Next time you're in the aisles of your favorite bookstore, take a peek at some of the fiction aimed towards women. You know the type I'm talking about.
His misconseptions rely on this single quote from TFA: "Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it.".
Yeah, and that's the totality of his argument: "I doubt it." He also seems to have the misconception that Macs are more expensive than PCs -- although since he's in Oz, maybe that's the case Down Under. It's not more expensive here on Coruscant.
Meanwhile, what this wedge* is saying "won't" happen has already happened. There's a huge section of users out there -- most of them gamers -- for whom the lack of Windows was the only thing preventing them from buying a Mac. As Tycho Brahe glibly put it, "now there is simply a computing option that runs every major OS."
*the wedge being, of course, the simplest tool known to man
Having the widescreen stretch the view out seems like less of a programming issue and more of a gamer-fairness issue.
If it's about fairness, then everyone should be given free top-of-the-line PCs and high-speed internet connections. That, or you force everyone down to the lowest common denominator framerate, resolution and bandwidth. Because frames per second is an advantage in first-person shooters and people have varying qualities of hardware and network connections, they're unfair to begin with.
Worrying about the width of a user's screen seems silly in comparison to the difference a good broadband service can make.
NT 3.51 was a good new OS. It faced the same problem every other good new OS has had: Nobody bought it. They then made NT 4.0, which was a piece of dogshit, and their sales figures increased.
Good point. Seems like MSFT thought of this already, and I didn't.:)
The real brilliance behind the move is how Apple has succeeded in moving into the ultra-competitive Windows PC space with two advantages no other PC manufacturer has; they don't need Microsoft to survive, and they work with all three major desktop OSes -with tech support-. (You won't get tech support trying to run Intel OSX on your beige-box PC.)
People are accustomed to not buying their OS, since nearly every computer ships with one today. Microsoft's demand that OEMs install Windows before shipping the computer has this side-effect: You expect the OS to be part of the deal. You don't see that you've paid money for a copy of Windows, so in your mind, you've never had to pay for it before. Do you think that will somehow change? That people will suddenly start paying for something they never had to in the past?
If someone does a study on this a year from now and finds that more than half of the copies of Windows installed on dual-boot Macs are legal, I'd seriously question the study's methodology.
Meanwhile, because Apple is not a Windows OEM, that means that Microsoft (or other OEMs) must deal with the support calls made when things go awry. This increases Microsoft's costs, and the costs of Apple's competitors.
It gets worse for Microsoft: They are in no position to strong-arm Apple into an OEM contract of any kind. Apple doesn't want the contract, and the claim that they're shipping computers without an OS is leading people to pirate the OS falls flat. Apple is shipping an os, they can claim that what people do with the dual-boot is not Apple's responsibility, and they're right.
Microsoft can claim that Boot Camp is leading to more piracy, and they'd be right about that; however, the claim that Apple is somehow deliberately enabling this loss of sales -- although very likely -- is a subtle point. You can also see how Microsoft themselves, by strong-arming OEMs, have created a trap for themselves to where a company that Does Not Need Microsoft -- such as Apple -- can exploit that gap.
The more I look at it, the more impressed I am with the evil brilliance behind Apple's move. And yes, I meant it when I said "evil." This was truly devious. It benefits all of us in the short run, but in the long run it benefits Apple the most.
That's the hilarious thing about Warren Spector's comments:
There is an upside in all this. Games will look better than they ever have. And there's at least the possibility (remote, I fear) that someone will harness the power of the Xbox 360, PS3 and Revolution (and whatever comes after them) for something other than putting prettier pictures on the screen - non-combat AI, characters you care about, problems that can be solved without resorting to guns, knives and baseball bats, anyone?
Since when have we needed power to have non-combat AI, characters you care about, problems that can be solved without resorting to guns, knives and baseball bats? "Starflight" had all of the above, and that was a game designed to run on 8088 IBM PC's with CGA graphics. (They later released an update to support EGA.)
Warren Spector has the facts in his head but just hasn't recognized the connection: All of this "power" in the new consoles does exactly Jack Shit for anything other than appearances. That is the bottom line.
The work experience itself is worth several years' worth of graduate school.
Re:Not available anywhere, not just on iTunes
on
On Apple vs Apple
·
· Score: 1
Whoawhoa whoa, waitaminute.
"For example, their catalog wasn't available on CD until 1987 - years after CDs were accepted as mainstream."
OK, I remember the first(1986) few(1985) albums(1988) I remember buying on CD, which is about the time I'd peg the CD as being "mainstream." And even with these, the Cassette rack was still stocked larger and more fully-selected; few of those titles on Cassette or LP would be re-released on CD for quite some time.
And yet you're criticizing the Beatles for waiting all the way until 1987?
