Professors are often pretty ignorant as well. It really depends on where you go though. At Kansas State the intro CS course is taught by a flaming moron and another one of the required courses is likewise taught by a total idiot. These are people who explicitly lack clue and have no knowledge of the non-Microsoft world. If they do (and should considering they likely got at least their Bachelors working with Unix), they certainly never act like it.
Those with clue though tend to at least deal with everything equally. The network course deals primarily with Unix, but doesn't discriminate and spends at least some time dealing with Windows. As well most programs are written in Java (practically all they teach) or accepted if compiled under Linux.
Hmm... there are at least two different versions and each has different commentary? Where on Earth did this commentary come from and why are there two versions of it?
It's all about longevity. If you buy a mid-line card it'll only be competitive for about half as long at which point you eventually end up spending either the same amount or more.
Increasingly I've seen the reliance on a better graphics card to significantly improve frame-rates the most. Take my current box, in the past few months I just upgraded my PIII 450 from '99 to a P4 2.6 800Mhz FSB. RAM went from an initial 128MB to 320 MB SDRAM last year into 512 MB DDR dual-channel now. The overall improvement in gaming has been limited though. Yes, things do run much better than they did in the past. Massive numbers of units and other computationally intensive tasks have obviously seen the most improvment, but the graphics card is holding everything back.
I'm using a GeForce2 GTS from '00 at present and I certainly feel it. Vice City can drop to a crawl at times and other games need the graphics options knocked back quite a bit in some cases. While the $300 I spent on motherboard and processor upgrades are noticed the same amount of money needs to be put into a graphics card to really notice an improvement in frame rate and for almost all intents and purposes, actual improved performance.
The graphics card is increasingly becoming a major (not to mention expensive) bottleneck that needs to be upgraded on a much faster path than the rest of the system to stay competitive. The only advantage here is that in many cases a weak processor can be enormously helped in some cases by a cutting-edge graphics card.
While the article has a lot to say on this topic and it's certainly one of the easiest changes to implement scalability in it can still be a problem in many cases and should perhaps be addressed more seriously. Graphics technology, moreso than any other part of the computer is really what's driving gaming these days and should be watched closely to keep it in check.
When I pay $30/month or whatever for cable I don't do so on the basis of.10/channel or such, I pay for the entire package. Now, in reality I may only watch one channel, but I understand that I must purchase all of the channels at $30 to do this. That's simply the way things are. If I chose channels individually though things might be a different.
Under the current system though a failure to provide the stated service is not easily compensated for by buying me a soda (which is more or less what they're doing). I expect either the complete service I paid for or a significant refund of my money. Should I be unhappy with the service I would expect a complete refund on the grounds that they are failing to provide the agreed-upon service and that I will be taking my business elsewhere. From the sounds of things subscribers are locked into a contract as well and don't even have the option of saying that they'd rather drop their plan because they aren't getting what they paid for.
Even more troubling is that many of these channels are rather high demand among viewers (Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, etc.) and thus are not compensated value-wise in the viewer's mind to the same degree as the dozen or so channels that I block (e.g. Speedvision, Home Shopping Network, the handful of various religious stations). I may not personally care if I lost ESPN (hell, I already block it) but a lot of subscribers would be pretty upset if they did. A lot more upset than they would be if they lost DIY or the Home and Garden channel.
In this case they have a rather serious failure to meet viewer demands with an appropriate form of compensation. Regardless of who's actually right.
Personally this is one of the very many reasons I use Everything2 for almost all of my reference. I mean, if I want to know almost anything (except film, I mean... IMDb) about anything I check on E2... even recipes.
I'll admit that sometimes I'll just leave headphones in to avoid being accosted by people as I walk around campus. It's certainly saved me a number of times from Mormons, people giving out bibles, and all manner of people haranguing me during the day. Otherwise, well... it means that I have to wander around and I'd like to listen to music while I do it. Same reason I leave music on at home, I like to hear it. When I'm out in public though it's not only the only convenient method, but the only polite one not to inflict my music on other people. Look at assholes who drive around with their cars thumping bass to the next block over. They're the anti-social types here.
