Another problem I have with Mozilla (dunno about Opera) is that Shockwave doesn't seem to want to install in it. You try to install Shockwave but the next time Mozilla loads it just comes up with the 'you need Shockwave plugin' thing again.
A lot of plugins' installer programs won't automatically find Firebird's (or other alternative browsers') plugin directory. In Firebird's case, you just need to get the Netscape-compatible plugin, and manually copy "shockwave.dll" or whatever to the plugins subdirectory where Firebird is installed. For me it's "C:\Program Files\MozillaFirebird\plugins" but obviously yours might be someplace different.
I haven't used Opera much in a couple of years, but it was the same way.
These are excellent pens for the price- a 5-pack is $7 or so. Amazingly smooth and, uh... precise. Pilots are the best.
I don't know if they make one with a big comfy grip, though, if that's what you're looking for. I'm not sure if I like those big, comfy grips, though... they sort of make me feel like I'm in nursery school again, grasping one of those crayons that seemed to huge at the time. Wait, that's probably a good thing. I'll shut up, now.
Because most games don't even fit on a single CD for one OS, let alone a Win/*nix/Mac combo setup... even a DVD is probably too small.
There's no reason why you couldn't swap discs during game play. I mean, that's how game consoles work with regards to multidisc games, you know? Besides, any game that doesn't fit on a single CD probably has bucketloads of crappy FMV, anyway.:P
I agree with you on the reboot issue, though. I wouldn't want to reboot just to play a game.
Try this Grandtec keyboard. It's full size, mini available, rolls up into a small bundle, and easily stuffs into your notebook bag. I've traveled extensively with mine, and am quite happy with it (no association with co).
I have one of those, and it's virtually impossible to type on for any extended period of time. It's possibly the worst typing surface ever created. Sort of like those old membrane keyboards on the Atari 400, except... mushy.
However, it really is cool-looking, and can indeed be rolled-up for travel. I have one next to my TV , hooked to the living room computer that I play downloaded anime/movies and MAME on through the TV-out. For something like that, this is a good keyboard. For typing more than three words a day on it would be a nightmare. YMMV.
This is clearly a criminal case. Bulletproof should be charged in criminal court for using Visual Basic. I don't ever want to hear "airline" and "Visual Basic" in the same sentence.
I'm sure that only parts of it were written in Visual Basic. In an application like this, you typically have the database backend which does almost all of the computational "heavy lifting". They most likely used something heavy-duty for this; Oracle or whatever. Possibly (probably) running on some flavor of *nix.
Since all the critical stuff is running in the database, then you're free to write the presentation layer (user interface) in something quick and easy like Visual Basic (or HTML, Perl+nCurses, automated abacuses, whatever) because it's really not doing anything critical.:P
If they're using Visual Basic for any critical portions of the software, then yes, they should be shot. Repeatedly, starting with their extremities, and inching ever-closer to their vitals, as to maximize their suffering.
Why look for a 50 year solution, when in 20 years the archives will be stored on more efficient media, just like mp3's.
But what are you going to store your mp3's on? CDR's? DVD-r's? Hard drives? Flash memory? We don't know much about the long-term reliability of any of those formats, although I don't feel particularly rosy about archivability prospects for any of them.
a. Americans who use geo-centric descriptions like "roughly the size of Philadelphia
-or-
b. People from the rest of the world who don't bother to read the article and find out the actual size of the objects and instead simply bitch about the geo-centric descriptions?
Actually, the answer is actually:
c. People like me who live in the Philadelphia suburbs but have no idea how big the city actually is in terms of miles/km/whatever.
/me thumps self over head with brick; passes out:P
"Last year, Britons spent more money on games than on renting a video or going to the cinema.
But this is largely due to the high price of a game, around 40. compared to the cost of video rentals or a cinema ticket"
It's splitting hairs to argue the "more people" versus "more money" think, but I think it's an important distinction since the reality (more money) shows you that games still have a smaller, albiet more dedicated, following.