Now if you'd said 1997, you'd have a point, but cassettes were still king until at least 1988. You didn't even have CD players standard in most (non-luxury) cars until starting around the early 1990's.
So last November, I took my old iBook in for repairs. For the fourth time under the AppleCare warranty. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about it, since the warranty was about to expire, and with the success I'd had, I wasn't counting on it lasting much longer. I knew the problem would get fixed quickly, but I wasn't looking forward to being without a laptop for another 2-3 days.
So I bring it in to the Apple Store and wait my turn.
"Hmmm. Interesting. Is this the second time you've brought it in?"
"Oh, no, way more than that."
*tap tap tap* "Lemme search for that serial number... OK, he's brought it in 4 times. Want a new one?"
"A brand new one?"
"Yeah."
"Like, one of the new G4's."
"Yeah."
"Not refurbished."
"Yeah."
"For free."
"Yeah."
Having more than 3 repairs triggers a clause in the "AppleCare" extended service plan. Since my machine was bottom-of-the-line in 2003, that meant getting a bottom-of-the-line 2006 model. Which means upgrading from a 700MHz G3 to a 1.33GHz G4, faster graphics, bigger hard drive, better display, better sound, OSX 10.4 (instead of ol' 10.2), new iLife versions...
Now how do you think I feel today, typing on my brand new laptop, that cost me nothin'?
When I'm in the market for a new computer, where do you think I'm going to look first?
You don't exactly need a Harvard MBA to figure this one out: Happy customers keep buying your stuff.
Re:Wait for the next version.
on
Tech on the Cheap?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My motto once was, "Get the fastest thing you can currently afford; you will find ways to use the power." That was before I had a kid and a mortgage. Now the motto is more like, "I'll upgrade my computer when Duke Nukem Forever comes out, to meet its specs."
Those jokes just never get old for me.
Wait for the next version.
on
Tech on the Cheap?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Because you can always get more for less if you wait 6 months.
Outside of the US, it's getting its clock cleaned by the DS. Both are getting their clocks cleaned by the different GBA models. What about iPod video vs. PSP? There's a comparison I'd like to see.
Top marks, although I'd claim that keeping the tape threaded was an advantage for Beta. It never wore out any of our Beta tapes at the time, and it made player operations much, much faster: You pressed play, and the tape played immediately. My first encounter with a VHS machine, I was wondering, "What the hell is taking the damned thing so long to play?" I thought it was broken.
Kubuntu isn't supposed to be the ugly step-child of Ubuntu, but it really feels like it. Package updating and printer configuration in particular were horrible experiences for me. I switched back to FC5 because although FC is Gnome-based, the KDE components at least work like they're supposed to (although i admit I used redhat's printer config utility, not KDE's this time around).
"Crazy, gun-nut, hillbillies don't count as terrorists. They're just nutballs."
You could say the same about crazy, gun-nut, fundamentalist muslims. In fact, I often wonder why we don't! Calling them "terrorists" only seems to validate their criminal nutball behavior.
... can Miyamoto's vision of a PS3/XBox 360 peacefully coexhisting with a Revolution in the same living room be real? He states it himself when he said that the customer sees the systems as competition. He's going to have to find a way to convince everyone in the world that they are both worth the time and money.
When he said that Nintendo is not competing with the PS3/Xbox 360, what he's saying is that the Revolution is intended* for a different living room than the PS3/Xbox 360, not that he sees it coexisting.
It makes sense in terms of how the companies see their products; Sony and Microsoft don't see their consoles as game systems, but as general-purpose entertainment/digital media systems. For both, they are components of the digital home. For Sony, the PS is the hub; for Microsoft, the Xbox is an accessory to your PC (that is, of course, running Windows). Whether you agree with their vision or not is beside the point; this is their vision of their products, and this is the market they're spending themselves into massive debt to capture. For them, gaming is just a way to get a foothold in your home to promote other technologies; q.v. Apple's iPod for another way.
Nintendo has been in business for over a century as a game and toy manufacturer. They see the game console as a way to play games. Ever since the fall of Atari, they've had the same analysis of the industry: The key to success is a high signal-to-noise ratio; the key to failure is a low signal-to-noise ratio. And although none of the "me too" titles released for the PS/Xbox families are as bad as, say, Atari 2600 Pac-Man, do you really need more than a handful of variants on any given genre in any given market? The repetition is contributing to a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
You don't need to agree with Nintendo's vision, either. It's clearly a different vision from what Microsoft and Sony have for what they're selling and how you will use it. And that's why they don't see the PS3 as a competitor.
* I find it funny that I originally typed "intendo" here
Slashdot Mirror
news at 11
Next time you're in the aisles of your favorite bookstore, take a peek at some of the fiction aimed towards women. You know the type I'm talking about.
Now take a look at a book aimed more at a male audience.
Which one of these has the lurid sex scenes, do ya figure?
