Nothing brings home a rant about poor web design like wrapping your post in <tt>.
Well done! </sarcasm>
If you were a serious contributor, you'd define "poor HTML production". What has hampered the web more than anything else is poor interpretation of existing standards. If nothing else, the first browser wars did their best to annihilate as many "standards" as possible.
On the web, MSFT may have a point; even if it isn't good, it should look good. Using hybrid or even table-based layouts is a necessary evil in certain cases.
Now, where is that "Blind Billionaire"? I have a bridge to sell.
At the risk of going off-topic, I'll address your mis-founded objections.
Half LIfe released in November of 1998. Would you happen to recall the game consoles that were around in 1998? Don't say "Sega Dreamcast". (unless you happened to live in Japan at the time)
That's right... Sega Saturn, PlayStation (one) and N64. That's about it. 3D capabilities were veritably primitive for the latter two, and the Dreamcast was certainly well before its time. Even so, a significant 3D title at that time was Virtua Fighter, which you have duly mentioned.
The Saturn (and 32X) had the title, but while the fighting figures on the screen had "joints" that served to mimic life-like movement, the shapes still reflected their simple-polygon parts and did not truly "join" where the separate parts moved. (non-deformed)
In mentioning "skeletal modeling", I was implying that the texture-deformation of modern game characters is partly from Valve's efforts. The texture deformation was based on how a core structure—or skeleton—was embedded within the greater, fleshed-out model. Rather than being comprised of separate primitives, the models for Half Life became modeled as a single form, then articulated with skeletons which the engine could interpret in real-time. This resulted in more life-like "skin" and "clothes" and realistic (though still puppet-like) "speaking" of the on-screen characters.
Revolutionary aspects of the original Half Life include skeletal animation, (interpolated skin-animation, rather than simple, intersecting polygons) seamless storyline and auto-saving. Some of these features were also part of Quake II that came around nearly a month later. Animation techniques since the first Quake (1996) had been evolving from the polygon and primitives "jointed" together, but the poly's themselves would have visible artifacts where the shapes clipped through each other. Skeletal animation and skinning changed most that to create the more-human and "rounder" characters we know today. (notable also is introduction of NURBS into 3D modeling, however the mathematics behind it have been around since the 50's)
Incidentally, NURBS surfaces have more to do with "vertex interpolation" than jointed texture-deformation.
Now for some quid pro quo...
Skeletal animation was neither introduced nor invented by Valve, AFAIK
the consoles of the era required skeletal animation since they couldn't
handle vertex interpolation properly
You're half right, Valve did neither of those things alone. I fail to see however, where this point in any way disagrees with my parent post. I, personally haven't developed any games for the PS1, N64, 32X or Saturn, so I cannot say exactly what went into the modeling efforts. (did you?) As I am familiar with contemporary 3D modeling, I know that a "skeleton" is not actually necessary to animate a 3D model.
Games like Virtua Fighter and Mario 64 have segmented models where each segment corresponds to a bone.
The correlation does exist, but that doesn't mean that it's true "skeletal modeling" at work. I know for a fact that you don't need "bones" (skeletal segments that attach to each other, surrounded by "flesh" polygons) to joint polygons or primitives together; all it requires is a vertex anchor. Mario makes for a poor example, since he doesn't have any contextual or free-form interactions, and only required a few, distinct animations. Even your example with Virtua Fighter is misplaced since many of the fighting "moves" require relative position
From all of the Quake-clones, only a few really stand out. Unreal branched to make their own engine, (recently licensed by EA Games, in fact--NOTE: link downloads PDF file) so did Half Life (the first). (partly responsible for the industry movement to "skeletal" modeling) Of the two, Source engine is truly the more powerful. (even if not the more ubiquitous)
Steam resembles a constant hack-in-progress, and the "Content Servers" are what get my goat every time. (2 megabit pipe and I'm still downloading at 80kbps?!?!) Let's join hands and pray for it's quick emergence into robustitudity. (yes, I made that up... what, you don't invent any words?)
In all, it only amounts to the partly-bruised banana in an otherwise delicious arrangement of delights in the gaming industry.
'click'... purchased... 'click'... installed... 'click'... start game -- nobody else has that
Revolutionary 3D engine. Online direct-to-drive purchasing and net-play platform. Open door to the community to modify their products, and turn-key partnering for smaller developers to release new and innovative titles. (2D/3D/RPG... you name it)
Often remembered for their "just in time" releases, they have always put quality at the forefront.
If EA has any lessons to learn, they could far worse than learning from VaLVe's example.
Sorry, but that's irrelevant. Those employees are bound directly by Federal Law to deliver the mail to you, un-opened.
We trust the folks at USPS, and the UPS store (et al) to handle mail, not open and scan it. To me, that's a HUGE difference when you're talking privacy and secure correspondence.
If there's a better example for your comparison, it would be payment-processing facilities. (a.k.a. lockboxes)
Their operations are strictly controlled, managed and audited, yet heavily automated with mail-opening and scanning devcies. Employees and contractors are often bonded for the sheer volume of currency they are apt to handle. OTOH, there's so much labor-intensive work that it's hard for such operations to turn a profit. Many organizations, especially cable-service providers and land-line telephone services, consider it a necessary evil, even though the entire department often shows quarterly losses.
Despite all that, it only affects how your intended payment reaches the proper account; the model being proposed in TFA is a method to disseminate all of your incoming, private mail. Currently, we don't really have a model to compare; unless you're a butler.
