for things such as the life and death of people using the products. It gets more complex when dealing with "intangibles" such as the environment. For instance, a person would sue if a faulty product killed a family member, but who will sue on behalf of the environment? By scaring away small investors, you necisarrily put more emphasis on smaller companies. Only in smaller companies can the investors be as intimatley familiar with operations in order to justify the risk of investing in them. This makes the companies easier to sue for damages to these "intangibles" than large companies with lots of resources.
Again, I'm not sure this works well in practice, but it's the only way I can reason this out. In fact, I'm almost completely against this line of reasoning. I'd much rather have a government that I can reellect every 4 years abusing its power than a company that I have no control over. Giving companies such an advantage just encourages one company to get large enough, and thus be tempted to abuse its power.
Seriously, on the story page, to the right of the text there is a section called "Related Links." It contains all the links in the story, each on their own line.
2. The whole "??? - Profit!" line is poking fun about the lack of a business plan with most Internet companies in the mid-to-late 90s.
However, in your comment, you are referring to selling books. Step 3 would read "3. Sell the book." There is nothing "new media" about book sales. It is an old industry with time-tested methods.
They are going to impose restrictions on the laws of physics, especially those concerning propagation of radio waves, that requires said waves to cease to exist after seven days.
The scariest part of all this, as your comment indicates, is that at the same time and in the same country, you have to directly opposite and conflicting things happening.
First, you have both service and skilled jobs being outsourced, leading to unemployment or lowered pay/benefits. Seconds, you have rising health care costs drawing in more doctors. Eventually one of these will buckle under the weight of the other.
This is much needed!
on
Open the Debates
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· Score: 2, Insightful
A sentiment which seems to be quite prevalent in this election is that, while people are not enthused about John Kerry, they are voting for him because they don't want to vote for Bush. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you can't cast a reasonable vote for the candidate who represents your issues, and have to resort to voting against the candidate who doesn't.
Things may start to change if the third-party candidates and independants were given enough media coverage to actually present their views to the public. This simply doesn't happen, but allowing them to take part in nationally televised debates would be a step in the right direction.
Does anyone know of anyplace that shows screenshots of the DIGA DVR interface. Plenty of places show the TiVo interface, but I find it quite hard to do an accurate comparison between TiVo and anything else, simply because I've never seen the interface available. Anytime I walk into a Best Buy, none of these units are hooked up to a TV, so that is no help either.
OK, this may be slightly offtopic, but since we are discussing UI, and I saw this in the screenshots, why does GNOME (and to a lesser extent) KDE sometimes try to pull of both the dock and taskbar interfaces. This is totally rediculous to me, and just leads the interface to feel cluttered and confusing.
OK, so that rant above is coming from someone who has mostly converted to using Mac OS X on the desktop. I still use Linux on servers. Anyway, I remember about a year ago when I made the transition, that the dock seemed rather confusing. However, after a couple weeks of usage, I was cursing every taskbar system I ever had to interact with (Windows and Linux). The dock is just so much more condusive to having many windows open. Add in Expose to the mix, and you are in desktop heaven.
So, my question is then, especially to the GNOME developers (GNOME is my preferred Linux DE), what are the plans with regard to application launchers such as start menus, taskbars, docks, etc. The progress has been remarkable, but, to me at least, this is the area most sorely needing standards and consistency.
Seems to me the parent post was referring to video, and you were referring to audio. Can anyone point to whether DRM is reqired for video? It may well not be, but your blatant harassment of the parent is ill regarded considering you don't even address the point he was making.
The one I replied to (#10111001). That in hex is 0xB9. Oh man, you're killing me here by making me point out how lame that was. I'm trying so hard to not bust out in laughter, and yet I realize it not all that funny. Now, back to my corner.
You're right. Obj-C is so much better that those two its not even funny.
The only reason I'm replying is to congratulate you on the benign post. Oh god, lame hex humor. I truly apologize. If I wasn't programming registers on a chip today that joke would never have happened. I promise. I'm going to crawl into a corner now.