Wanting to listen to Nine Inch Nails without inflicting it on the other members of my lab though is merely a polite action, keeping it in, not keeping others out.
I really like Godspeed You Black Emperor! for much of my daily task music. It's complex, instrumental, yet hard enough to prevent me from completely dozing off. As well their music is in long-form compositions of ~20 min or so divided into individual movements so you can just put on an album and allow yourself to wash in and out of it. Not to everybody's tastes though.
Yeah, I had the exact same thing happen to me. The really ironic thing is that they'll need to release a third edition eventually. The original release was terribly cheap and with a horrible transfer not to mention the damage to the print. The special edition release though incorrectly re-framed the film (in the credit sequence notice the brick wall behind them, in the correct framing you should never see the top of the wall, in the SE you see over it) and seemingly added a blue filter to everything. Now we have two versions of the film and neither one of them is correct.
The iPod is pretty small itself. I have a 2nd gen model and I can barely feel it most of the time. Enough that on more than one occasion I've had to check my pocket to be certain it was still in there.
The colors are, by and large, garish. The original iPod didn't need to come in colors because it was simple and well designed. The same reason almost all stereo equipment is a simple, dignified black rather than brink pink.
Now, as for being in the target demographic I can't say exactly. I'm 22 and I doubt that many people in my age group or younger could afford one of these. Especially not quickly enough to have them sell out so quickly. Likewise I understand the basic principle of "getting a lot more for the money".
Yes, people are going to buy the mini iPod, but people have also bought much worse things, especially youth. Over time though I doubt that the iPod mini will account for nearly the market penetration or consumer lust that the standard iPod inspires.
As far as I'm aware (and I just started using it so I could be wrong) you can force Thunderbird to display everything in plain text only.
I do rather like that they've added an option in the address book about whether a person prefers to only recieve plain text e-mail or such and automagically change the mail sent to conform to this preference.
As for view, I'm forced to agree. I grew to enjoy the manner that Eudora displays e-mail only to find that absolutely no other e-mail client uses it or can be customized to use it.
Grr... goddamn fucking preview panes. I mean, what's the fucking point in looking to see what an e-mail says... you're just fucking reading it already! If nothing else the subject should really be telling you what the message is about.
Odd, I recall that before Outlook sort of came in overnight almost everyone was using Eudora. If MS hadn't started bundling it I really doubt it would have taken over to the degree that it has.
I believe much of this functionality is being built into Thunderbird right now. I've just started experimenting with it myself, but at present I've found it does have the ability to sort e-mail into threads.
There are problems though, mainly with getting the appropriate thread view to come up, but these are mainly UI problems.
Interestingly this describes precisely the difference in how I communicate with people.
AIM is for short, quick conversations. Analagous to running into a friend in the hallway or such. Very informal.
E-mail is for long, formal communications. If I need to ask a professor a question this is the format I'd use. Much like a letter except free, fast, and well... just plain better in almost every way. I wouldn't send an e-mail to someone unless it was a more formal situation or a longer letter. As can probably be discerned e-mail is almost totally unused for daily personal communications.
ICQ though I use like an alphanumeric pager or a note on a whiteboard. It's short and temporary, but they'll get it if they're not in. Messages are stored in the past so if it's something I might want to keep logged it holds on to it.
Now, while it all depends on the people who use any particular form of messaging I've found that this works very well and manages to handle almost all my conversations perfectly. If I had to keep up with distant friends through e-mail alone... well, I'm not in nearly as good contact with those friends and speak to them only rarely. Friends on AIM, however, I speak to more often than many people I see IRL.
Ah, so something more along the line of the Nobel prizes then? Typically a Nobel will be won about a decade or so following the original work. Presumably though this is because it needs time to insinuate itself into the scientific community and become recognized. This depends heavily on the discipline, however.