If a lockbox struggles to show a profit, just how would this business model work anyway?
Maybe that "something" is the apparent potential for abuse?
...or is it that it requires complete trust in a mechanical system?
We must consider that, being a mechanical system, it will have failures.
Ergo... we must put complete trust in the system's technicians.
Would that trust be appreciated by the technician that "goofs", performs a C.Y.A. and makes your critical check/legal-document/other-correspondence disappear completely?
If what Zorg says is the paradigm for the "Service Economy" model, then I, for one, can live without it.
Why would we want to emerge into an economy based on catering to the whims of the power-brokers and corporate despots?
It's not that the Service Industry is in any way reprehensible, quite the opposite. I believe the morality of a Service Industry is measured by whom the industry actually serves.
In the end; to argue that SCO has provided for the national GNP in a positive light is like saying "parking tickets have created more jobs!" There's a real fuzzy quality to that theory, and it seems to completely ignore where the money actually goes. (kinda like Reganomics)
The only good thing about the SCO debacle will be when it ends. (a'la Zorg choking on his cherry)
Consider; for each "vocal" gamer in the Linux-PC camp, there are at least three "silent" gamers that just toe the line with Win32 compatibility, or actually straddle the fence with dual-boot Win/Lin systems. (myself included in the latter)
The marketeers would do well to acknowledge this potential, and it would only take one major title to unleash the phenomenon.
Hey VaLVe! This is your chance! Port Steam® over and show us that any online-delivery paradigm can be cross-platform! Go! Go! Go!
Unfortunately, the ESRB provides those ratings strictly for consumer self-recognisance and parental benefit. They state that that are "the game industry's self-regulating body", not a department of state.
As far as I'm aware, the ratings can't be legally enforced outside of sanctions/penalties within the gaming industry.
Besides, there's a chance of mis-placed ratings...
Under "T for Teen" ratings, you'll find titles like Battlefield 2142 [future, guns, war, blow-stuff-up] and Medal of Honor: Heroes [same, but WWII]. War=violence, and yet "suitable for ages 13+" However...
Under "M for Mature" ratings, you will find titles like Dungeon Keeper [1 and 2, both are whimsically comical, and as unrealistic as it gets] Neither of these titles advocates war in any way (except for the implied "war between good and evil")
Check under "E for Everyone" (yes, even those under 10) ratings and you'll see Need for Speed: Most Wanted [excessive driving, property damage and evading authorities] Of course it's safe! Your child won't be driving a car for another 10 years or so! They will have long forgotten the zany antics of running from the cops. </sarcasm>
I have to return this thread to the sentiment of so many others here today; it's not the games, the game-makers, or the game-platform-makers... it's the parents. Why do people deny that parents are the directly culpable party when it comes to the misbehavior of minors? That's right! When that makes them the culpable party.
Blaming the games is like blaming Hollywood for all the... [ahem] would-be stuntpersons appearing in the Darwin Awards every year.
In that light, if I suggest you shoot yourself right now, and you go do it, would I be guilty of murder? Nobody would be able to prove it.
Excerpt from "Pusher": [After MODELL's acquittal, he runs into MULDER and SCULLY in the foyer.] MULDER: Your shoe's untied. [MODELL looks down at his feet, quickly gets the "joke" and then meets MULDER'S steely gaze once again, slightly amused] MULDER: So how do you do it?
I don't believe that the CIO in-question made that statement as a reaction to Steve's veiled threats, but rather to the overall gesture that the B-man and Microsoft have made to the community, market and industry as a whole.
This is my take on Steve's little escapade:
STEVE: Hey, you're shoes untied.
ME: They're z-straps! They don't come untied.
STEVE: Oh... huhehehhuh... I see now. [...] Hey, those are MY shoes!
ME: Huh? [looking down]
STEVE: Oooh! You looked! You looked! You gotta give me your shoes, now!
ME: What?!
STEVE: You looked. If you look, it means you thought they might be my shoes... so they're mine. Gimme!
ME: No.
STEVE: I'm gonna tell! I'm gonna tell everyone that you stole my shoes! (waaaaa-aaaaah!)
etc... etc...
So, the question is; do you take your business to a company—no matter how much leverage they have—being led by someone willing to make such a gesture?
I think that's what our CIO friend was really saying.
Ballmer's remarks through this fiasco are evasive enough, but at
least seem to be comprehensible. Bullying us into thinking, "OMG!
If I use Linux, the MicroNazis will come to my door with a bill for
such-a-bunch-a-dollars!" Please, Mr. B. The latest stats
on school dropouts don't speak for all of us.
Speaking of dropouts, I peeked at this interview
with Bill Gates and-- is it just me, or does he not make a lick of
sense? It's so filled
with contra-semantics and double-speak that I can't make heads or tails
of what he's really saying. If MS wants him to lead their projects,
then they're being led by senility.
Now that the smoke is clearing, I can get behind Novell's take on
this; inter-operability is the key to making everything work in the
end. (stuff works... goo-ood.)
When it comes down to it, having a working PC, and having the stuff
you need to work on a PC work, is what really matters.
Ballmer's little "made ya look!" trick has done nothing but cause a
huge ruckus. It's as FUD as FUD can get.
I might even re-install OpenSuSE after all is said and done. (using
Gnome this time)
...hasn't really changed all that much since the Eisenhower administration.
I've seen a lot of, "Here! [point-point-point] This is what's going wrong!"
It's not a failure of any one thing; the system is based on a very-old model that hasn't really been addressed in over 50 years.