I usually don't reply to ACs, but the Objective-C bashing is just ignorant. Objective-C is not used much outside of the Mac OS X development community, but that does not make it a bad language. I've programmed fairly extensively in it, and I can say that it is a truly incredible language that makes tasks really simple. It is a true object oriented language (everything inherits from NSObject) yet you still get to keep pointers, which gives you a lot of power as well. It has the power of C++ and the ease of use of Java or C#.
I have yet to meet anyone with significant experience in Objective-C who can say they dislike the language.
Yes, but just local channels are required to be unscrambled. This is just the ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates. Any other non-local channels (ESPN, Discovery Channel, HBO, etc, etc) will be encrypted. A vast majority of the content on a digital cable network is encrypted.
I don't have a complete list by any means, but many of the latest HDTVs have CableCARD slots. For instance, the Pioneer PureVision plasma displays do. You can walk into any Best Buy and check them out. Got to the HDTV section and many of the TVs being sold will list CableCARD as a feature.
As of yet, I know of no stand alone set-top box that has CableCARD compatibility. Rumors have it that TiVo once demoed a prototype that did, but if so, it has yet to see retail availablity.
Yep, it's a one-way, downstream only standard right now. If you use it in a TV with built in CableCARD, for instance, you lose some features of the set-top box such as guide listings, ordering PPV, and all that. The two-way standard will be much better, but also is quite a ways away since the technical hurdles are quite large.
However, for devices with external network connectivity, you can get around some of the downsides. For instance, if you had a computer with a CableCARD, you could just download guide listings over the Internet to set-up a PVR type device. TiVo will likely do something very similar if it ever sells a CableCARD device.
Lack of guide listings is, to me, the thing I would miss most about a CableCARD only device. You can get guide listings easily enough off the Internet if you are doing a custom solution.
Slashdot Mirror
I picked up a PSP, and I must say I am impressed. The device is great, technically and asthetically.
I also picked up two games, Tony Hawk and Lumines. I've had the chance to play each for about 30 minutes, and I must say, the PSP needs more games like Lumines (which is a puzzle game similar to Tetris, for those unaware.)
The great thing about those types of games, is they are quick to play. You can pick it up and put it down at any time, without having to get into a story or finish some long drawn-out goal or mission. I'm hoping both Sony and the game studios see a benefit in creating more games like this, especially for the PSP, but also stand-alone consoles.
I've posted links to pictures and more info to my blog, if you are interested. More info will be posted as I get a chance.
leave it to a machead fanboi to assume certain things about other users and blindly try to convert others to their side by confusing a media player and an operating system.
Wow, let the assumptions start rolling. I wasn't confusing a media player and an operating system. I was showing that, while your argument may make sense for Winamp, the fact that you use Windows pretty much goes against everything you were arguing about.
I am by no means a "machead fanboi." I used Linux as my primary machine for years. Now, however, a Mac has taken over that roll, for varying reasons. Linux probably will regain that title soon however. I haven't set eyes on a Windows machine in months, and when I do, it is only at work.
Oh, and because I eschew bloat, all my Linux machines are custom rolled by hand from source.
Mac OS X does the same thing as Wndows for me, and doesn't take up as much memspace. Oh, and it also has really nice features which Windows doesn't have... like NOT LOADING services I don't need into memory. I could go on and on and on here.
Sounds like its time for you to make the switch to Mac OS X.
Where are all the hackers and geeks these days, anyways? I like using my own scripts to copy and file and sort all my data.
Probably working on more important things, since iTunes does its job really well and saves me untold hours of time, freeing me up to work on other projects besides maintaining a music collection.
Not only is it a lucrative market
First, lets alter genetics to eliminate the source of greed that drives everyone to fuck with everything they can. Maybe I'm the only one, but sometimes I think things are getting out of hand.
there wouldn't be worries about the altered genes entering the natural ecosystem because of the sterility.
And Microsoft produces bug-free code. No amount of engineering can produce "worry-free" systems.