A lot of games (Metroid Prime, any Pokemon game, Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City, Zelda: The Wind Waker, etc) sell more copies than major motion pictures sell tickets.
I don't think that's quite true. A year or so ago, I remember hearing that the domestic videogame market had surpassed the domestic movie market in terms of gross profit. Considering that games are several times more expensive than movies, I think there are still a lot more tickets sold than games bought, even if games gross more total money.
One thing I like about manga is the price. In Japan they're generally printed on cheap pulpy paper and are disposable. You can read and enjoy them, without having to treat them like treasured investments whose pages you're afraid to turn.
American comics are just too expensive. I haven't been to a comics store in a while but last time I was there most comics were like, four bucks for something I'd finish reading in 15 minutes. The art is generally fantastic these days, insanely detailed and printed on nice paper. But they're way too expensive- I prefer the lengthier stories that manga gives me for the same amount of money, as opposed to the short, pretty, and expensive American comics.
(there are exceptions to those generalizations, of course!)
It's not a 100% solution, and it raises some chicken-and-egg challenges, but the only way I've been able to say "no" (and have them listen instead of overruling me) is to establish a really good rep with them first. Sometimes this does mean doing the impossible and sucking it up and plowing through some impossible workloads at first, simply to establish that you're a force to be reckoned with, you know your shit, and you're not afriad of "putting in the hours". The last one is perhaps the most important; if you say "no, it can't be done" often their first thought is, "he just doesn't want to do the work" so you have to establish yourself well enough to push that thought out of their heads.
Of course, this course of action can also have the opposite effect if done wrong... if you meekly take on superhuman workloads without a whimper you might establish yourself as a doormat and then you're never gonna be able to say "no". So you need to stay very assertive and communicative (not combatitive!) during the whole process- you're willing to bust ass for the company, but you're not a doormat either.
Also, don't just say "no"... have REASONS for what you've said, as well as alternate solutions. If you offer constructive solutions they will respect that and even if they disagree they'll see you're trying to work WITH them and not AGAINST them.
Of course, if your bosses are just especially cruel, exploitative, and/or clueless they might never have the sense to hear the word "no". But... they're just out to make money. They're willing to listen to almost anything that will make them money. You have to convince them that the occaisional "no" is necessary, because the alternative is often a burned and angry client whose unrealistic deadlines you agreed to meet, but failed. Burned and angry clients don't stick around very long, unless it's to file lawsuits.
Hmm. First of all, I'm a programmer; I can create software, I work primarily in Windows but I'm at least "adequate" with *nix for basic things, and I'm comfortable with the command line because I'm 27 and while that's not very old, I *have* been using computers since the 8-bit days.
And I don't really like your stance that "simplicity and convenience" is a bad thing. At least not, in and of itself. I think that, ideally, a computer should be easy to use as a toaster, yet it should still allow me to fiddle around "under the hood" if I want and get my hands dirty... or even shocked. I think that OSX and modern Linux distros are a positive sign that such a balance IS achievable.:P
I mean, isn't the original point of computers to let us get stuff done, by doing the number-crunching for us? Some "hardcore" users like you who decry simplicity and ease-of-use have, I think, begun to view computers as an end, and not a means.
The operating system, software, and hardware should be totally out of the way when I'm trying to draw a picture, write a paper, or play a game. It really should be as easy to use as a toaster for most tasks.
What if our houses, roads, and office buildings were constructed with the same passion as the average geek feels towards computers?
I don't know, man- the average archetect is pretty motivated. At least the ones I know of. The main problem is budgets- most people don't want to pay for more than boring "box" architecture when building a new strip mall or whatever. You can be the most passionate archetect in the world, but if your clients will only pay for boring concrete slabs 99% of the time, what can you do?
If you RTFA you'd find that Microsoft is only "looking very seriously" at this idea,
that it would not apply to business users of XP (since they want careful control
of the patching of their machines), and that it would be possible to opt-out from
the automatic updates.