In that time, various de-regulation and isolationism of independent states, counties, regions and districts have all deconstituted the original model with "improvements". After a while, these changes bring everything "out of synch".
Just the fact that nationwide statistics show certain states to have over 50% of their schools "in need of improvement" is an indicator of a greater, and very complicated problem.
Another astonishing fact is that progress has been made in Education Theory, but implementation of the new systems is slow, sporadic and even completely ignored in favor of the status-quo.
What's keeping other schools from following this example?
If anyone is going to point fingers, keep aiming higher... higher than that... all the way to the top.
If only more folks would get involved during the primaries, we wouldn't be left with such crappy choices come November.
Please, your honor. Indulge me. I will bring this to relevance presently.
Change in education happens when a change in administration causes changes in the national priority and therefore in the national budget. If the quasi-socialized Public Education System doesn't have the funds to make change, they keep on keepin on. (and that's the problem)
Good for you... and your analogy is quite succinct.
For the analogy, I'll color in a bit more:
The ship is adorned with thousands of handles on the exterior.
On each handle, hangs a monkey (monkey/chimp/lemur... anything can be trained)
Upon liftoff, each monkey throws "wrenches" at the ground, repeatedly.
Just above the bottom of the ship is an electromagnet that speeds-up the wrenches as they fall.
As the wrenches pass the electromagnet, they polarize and fall straight to the ground.
The wrenches themselves are buoyant and come floating in the air; an endless supply of them.
If nothing else, I guess that liftoff would come about by the sheer pile of wrenches on the ground. (I know: ha... ha... ha...:P)
... but doesn't that also describe current rocket-propulsion systems? Whether a chemical reaction, (stored-energy chain-reaction) or the ionization of molecules (steady, energy-conversion reaction) the effect is roughly the same.
It's not necessarily a strict Newtonian equation; the model also has to appreciate aerodynamics and fluid displacement forces.
After all that; consider that we're not going to build ships of balsa, tinfoil and corona-wire. The "lifters" are a general proof-of-concept experiment and make a great science fair exhibit. The REAL benefit of the technology is a hidden potential that—to my knowledge—isn't being thoroughly explored. (the main gist of my posts)
Corona wire anode could be tested with other conductors. (superconductors?)
Tinfoil cathode could be any number of low-grade conductors. (why not the ships hull?)
Capacitance gap can be any number of insulators, not just air. (forming a venturi, perhaps?)
Mix into that all variations of DC voltages, or even AC frequencies that could elicit an unexpected "boost" and might burst the power/weight ratio to become a new propulsion system.
I never said it was a ready-to-implement technology, and I think the research still has a long way to go. Personally, it seems to be a revolution waiting to happen. Everyone is entitled to disagree with that. If I have any point to make here, it is that obvious avenues of research are being overlooked in favor of the incredibly terrestrial concept of "elevators".
The reason I linked to w3cschools was to illustrate how CSS is well-published. We all know WHO publishes CSS standards and who is responsible for them.
Besides, I find content on w3cschools much, much more practical and relevant to my work in web design. Most of the content on w3c.org seem more relevant to browser-app developers. (except for those working on IE7, of course) To their credit, they do have nice tips for beginners; you might want to try them out.
As to the (thin) implication that w3cschools is the source of CSS standards, I say "touché". (the implication was not my intent) As for your personal issues with w3cschools, I suggest you take it up with them.
Have some context with your crack... takes the edge off.
I know where you can BUMP and NUDGE to affect the gameplay... an actual PINBALL game!!!
It's always irked me to see some hand-held P.O.S. that touts "realistic pinball action". (...action...action...ction...tion)
If I want to play pinball, I'll play pinball.
However, if I want to ride a dragon... well I can't really do that now, can I?
THAT is why the new controllers are so incredible; they give a new, visceral edge to creative gaming... rather than try to "come full circle" with a gaming platform that's already been around- and around- and around again.
I'll grant you that someone will ultimately make a pinball-sized cabinet with two HD screens on it that uses the very implementation you describe. It will be neat, but it won't be real.
You'll get a two-fold "wow factor" out of me when you can manufacture a true-physics pinball game that truly does something no other pinball game has done before. (Remember the face in "Fun House"? Now, that was some awesome innovation, back in its day.)
Re:Does any major site use pure CSS?
on
CSS Cookbook
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'll grant you that tables are often employed to do what cross-platform CSS
seemingly can not; yet, there are also behaviors CSS can do that are not possible
with tables.
Yet, I will stipulate that CSS alone can often emulate, or even improve upon,
the cumulative effect of rigid-table design. (even without using the DreamWeaver
"layer" implementation, though I believe it will ultimately come around anyway)
The explanation I hear again and again is that Table v. CSS is a "high-road,
low-road" paradigm. They both have the ability to get you to the same place,
though each takes its own route to get there. I found one such example here.
For myself, I see that CSS has the room to expand into a complete layout solution.
The use of tables is dated, and its days are numbered. Tables are just a convenience
derived from an element that was intended only to arrange text. (hence the
name "table" and not "grid" or "layout") The complications with tables often
arise in asymmetrical and non-gridded usage; something
tables were not expected to do very often. (note section #4)
Tables are the old horse, and the scars of being incessantly whipped have
been showing for some time. While it's not the same-old way we're used
to, CSS layout practices are slowly becoming both more "fashionable" and more
common in professional publications.