I loaned LoTR to my wife. After reading part of it, she stopped. Why? No sex. If she can't read a classic with a little sex in it, she'd just as soon read something cheesy with a lot of sex in it.
Or compare the typical cheesy male-targeted TV series' content to something that draws a lot more women.
If you want more women, you need more romance. And by "romance," I mean "sex."
This whole "no sex in entertainment" thing is really a male chauvinist guy thing.
His misconseptions rely on this single quote from TFA: "Does OS X really offer any applications that would entice me to purchase a new Mac and put up with the tedium of Boot Camp? I doubt it.".
Yeah, and that's the totality of his argument: "I doubt it." He also seems to have the misconception that Macs are more expensive than PCs -- although since he's in Oz, maybe that's the case Down Under. It's not more expensive here on Coruscant.
Meanwhile, what this wedge* is saying "won't" happen has already happened. There's a huge section of users out there -- most of them gamers -- for whom the lack of Windows was the only thing preventing them from buying a Mac. As Tycho Brahe glibly put it, "now there is simply a computing option that runs every major OS."
*the wedge being, of course, the simplest tool known to man
You might be on to something.
Why would Dell making noise about this now?
You'd think their competitor had just announced something that Dell suddenly perceived as a threat...
Having the widescreen stretch the view out seems like less of a programming issue and more of a gamer-fairness issue.
If it's about fairness, then everyone should be given free top-of-the-line PCs and high-speed internet connections. That, or you force everyone down to the lowest common denominator framerate, resolution and bandwidth. Because frames per second is an advantage in first-person shooters and people have varying qualities of hardware and network connections, they're unfair to begin with.
Worrying about the width of a user's screen seems silly in comparison to the difference a good broadband service can make.
NT 3.51 was a good new OS. It faced the same problem every other good new OS has had: Nobody bought it. They then made NT 4.0, which was a piece of dogshit, and their sales figures increased.
Good point. Seems like MSFT thought of this already, and I didn't. :)
The real brilliance behind the move is how Apple has succeeded in moving into the ultra-competitive Windows PC space with two advantages no other PC manufacturer has; they don't need Microsoft to survive, and they work with all three major desktop OSes -with tech support-. (You won't get tech support trying to run Intel OSX on your beige-box PC.)
People are accustomed to not buying their OS, since nearly every computer ships with one today. Microsoft's demand that OEMs install Windows before shipping the computer has this side-effect: You expect the OS to be part of the deal. You don't see that you've paid money for a copy of Windows, so in your mind, you've never had to pay for it before. Do you think that will somehow change? That people will suddenly start paying for something they never had to in the past?
If someone does a study on this a year from now and finds that more than half of the copies of Windows installed on dual-boot Macs are legal, I'd seriously question the study's methodology.
Meanwhile, because Apple is not a Windows OEM, that means that Microsoft (or other OEMs) must deal with the support calls made when things go awry. This increases Microsoft's costs, and the costs of Apple's competitors.
It gets worse for Microsoft: They are in no position to strong-arm Apple into an OEM contract of any kind. Apple doesn't want the contract, and the claim that they're shipping computers without an OS is leading people to pirate the OS falls flat. Apple is shipping an os, they can claim that what people do with the dual-boot is not Apple's responsibility, and they're right.
Microsoft can claim that Boot Camp is leading to more piracy, and they'd be right about that; however, the claim that Apple is somehow deliberately enabling this loss of sales -- although very likely -- is a subtle point. You can also see how Microsoft themselves, by strong-arming OEMs, have created a trap for themselves to where a company that Does Not Need Microsoft -- such as Apple -- can exploit that gap.
The more I look at it, the more impressed I am with the evil brilliance behind Apple's move. And yes, I meant it when I said "evil." This was truly devious. It benefits all of us in the short run, but in the long run it benefits Apple the most.
Since when have we needed power to have non-combat AI, characters you care about, problems that can be solved without resorting to guns, knives and baseball bats? "Starflight" had all of the above, and that was a game designed to run on 8088 IBM PC's with CGA graphics. (They later released an update to support EGA.)
Warren Spector has the facts in his head but just hasn't recognized the connection: All of this "power" in the new consoles does exactly Jack Shit for anything other than appearances. That is the bottom line.
The work experience itself is worth several years' worth of graduate school.
Whoawhoa whoa, waitaminute.
"For example, their catalog wasn't available on CD until 1987 - years after CDs were accepted as mainstream."
OK, I remember the first(1986) few(1985) albums(1988) I remember buying on CD, which is about the time I'd peg the CD as being "mainstream." And even with these, the Cassette rack was still stocked larger and more fully-selected; few of those titles on Cassette or LP would be re-released on CD for quite some time.
And yet you're criticizing the Beatles for waiting all the way until 1987?
