I was responding to a guy who said "Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs", not a guy who said "the high-end Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs." This is a discussion and a threaded one at that. My response was far from off-topic.
You mean the article where they compared a set of near-$3000 laptops? Yes, I did read it. You obviously didn't read my post, where I said, "in the high-end, all computers are expensive, but I am talking about the $1000-$1500 range." I am not talking about $2.8k laptops, I am talking about laptops in the $1k-1.5k range. In that range, Apple's are overpriced. I am not talking about the $2.8k laptop, I am talking about laptops half-that-price or less. Apple's cheapest offering matches my computer of 2 years ago, for the same price I paid, 2 years ago. Sorry to repeat myself, but I figured it was the only way you'd actually pick up the message.
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
and
I don't know about that. My fiance is looking for a Mac right now. Their low-end MacBook is $1150 CDN for a laptop that has, suprisingly, almost exactly the same configuration as my (nearly) 2 year old Lenovo Thinkpad I got for $1250. Mine also came with a 3 year warranty. For the same price, you can get a significantly better hardware with another manufacturer. Yes, in the high-end, all computers are expensive, but I am talking about the $1000-$1500 range.
Yes, it is used less right now. But it has support from Apple and Sun. I still prefer Python, but it is a fun language and now seems to be a long-term player.
Google just realized that the PRS wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want the advertising/promotional benefits of YouTube, but they also want Google to pay on top of that. Google basically put their money where their mouth was.
If the PRS seriously thought that this was a one-way street (Google is the only one making money), then they would have had no problem with Google just removing the content. However, this web site they made clearly shows that they do, in fact, recognize the value of YouTube as a promotional tool. I wish they'd realize just how stupid this makes them look.
1. Not having to risk buying crappy games (even if they had a good demo)
They do not provide the games for free. They mention that this opens up different pricing models for games, but certainly make no promises on being able to try games out for cheap.
3. Not having to manage n*x different controllers/acessories, most of them wireless, meaning you must keep them charged
I guess you missed their wireless controller, and microconsole. If a game requires accessories with today's systems, why would they not require them with this one? This does absolutely nothing in terms of reducing controller accessories, and if you have the microconsole, doesn't help in the wires & stuff department either.
Well, consoles typically last a good 5 years. So, if you are paying $50/year, then this isn't really cheaper than a console (you still have to pay for games).
In most FPSes I've played, if the client presses a button, the client will show the animation, immediately, before even getting a response from the server. This is to eliminate the unresponsive feeling. It does not wait for the server, before showing the animation. The client will also only buffer a limited number of client actions (that are awaiting a response from the server), which is why when you lose the connection, you're still able to move around for a few seconds, before it finally freezes.
Yeah, good point. Mind you, this class (4th sem.) was in stark contrast to pretty much every other homework assignment given up to that point (small set of rigid requirements for a one-off project). My soft. eng. courses also focused on agile development, where you don't expect to have all requirements defined up front. It also wasn't so much an exercise in "anticipating" (guessing) future requirements, as it was on good design practices (loose coupling, programming to interfaces, etc.) Obviously, taking too much of a pedantic approach to OO design will just end up hurting your grades in school; the deadlines are just too tight. It was a great course though.
His example is extreme, yes, but these people are certainly out there. In a professional software shop, I'd hope not, but in a lot of offices with a handful of programmers, there will be one guy who is considered the guru by all the non-programmers, because he gets-things-done and gets-em-done-fast. Of course, to all the other developers, he's the guy who documents nothing, causes more problems then he solves, and always has to do things "differently." To everyone else, you not being able to understand his convoluted code written in a language known to 1% of programmers, is an indication of his genius... Of course, since you are the non-genius, you still get delegated to fixing all the bugs in the POS program, while he makes even more unmaintainable code. This is actually a management issue, and the best course of action is not to complain, but to quit and run for the hills.
One of the best courses, I think, during my undergrad was a practicum course. We started off with a fairly simple project. The teacher gave us some requirements, but told us that for the rest of semester, each assignment would simply be new requirements to the original project and that, as we are developing it, we must keep that in mind.
Some people in the class just brushed it off, did the usual homework thing and just rushed it out as fast as they could. Others spent a little longer on the first assignment, trying to anticipate future requirements, and make it general enough that they could add them if needed. After each assignment (there were 4), she'd ask people how long they had spent implementing the new features. In the end, it turned out that saving an hour on the first assignment, cost you about 2 hours on the second assignment and, unless you basically rewrote the first assignment, it just got worse as time went on.
I find a lot of shows only get about 3-5 good seasons before they turn to crap (case in point, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - season 6 & 7 were pretty terrible in comparison to 1-5). Enterprise had 4 solid seasons. I'm glad it went off on a high note. LOST, on the other hand, is really being stretched thin at this point.
Yeah, by fresh install I meant without someone (such as an OEM) installing a DVD player on your computer. And this is, by far, the biggest issue my friends/family have whenever they reinstall Windows. Googline windows dvd player will lead you to multiple solutions asking you to shell out $$$. Most Linux users wouldn't have to search for linux dvd player, OTOH, since most distros play DVDs out of the box.