Re:Well this sounds promising...
on
CSS Cookbook
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The issue with coding is not compliance with CSS standards (those are well
published) but rather in how the various browsers interpret those standards.
The code is standard; the parsing and rendering methodologies are not.
I, for one, appreciate a book that addresses these non-standard behaviors
when parsing standard code. The review posted by samzenpus exposes these insights,
and contrasts them from the plethora of "standards reference" books.
(many from the same publisher)
Sometimes, hacks are
the way to do it. (conditional HTML comments, like CSS itself, are only
partially effective) It's not that any, given book leads us to write "non-compliant
code", (unless you count FrontPage) but that the differences of current browsers in-use require the "non-compliant" variations.
In my book, when the page you create works for everyone viewing it, it is compliant.
You buy a nice pair of shades from Shades-r-us-hut.com for $80 and
they look real nice. They block UV, they make the glare of the sun look
like HL2 eye candy and might even masquerade as a music player.
You enjoy them for a week, then one day you sit on them. In a
heartbeat, they're ruined. The warranty doesn't cover ass-damage
claims, so you're out 80 bucks.
The nihilistic shopper tends to grab a decent pair of shades at
WallyWorld for $8, pockets the difference and doesn't feel so bad when
they get accidentally stepped-on.
I think the paradigm transfers well to PC keyboards; if you get the
Optimus keyboard and spill your mocha on it the next day, does it go
kaputt? Can we expect to see competing, less-expensive concepts in the
marketplace? (like membrane
overlays for standard 84-key QWERTY layouts)
Then again, maybe there are people that go buy a $400
cellphone only to drop it in a puddle.
You bet your momma's table-sizedhard-disks.
While there may be contentions of technical accuracy, I postulate that Bell Labs Unix
provided the groundwork for just about all enterprise filesystems in
use today. (also about the time I was born... so yes, I do remember)
There's a distinction to be made here... a PIF file is not a
"link" in this context. It can however be called a "launcher"... since
it specifically contains data relevant to the environment for an
executable.
While it does have a way to "Find Target", (Win95+) it ultimately
gets left behind (broken) unless updated by installer applications or
the user. Read carefully and you'll see that it's even older than LNK files;
all the way back to MS-DOS.
Linux also distinguishes between links and launchers, however the
differences don't give much potential for abuse. (unlike LNK/PIF files)
The only exception is the symlink race
vulnerability, but is a marginal risk at best with current security
measures.
I'm sure that nobody forgot the beloved PIF, but who really
considers them to be "links" anyway?
True, it was a licensing purchase. Another directly
related article does point out SCO's claim. I'm sure many would appreciate it if you would cite your sources when making such specific claims, I know I would.
The summary
of Linux controversies clearly shows that M$ put an interest into
SCO's so-called "patent rights" in mid-2003... though the scope of the
licensing is only a fraction of what Novell
acquired from AT&T. (and still holds today) Certainly not
enough for SCO to back-up their own notion that they "own" Unix.
Regardless of Novell's current Linux offerings, the fact that they
have a succinct hold on the origins of Unix has a yet-to-be-determined
impact on the future of licensed Unix platforms.
This turns out to be off-topic, I know. I truly want to leave FUD
aside with all this, however the details are speaking more loudly than
my keystrokes could ever accomplish. This issue is already part of Novell's wiki entry and
even throws some props
to us/.'ers.
Besides, symlinks are damn useful. Unlike shortcuts, they have a distinct file
attribute, but do not behave like their target (an advantage, to be
sure); shortcuts are nothing but special files, and can be surreptitiously re-assigned to a new target, even a URL. Just check out these vulnerabilities regarding their use. I haven't seen any such problems with symlinks.
Shortcuts are ill-conceived "placecards" for files and
executables; like a road-sign, they can become outdated by changes to the target file and don't necessarily reflect any relevant properties of the target. The Windows95 implementation marks the change from a centralized database of "links" on the system to independent, "shortcut files". Neither implementation was directly linked to the filesystem.
Symlinks are directly tied through the file-system (not through a secondary API); in my analogy, a symlink is more like GPS navigation, it takes you all the way to the target.
Best-in-show would go to MacOS for aliases; more like a portal to the target, and if the target moves, the alias corrects itself.
In effect, the Windows-style "shortcut" is a complete dupe of *nix
symlinks, (which came first) only bastardized and "extended" by M$ engineers. The fact that MS-DOS (ergo, Windows) used FAT file system negated the possibility of using symlinks. The data-structure was so simplified, there was no room left for advanced tagging or linking mechanisms. (already present in 'ext' at that time)
It's been years since MS bought several (disputed) Unix patents from SCO, and it's apparent they're still not making
anything useful of those. Another case of wrecking already-working code for the sake of thumbing their noses and saying "It's original code! You gotta pay us for it now!"
Pick your favorite Console in 2006: ( ) XBox 360 (X) Playstation 3 ( ) Wii
[...click...whirrrrr...bee-eep...]
Thank you for voting! ----- The current tally is: Microsoft XBox 360 has 0 votes. Sony Playstation 3 has 0 votes. Nintendo Wii has 0 votes. Diebold AccuVote-TS has 35,959 votes
sysmsg(1): Ha-ha! Victory is mine!
Don't worry. It's just jealous of all the attention.
...an HD download of The Matrix, were it even available, could take all day over the average broadband connection.
Talk about "bullet time"... more like "bulls#!t time". It would take long enough to watch the complete trilogy on DVD before you even get the first episode in HD.
