The problem, here, that KotOR is the only one of these titles that isn't a finger-twitcher shoot-em-up
And that's a problem? The console industry was built on flashy twitch-fests! The only problem is that the xBox's chosen form of twitcher (shooters) is also available on the PC (and that M$ won't release a @%#$ keyboard-mouse combo!!).
For gamers who actually value things like story and strategy, the XBox is simply inadequate.
The xBox has plenty of story with its PC-style RPGs (including KotoR). It's just not cutesy-japanese-anime story like on the PS2;) Meanwhile, neither platform has great strategy games, IMHO; that's still the preserve of the PC.
I just bet this is the root of all my problems -- I have not one but two machines all to myself at work. Do I have any systems programmers or operators? Not a one. It's a miracle I can accomplish anything at all, under the circumstances.
Umm, ever heard of an IT department? Granted they rarely actually program anymore, but they're still configuring and maintaining your system for you*.
*Except of course in my job, where the great & powerful IT department is afraid to even touch a Linux machine (like the ones we use for actual development!)
It's interesting that they list BestBuy ahead of EB in this list. In my town EB is almost always $5-10 cheaper than BestBuy. Of course I'm not in a major metropolis, so YMMV. I suspect that the BestBuys in major markets are more price competitive in general...
Perhaps because of all the good, cheap hardware that still only runs on Windows. I'm not talking about video cards or modems; obviously linux has made major strides with these. But there are still a bunch of oddball/niche hardware items that are worth having, but will never merit enough attention to get reverse-engineered for linux.
Given the exhorbitant prices Disney charges for its cable channels (especially ESPN), $66 Billion is probably cheaper than what they would pay (longterm) if they didn't buy them!
His works prior to that were mostly fine, with several excellent works; his worst works (of his own creation, as opposed to the various movies he executive-produced for other filmmakers) from before the early '90s are probably Willow and the made-for-TV Ewok movies, and even those were Ok for what they were meant to be.
Let's not forget the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special"! (as much as he would like us to...) I have very vague memories of this from when I was a kid; mostly from the nightmares I had for years afterward:)
Watched it just the other night; didn't really notice anything like that. Obi-wan is simply talking to crewmen from various ships at the bar, and ends up talking to Chewy, who takes him to meet the captain. Other than that I don't remember anything to suggest familiarity.
And remember: "If Chewbacca doesn't fit, you must acquit!":)
I never did have to contend with the broken engine block or engine fires or "secret recalls"* which were common with these same cars, I dumped it 2 years after buying it.
* Secret recall: when the customer brings it in for any other service, sneakily check to see if it needs anything on this list fix and take care of it without ever letting them know you did it.
If the recalls were done secretly, how do you know they didn't do one on yours?:)
I remember drooling over the Fiero back in the day, but I was too young to get one. It was a cheap car that looked sporty; basically exactly what I figured I'd have if I was lucky (the real sports cars were out of my league). Fast forward a few years and what did I buy? A Pontiac Sunfire. A cheap car that looks sporty. Some things never change. At least Sunfires don't catch fire as often...
You think that's bad? My brother had the same car catch fire twice! The second time was probably caused by faulty rewiring after the first, but still...
By the time his Bronco caught fire(!) a few years later, his insurance company must have been getting mighty suspicious... *LOL* (these were all Fords, BTW, and not so well cared for)
On the one hand, I think Enterprise is actually better than Voyager. On the other hand, it screws up so much of the Trek universe and sensibilities that it's not even funny. Between this and the new Star Wars movies, I'm beginning to think that official sci-fi prequels are just generally a Bad Idea(TM).
The authoer has a point when it comes to "hard" real-time applications, or extremely cheap/tiny systems for throwaway-type products. There's no point adopting one of the rather tortured real-time linux adaptations, when there are plenty of solid RTOSes out there that are built from the ground up to do this job.