As long as you can opt-out of it, and the "automatic update" feature is used ONLY for security fixes and not for "upgrades" that change the computer's functionality in perhaps-undesirable ways, I'd support the enabling of an "automatic update" feature by default on their OS installs.
Essentially, an Automatic Update feature is the ONLY way an end-user is gonna get security patches. And even "knowledgable" users forget or don't always have the time to install a security fix. (Suppose a new exploit hits while you're away for a 3-day weekend or something) Experience has definitely shown that huge numbers of people are simply NOT gonna keep their machines updated. You may wish that it was otherwise, but in my book an Automatic Update feature is simply a way of facing reality.
And experienced users could just turn it off. Or, use Linux instead. But I think you can see the value of something like this running on your grandmom's computer. After walking my girlfriend through the process of ridding her family's computer of the Slammer virus, I'm all for something like Automatic Update.
Hmm, maybe Microsoft writes these virii themselves in order to make us eager to accept their evil Automatic Update scheme. Yeah, just like the U.S. flew planes into the WTC just so they could get the Patriot Act passed. Wait, I forget if I'm joking or not anymore...:P
For me, picking the loser is picking the winner as long as good games I enjoy playing are available. I'm still pissed I didn't jump on the Dreamcast bandwagon.
Oh, it's never too late! You can still find Dreamcast games and hardware for dirt cheap in lots of game stores. The best titles (Soul Calibur, etc) are a bit hard to find, but I'm sure you can find them pretty cheap online.
I, too, have all three consoles:
Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube.
Haha. It sort of pained me to leave the Dreamcast out. I think it's an equal or better system, hardware-wise, than the PS2 in many respects. Also, I love Sega's games. But I figured that for most people, the "big three" were Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo so I figured I'd try to stay relevant and not get into too much personal Dreamcast cult worship.:P
...mentioned in the article- XBox, Gamecube, and PS2. Of the three, I find myself enjoying the Gamecube the most, followed closely by the XBox, with the PS2 as a distant third.
I find the XBox and the Gamecube to have much nicer/smoother graphics than the PS2 games. Also, I like the fact that they each have four controller ports- four-player simultaneous games are a blast. Yeah, I know you can buy a multi-tap for the PS2, but nobody I know has a multitap and there isn't much game support for them. Nintendo has the best controllers ever, IMHO, followed by the XBox S-Controllers. The PS2 controllers are... adequate.
I also like the small, cute appearance of the Gamecube. Yeah- call me weird, but something appeals to me about a system that squeezes that much power out of so little hardware. Maybe it's some sort of innate engineer's sense, I don't know. By contrast, the XBox seems to have slighly nicer graphics but is many times more massive.
People complain about the game libraries on the XBox and GC, compared to the PS2's. It's true that the PS2 has hundreds as times as many games as the other two systems. But I think that's only really an issue if you play hundreds of games. If you take the best 5, 10, or 15 games or so from any system's software library, I think the three consoles are pretty even.
Even though it made this point in a "funny" way - that article was SERIOUSLY RIGHT about one thing- the "kiddie"/"girly" image of Nintendo is KILLING it. Nintendo has to re-establish itself as a system for "real men". Like it or not, the reality is that a large portion of the game-buying public just doesn't want to be seen buying something like the Gamecube, and would rather go with the more-manly XBox or PS2.
Kennedys and a bunch of other wealthy left wingers live on the Cape
It's a pretty sad and homogenous state of American political affairs when people call the Kennedys "left-wing". They and other Democrats are generally slightly left of center, yes... "left-wing"? No.
On the other hand, your typical techno-wannabe has a very fragile ego and would generally not be secure enough to even be seen flipping through one at the bookstore. It's a classic scenario, typically seen in gender issues (asking for directions, watching "chick flicks," etc.)
I'm a professional programmer and have been for 6-7 years, but I think the "* For Dummies" guides are pretty good for what they are. I'm not embarassed to read them. In fact, they suit my learning style really well... I like to be shown the basics and get a good overall understanding of how something works. Then, on my own, I'll dig into the nitty-gritty details where necessary.