Actually, I was thinking of this game exactly when I wrote that. The problem being that the game was largely panned when it was released as well as... well, I'm just not that familiar with it. The setting is also a little bit later than the one I'm interested in (I'm looking for post-WWII, this is pre-WWII).
As well the very fact that Mafia exists probably means that Rockstar will never, ever make a game set in that time period. People would instantly jump on them as merely ripping it off.
Uhm.... Crimson Skies came out for the PC. Actually, I'd known about it on the PC for a rather long time before I ever heard about it on Xbox. I guess the PC version just didn't sell nearly as well.
Ah, a quick search on MobyGames reveals that Crimson Skies came out for Windows in 2000, while the Xbox version was 2003. Although I guess only making it for Windows kind of counts as it being exclusive to Microsoft...
Except that that's not entirely accurate. Half-Life was the only thing even approaching an original game in there. Opposing Force was the expansion pack and so was Blue Shift.
Team Fortress Classic is something that TFS had been working on for a while before Half Life ever came out (TF2 was originally going to be a Quake 2 mod, then development shifted to making it a mod for Half Life and eventually Robin Walker and the rest of TFS got hired by Valve). Essentially it's still a community mod that just got a little bigger.
Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat are both mods as well. Valve just decided to box them up and try to make some cash off of them.
If you wanted to get this right you're thinking of Gunman Chronicles. The pretty damned terrible TC that ended up getting backed and released by Valve as a stand-alone game. Otherwise you really only have one game there.
Yeah, I was wondering why this wasn't in the game. Especially since we had both Angels and Freeways which seem far too similar to me.
If you have a police motorcycle though it would not be a crotch rocket. Cops drive modified Harley-Davidsons so basically you'd be modifying the Angel or Freeway.
From the entry over on MobyGames it seems it also did L.A. though. Still... sounds like a potentially fun game.
Actually, now that I think of it, didn't Rockstar have something to do with that? I could swear they did. I know there was a mission in GTA3 with a guy who is apparently the guy from that game (or so I was told). Anyhow, seems to be an established connection as it is.
Oh, I agree entirely. But that's just the point. This is a game. In real life I can't jump off the 20th floor of a building and only lose a few points off my body armor.
Nor would I likely have killed thousands of people and become one of the most wanted men in town, yet evade the cops just by driving into a garage and getting my car resprayed while they watch.
Now, since we're firmly in the realm of fantasy, films have done some amazing car chases there, and it's almost exactly the sort of thing that would be fun to do in a game.
Given the last time I was in San Francisco I don't think I'd even want to drive a all.
Personally I'm hoping for more of a San Francisco setting myself. Maybe it's just been far too many cop shows, Bullit, Dirty Harry, etc. but San Francisco just seems more right to me. Not to mention the kind of insane stunts you could get on those hills as well as having a great deal more character to it.
L.A.... well, I don't really see a lot that you could easily do with it to make it seem as fun of a setting. Not to mention the fact that Rockstar seems very much into doing pastiches of film/tv (i.e. Vice City largely being Miami Vice thrown in with Scarface) there's a lot more ground to work with.
As for the time... well, the 70s could be cool and replicate the same sort of retro-vibe they've been going for, but personally I'd like to see them try their hands at something even older. I mean, how about a late 40s, early 50s noirish L.A.-based setting that draws on Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Music would be radically different, but on the other hand so would the cars, clothes, weapons... everything would be a lot less derivative. Plus, I really can't remember the last time I saw something of this sort done from the criminal's perspective. It would be an interesting approach to things.
Personally I feel that ROTK is a lot worse if you've read the books as you're then able to note the many places where Jackson (or from the sounds of things on the DVDs, Fran Walsh mostly) changed things for no good reason. Oh, well, aside from trying to make it splashier (the ghosts being present at Minas Tirith) or because he thought he knew how to tell the story better than Tolkein (the radical changes in the personality of Faramir). I'm not some Tolkein-fanboy, but this was definitely far from one of the best literary adaptions I've ever seen.
In this case ignorance certainly seems like bliss.