Where Linux is useful is in the larger, more flexible products (handheld devices, etc.). Here you can often get away with using a more-or-less normal linux distro adapted to your processor architecture. I guess his point here is that you can use linux in these larger applications without ever buying a commercial tool. While this is certainly possible, in my experience companies often shell out for commercial toolkits rather than trying to make their own APIs from scratch. So I think he's a bit out of line when it comes to this embedded market-space.
Of course I guess it depends on which "tools" he's criticizing, which isn't clear from the article...
Looks like Neal Stephenson was wrong: "microcode" is not one of the things we'll be known for in the future. He was right about the "pakistani bricklayer's idea of prosperity", though. Oh well, at least there's always High-Speed Pizza Delivery...
If the proprietary code is inherently derivative of the GPL'ed code, then the company's only options would be to stop selling it or release the source. Since both would result in the loss of revenue from that IP, they lose their investment either way. If anything, releasing their code under the GPL would be the lesser of two evils, since they could still sucker a few people into paying for the box with their name on it. So in that sense, the "viral" argument holds up from a business perspective.
Of course, in software it's easier to separate the original work from the "derived" portions (compared to literature, etc.), but that would still negate all the benefits of using the OSS base code in the first place. Better to use a base OS/framework that you know you own than to risk having to rewrite everything later...
Myth: It's better to provide a framework for lots of people to solve lots of problems than to solve only one problem well.
Reality: It's really hard to write a good framework unless you're already using it to solve at least one real problem.
Really-Real-World Reality: Frameworks that are developed in conjunction with one specific project are likely to produce lousy results when used in a different project.
I've seen a number of "generalized" frameworks that came out of one large project, only to wreak havoc when they were forced upon the developers of another project. When people are writing support code for a project, a lot of project-specific design decisions get mistaken for generic architecture because the developers are only looking at it from an insider's perspective.
San Fran is actually a very nice city to visit; but living there is another matter. Like many previously cool cities, success has ruined it by bringing in the rich carpetbaggers and driving up the cost of living beyond the reach of the very people who made it cool in the first place. The only difference is that in this case it wasn't tourism that did it; it was the latest "gold rush" tech boom.
The hideous cities are the obvious ones, like Detroit, but also those with massive urban sprawl and congestion (like DC). Most of those cities have no defining character, and their size and sprawling nature make driving both necessary and painful at the same time.
There's nothing like being locked out of your own old family videos when your current VCR dies, eh?
Err, why would you lose your home movies? Your current videos aren't even HD, so they wouldn't be regulated. And both personal camcorders and recordings from analog should default to having the flag off, so you can copy them in the clear. The whole point of having a 'flag' is that not all HD data will be restricted, just the crap that comes from the media giants.
(Hmm, I guess I must be critic's critic's...aah, whatever;)
Too true. This is why Quentin Tarantino's new movie Kill Bill got chopped in half.
Is that it? I thought they were trying to be cool like the Matrix sequels! M47r1X r00lz!;)
ObOnTopic: Although I like the long version of Fellowship better, I think it would have been too long to run in a theater without an intermission. Hopefuly these marathons will have appropriate intermissions, or else some of the real fanatics will be hurting... Anyway, I'm SOL here in Nowheresville, USA, so if I want a marathon I'll be flipping discs at home (assuming the TT special edition DVD comes out in time?)
Besides, the whole point of a philosophy lecture is to think about what's being said, and maybe even argue about it. Speed-listening, like speed-reading, should be great for rote memorization or absorbing an overview of the subject; but for critical analysis you really need to slow down and think about what you're reading/hearing.
I use this sometimes, but it's annoying to have to concentrate on the text instead of watching what's going on, and you miss all the sound cues and nuances. An audio version like the article describes would be much better, IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem, here, that KotOR is the only one of these titles that isn't a finger-twitcher shoot-em-up
;) Meanwhile, neither platform has great strategy games, IMHO; that's still the preserve of the PC.
And that's a problem? The console industry was built on flashy twitch-fests! The only problem is that the xBox's chosen form of twitcher (shooters) is also available on the PC (and that M$ won't release a @%#$ keyboard-mouse combo!!).