When I dream, I want a pony. No software as complex as these players gets released bug free and feature complete.
I wasn't implying that they do. However, bug free and stable are two entirely different things. I've not once had my iPod lock up on me. I've seen my sister's do it, but she runs with it a lot and it has a couple nice dings in it from being dropped. However, even after all that, it runs flawlessly after a full reset.
My point was that if a company is shipping a product that has a lock-up problem (fairly obvious too, given the reviews) then you have to question the efforts of the development team and/or the marketing team. I know its not easy, but this points to a fundamental willingness to take advantage of your customers for the sake of profits.
People that wanted to buy an apple will just buy a windows pc, Cherry and OSX.
Yeah, that's exactly what will happen. People who really want something better won't do that. If they do, the will still be left by incessant plagues of viruses, horrible slow down over time, crashes, etc, etc, etc.
The beauty of OS X is that you get rid of a vast majority of these problems, but only when it is the base OS.
In any case, I doubt any mainstream person ever hears and remembers Cherry OS. I've never understood these things. Sure, they may be an interesting technical hack, but never has one taken a strong foothold in mainstream desktop usage. Never.
People who want to buy an Apple, will buy an Apple. Period. (And they'll be the better off for it.)
say what you will about Rio at least they keep the updates comming.
You make this seem like it's a good thing. Updates that come too frequently usually signal that something was wrong to begin with. And if their having troubles dealing with original problems, they are likely going to continue having them.
Personally, I'd rather have something that worked straight away. I've had an iPod for about a year, and I think I've applied two updates. Neither of these were necessary for *stability*. Instead, they actually added features.
I was running on a train of thought very similar to yours, but this is probably the exact effect he wants. For the record, while he does raise very interesting points and intriguing solutions, I don't agree with the his party's platform.
On to address these points (as I see them)...
Although this might improve accountability, this would drive the small investor right out of the stock market.
I think this is a necessary component of things. He is relying on this limitless liability to enforce corporate responsibility. This is obviously important for things such as the life and death of people using the products. It gets more complex when dealing with "intangibles" such as the environment. For instance, a person would sue if a faulty product killed a family member, but who will sue on behalf of the environment? By scaring away small investors, you necisarrily put more emphasis on smaller companies. Only in smaller companies can the investors be as intimatley familiar with operations in order to justify the risk of investing in them. This makes the companies easier to sue for damages to these "intangibles" than large companies with lots of resources.
Again, I'm not sure this works well in practice, but it's the only way I can reason this out. In fact, I'm almost completely against this line of reasoning. I'd much rather have a government that I can reellect every 4 years abusing its power than a company that I have no control over. Giving companies such an advantage just encourages one company to get large enough, and thus be tempted to abuse its power.
Thanks. I stand corrected. Disregard my snide remark.
Seriously, on the story page, to the right of the text there is a section called "Related Links." It contains all the links in the story, each on their own line.
Two points:
1. That was lame and completely not funny.
2. The whole "??? - Profit!" line is poking fun about the lack of a business plan with most Internet companies in the mid-to-late 90s.
However, in your comment, you are referring to selling books. Step 3 would read "3. Sell the book." There is nothing "new media" about book sales. It is an old industry with time-tested methods.
They are going to impose restrictions on the laws of physics, especially those concerning propagation of radio waves, that requires said waves to cease to exist after seven days.
People way smarter than you and mr have already figured this out.
Which isn't saying a whole lot, apparently.
The scariest part of all this, as your comment indicates, is that at the same time and in the same country, you have to directly opposite and conflicting things happening.
First, you have both service and skilled jobs being outsourced, leading to unemployment or lowered pay/benefits. Seconds, you have rising health care costs drawing in more doctors. Eventually one of these will buckle under the weight of the other.
A sentiment which seems to be quite prevalent in this election is that, while people are not enthused about John Kerry, they are voting for him because they don't want to vote for Bush. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you can't cast a reasonable vote for the candidate who represents your issues, and have to resort to voting against the candidate who doesn't.
