I'm going to have to say that the winner of this argument is going to be the first person to actually present some credible evidence supporting their explanation as to why Vista audio is broken.
(Note: That it is broken doesn't seem to be a matter of contention.)
But I have no illusions that my ability to enjoy being outdoors is ENTIRELY predicated upon the fact that my safety and well-being is facilitated by the comforts of modern human civilization and technology.
I would argue that your point is as subtly misguided as the person to whom you are responding. Your argument is predicated on the fact of your being a fundamentally urban person, and being essentially helpless if you were transplanted into the wilderness. The argument would work exactly the same way for a person who only knows the wilderness being transplanted into a city (although I would argue that he would be at an even greater disadvantage). In other words, this line of reasoning says, to me at least, nothing about whether one or the other is inherently more comfortable--it's simply what you're used to.
And getting back to the point of the argument, which has absolutely nothing to do with that at all, what's really at issue here is which environment requires more cognitive effort to deal with. I think the easiest way to put it is this: go to a busy urban street and tell me how many moving objects there are--your mind, whether you are conscious of it or not, is almost certainly expending some effort to track each and every one of them to some degree. Now go into the wilderness and tell me how many moving objects you have to track. The difference is going to be of several orders of magnitude.
Tell me about the cities that were around when humans were still in their "formative years" of evolution, as it were. Otherwise I'm going to have to agree with the GP that this particular claim rather goes without saying.
Not all developers. In fact, historically, there's the classic Carmack attack on DirectX. There was certainly a period of time for which OpenGL was faster.
To be fair, Direct3D was something of a joke when that attack came out. That was back when you had to use "execute buffers" for everything, and Direct3D was an absolute usability nightmare compared to OpenGL. To be perfectly honest, the tables have turned and it's OpenGL that's now lagging behind. That's only from the perspective of making video games. I'd still much rather use OpenGL to write a CAD program, for example.
This may be beside your point, but I would love to be able to pay $50 for TextMate in Linux. It's the only Mac-only app I'm jealous of. Even better, make something with the UI and feature set of TextMate that understands VI commands. I'd be sold.
They don't, assuming their owners can be made to buy the reasons for them doing so. Does the phrase "venture capital" mean nothing to you? Whether Microsoft is capable at this point of convincing anybody they have the ingenuity and foresight to pull off something like taking a short term hit for a long term speculative payoff, well that's another story...
If anything, if Nintendo decides to go after hardcore gamers too with their next system they'll wipe MS off the map.
Short response: No, they won't.
Long response: Pay attention to what's made the Wii the phenomenon it is. Specifically, it's become so popular specifically because they made it as casual a system as possible, and so managed to tap a huge market that had never really been into video games before.
In other words, they differentiated themselves specifically by avoiding the hardcore market, and it was exactly that which has allowed their current offering to do so well. I see absolutely no reason to believe Nintendo would have any particular success going after the "hardcore gamer" market, as it's really never been their strong suit (they've always been exceedingly family-friendly compared to other game manufacturers). In fact, going after the hardcore market would probably be the stupidest thing Nintendo could do at this point--they just need to keep playing to their strong suit where they can differentiate themselves.
Well, that's an interesting list, because it makes a kind of intuitive sense, but doesn't seem to actually pan out when you compare it to games that are successful. For example, when WoW was released, it was horrendously guilty of both #2 (as of 1 year ago when I quit it still wasn't balanced, but it was really bad in the beginning) and #3 (all of the big raids were added after release). Then again, it had so much polish that it avoided #1 and perhaps made up for it on that front.
On the other hand, RuneScape, easily one of the world's most popular MMOs, was extremely rough around the edges at first (and still is from a technical standpoint, although the core gameplay is well developed).
Which is all by way of saying, I don't think it's any one or two factors or qualities, but rather than whole gestalt of the experience that sees these games either float or sink.
Yes, indeed. Also, don't watch television, don't go to the movies, and don't read books that aren't teaching you valuable things that can be applied usefully and productively in your life. Truly sagacious advice on your part indeed.
The interesting thing about that 1994 patent is it leaves out just enough of the stuff that was included in the 2000 patent to be vulnerable to additional earlier-than-1994 prior art claims which the 2000 patent looks to be immune from. At least, that's how my reading of the patent and my knowledge of video game history leads me to think.