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Professors are often pretty ignorant as well. It really depends on where you go though. At Kansas State the intro CS course is taught by a flaming moron and another one of the required courses is likewise taught by a total idiot. These are people who explicitly lack clue and have no knowledge of the non-Microsoft world. If they do (and should considering they likely got at least their Bachelors working with Unix), they certainly never act like it.
Those with clue though tend to at least deal with everything equally. The network course deals primarily with Unix, but doesn't discriminate and spends at least some time dealing with Windows. As well most programs are written in Java (practically all they teach) or accepted if compiled under Linux.
Hmm... there are at least two different versions and each has different commentary? Where on Earth did this commentary come from and why are there two versions of it?
It's all about longevity. If you buy a mid-line card it'll only be competitive for about half as long at which point you eventually end up spending either the same amount or more.
Increasingly I've seen the reliance on a better graphics card to significantly improve frame-rates the most. Take my current box, in the past few months I just upgraded my PIII 450 from '99 to a P4 2.6 800Mhz FSB. RAM went from an initial 128MB to 320 MB SDRAM last year into 512 MB DDR dual-channel now. The overall improvement in gaming has been limited though. Yes, things do run much better than they did in the past. Massive numbers of units and other computationally intensive tasks have obviously seen the most improvment, but the graphics card is holding everything back.
I'm using a GeForce2 GTS from '00 at present and I certainly feel it. Vice City can drop to a crawl at times and other games need the graphics options knocked back quite a bit in some cases. While the $300 I spent on motherboard and processor upgrades are noticed the same amount of money needs to be put into a graphics card to really notice an improvement in frame rate and for almost all intents and purposes, actual improved performance.
The graphics card is increasingly becoming a major (not to mention expensive) bottleneck that needs to be upgraded on a much faster path than the rest of the system to stay competitive. The only advantage here is that in many cases a weak processor can be enormously helped in some cases by a cutting-edge graphics card.
While the article has a lot to say on this topic and it's certainly one of the easiest changes to implement scalability in it can still be a problem in many cases and should perhaps be addressed more seriously. Graphics technology, moreso than any other part of the computer is really what's driving gaming these days and should be watched closely to keep it in check.
When I pay $30/month or whatever for cable I don't do so on the basis of .10/channel or such, I pay for the entire package. Now, in reality I may only watch one channel, but I understand that I must purchase all of the channels at $30 to do this. That's simply the way things are. If I chose channels individually though things might be a different.
Under the current system though a failure to provide the stated service is not easily compensated for by buying me a soda (which is more or less what they're doing). I expect either the complete service I paid for or a significant refund of my money. Should I be unhappy with the service I would expect a complete refund on the grounds that they are failing to provide the agreed-upon service and that I will be taking my business elsewhere. From the sounds of things subscribers are locked into a contract as well and don't even have the option of saying that they'd rather drop their plan because they aren't getting what they paid for.
Even more troubling is that many of these channels are rather high demand among viewers (Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, etc.) and thus are not compensated value-wise in the viewer's mind to the same degree as the dozen or so channels that I block (e.g. Speedvision, Home Shopping Network, the handful of various religious stations). I may not personally care if I lost ESPN (hell, I already block it) but a lot of subscribers would be pretty upset if they did. A lot more upset than they would be if they lost DIY or the Home and Garden channel.
In this case they have a rather serious failure to meet viewer demands with an appropriate form of compensation. Regardless of who's actually right.
Personally this is one of the very many reasons I use Everything2 for almost all of my reference. I mean, if I want to know almost anything (except film, I mean... IMDb) about anything I check on E2... even recipes.
I'll admit that sometimes I'll just leave headphones in to avoid being accosted by people as I walk around campus. It's certainly saved me a number of times from Mormons, people giving out bibles, and all manner of people haranguing me during the day. Otherwise, well... it means that I have to wander around and I'd like to listen to music while I do it. Same reason I leave music on at home, I like to hear it. When I'm out in public though it's not only the only convenient method, but the only polite one not to inflict my music on other people. Look at assholes who drive around with their cars thumping bass to the next block over. They're the anti-social types here.