If you think about it, even if you don't buy "Dummies" books, you probably learn this way anyway. You buy some big 1,200-page tome about Solaris (or whatever). You read the first few intro chapters to get a nice overview of things, and then use the rest of the book as a reference on an as-needed basis. All told, from the time of purchase to the time when you throw the book out, you probably read 300-400 pages, max. It's not a whole heck of a lot different than buying the Dummies book for the overview and looking up the rest of the crap as you need it.
And for the record- I'm a guy, I hate chick flicks, and I hate asking for directions.
It sounds like it might be good, but PS2 calibur graphics in a hand-held will either mean it's large, really expensive, or both.
I think most people would feel the same way. Do you really think Sony would spend zillions of dollars on developing the PSP without taking that into account? Sony isn't 100% successful at every prodcut they release of course, and I have plenty of beef with many of their *successful* products, but I find it hand to believe that they'd even consider releasing the PSP if they couldn't achieve a reasonable price point and form factor.
There is definitely a lot of horsepower under the hood of the PSP, but not much of the tech is *new stuff... it's more like a miniaturization/integration of existing tech. With Sony's deep pockets they should be able to achieve a really high level of integration, cramming all that functionality into a small number of chips. Expensive up front, but that would really help with manufacturing costs down the line and it would help with power consumption too.
I was wondering if they could bring the shuttle in at a very oblique trajectory consisting of many orbits of slightly-decreasing radii to aerobrake it orders-of-magnitude more gradually than they currently do now.
I hate to have blind faith in NASA, but don't you think the normal re-entry procedure was *already* designed to minimize stress on the Shuttle? I mean, just giving them the benefit of the doubt here... I'm sure quite a bit of thought was put into the existing method of re-entering the autmosphere.
The incentive for them to do so from the start must be rather large. Finding the least-stressful re-entry method makes re-entry safer. Also, it allows them to minimize the heat shielding, which reduces the cost and complexity of the shuttle as well as its weight, which means that much less fuel needed at launch.
When the 3D effects company I work for finally made the switch from SGI Octane2s to PCs, we decided to go with the ATI FireGL 8800. ATI support assured us that Linux support was excellent. At the time, their Linux support actually WAS actually better than nVidia's.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that you thoroughly tested the Linux solution before switching fro the SGI solution. But from your description it sounds like you didn't, because surely you would have found the Linux solution's instability before it became such a big problem for your animators?
This game is written in Sierra On-line's old AGI, language, which compiles to bytecode, so it can then be run on any platform for which there is an interpreter. In the 80's this allowed Sierra's adventure games to run on DOS, Apple II, Amiga, etc.
Ah, I didn't know that! That explains why all the Sierra games game so god damned slow on my IIgs. Good idea, but maybe not when computers were chugging along at 1-3 mhz. I still loved the games, though.:D
There was a guy who bailed out of a fighter at over mach 1 (well, an ex-fighter, it was exploding at the time), and survived, but it screwed him up pretty bad.
Wow! I'd love to know more about this. A little Google searching didn't turn anything up... sounds awesome/interesting.
I have this theory, totally unsupported by any study and supported only by my own personal experiences, that proper typing is one of the big causes of carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries.
Think about it- "proper" typing is based around the concept of minimizing your hand/wrist/arm motion. With a limited range of movement, you're doing the same little movements over and over again.
Myself, I'm a pretty fast typist, but I use sort of a modified hunt-and-peck method. I use about three fingers on each hand and I can basically hunt-and-peck AND touch type. Scary. But anyway, my hands are constantly roaming all over the keyboard like a pianist, almost... I actually feel like this really PREVENTS stress injuries, since I've got a wide range of motion going on.
This is in addition to other, proper ergonomic measures such as arm rests on the chair, wrist rest in fron of the keyboard, etc... of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Another problem I have with Mozilla (dunno about Opera) is that Shockwave doesn't seem to want to install in it. You try to install Shockwave but the next time Mozilla loads it just comes up with the 'you need Shockwave plugin' thing again.