Things may start to change if the third-party candidates and independants were given enough media coverage to actually present their views to the public. This simply doesn't happen, but allowing them to take part in nationally televised debates would be a step in the right direction.
Does anyone know of anyplace that shows screenshots of the DIGA DVR interface. Plenty of places show the TiVo interface, but I find it quite hard to do an accurate comparison between TiVo and anything else, simply because I've never seen the interface available. Anytime I walk into a Best Buy, none of these units are hooked up to a TV, so that is no help either.
OK, this may be slightly offtopic, but since we are discussing UI, and I saw this in the screenshots, why does GNOME (and to a lesser extent) KDE sometimes try to pull of both the dock and taskbar interfaces. This is totally rediculous to me, and just leads the interface to feel cluttered and confusing.
OK, so that rant above is coming from someone who has mostly converted to using Mac OS X on the desktop. I still use Linux on servers. Anyway, I remember about a year ago when I made the transition, that the dock seemed rather confusing. However, after a couple weeks of usage, I was cursing every taskbar system I ever had to interact with (Windows and Linux). The dock is just so much more condusive to having many windows open. Add in Expose to the mix, and you are in desktop heaven.
So, my question is then, especially to the GNOME developers (GNOME is my preferred Linux DE), what are the plans with regard to application launchers such as start menus, taskbars, docks, etc. The progress has been remarkable, but, to me at least, this is the area most sorely needing standards and consistency.
Seems to me the parent post was referring to video, and you were referring to audio. Can anyone point to whether DRM is reqired for video? It may well not be, but your blatant harassment of the parent is ill regarded considering you don't even address the point he was making.
The one I replied to (#10111001). That in hex is 0xB9. Oh man, you're killing me here by making me point out how lame that was. I'm trying so hard to not bust out in laughter, and yet I realize it not all that funny. Now, back to my corner.
You're right. Obj-C is so much better that those two its not even funny.
The only reason I'm replying is to congratulate you on the benign post. Oh god, lame hex humor. I truly apologize. If I wasn't programming registers on a chip today that joke would never have happened. I promise. I'm going to crawl into a corner now.
/me raises hand.
I usually don't reply to ACs, but the Objective-C bashing is just ignorant. Objective-C is not used much outside of the Mac OS X development community, but that does not make it a bad language. I've programmed fairly extensively in it, and I can say that it is a truly incredible language that makes tasks really simple. It is a true object oriented language (everything inherits from NSObject) yet you still get to keep pointers, which gives you a lot of power as well. It has the power of C++ and the ease of use of Java or C#.
I have yet to meet anyone with significant experience in Objective-C who can say they dislike the language.
Yes, but just local channels are required to be unscrambled. This is just the ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates. Any other non-local channels (ESPN, Discovery Channel, HBO, etc, etc) will be encrypted. A vast majority of the content on a digital cable network is encrypted.
I don't have a complete list by any means, but many of the latest HDTVs have CableCARD slots. For instance, the Pioneer PureVision plasma displays do. You can walk into any Best Buy and check them out. Got to the HDTV section and many of the TVs being sold will list CableCARD as a feature.
As of yet, I know of no stand alone set-top box that has CableCARD compatibility. Rumors have it that TiVo once demoed a prototype that did, but if so, it has yet to see retail availablity.
Yep, it's a one-way, downstream only standard right now. If you use it in a TV with built in CableCARD, for instance, you lose some features of the set-top box such as guide listings, ordering PPV, and all that. The two-way standard will be much better, but also is quite a ways away since the technical hurdles are quite large.
However, for devices with external network connectivity, you can get around some of the downsides. For instance, if you had a computer with a CableCARD, you could just download guide listings over the Internet to set-up a PVR type device. TiVo will likely do something very similar if it ever sells a CableCARD device.
Lack of guide listings is, to me, the thing I would miss most about a CableCARD only device. You can get guide listings easily enough off the Internet if you are doing a custom solution.