Wanting to listen to Nine Inch Nails without inflicting it on the other members of my lab though is merely a polite action, keeping it in, not keeping others out.
I really like Godspeed You Black Emperor! for much of my daily task music. It's complex, instrumental, yet hard enough to prevent me from completely dozing off. As well their music is in long-form compositions of ~20 min or so divided into individual movements so you can just put on an album and allow yourself to wash in and out of it. Not to everybody's tastes though.
Yeah, I had the exact same thing happen to me. The really ironic thing is that they'll need to release a third edition eventually. The original release was terribly cheap and with a horrible transfer not to mention the damage to the print. The special edition release though incorrectly re-framed the film (in the credit sequence notice the brick wall behind them, in the correct framing you should never see the top of the wall, in the SE you see over it) and seemingly added a blue filter to everything. Now we have two versions of the film and neither one of them is correct.
The iPod is pretty small itself. I have a 2nd gen model and I can barely feel it most of the time. Enough that on more than one occasion I've had to check my pocket to be certain it was still in there.
The colors are, by and large, garish. The original iPod didn't need to come in colors because it was simple and well designed. The same reason almost all stereo equipment is a simple, dignified black rather than brink pink.
Now, as for being in the target demographic I can't say exactly. I'm 22 and I doubt that many people in my age group or younger could afford one of these. Especially not quickly enough to have them sell out so quickly. Likewise I understand the basic principle of "getting a lot more for the money".
Yes, people are going to buy the mini iPod, but people have also bought much worse things, especially youth. Over time though I doubt that the iPod mini will account for nearly the market penetration or consumer lust that the standard iPod inspires.
As far as I'm aware (and I just started using it so I could be wrong) you can force Thunderbird to display everything in plain text only.
I do rather like that they've added an option in the address book about whether a person prefers to only recieve plain text e-mail or such and automagically change the mail sent to conform to this preference.
As for view, I'm forced to agree. I grew to enjoy the manner that Eudora displays e-mail only to find that absolutely no other e-mail client uses it or can be customized to use it.
Grr... goddamn fucking preview panes. I mean, what's the fucking point in looking to see what an e-mail says... you're just fucking reading it already! If nothing else the subject should really be telling you what the message is about.
Odd, I recall that before Outlook sort of came in overnight almost everyone was using Eudora. If MS hadn't started bundling it I really doubt it would have taken over to the degree that it has.
I believe much of this functionality is being built into Thunderbird right now. I've just started experimenting with it myself, but at present I've found it does have the ability to sort e-mail into threads.
There are problems though, mainly with getting the appropriate thread view to come up, but these are mainly UI problems.
Interestingly this describes precisely the difference in how I communicate with people.
AIM is for short, quick conversations. Analagous to running into a friend in the hallway or such. Very informal.
E-mail is for long, formal communications. If I need to ask a professor a question this is the format I'd use. Much like a letter except free, fast, and well... just plain better in almost every way. I wouldn't send an e-mail to someone unless it was a more formal situation or a longer letter. As can probably be discerned e-mail is almost totally unused for daily personal communications.
ICQ though I use like an alphanumeric pager or a note on a whiteboard. It's short and temporary, but they'll get it if they're not in. Messages are stored in the past so if it's something I might want to keep logged it holds on to it.
Now, while it all depends on the people who use any particular form of messaging I've found that this works very well and manages to handle almost all my conversations perfectly. If I had to keep up with distant friends through e-mail alone... well, I'm not in nearly as good contact with those friends and speak to them only rarely. Friends on AIM, however, I speak to more often than many people I see IRL.
Hopefully none of the people watching American Idol are voting.
Ah, so something more along the line of the Nobel prizes then? Typically a Nobel will be won about a decade or so following the original work. Presumably though this is because it needs time to insinuate itself into the scientific community and become recognized. This depends heavily on the discipline, however.
Actually, I was thinking of this game exactly when I wrote that. The problem being that the game was largely panned when it was released as well as... well, I'm just not that familiar with it. The setting is also a little bit later than the one I'm interested in (I'm looking for post-WWII, this is pre-WWII).