Now if you'd said 1997, you'd have a point, but cassettes were still king until at least 1988. You didn't even have CD players standard in most (non-luxury) cars until starting around the early 1990's.
You nailed it. Here's an anecdote for ya:
So last November, I took my old iBook in for repairs. For the fourth time under the AppleCare warranty. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about it, since the warranty was about to expire, and with the success I'd had, I wasn't counting on it lasting much longer. I knew the problem would get fixed quickly, but I wasn't looking forward to being without a laptop for another 2-3 days.
So I bring it in to the Apple Store and wait my turn.
"Hmmm. Interesting. Is this the second time you've brought it in?"
"Oh, no, way more than that."
*tap tap tap* "Lemme search for that serial number... OK, he's brought it in 4 times. Want a new one?"
"A brand new one?"
"Yeah."
"Like, one of the new G4's."
"Yeah."
"Not refurbished."
"Yeah."
"For free."
"Yeah."
Having more than 3 repairs triggers a clause in the "AppleCare" extended service plan. Since my machine was bottom-of-the-line in 2003, that meant getting a bottom-of-the-line 2006 model. Which means upgrading from a 700MHz G3 to a 1.33GHz G4, faster graphics, bigger hard drive, better display, better sound, OSX 10.4 (instead of ol' 10.2), new iLife versions...
Now how do you think I feel today, typing on my brand new laptop, that cost me nothin'?
When I'm in the market for a new computer, where do you think I'm going to look first?
You don't exactly need a Harvard MBA to figure this one out: Happy customers keep buying your stuff.
My motto once was, "Get the fastest thing you can currently afford; you will find ways to use the power." That was before I had a kid and a mortgage. Now the motto is more like, "I'll upgrade my computer when Duke Nukem Forever comes out, to meet its specs."
Those jokes just never get old for me.
Because you can always get more for less if you wait 6 months.
6 months from now, repeat.
I'll feel pretty remarkable when my son reaches age 30.
What's truly staggering to me was not Sony's expectation that they would, but the surprisingly large number of folks who actually did.
Not large enough, of course, but still...
Outside of the US, it's getting its clock cleaned by the DS. Both are getting their clocks cleaned by the different GBA models. What about iPod video vs. PSP? There's a comparison I'd like to see.
you realize that by doing this you're an EVIL PIRATE! HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MATEYYYYSSS...
Sony Ninjas will soon be coming over to your house to chop you in half for attacking their precious flawed business model.
Top marks, although I'd claim that keeping the tape threaded was an advantage for Beta. It never wore out any of our Beta tapes at the time, and it made player operations much, much faster: You pressed play, and the tape played immediately. My first encounter with a VHS machine, I was wondering, "What the hell is taking the damned thing so long to play?" I thought it was broken.
Kubuntu isn't supposed to be the ugly step-child of Ubuntu, but it really feels like it. Package updating and printer configuration in particular were horrible experiences for me. I switched back to FC5 because although FC is Gnome-based, the KDE components at least work like they're supposed to (although i admit I used redhat's printer config utility, not KDE's this time around).
"Crazy, gun-nut, hillbillies don't count as terrorists. They're just nutballs."
You could say the same about crazy, gun-nut, fundamentalist muslims. In fact, I often wonder why we don't! Calling them "terrorists" only seems to validate their criminal nutball behavior.
I'm not sure I'd make jokes about that sort of thing.
Wikipedia
CNN
When he said that Nintendo is not competing with the PS3/Xbox 360, what he's saying is that the Revolution is intended* for a different living room than the PS3/Xbox 360, not that he sees it coexisting.
It makes sense in terms of how the companies see their products; Sony and Microsoft don't see their consoles as game systems, but as general-purpose entertainment/digital media systems. For both, they are components of the digital home. For Sony, the PS is the hub; for Microsoft, the Xbox is an accessory to your PC (that is, of course, running Windows). Whether you agree with their vision or not is beside the point; this is their vision of their products, and this is the market they're spending themselves into massive debt to capture. For them, gaming is just a way to get a foothold in your home to promote other technologies; q.v. Apple's iPod for another way.
Nintendo has been in business for over a century as a game and toy manufacturer. They see the game console as a way to play games. Ever since the fall of Atari, they've had the same analysis of the industry: The key to success is a high signal-to-noise ratio; the key to failure is a low signal-to-noise ratio. And although none of the "me too" titles released for the PS/Xbox families are as bad as, say, Atari 2600 Pac-Man, do you really need more than a handful of variants on any given genre in any given market? The repetition is contributing to a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
You don't need to agree with Nintendo's vision, either. It's clearly a different vision from what Microsoft and Sony have for what they're selling and how you will use it. And that's why they don't see the PS3 as a competitor.
* I find it funny that I originally typed "intendo" here
It doesn't matter how much an exec huffs and puffs if the developers don't respect the priorities he sets for them.
It's just you.