A lot of plugins' installer programs won't automatically find Firebird's (or other alternative browsers') plugin directory. In Firebird's case, you just need to get the Netscape-compatible plugin, and manually copy "shockwave.dll" or whatever to the plugins subdirectory where Firebird is installed. For me it's "C:\Program Files\MozillaFirebird\plugins" but obviously yours might be someplace different.
I haven't used Opera much in a couple of years, but it was the same way.
These are excellent pens for the price- a 5-pack is $7 or so. Amazingly smooth and, uh... precise. Pilots are the best.
I don't know if they make one with a big comfy grip, though, if that's what you're looking for. I'm not sure if I like those big, comfy grips, though... they sort of make me feel like I'm in nursery school again, grasping one of those crayons that seemed to huge at the time. Wait, that's probably a good thing. I'll shut up, now.
Because most games don't even fit on a single CD for one OS, let alone a Win/*nix/Mac combo setup... even a DVD is probably too small.
:P
There's no reason why you couldn't swap discs during game play. I mean, that's how game consoles work with regards to multidisc games, you know? Besides, any game that doesn't fit on a single CD probably has bucketloads of crappy FMV, anyway.
I agree with you on the reboot issue, though. I wouldn't want to reboot just to play a game.
Try this Grandtec keyboard. It's full size, mini available, rolls up into a small bundle, and easily stuffs into your notebook bag. I've traveled extensively with mine, and am quite happy with it (no association with co).
I have one of those, and it's virtually impossible to type on for any extended period of time. It's possibly the worst typing surface ever created. Sort of like those old membrane keyboards on the Atari 400, except... mushy.
However, it really is cool-looking, and can indeed be rolled-up for travel. I have one next to my TV , hooked to the living room computer that I play downloaded anime/movies and MAME on through the TV-out. For something like that, this is a good keyboard. For typing more than three words a day on it would be a nightmare. YMMV.
This is clearly a criminal case. Bulletproof should be charged in criminal court for using Visual Basic. I don't ever want to hear "airline" and "Visual Basic" in the same sentence.
:P
I'm sure that only parts of it were written in Visual Basic. In an application like this, you typically have the database backend which does almost all of the computational "heavy lifting". They most likely used something heavy-duty for this; Oracle or whatever. Possibly (probably) running on some flavor of *nix.
Since all the critical stuff is running in the database, then you're free to write the presentation layer (user interface) in something quick and easy like Visual Basic (or HTML, Perl+nCurses, automated abacuses, whatever) because it's really not doing anything critical.
If they're using Visual Basic for any critical portions of the software, then yes, they should be shot. Repeatedly, starting with their extremities, and inching ever-closer to their vitals, as to maximize their suffering.
Why look for a 50 year solution, when in 20 years the archives will be stored on more efficient media, just like mp3's.
But what are you going to store your mp3's on? CDR's? DVD-r's? Hard drives? Flash memory? We don't know much about the long-term reliability of any of those formats, although I don't feel particularly rosy about archivability prospects for any of them.
What's worse?
/me thumps self over head with brick; passes out :P
a. Americans who use geo-centric descriptions like "roughly the size of Philadelphia
-or-
b. People from the rest of the world who don't bother to read the article and find out the actual size of the objects and instead simply bitch about the geo-centric descriptions?
Actually, the answer is actually:
c. People like me who live in the Philadelphia suburbs but have no idea how big the city actually is in terms of miles/km/whatever.
They may be roughly the same size as Philadelphia, but I'm sure they'll win a Stanley Cup before WE do.
Not that I'm a jaded Philadelphia fan or anything...
Like the article says:
"Last year, Britons spent more money on games than on renting a video or going to the cinema.
But this is largely due to the high price of a game, around 40. compared to the cost of video rentals or a cinema ticket"
It's splitting hairs to argue the "more people" versus "more money" think, but I think it's an important distinction since the reality (more money) shows you that games still have a smaller, albiet more dedicated, following.