I propose, to the industry, a simplified formula:
No matter how "good" or "hi-def" the content is, the electronic delivery of that content should not take any longer than when you play-out the content itself.
This may defy our fond memories of dial-up, but <sarcasm>those were the halcyon days of yore.</sarcasm> Once we found that a streaming video could be viewed with a click, we were hooked. Now, I believe it is the very guideline stated here that defines our impression of "quality content delivery".
Litmus test: When clicking a link for YouTube or Google Video, don't you get annoyed when it starts to "stutter"? Buffering time aside, it is the interruption of the video stream that annoys us most of all; ergo, when the delivery takes longer than the content, it's no good.
On the flip side, maybe it's a good thing that hi-def content is so "bulky". This could make the MPAA and RIAA quite satisfied with the status-quo; where it is time-inefficient to electronically distribute hi-def (read: more expensive) content when compared to physical media. An ad-hoc limitation on "unlicensed" distribution.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing brings home a rant about poor web design like wrapping your post in <tt>.
Well done! </sarcasm>
If you were a serious contributor, you'd define "poor HTML production". What has hampered the web more than anything else is poor interpretation of existing standards . If nothing else, the first browser wars did their best to annihilate as many "standards" as possible.
On the web, MSFT may have a point; even if it isn't good, it should look good. Using hybrid or even table-based layouts is a necessary evil in certain cases.
Now, where is that "Blind Billionaire"? I have a bridge to sell.
At the risk of going off-topic, I'll address your mis-founded objections.
Half LIfe released in November of 1998. Would you happen to recall the game consoles that were around in 1998? Don't say "Sega Dreamcast". (unless you happened to live in Japan at the time)
That's right... Sega Saturn, PlayStation (one) and N64. That's about it. 3D capabilities were veritably primitive for the latter two, and the Dreamcast was certainly well before its time. Even so, a significant 3D title at that time was Virtua Fighter, which you have duly mentioned.
The Saturn (and 32X) had the title, but while the fighting figures on the screen had "joints" that served to mimic life-like movement, the shapes still reflected their simple-polygon parts and did not truly "join" where the separate parts moved. (non-deformed)
In mentioning "skeletal modeling", I was implying that the texture-deformation of modern game characters is partly from Valve's efforts. The texture deformation was based on how a core structure—or skeleton—was embedded within the greater, fleshed-out model. Rather than being comprised of separate primitives, the models for Half Life became modeled as a single form, then articulated with skeletons which the engine could interpret in real-time. This resulted in more life-like "skin" and "clothes" and realistic (though still puppet-like) "speaking" of the on-screen characters.
Revolutionary aspects of the original Half Life include skeletal animation, (interpolated skin-animation, rather than simple, intersecting polygons) seamless storyline and auto-saving. Some of these features were also part of Quake II that came around nearly a month later. Animation techniques since the first Quake (1996) had been evolving from the polygon and primitives "jointed" together, but the poly's themselves would have visible artifacts where the shapes clipped through each other. Skeletal animation and skinning changed most that to create the more-human and "rounder" characters we know today. (notable also is introduction of NURBS into 3D modeling, however the mathematics behind it have been around since the 50's)
Incidentally, NURBS surfaces have more to do with "vertex interpolation" than jointed texture-deformation.
Now for some quid pro quo...
Werd.
From all of the Quake-clones, only a few really stand out. Unreal branched to make their own engine, (recently licensed by EA Games, in fact--NOTE: link downloads PDF file) so did Half Life (the first). (partly responsible for the industry movement to "skeletal" modeling) Of the two, Source engine is truly the more powerful. (even if not the more ubiquitous)
Steam resembles a constant hack-in-progress, and the "Content Servers" are what get my goat every time. (2 megabit pipe and I'm still downloading at 80kbps?!?!) Let's join hands and pray for it's quick emergence into robustitudity. (yes, I made that up... what, you don't invent any words?)
In all, it only amounts to the partly-bruised banana in an otherwise delicious arrangement of delights in the gaming industry.
'click' ... purchased ... 'click' ... installed ... 'click' ... start game -- nobody else has that
Can you say VaLVe?
Revolutionary 3D engine. Online direct-to-drive purchasing and net-play platform. Open door to the community to modify their products, and turn-key partnering for smaller developers to release new and innovative titles. (2D/3D/RPG... you name it)
Often remembered for their "just in time" releases, they have always put quality at the forefront.
If EA has any lessons to learn, they could far worse than learning from VaLVe's example.
Sorry, but that's irrelevant. Those employees are bound directly by Federal Law to deliver the mail to you, un-opened.
We trust the folks at USPS, and the UPS store (et al) to handle mail, not open and scan it. To me, that's a HUGE difference when you're talking privacy and secure correspondence.
If there's a better example for your comparison, it would be payment-processing facilities. (a.k.a. lockboxes)
Their operations are strictly controlled, managed and audited, yet heavily automated with mail-opening and scanning devcies. Employees and contractors are often bonded for the sheer volume of currency they are apt to handle. OTOH, there's so much labor-intensive work that it's hard for such operations to turn a profit. Many organizations, especially cable-service providers and land-line telephone services, consider it a necessary evil, even though the entire department often shows quarterly losses.
Despite all that, it only affects how your intended payment reaches the proper account; the model being proposed in TFA is a method to disseminate all of your incoming, private mail. Currently, we don't really have a model to compare; unless you're a butler.
If a lockbox struggles to show a profit, just how would this business model work anyway?
Maybe that "something" is the apparent potential for abuse?