Unfortunately, they're still behind the curve, because the 2000 patent is still vulnerable to a number of between-1994-and-2000 prior art claims (and possibly some even earlier, although I don't know if any earlier games touched on every one of the patent claims).
All in all, this is just another waste of money and time.
MUDs won't work as prior art because most of the claims in this patent deal with tracking avatar orientation, which to the best of my knowledge MUDs do not do.
Ultima Online, Everquest, and any number of graphical multiplayer online games which were released before 2000, however, seem to employ every claim in this patent. This really goes to show how utterly shameful our patent system has become. 10 minutes on the internet by the patent examiner should have been enough to turn up more prior art than you can shake a bureaucracy at.
I listen to NPR. At this point I think it's pretty much the one and only station of any value left on the airwaves. (No idea what you can find on satellite radio, so I reserve judgment there.)
There seem to be a *large* number of people who have convinced themselves that animals with the intelligecne of dogs or cats are non-sentient, and any personality or self awareness that they seem to exhibit is just the owners self-deception.
Thank Descartes for that. He was quite convinced that non-human animals are best compared to clever mechanisms and his philosophy contributed a lot to the Western mindset toward that end.
I'm inclined to read it favorably and say he was using "charge" in the vernacular sense, as in, an amount of stored energy, rather than a claim about electromagnetic properties.
In the US, you are restricted to what is listed in the "consitution". At least that's the attitude from your new lawmakers nowadays.
This is absolutely and mind-numbingly incorrect. The constitution is very specific that it is a FLOOR to your rights, not a CEILING. In other words, the constitution GUARANTEES rights, it DOESN'T LIMIT them.
The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. The problem is you're setting up the classic straw man this argument alaways suffers from, namely, confusing the fact of a global rise in temperature with the theory of what is causing it or whether it is outside the realm of natural cycle.
All models are wrong, but some are useful.
That quote leaves out the fact that they're also necessary. The models may be bad, but until we get better ones we have to work with the ones we have now.
it indicates that the connection between CO2 and Global average temperature may be correlational and not causational. Effect does not, under normal circumstances, preceed cause.
Actually, the currently scientific thinking is more complex than either side really wants to talk about. Historically, there is very strong evidence to suggest that large changes in Earth's temperature are actually caused by slight changes in its orbit. But, that being said, those changes can't account for the increase in CO2 by themselves. Generally, the thinking goes that the changes in orbit trigger a small initial change, which triggers CO2 buildup and temperature change in a feedback loop. In other words, current understanding of the evidence doesn't provide strong support for either side of this debate. (search around if you want to find evidence supporting this explanation--it's easy to find)
So, I would say you got right, one sorta right, and one dangerously wrong.
Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Indisputably. If you don't like the temperature fact, try the size of the ice cover over the north pole.
Is it the fault of humanity? Conclusively, we can't really say until it's all over of course. Currently accepted science, however, suggests it is.
And a fourth that nobody ever seems to ask:
If it's not the fault of humanity, is it a historically precedented change, or is there some other causal factor we aren't aware of?
And anyway, non-anonymity is vapid and trite. Plastering your name over everything you do, waving your tiny banner as hard as you can trying to get people's attention and adoration.. it's pretty pathetic. Just toss in your little contribution and disappear into the crowd with the rest of us.
What a fantastic and commendable attitude! To think how much better a place the world would be if our best and brightest--the Einsteins, the Hawkings, the Socrates, the Shakespeares--had simply tossed a few ideas out and disappeared into the crowd, thinking that their tiny little banners didn't really amount to anything! Truly, this is a philosophy we should all take pains to live by.
I developed the distinct impression that the author of this article didn't really understand much of what he was writing about, or else dumbed it down so badly that it lost any semblance of accuracy. I'll admit, I'm no expert (not even close), but to me it seemed very inaccurate.
For example, there's some talk about how Windows boots compared to OSX, and he goes on to claim that the "BIOS does lots of stuff" while Windows is waiting for the hard drive to spin up. Um, does me mean while the BIOS is POSTing? As in, before Windows has anything to do with the boot procedure? As in, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Windows as he seems to be suggesting? Maybe he's just taking the direct quote without qualification here, but it seems like something that would be important to qualify if your pretense is writing an article about operating systems and not motherboard/BIOS architectures.