But I think that is why they made the Add/Remove... program, to get most users started. Now, just so linux doesn't get all the flak for being hard to play media, ask your average Windows user to play a (protected) DVD movie in a fresh install of Windows. Come back in 24h and see if they've done it.
I doubt that's the problem. First off, the game is being capped at 60Hz, but that says nothing about the minimum. The developers will still have to anticipate the game running on a system that cannot support 60Hz (at least some of the time), so regardless they'll have to support "variable" time steps. Even if you fixed the loop interval, and your computer is fast enough, you still couldn't expect exactly 0.0166666.. seconds to pass between each run. I'd also imagine that doing stuff like collision checks before updating an entity's position are a hell of a lot more time consuming then a single multiplication.
On top of this, they seem to miss the fact that there has been a great deal of research in this field, and there are several very good approximate algorithms. The problem is that packing a box is an NP-Complete problem. So, unless NP=P, we aren't going to find a fast, deterministic and exact, packing algorithm any time soon.
And, thus, the point of my post. The Xbox 360 has a very traditional PC hardware architecture. The games we're seeing now, the ones that weren't rushed and were given big budgets, look great, but they're also exploiting much of the 360's hardware to the hilt. The 360 will peak much sooner than the PS3, and both are pretty comparable right now as is.
Yes, SNES allowed for expansion on the cartridge itself, which allowed games to incrementally increase, by adding features in the cartridge itself (pretty nifty). The PS1 was much like the PS2, it included extra, but not traditional, hardware that developers only really started exploiting later. PS2 was exactly my example...
No, they did not "deliberately" make it hard. Read it again. They made a system with lots of potential that is hard to develop for. It isn't hard to develop for because Sony really hates developers, its hard to develop for because it uses the Cell processor and some good, but traditionally weird, hardware.
Yes, you have completely misunderstood his comments. You took, "the best is yet to come" and interpreted it as, "what we have now is shit, so bear with us." Do you see the difference? Just because the console hasn't been used to its full potential yet, does NOT mean, in any way, that the games being made now aren't good. They made a system with lots of potential. Right now they are able to make games on par with the 360, but just give it a few more years and then you'll really see the difference in the 2 systems. Personally, I have no intention of buying a 360. It seems like a good system, but I think I'll be better served, in the long run, by buying a PS3. Yes, the price is a little more ($100 CAD), but you're also getting a BluRay player, so...
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I was responding to a guy who said "Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs", not a guy who said "the high-end Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs." This is a discussion and a threaded one at that. My response was far from off-topic.
You mean the article where they compared a set of near-$3000 laptops? Yes, I did read it. You obviously didn't read my post, where I said, "in the high-end, all computers are expensive, but I am talking about the $1000-$1500 range." I am not talking about $2.8k laptops, I am talking about laptops in the $1k-1.5k range. In that range, Apple's are overpriced. I am not talking about the $2.8k laptop, I am talking about laptops half-that-price or less. Apple's cheapest offering matches my computer of 2 years ago, for the same price I paid, 2 years ago. Sorry to repeat myself, but I figured it was the only way you'd actually pick up the message.
First thing I learned in self-defense class in grade 7, never bring a weapon to a fight you don't want used against yourself.
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs and
I don't know about that. My fiance is looking for a Mac right now. Their low-end MacBook is $1150 CDN for a laptop that has, suprisingly, almost exactly the same configuration as my (nearly) 2 year old Lenovo Thinkpad I got for $1250. Mine also came with a 3 year warranty. For the same price, you can get a significantly better hardware with another manufacturer. Yes, in the high-end, all computers are expensive, but I am talking about the $1000-$1500 range.
Yes, it is used less right now. But it has support from Apple and Sun. I still prefer Python, but it is a fun language and now seems to be a long-term player.
Deus ex machina - it gets old quick.
Google just realized that the PRS wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want the advertising/promotional benefits of YouTube, but they also want Google to pay on top of that. Google basically put their money where their mouth was.
If the PRS seriously thought that this was a one-way street (Google is the only one making money), then they would have had no problem with Google just removing the content. However, this web site they made clearly shows that they do, in fact, recognize the value of YouTube as a promotional tool. I wish they'd realize just how stupid this makes them look.
To point 4, I agree. As I was reading the comments I thought, "I don't know who any of these people are!" And guess what? Now I never will. Congrats.
Yes, it uses video compression.
1. Not having to risk buying crappy games (even if they had a good demo)
They do not provide the games for free. They mention that this opens up different pricing models for games, but certainly make no promises on being able to try games out for cheap.
3. Not having to manage n*x different controllers/acessories, most of them wireless, meaning you must keep them charged
I guess you missed their wireless controller, and microconsole. If a game requires accessories with today's systems, why would they not require them with this one? This does absolutely nothing in terms of reducing controller accessories, and if you have the microconsole, doesn't help in the wires & stuff department either.
Well, consoles typically last a good 5 years. So, if you are paying $50/year, then this isn't really cheaper than a console (you still have to pay for games).