...or is it that it requires complete trust in a mechanical system?
We must consider that, being a mechanical system, it will have failures.
Ergo... we must put complete trust in the system's technicians.
Would that trust be appreciated by the technician that "goofs", performs a C.Y.A. and makes your critical check/legal-document/other-correspondence disappear completely?
Count me out.
If what Zorg says is the paradigm for the "Service Economy" model, then I, for one, can live without it.
Why would we want to emerge into an economy based on catering to the whims of the power-brokers and corporate despots?
It's not that the Service Industry is in any way reprehensible, quite the opposite. I believe the morality of a Service Industry is measured by whom the industry actually serves.
In the end; to argue that SCO has provided for the national GNP in a positive light is like saying "parking tickets have created more jobs!" There's a real fuzzy quality to that theory, and it seems to completely ignore where the money actually goes. (kinda like Reganomics)
The only good thing about the SCO debacle will be when it ends. (a'la Zorg choking on his cherry)
...based on the most-vocal.
Consider; for each "vocal" gamer in the Linux-PC camp, there are at least three "silent" gamers that just toe the line with Win32 compatibility, or actually straddle the fence with dual-boot Win/Lin systems. (myself included in the latter)
The marketeers would do well to acknowledge this potential, and it would only take one major title to unleash the phenomenon.
Hey VaLVe! This is your chance! Port Steam® over and show us that any online-delivery paradigm can be cross-platform! Go! Go! Go!
Unfortunately, the ESRB provides those ratings strictly for consumer self-recognisance and parental benefit. They state that that are "the game industry's self-regulating body", not a department of state.
As far as I'm aware, the ratings can't be legally enforced outside of sanctions/penalties within the gaming industry.
Besides, there's a chance of mis-placed ratings...
Neither of these titles advocates war in any way (except for the implied "war between good and evil")
I have to return this thread to the sentiment of so many others here today; it's not the games, the game-makers, or the game-platform-makers... it's the parents. Why do people deny that parents are the directly culpable party when it comes to the misbehavior of minors? That's right! When that makes them the culpable party.
Blaming the games is like blaming Hollywood for all the... [ahem] would-be stuntpersons appearing in the Darwin Awards every year.
In that light, if I suggest you shoot yourself right now, and you go do it, would I be guilty of murder? Nobody would be able to prove it.
Then there's Robert Patrick Modell; but that's just an X-Files episode.
Excerpt from "Pusher":
[After MODELL's acquittal, he runs into MULDER and SCULLY in the foyer.]
MULDER: Your shoe's untied.
[MODELL looks down at his feet, quickly gets the "joke" and then meets MULDER'S steely gaze once again, slightly amused]
MULDER: So how do you do it?
Do you know something we don't? Is Hovsepian going to resign anytime soon?
In the meantime, Novell has netted 400 mega-bills on the deal. Are you saying that's bad for business?
The only thing worse than mega-corp FUD is when the community piles despair on top of it.
They'll hang in there. They've been through worse.
After all, there's no such thing as bad publicity!
I don't think this affects BSD one way or the other; they will keep doing what they do best.
As for the rest of us, the question is will we be seduced into upgrading with Microsoft, or will we exercise our free choice?
Do we cave to a monolithic oligarchy, or lean towards community-accepted standards?
Ultimately, the question may be, do we accept commercialized, obfuscated and ill-purported functionality or do we turn to the experts?
...or Rationalism? Hmmmmm...?
I don't believe that the CIO in-question made that statement as a reaction to Steve's veiled threats, but rather to the overall gesture that the B-man and Microsoft have made to the community, market and industry as a whole.
This is my take on Steve's little escapade:
STEVE: Hey, you're shoes untied.ME: They're z-straps! They don't come untied.
STEVE: Oh... huhehehhuh... I see now. [...] Hey, those are MY shoes!
ME: Huh? [looking down]
STEVE: Oooh! You looked! You looked! You gotta give me your shoes, now!
ME: What?!
STEVE: You looked. If you look, it means you thought they might be my shoes... so they're mine. Gimme!
ME: No.
STEVE: I'm gonna tell! I'm gonna tell everyone that you stole my shoes! (waaaaa-aaaaah!)
etc... etc...
So, the question is; do you take your business to a company—no matter how much leverage they have—being led by someone willing to make such a gesture?
I think that's what our CIO friend was really saying.
The other shoe has dropped indeed.
Ballmer's remarks through this fiasco are evasive enough, but at least seem to be comprehensible. Bullying us into thinking, "OMG! If I use Linux, the MicroNazis will come to my door with a bill for such-a-bunch-a-dollars!" Please, Mr. B. The latest stats on school dropouts don't speak for all of us.
Speaking of dropouts, I peeked at this interview with Bill Gates and-- is it just me, or does he not make a lick of sense? It's so filled with contra-semantics and double-speak that I can't make heads or tails of what he's really saying. If MS wants him to lead their projects, then they're being led by senility.
Now that the smoke is clearing, I can get behind Novell's take on this; inter-operability is the key to making everything work in the end. (stuff works... goo-ood.)
When it comes down to it, having a working PC, and having the stuff you need to work on a PC work, is what really matters.
Ballmer's little "made ya look!" trick has done nothing but cause a huge ruckus. It's as FUD as FUD can get.
I might even re-install OpenSuSE after all is said and done. (using Gnome this time)
...hasn't really changed all that much since the Eisenhower administration.
I've seen a lot of, "Here! [point-point-point] This is what's going wrong!"