A lot of games (Metroid Prime, any Pokemon game, Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City, Zelda: The Wind Waker, etc) sell more copies than major motion pictures sell tickets.
I don't think that's quite true. A year or so ago, I remember hearing that the domestic videogame market had surpassed the domestic movie market in terms of gross profit. Considering that games are several times more expensive than movies, I think there are still a lot more tickets sold than games bought, even if games gross more total money.
One thing I like about manga is the price. In Japan they're generally printed on cheap pulpy paper and are disposable. You can read and enjoy them, without having to treat them like treasured investments whose pages you're afraid to turn.
American comics are just too expensive. I haven't been to a comics store in a while but last time I was there most comics were like, four bucks for something I'd finish reading in 15 minutes. The art is generally fantastic these days, insanely detailed and printed on nice paper. But they're way too expensive- I prefer the lengthier stories that manga gives me for the same amount of money, as opposed to the short, pretty, and expensive American comics.
(there are exceptions to those generalizations, of course!)
It's not a 100% solution, and it raises some chicken-and-egg challenges, but the only way I've been able to say "no" (and have them listen instead of overruling me) is to establish a really good rep with them first. Sometimes this does mean doing the impossible and sucking it up and plowing through some impossible workloads at first, simply to establish that you're a force to be reckoned with, you know your shit, and you're not afriad of "putting in the hours". The last one is perhaps the most important; if you say "no, it can't be done" often their first thought is, "he just doesn't want to do the work" so you have to establish yourself well enough to push that thought out of their heads.
Of course, this course of action can also have the opposite effect if done wrong... if you meekly take on superhuman workloads without a whimper you might establish yourself as a doormat and then you're never gonna be able to say "no". So you need to stay very assertive and communicative (not combatitive!) during the whole process- you're willing to bust ass for the company, but you're not a doormat either.
Also, don't just say "no"... have REASONS for what you've said, as well as alternate solutions. If you offer constructive solutions they will respect that and even if they disagree they'll see you're trying to work WITH them and not AGAINST them.
Of course, if your bosses are just especially cruel, exploitative, and/or clueless they might never have the sense to hear the word "no". But... they're just out to make money. They're willing to listen to almost anything that will make them money. You have to convince them that the occaisional "no" is necessary, because the alternative is often a burned and angry client whose unrealistic deadlines you agreed to meet, but failed. Burned and angry clients don't stick around very long, unless it's to file lawsuits.
Hmm. First of all, I'm a programmer; I can create software, I work primarily in Windows but I'm at least "adequate" with *nix for basic things, and I'm comfortable with the command line because I'm 27 and while that's not very old, I *have* been using computers since the 8-bit days.
:P
And I don't really like your stance that "simplicity and convenience" is a bad thing. At least not, in and of itself. I think that, ideally, a computer should be easy to use as a toaster, yet it should still allow me to fiddle around "under the hood" if I want and get my hands dirty... or even shocked. I think that OSX and modern Linux distros are a positive sign that such a balance IS achievable.
I mean, isn't the original point of computers to let us get stuff done, by doing the number-crunching for us? Some "hardcore" users like you who decry simplicity and ease-of-use have, I think, begun to view computers as an end, and not a means.
The operating system, software, and hardware should be totally out of the way when I'm trying to draw a picture, write a paper, or play a game. It really should be as easy to use as a toaster for most tasks.
What if our houses, roads, and office buildings were constructed with the same passion as the average geek feels towards computers?
I don't know, man- the average archetect is pretty motivated. At least the ones I know of. The main problem is budgets- most people don't want to pay for more than boring "box" architecture when building a new strip mall or whatever. You can be the most passionate archetect in the world, but if your clients will only pay for boring concrete slabs 99% of the time, what can you do?
If you RTFA you'd find that Microsoft is only "looking very seriously" at this idea, that it would not apply to business users of XP (since they want careful control of the patching of their machines), and that it would be possible to opt-out from the automatic updates.