In most FPSes I've played, if the client presses a button, the client will show the animation, immediately, before even getting a response from the server. This is to eliminate the unresponsive feeling. It does not wait for the server, before showing the animation. The client will also only buffer a limited number of client actions (that are awaiting a response from the server), which is why when you lose the connection, you're still able to move around for a few seconds, before it finally freezes.
Of course, the cheaper solution would be to require the code to be open source. Then you'd get thousands of reviewers, free!
Yeah, good point. Mind you, this class (4th sem.) was in stark contrast to pretty much every other homework assignment given up to that point (small set of rigid requirements for a one-off project). My soft. eng. courses also focused on agile development, where you don't expect to have all requirements defined up front. It also wasn't so much an exercise in "anticipating" (guessing) future requirements, as it was on good design practices (loose coupling, programming to interfaces, etc.) Obviously, taking too much of a pedantic approach to OO design will just end up hurting your grades in school; the deadlines are just too tight. It was a great course though.
His example is extreme, yes, but these people are certainly out there. In a professional software shop, I'd hope not, but in a lot of offices with a handful of programmers, there will be one guy who is considered the guru by all the non-programmers, because he gets-things-done and gets-em-done-fast. Of course, to all the other developers, he's the guy who documents nothing, causes more problems then he solves, and always has to do things "differently." To everyone else, you not being able to understand his convoluted code written in a language known to 1% of programmers, is an indication of his genius... Of course, since you are the non-genius, you still get delegated to fixing all the bugs in the POS program, while he makes even more unmaintainable code. This is actually a management issue, and the best course of action is not to complain, but to quit and run for the hills.
One of the best courses, I think, during my undergrad was a practicum course. We started off with a fairly simple project. The teacher gave us some requirements, but told us that for the rest of semester, each assignment would simply be new requirements to the original project and that, as we are developing it, we must keep that in mind.
Some people in the class just brushed it off, did the usual homework thing and just rushed it out as fast as they could. Others spent a little longer on the first assignment, trying to anticipate future requirements, and make it general enough that they could add them if needed. After each assignment (there were 4), she'd ask people how long they had spent implementing the new features. In the end, it turned out that saving an hour on the first assignment, cost you about 2 hours on the second assignment and, unless you basically rewrote the first assignment, it just got worse as time went on.
I find a lot of shows only get about 3-5 good seasons before they turn to crap (case in point, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - season 6 & 7 were pretty terrible in comparison to 1-5). Enterprise had 4 solid seasons. I'm glad it went off on a high note. LOST, on the other hand, is really being stretched thin at this point.
Yeah, by fresh install I meant without someone (such as an OEM) installing a DVD player on your computer. And this is, by far, the biggest issue my friends/family have whenever they reinstall Windows. Googline windows dvd player will lead you to multiple solutions asking you to shell out $$$. Most Linux users wouldn't have to search for linux dvd player, OTOH, since most distros play DVDs out of the box.
But I think that is why they made the Add/Remove... program, to get most users started. Now, just so linux doesn't get all the flak for being hard to play media, ask your average Windows user to play a (protected) DVD movie in a fresh install of Windows. Come back in 24h and see if they've done it.
I doubt that's the problem. First off, the game is being capped at 60Hz, but that says nothing about the minimum. The developers will still have to anticipate the game running on a system that cannot support 60Hz (at least some of the time), so regardless they'll have to support "variable" time steps. Even if you fixed the loop interval, and your computer is fast enough, you still couldn't expect exactly 0.0166666.. seconds to pass between each run. I'd also imagine that doing stuff like collision checks before updating an entity's position are a hell of a lot more time consuming then a single multiplication.
On top of this, they seem to miss the fact that there has been a great deal of research in this field, and there are several very good approximate algorithms. The problem is that packing a box is an NP-Complete problem. So, unless NP=P, we aren't going to find a fast, deterministic and exact, packing algorithm any time soon.
And, thus, the point of my post. The Xbox 360 has a very traditional PC hardware architecture. The games we're seeing now, the ones that weren't rushed and were given big budgets, look great, but they're also exploiting much of the 360's hardware to the hilt. The 360 will peak much sooner than the PS3, and both are pretty comparable right now as is.
Yes, SNES allowed for expansion on the cartridge itself, which allowed games to incrementally increase, by adding features in the cartridge itself (pretty nifty). The PS1 was much like the PS2, it included extra, but not traditional, hardware that developers only really started exploiting later. PS2 was exactly my example...
No, they did not "deliberately" make it hard. Read it again. They made a system with lots of potential that is hard to develop for. It isn't hard to develop for because Sony really hates developers, its hard to develop for because it uses the Cell processor and some good, but traditionally weird, hardware.
Yes, you have completely misunderstood his comments. You took, "the best is yet to come" and interpreted it as, "what we have now is shit, so bear with us." Do you see the difference? Just because the console hasn't been used to its full potential yet, does NOT mean, in any way, that the games being made now aren't good. They made a system with lots of potential. Right now they are able to make games on par with the 360, but just give it a few more years and then you'll really see the difference in the 2 systems. Personally, I have no intention of buying a 360. It seems like a good system, but I think I'll be better served, in the long run, by buying a PS3. Yes, the price is a little more ($100 CAD), but you're also getting a BluRay player, so...