For gamers who actually value things like story and strategy, the XBox is simply inadequate.
The xBox has plenty of story with its PC-style RPGs (including KotoR). It's just not cutesy-japanese-anime story like on the PS2
Umm, ever heard of an IT department? Granted they rarely actually program anymore, but they're still configuring and maintaining your system for you*.
*Except of course in my job, where the great & powerful IT department is afraid to even touch a Linux machine (like the ones we use for actual development!)
But how could their own check-balancing software be crushing them? I mean, I know Quicken is better, but...
It's interesting that they list BestBuy ahead of EB in this list. In my town EB is almost always $5-10 cheaper than BestBuy. Of course I'm not in a major metropolis, so YMMV. I suspect that the BestBuys in major markets are more price competitive in general...
Perhaps because of all the good, cheap hardware that still only runs on Windows. I'm not talking about video cards or modems; obviously linux has made major strides with these. But there are still a bunch of oddball/niche hardware items that are worth having, but will never merit enough attention to get reverse-engineered for linux.
Given the exhorbitant prices Disney charges for its cable channels (especially ESPN), $66 Billion is probably cheaper than what they would pay (longterm) if they didn't buy them!
Yousa don't be knowin da power of da Darkside! *LOL*
His works prior to that were mostly fine, with several excellent works; his worst works (of his own creation, as opposed to the various movies he executive-produced for other filmmakers) from before the early '90s are probably Willow and the made-for-TV Ewok movies, and even those were Ok for what they were meant to be.
:)
Let's not forget the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special"! (as much as he would like us to...) I have very vague memories of this from when I was a kid; mostly from the nightmares I had for years afterward
Watched it just the other night; didn't really notice anything like that. Obi-wan is simply talking to crewmen from various ships at the bar, and ends up talking to Chewy, who takes him to meet the captain. Other than that I don't remember anything to suggest familiarity.
:)
And remember: "If Chewbacca doesn't fit, you must acquit!"
I never did have to contend with the broken engine block or engine fires or "secret recalls"* which were common with these same cars, I dumped it 2 years after buying it.
:)
* Secret recall: when the customer brings it in for any other service, sneakily check to see if it needs anything on this list fix and take care of it without ever letting them know you did it.
If the recalls were done secretly, how do you know they didn't do one on yours?
I remember drooling over the Fiero back in the day, but I was too young to get one. It was a cheap car that looked sporty; basically exactly what I figured I'd have if I was lucky (the real sports cars were out of my league). Fast forward a few years and what did I buy? A Pontiac Sunfire. A cheap car that looks sporty. Some things never change. At least Sunfires don't catch fire as often...
As for Pontiac Fiero, I owned one once and had it catch fire while it was parked and being washed in a stall. I had to rewire the /entire/ car.
:)
Well, you can't fault them for false advertising; they told you it was fiery (or fiero-y)!
(Yes, I know it stands for "fierce", but that's not what it looks like...)
You think that's bad? My brother had the same car catch fire twice! The second time was probably caused by faulty rewiring after the first, but still...
By the time his Bronco caught fire(!) a few years later, his insurance company must have been getting mighty suspicious... *LOL* (these were all Fords, BTW, and not so well cared for)
- web browsing is about the speed of a dialup unless you're looking at pages that are one huge chunk of html with no images.
:)
Err, you mean like Slashdot discussions?
But it may explain something that I was musing about a few days ago - Slashdot's avoidance of huge graphics, the evil JavaScript and vile Flash.
:)
I always assumed that it was more about limiting the load on the poor servers; ie. keeping Slashdot from being slashdotted
On the one hand, I think Enterprise is actually better than Voyager. On the other hand, it screws up so much of the Trek universe and sensibilities that it's not even funny. Between this and the new Star Wars movies, I'm beginning to think that official sci-fi prequels are just generally a Bad Idea(TM).