It's not a failure of any one thing; the system is based on a very-old model that hasn't really been addressed in over 50 years.
In that time, various de-regulation and isolationism of independent states, counties, regions and districts have all deconstituted the original model with "improvements". After a while, these changes bring everything "out of synch".
Just the fact that nationwide statistics show certain states to have over 50% of their schools "in need of improvement" is an indicator of a greater, and very complicated problem.
Another astonishing fact is that progress has been made in Education Theory, but implementation of the new systems is slow, sporadic and even completely ignored in favor of the status-quo.
Back in the town of my alma-mater, there's a shining example of these new practises which has gained national attention.
What's keeping other schools from following this example?
If anyone is going to point fingers, keep aiming higher... higher than that... all the way to the top.
If only more folks would get involved during the primaries, we wouldn't be left with such crappy choices come November.
Please, your honor. Indulge me. I will bring this to relevance presently.
Change in education happens when a change in administration causes changes in the national priority and therefore in the national budget. If the quasi-socialized Public Education System doesn't have the funds to make change, they keep on keepin on. (and that's the problem)
Good for you... and your analogy is quite succinct.
For the analogy, I'll color in a bit more:
If nothing else, I guess that liftoff would come about by the sheer pile of wrenches on the ground. (I know: ha... ha... ha... :P)
... but doesn't that also describe current rocket-propulsion systems? Whether a chemical reaction, (stored-energy chain-reaction) or the ionization of molecules (steady, energy-conversion reaction) the effect is roughly the same.
It's not necessarily a strict Newtonian equation; the model also has to appreciate aerodynamics and fluid displacement forces.
After all that; consider that we're not going to build ships of balsa, tinfoil and corona-wire. The "lifters" are a general proof-of-concept experiment and make a great science fair exhibit. The REAL benefit of the technology is a hidden potential that—to my knowledge—isn't being thoroughly explored. (the main gist of my posts)
I never said it was a ready-to-implement technology, and I think the research still has a long way to go. Personally, it seems to be a revolution waiting to happen. Everyone is entitled to disagree with that. If I have any point to make here, it is that obvious avenues of research are being overlooked in favor of the incredibly terrestrial concept of "elevators".
The Biefeld-Brown concept, however, has taken flight in other ways.
I'm off to other threads... this is bound to come up again! Bon chance, mon amis!
The reason I linked to w3cschools was to illustrate how CSS is well-published. We all know WHO publishes CSS standards and who is responsible for them.
Besides, I find content on w3cschools much, much more practical and relevant to my work in web design. Most of the content on w3c.org seem more relevant to browser-app developers. (except for those working on IE7, of course) To their credit, they do have nice tips for beginners; you might want to try them out.
As to the (thin) implication that w3cschools is the source of CSS standards, I say "touché". (the implication was not my intent) As for your personal issues with w3cschools, I suggest you take it up with them.
Have some context with your crack... takes the edge off.
I know where you can BUMP and NUDGE to affect the gameplay... an actual PINBALL game!!!
It's always irked me to see some hand-held P.O.S. that touts "realistic pinball action". (...action ...action ...ction ...tion)
If I want to play pinball, I'll play pinball.
However, if I want to ride a dragon... well I can't really do that now, can I?
THAT is why the new controllers are so incredible; they give a new, visceral edge to creative gaming... rather than try to "come full circle" with a gaming platform that's already been around- and around- and around again.
I'll grant you that someone will ultimately make a pinball-sized cabinet with two HD screens on it that uses the very implementation you describe. It will be neat, but it won't be real.
You'll get a two-fold "wow factor" out of me when you can manufacture a true-physics pinball game that truly does something no other pinball game has done before. (Remember the face in "Fun House"? Now, that was some awesome innovation, back in its day.)
I'll grant you that tables are often employed to do what cross-platform CSS seemingly can not; yet, there are also behaviors CSS can do that are not possible with tables.
Yet, I will stipulate that CSS alone can often emulate, or even improve upon, the cumulative effect of rigid-table design. (even without using the DreamWeaver "layer" implementation, though I believe it will ultimately come around anyway)
The explanation I hear again and again is that Table v. CSS is a "high-road, low-road" paradigm. They both have the ability to get you to the same place, though each takes its own route to get there. I found one such example here.
For myself, I see that CSS has the room to expand into a complete layout solution.
The use of tables is dated, and its days are numbered. Tables are just a convenience derived from an element that was intended only to arrange text. (hence the name "table" and not "grid" or "layout") The complications with tables often arise in asymmetrical and non-gridded usage; something tables were not expected to do very often. (note section #4)
Tables are the old horse, and the scars of being incessantly whipped have been showing for some time. While it's not the same-old way we're used to, CSS layout practices are slowly becoming both more "fashionable" and more common in professional publications.
The issue with coding is not compliance with CSS standards (those are well published) but rather in how the various browsers interpret those standards.
The code is standard; the parsing and rendering methodologies are not.
I, for one, appreciate a book that addresses these non-standard behaviors when parsing standard code. The review posted by samzenpus exposes these insights, and contrasts them from the plethora of "standards reference" books. (many from the same publisher)
Sometimes, hacks are the way to do it. (conditional HTML comments, like CSS itself, are only partially effective) It's not that any, given book leads us to write "non-compliant code", (unless you count FrontPage) but that the differences of current browsers in-use require the "non-compliant" variations.
In my book, when the page you create works for everyone viewing it, it is compliant.