Really, it was just riddled with moments like that were one end of a sentence didn't seem to jive with the other, but it could just be my ignorance on the subject.
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According to this, GTK is cross-platform as well. I know I've certainly used GTK applications under Windows.
Clearly we just need to stop naming our shuttle programs with C-words and everything should get right back on track.
I'm going to have to say that the winner of this argument is going to be the first person to actually present some credible evidence supporting their explanation as to why Vista audio is broken.
(Note: That it is broken doesn't seem to be a matter of contention.)
I would argue that your point is as subtly misguided as the person to whom you are responding. Your argument is predicated on the fact of your being a fundamentally urban person, and being essentially helpless if you were transplanted into the wilderness. The argument would work exactly the same way for a person who only knows the wilderness being transplanted into a city (although I would argue that he would be at an even greater disadvantage). In other words, this line of reasoning says, to me at least, nothing about whether one or the other is inherently more comfortable--it's simply what you're used to.
And getting back to the point of the argument, which has absolutely nothing to do with that at all, what's really at issue here is which environment requires more cognitive effort to deal with. I think the easiest way to put it is this: go to a busy urban street and tell me how many moving objects there are--your mind, whether you are conscious of it or not, is almost certainly expending some effort to track each and every one of them to some degree. Now go into the wilderness and tell me how many moving objects you have to track. The difference is going to be of several orders of magnitude.
Tell me about the cities that were around when humans were still in their "formative years" of evolution, as it were. Otherwise I'm going to have to agree with the GP that this particular claim rather goes without saying.
To be fair, Direct3D was something of a joke when that attack came out. That was back when you had to use "execute buffers" for everything, and Direct3D was an absolute usability nightmare compared to OpenGL. To be perfectly honest, the tables have turned and it's OpenGL that's now lagging behind. That's only from the perspective of making video games. I'd still much rather use OpenGL to write a CAD program, for example.
This may be beside your point, but I would love to be able to pay $50 for TextMate in Linux. It's the only Mac-only app I'm jealous of. Even better, make something with the UI and feature set of TextMate that understands VI commands. I'd be sold.
They don't, assuming their owners can be made to buy the reasons for them doing so. Does the phrase "venture capital" mean nothing to you? Whether Microsoft is capable at this point of convincing anybody they have the ingenuity and foresight to pull off something like taking a short term hit for a long term speculative payoff, well that's another story...
Short response: No, they won't.
Long response: Pay attention to what's made the Wii the phenomenon it is. Specifically, it's become so popular specifically because they made it as casual a system as possible, and so managed to tap a huge market that had never really been into video games before.
In other words, they differentiated themselves specifically by avoiding the hardcore market, and it was exactly that which has allowed their current offering to do so well. I see absolutely no reason to believe Nintendo would have any particular success going after the "hardcore gamer" market, as it's really never been their strong suit (they've always been exceedingly family-friendly compared to other game manufacturers). In fact, going after the hardcore market would probably be the stupidest thing Nintendo could do at this point--they just need to keep playing to their strong suit where they can differentiate themselves.
Well, that's an interesting list, because it makes a kind of intuitive sense, but doesn't seem to actually pan out when you compare it to games that are successful. For example, when WoW was released, it was horrendously guilty of both #2 (as of 1 year ago when I quit it still wasn't balanced, but it was really bad in the beginning) and #3 (all of the big raids were added after release). Then again, it had so much polish that it avoided #1 and perhaps made up for it on that front.
On the other hand, RuneScape, easily one of the world's most popular MMOs, was extremely rough around the edges at first (and still is from a technical standpoint, although the core gameplay is well developed).
Which is all by way of saying, I don't think it's any one or two factors or qualities, but rather than whole gestalt of the experience that sees these games either float or sink.
And after a thousand years, so is probably half the English and French speaking world.
Yes, indeed. Also, don't watch television, don't go to the movies, and don't read books that aren't teaching you valuable things that can be applied usefully and productively in your life. Truly sagacious advice on your part indeed.