:P
As long as you can opt-out of it, and the "automatic update" feature is used ONLY for security fixes and not for "upgrades" that change the computer's functionality in perhaps-undesirable ways, I'd support the enabling of an "automatic update" feature by default on their OS installs.
Essentially, an Automatic Update feature is the ONLY way an end-user is gonna get security patches. And even "knowledgable" users forget or don't always have the time to install a security fix. (Suppose a new exploit hits while you're away for a 3-day weekend or something) Experience has definitely shown that huge numbers of people are simply NOT gonna keep their machines updated. You may wish that it was otherwise, but in my book an Automatic Update feature is simply a way of facing reality.
And experienced users could just turn it off. Or, use Linux instead. But I think you can see the value of something like this running on your grandmom's computer. After walking my girlfriend through the process of ridding her family's computer of the Slammer virus, I'm all for something like Automatic Update.
Hmm, maybe Microsoft writes these virii themselves in order to make us eager to accept their evil Automatic Update scheme. Yeah, just like the U.S. flew planes into the WTC just so they could get the Patriot Act passed. Wait, I forget if I'm joking or not anymore...
For me, picking the loser is picking the winner as long as good games I enjoy playing are available. I'm still pissed I didn't jump on the Dreamcast bandwagon. Oh, it's never too late! You can still find Dreamcast games and hardware for dirt cheap in lots of game stores. The best titles (Soul Calibur, etc) are a bit hard to find, but I'm sure you can find them pretty cheap online.
I, too, have all three consoles: Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube.
:P
Haha. It sort of pained me to leave the Dreamcast out. I think it's an equal or better system, hardware-wise, than the PS2 in many respects. Also, I love Sega's games. But I figured that for most people, the "big three" were Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo so I figured I'd try to stay relevant and not get into too much personal Dreamcast cult worship.
...mentioned in the article- XBox, Gamecube, and PS2. Of the three, I find myself enjoying the Gamecube the most, followed closely by the XBox, with the PS2 as a distant third.
I find the XBox and the Gamecube to have much nicer/smoother graphics than the PS2 games. Also, I like the fact that they each have four controller ports- four-player simultaneous games are a blast. Yeah, I know you can buy a multi-tap for the PS2, but nobody I know has a multitap and there isn't much game support for them. Nintendo has the best controllers ever, IMHO, followed by the XBox S-Controllers. The PS2 controllers are... adequate.
I also like the small, cute appearance of the Gamecube. Yeah- call me weird, but something appeals to me about a system that squeezes that much power out of so little hardware. Maybe it's some sort of innate engineer's sense, I don't know. By contrast, the XBox seems to have slighly nicer graphics but is many times more massive.
People complain about the game libraries on the XBox and GC, compared to the PS2's. It's true that the PS2 has hundreds as times as many games as the other two systems. But I think that's only really an issue if you play hundreds of games. If you take the best 5, 10, or 15 games or so from any system's software library, I think the three consoles are pretty even.
Even though it made this point in a "funny" way - that article was SERIOUSLY RIGHT about one thing- the "kiddie"/"girly" image of Nintendo is KILLING it. Nintendo has to re-establish itself as a system for "real men". Like it or not, the reality is that a large portion of the game-buying public just doesn't want to be seen buying something like the Gamecube, and would rather go with the more-manly XBox or PS2.
Kennedys and a bunch of other wealthy left wingers live on the Cape
It's a pretty sad and homogenous state of American political affairs when people call the Kennedys "left-wing". They and other Democrats are generally slightly left of center, yes... "left-wing"? No.
On the other hand, your typical techno-wannabe has a very fragile ego and would generally not be secure enough to even be seen flipping through one at the bookstore. It's a classic scenario, typically seen in gender issues (asking for directions, watching "chick flicks," etc.)