I'm right there with ya.
It's like the theory of cheap sunglasses.
You buy a nice pair of shades from Shades-r-us-hut.com for $80 and they look real nice. They block UV, they make the glare of the sun look like HL2 eye candy and might even masquerade as a music player.
You enjoy them for a week, then one day you sit on them. In a heartbeat, they're ruined. The warranty doesn't cover ass-damage claims, so you're out 80 bucks.
The nihilistic shopper tends to grab a decent pair of shades at WallyWorld for $8, pockets the difference and doesn't feel so bad when they get accidentally stepped-on.
I think the paradigm transfers well to PC keyboards; if you get the Optimus keyboard and spill your mocha on it the next day, does it go kaputt? Can we expect to see competing, less-expensive concepts in the marketplace? (like membrane overlays for standard 84-key QWERTY layouts)
Then again, maybe there are people that go buy a $400 cellphone only to drop it in a puddle.
You bet your momma's table-sized hard-disks. While there may be contentions of technical accuracy, I postulate that Bell Labs Unix provided the groundwork for just about all enterprise filesystems in use today. (also about the time I was born... so yes, I do remember)
There's a distinction to be made here... a PIF file is not a "link" in this context. It can however be called a "launcher"... since it specifically contains data relevant to the environment for an executable.
While it does have a way to "Find Target", (Win95+) it ultimately gets left behind (broken) unless updated by installer applications or the user. Read carefully and you'll see that it's even older than LNK files; all the way back to MS-DOS.
Linux also distinguishes between links and launchers, however the differences don't give much potential for abuse. (unlike LNK/PIF files) The only exception is the symlink race vulnerability, but is a marginal risk at best with current security measures.
I'm sure that nobody forgot the beloved PIF, but who really considers them to be "links" anyway?
True, it was a licensing purchase. Another directly related article does point out SCO's claim. I'm sure many would appreciate it if you would cite your sources when making such specific claims, I know I would.
The summary of Linux controversies clearly shows that M$ put an interest into SCO's so-called "patent rights" in mid-2003... though the scope of the licensing is only a fraction of what Novell acquired from AT&T. (and still holds today) Certainly not enough for SCO to back-up their own notion that they "own" Unix.
Regardless of Novell's current Linux offerings, the fact that they have a succinct hold on the origins of Unix has a yet-to-be-determined impact on the future of licensed Unix platforms.
Add to that, they've got into bed with M$, and there's but a hint of what was actually purchased with the $350 mega-bills. Though Microsoft has their "Q&A", Novell is apparently all aglow about the new agreement.
This turns out to be off-topic, I know. I truly want to leave FUD aside with all this, however the details are speaking more loudly than my keystrokes could ever accomplish. This issue is already part of Novell's wiki entry and even throws some props to us /.'ers.
Besides, symlinks are damn useful. Unlike shortcuts, they have a distinct file attribute, but do not behave like their target (an advantage, to be sure); shortcuts are nothing but special files, and can be surreptitiously re-assigned to a new target, even a URL. Just check out these vulnerabilities regarding their use. I haven't seen any such problems with symlinks.
Shortcuts are ill-conceived "placecards" for files and executables; like a road-sign, they can become outdated by changes to the target file and don't necessarily reflect any relevant properties of the target. The Windows95 implementation marks the change from a centralized database of "links" on the system to independent, "shortcut files". Neither implementation was directly linked to the filesystem.
Symlinks are directly tied through the file-system (not through a secondary API); in my analogy, a symlink is more like GPS navigation, it takes you all the way to the target.
Best-in-show would go to MacOS for aliases; more like a portal to the target, and if the target moves, the alias corrects itself.
In effect, the Windows-style "shortcut" is a complete dupe of *nix symlinks, (which came first) only bastardized and "extended" by M$ engineers. The fact that MS-DOS (ergo, Windows) used FAT file system negated the possibility of using symlinks. The data-structure was so simplified, there was no room left for advanced tagging or linking mechanisms. (already present in 'ext' at that time)
It's been years since MS bought several (disputed) Unix patents from SCO, and it's apparent they're still not making anything useful of those. Another case of wrecking already-working code for the sake of thumbing their noses and saying "It's original code! You gotta pay us for it now!"
Any wonder why they named it "shortcut"?
[...click...whirrrrr...bee-eep...]
Don't worry. It's just jealous of all the attention.
Talk about "bullet time"... more like "bulls#!t time". It would take long enough to watch the complete trilogy on DVD before you even get the first episode in HD.
I propose, to the industry, a simplified formula:
No matter how "good" or "hi-def" the content is, the electronic delivery of that content should not take any longer than when you play-out the content itself.
This may defy our fond memories of dial-up, but <sarcasm>those were the halcyon days of yore.</sarcasm> Once we found that a streaming video could be viewed with a click, we were hooked. Now, I believe it is the very guideline stated here that defines our impression of "quality content delivery".
Litmus test: When clicking a link for YouTube or Google Video, don't you get annoyed when it starts to "stutter"? Buffering time aside, it is the interruption of the video stream that annoys us most of all; ergo, when the delivery takes longer than the content, it's no good.
There are already established bandwidth standards for HDTV anyway; if it ain't broke...
On the flip side, maybe it's a good thing that hi-def content is so "bulky". This could make the MPAA and RIAA quite satisfied with the status-quo; where it is time-inefficient to electronically distribute hi-def (read: more expensive) content when compared to physical media. An ad-hoc limitation on "unlicensed" distribution.