The authoer has a point when it comes to "hard" real-time applications, or extremely cheap/tiny systems for throwaway-type products. There's no point adopting one of the rather tortured real-time linux adaptations, when there are plenty of solid RTOSes out there that are built from the ground up to do this job.
Where Linux is useful is in the larger, more flexible products (handheld devices, etc.). Here you can often get away with using a more-or-less normal linux distro adapted to your processor architecture. I guess his point here is that you can use linux in these larger applications without ever buying a commercial tool. While this is certainly possible, in my experience companies often shell out for commercial toolkits rather than trying to make their own APIs from scratch. So I think he's a bit out of line when it comes to this embedded market-space.
Of course I guess it depends on which "tools" he's criticizing, which isn't clear from the article...
Looks like Neal Stephenson was wrong: "microcode" is not one of the things we'll be known for in the future. He was right about the "pakistani bricklayer's idea of prosperity", though. Oh well, at least there's always High-Speed Pizza Delivery...
If the proprietary code is inherently derivative of the GPL'ed code, then the company's only options would be to stop selling it or release the source. Since both would result in the loss of revenue from that IP, they lose their investment either way. If anything, releasing their code under the GPL would be the lesser of two evils, since they could still sucker a few people into paying for the box with their name on it. So in that sense, the "viral" argument holds up from a business perspective.
Of course, in software it's easier to separate the original work from the "derived" portions (compared to literature, etc.), but that would still negate all the benefits of using the OSS base code in the first place. Better to use a base OS/framework that you know you own than to risk having to rewrite everything later...
Programs Suck; Frameworks Rule!
Myth: It's better to provide a framework for lots of people to solve lots of problems than to solve only one problem well.
Reality: It's really hard to write a good framework unless you're already using it to solve at least one real problem.
Really-Real-World Reality: Frameworks that are developed in conjunction with one specific project are likely to produce lousy results when used in a different project.
I've seen a number of "generalized" frameworks that came out of one large project, only to wreak havoc when they were forced upon the developers of another project. When people are writing support code for a project, a lot of project-specific design decisions get mistaken for generic architecture because the developers are only looking at it from an insider's perspective.
San Fran is actually a very nice city to visit; but living there is another matter. Like many previously cool cities, success has ruined it by bringing in the rich carpetbaggers and driving up the cost of living beyond the reach of the very people who made it cool in the first place. The only difference is that in this case it wasn't tourism that did it; it was the latest "gold rush" tech boom.
The hideous cities are the obvious ones, like Detroit, but also those with massive urban sprawl and congestion (like DC). Most of those cities have no defining character, and their size and sprawling nature make driving both necessary and painful at the same time.
Err, why would you lose your home movies? Your current videos aren't even HD, so they wouldn't be regulated. And both personal camcorders and recordings from analog should default to having the flag off, so you can copy them in the clear. The whole point of having a 'flag' is that not all HD data will be restricted, just the crap that comes from the media giants.
...aah, whatever ;)
(Hmm, I guess I must be critic's critic's
Is that it? I thought they were trying to be cool like the Matrix sequels! M47r1X r00lz! ;)
ObOnTopic: Although I like the long version of Fellowship better, I think it would have been too long to run in a theater without an intermission. Hopefuly these marathons will have appropriate intermissions, or else some of the real fanatics will be hurting... Anyway, I'm SOL here in Nowheresville, USA, so if I want a marathon I'll be flipping discs at home (assuming the TT special edition DVD comes out in time?)
Everytime you pass that parked 'vette on the way to work, you think "sweet ride, I'll have to remember where that is so I can steal it later!"
Besides, the whole point of a philosophy lecture is to think about what's being said, and maybe even argue about it. Speed-listening, like speed-reading, should be great for rote memorization or absorbing an overview of the subject; but for critical analysis you really need to slow down and think about what you're reading/hearing.
I use this sometimes, but it's annoying to have to concentrate on the text instead of watching what's going on, and you miss all the sound cues and nuances. An audio version like the article describes would be much better, IMHO.