I'm a professional programmer and have been for 6-7 years, but I think the "* For Dummies" guides are pretty good for what they are. I'm not embarassed to read them. In fact, they suit my learning style really well... I like to be shown the basics and get a good overall understanding of how something works. Then, on my own, I'll dig into the nitty-gritty details where necessary.
If you think about it, even if you don't buy "Dummies" books, you probably learn this way anyway. You buy some big 1,200-page tome about Solaris (or whatever). You read the first few intro chapters to get a nice overview of things, and then use the rest of the book as a reference on an as-needed basis. All told, from the time of purchase to the time when you throw the book out, you probably read 300-400 pages, max. It's not a whole heck of a lot different than buying the Dummies book for the overview and looking up the rest of the crap as you need it.
And for the record- I'm a guy, I hate chick flicks, and I hate asking for directions.
It sounds like it might be good, but PS2 calibur graphics in a hand-held will either mean it's large, really expensive, or both.
I think most people would feel the same way. Do you really think Sony would spend zillions of dollars on developing the PSP without taking that into account? Sony isn't 100% successful at every prodcut they release of course, and I have plenty of beef with many of their *successful* products, but I find it hand to believe that they'd even consider releasing the PSP if they couldn't achieve a reasonable price point and form factor.
There is definitely a lot of horsepower under the hood of the PSP, but not much of the tech is *new stuff... it's more like a miniaturization/integration of existing tech. With Sony's deep pockets they should be able to achieve a really high level of integration, cramming all that functionality into a small number of chips. Expensive up front, but that would really help with manufacturing costs down the line and it would help with power consumption too.
I was wondering if they could bring the shuttle in at a very oblique trajectory consisting of many orbits of slightly-decreasing radii to aerobrake it orders-of-magnitude more gradually than they currently do now.
I hate to have blind faith in NASA, but don't you think the normal re-entry procedure was *already* designed to minimize stress on the Shuttle? I mean, just giving them the benefit of the doubt here... I'm sure quite a bit of thought was put into the existing method of re-entering the autmosphere.
The incentive for them to do so from the start must be rather large. Finding the least-stressful re-entry method makes re-entry safer. Also, it allows them to minimize the heat shielding, which reduces the cost and complexity of the shuttle as well as its weight, which means that much less fuel needed at launch.
When the 3D effects company I work for finally made the switch from SGI Octane2s to PCs, we decided to go with the ATI FireGL 8800. ATI support assured us that Linux support was excellent. At the time, their Linux support actually WAS actually better than nVidia's.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that you thoroughly tested the Linux solution before switching fro the SGI solution. But from your description it sounds like you didn't, because surely you would have found the Linux solution's instability before it became such a big problem for your animators?
This game is written in Sierra On-line's old AGI, language, which compiles to bytecode, so it can then be run on any platform for which there is an interpreter. In the 80's this allowed Sierra's adventure games to run on DOS, Apple II, Amiga, etc.
:D
Ah, I didn't know that! That explains why all the Sierra games game so god damned slow on my IIgs. Good idea, but maybe not when computers were chugging along at 1-3 mhz. I still loved the games, though.
There was a guy who bailed out of a fighter at over mach 1 (well, an ex-fighter, it was exploding at the time), and survived, but it screwed him up pretty bad.
Wow! I'd love to know more about this. A little Google searching didn't turn anything up... sounds awesome/interesting.
I have this theory, totally unsupported by any study and supported only by my own personal experiences, that proper typing is one of the big causes of carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries.
Think about it- "proper" typing is based around the concept of minimizing your hand/wrist/arm motion. With a limited range of movement, you're doing the same little movements over and over again.
Myself, I'm a pretty fast typist, but I use sort of a modified hunt-and-peck method. I use about three fingers on each hand and I can basically hunt-and-peck AND touch type. Scary. But anyway, my hands are constantly roaming all over the keyboard like a pianist, almost... I actually feel like this really PREVENTS stress injuries, since I've got a wide range of motion going on.
This is in addition to other, proper ergonomic measures such as arm rests on the chair, wrist rest in fron of the keyboard, etc... of course.