As well the very fact that Mafia exists probably means that Rockstar will never, ever make a game set in that time period. People would instantly jump on them as merely ripping it off.
Uhm.... Crimson Skies came out for the PC. Actually, I'd known about it on the PC for a rather long time before I ever heard about it on Xbox. I guess the PC version just didn't sell nearly as well.
Ah, a quick search on MobyGames reveals that Crimson Skies came out for Windows in 2000, while the Xbox version was 2003. Although I guess only making it for Windows kind of counts as it being exclusive to Microsoft...
Except that that's not entirely accurate. Half-Life was the only thing even approaching an original game in there. Opposing Force was the expansion pack and so was Blue Shift.
Team Fortress Classic is something that TFS had been working on for a while before Half Life ever came out (TF2 was originally going to be a Quake 2 mod, then development shifted to making it a mod for Half Life and eventually Robin Walker and the rest of TFS got hired by Valve). Essentially it's still a community mod that just got a little bigger.
Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat are both mods as well. Valve just decided to box them up and try to make some cash off of them.
If you wanted to get this right you're thinking of Gunman Chronicles. The pretty damned terrible TC that ended up getting backed and released by Valve as a stand-alone game. Otherwise you really only have one game there.
Yeah, I was wondering why this wasn't in the game. Especially since we had both Angels and Freeways which seem far too similar to me.
If you have a police motorcycle though it would not be a crotch rocket. Cops drive modified Harley-Davidsons so basically you'd be modifying the Angel or Freeway.
From the entry over on MobyGames it seems it also did L.A. though. Still... sounds like a potentially fun game.
Actually, now that I think of it, didn't Rockstar have something to do with that? I could swear they did. I know there was a mission in GTA3 with a guy who is apparently the guy from that game (or so I was told). Anyhow, seems to be an established connection as it is.
Oh, I agree entirely. But that's just the point. This is a game. In real life I can't jump off the 20th floor of a building and only lose a few points off my body armor.
Nor would I likely have killed thousands of people and become one of the most wanted men in town, yet evade the cops just by driving into a garage and getting my car resprayed while they watch.
Now, since we're firmly in the realm of fantasy, films have done some amazing car chases there, and it's almost exactly the sort of thing that would be fun to do in a game.
Given the last time I was in San Francisco I don't think I'd even want to drive a all.
Personally I'm hoping for more of a San Francisco setting myself. Maybe it's just been far too many cop shows, Bullit, Dirty Harry, etc. but San Francisco just seems more right to me. Not to mention the kind of insane stunts you could get on those hills as well as having a great deal more character to it.
... well, I don't really see a lot that you could easily do with it to make it seem as fun of a setting. Not to mention the fact that Rockstar seems very much into doing pastiches of film/tv (i.e. Vice City largely being Miami Vice thrown in with Scarface) there's a lot more ground to work with.
L.A.
As for the time... well, the 70s could be cool and replicate the same sort of retro-vibe they've been going for, but personally I'd like to see them try their hands at something even older. I mean, how about a late 40s, early 50s noirish L.A.-based setting that draws on Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Music would be radically different, but on the other hand so would the cars, clothes, weapons... everything would be a lot less derivative. Plus, I really can't remember the last time I saw something of this sort done from the criminal's perspective. It would be an interesting approach to things.
Indeed. While many Nobel prize winners continue to toil away in relative obscurity. In many ways our society is fundamentally sick and wrong.
Personally I feel that ROTK is a lot worse if you've read the books as you're then able to note the many places where Jackson (or from the sounds of things on the DVDs, Fran Walsh mostly) changed things for no good reason. Oh, well, aside from trying to make it splashier (the ghosts being present at Minas Tirith) or because he thought he knew how to tell the story better than Tolkein (the radical changes in the personality of Faramir). I'm not some Tolkein-fanboy, but this was definitely far from one of the best literary adaptions I've ever seen.
In this case ignorance certainly seems like bliss.