The interesting thing about that 1994 patent is it leaves out just enough of the stuff that was included in the 2000 patent to be vulnerable to additional earlier-than-1994 prior art claims which the 2000 patent looks to be immune from. At least, that's how my reading of the patent and my knowledge of video game history leads me to think.
Unfortunately, they're still behind the curve, because the 2000 patent is still vulnerable to a number of between-1994-and-2000 prior art claims (and possibly some even earlier, although I don't know if any earlier games touched on every one of the patent claims).
All in all, this is just another waste of money and time.
MUDs won't work as prior art because most of the claims in this patent deal with tracking avatar orientation, which to the best of my knowledge MUDs do not do.
Ultima Online, Everquest, and any number of graphical multiplayer online games which were released before 2000, however, seem to employ every claim in this patent. This really goes to show how utterly shameful our patent system has become. 10 minutes on the internet by the patent examiner should have been enough to turn up more prior art than you can shake a bureaucracy at.
I listen to NPR. At this point I think it's pretty much the one and only station of any value left on the airwaves. (No idea what you can find on satellite radio, so I reserve judgment there.)
That post was mine, BTW. I have no idea why it decided to be anonymous...
Thank Descartes for that. He was quite convinced that non-human animals are best compared to clever mechanisms and his philosophy contributed a lot to the Western mindset toward that end.
I'm inclined to read it favorably and say he was using "charge" in the vernacular sense, as in, an amount of stored energy, rather than a claim about electromagnetic properties.
Go back a few posts. This is a thread about the possibility that Windows is running the Java VM inside a second sandbox VM, therefore an MS issue.
This is absolutely and mind-numbingly incorrect. The constitution is very specific that it is a FLOOR to your rights, not a CEILING. In other words, the constitution GUARANTEES rights, it DOESN'T LIMIT them.
The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. The problem is you're setting up the classic straw man this argument alaways suffers from, namely, confusing the fact of a global rise in temperature with the theory of what is causing it or whether it is outside the realm of natural cycle.
That quote leaves out the fact that they're also necessary. The models may be bad, but until we get better ones we have to work with the ones we have now.
Actually, the currently scientific thinking is more complex than either side really wants to talk about. Historically, there is very strong evidence to suggest that large changes in Earth's temperature are actually caused by slight changes in its orbit. But, that being said, those changes can't account for the increase in CO2 by themselves. Generally, the thinking goes that the changes in orbit trigger a small initial change, which triggers CO2 buildup and temperature change in a feedback loop. In other words, current understanding of the evidence doesn't provide strong support for either side of this debate. (search around if you want to find evidence supporting this explanation--it's easy to find)
So, I would say you got right, one sorta right, and one dangerously wrong.
Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Indisputably. If you don't like the temperature fact, try the size of the ice cover over the north pole.
Is it the fault of humanity? Conclusively, we can't really say until it's all over of course. Currently accepted science, however, suggests it is.
And a fourth that nobody ever seems to ask:
If it's not the fault of humanity, is it a historically precedented change, or is there some other causal factor we aren't aware of?
I don't think you should be describing it as a "power grab" when the system was supposed to work this way in the first place.
Making money is great. Making money through rampant corporate skulduggery isn't.
What a fantastic and commendable attitude! To think how much better a place the world would be if our best and brightest--the Einsteins, the Hawkings, the Socrates, the Shakespeares--had simply tossed a few ideas out and disappeared into the crowd, thinking that their tiny little banners didn't really amount to anything! Truly, this is a philosophy we should all take pains to live by.
I developed the distinct impression that the author of this article didn't really understand much of what he was writing about, or else dumbed it down so badly that it lost any semblance of accuracy. I'll admit, I'm no expert (not even close), but to me it seemed very inaccurate.
For example, there's some talk about how Windows boots compared to OSX, and he goes on to claim that the "BIOS does lots of stuff" while Windows is waiting for the hard drive to spin up. Um, does me mean while the BIOS is POSTing? As in, before Windows has anything to do with the boot procedure? As in, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Windows as he seems to be suggesting? Maybe he's just taking the direct quote without qualification here, but it seems like something that would be important to qualify if your pretense is writing an article about operating systems and not motherboard/BIOS architectures.
Really, it was just riddled with moments like that were one end of a sentence didn't seem to jive with the other, but it could just be my ignorance on the subject.