As I understand the term, "vaporware" is an announced but not (and possibly never to be) released product, publicized in order to "compete" with an existing product. The idea is to prevent buyers from purchasing the existing product while waiting (maybe forever) for the release of yours. To skip the usual anti-MS rhetoric, I consider Sony's PS2 and Nintendo's Dolphin projects to be vaporware competition to Sega's Dreamcast (even though I am holding out for PS2 myself).
If Transmeta is vaporware, what existing product are they competing with? They aren't pre-empting sales of any existing product, because no one knows exactly what product Transmeta is supposed to be better than. Vaporware, no. Not hype either, because they aren't promoting whatever they're doing themselves, a wierd sort of anti-hype. What we're seeing (and generating for that matter) is "Buzz", all coming from outside sources who want to know what's going on.
INWO (The collector-card version) used action tokens instead of money. Each group got one action token (with, as usual for Illuminati, some exceptions) per turn, and could spend that token at any time until the player's next turn. Action tokens were used to initiate or participate in attacks, or to use some special powers. I'd say the equivalent in Illuminati Classic would be to spend X amount of money to/. another group.
Their bulletin board evolved into Illuminati Online, one of the early commercial ISP's, several years ago. I've been using my IO account for a permanent e-mail drop (although in the era of Spam, I've gotten cautious about handing that address out), a good Usenet feed, and occasional web hosting since 1993.
One of the cool things about INWO was that card frequency didn't have as much to do with playability as it does in other CCG's. It always seemed to me that the rare cards weren't so much the most powerful cards as the funniest cards. (Of all the CCG's I've seen, Star Wars was the worst money game; all of the main character (i.e. non-cannon-fodder) cards were much too rare.)
I liked the mechanics of INWO slightly better than the original (esp. the use of action tokens, and rules about which groups could get involved in an atttack), although I love both. I have two copies of the old "deluxe" edition (including the special "Black Box" edition, as well as a big box of INWO cards and the INWO Church of the SubGenius edition. Hail Bob!
Two possibilities why there are no decent rumors about what Transmeta is doing:
The technical press is so used to just regurgitating company press releases that they have never even considered the possibility of investigative reporting.
The company has some special way of preventing its employees from talking. We know Paul Allen has a huge cable/communications empire; does he have any major investments in radio astronomy?
I think his level of preachiness varies with the story. Ender's Game doesn't seem preachy at all, whereas preaching seems to be the primary focus of the Folk of the Fringe stories I've read. Those seem to be the extremes; other Card books I've read seem a little preachy at times, but not enough to really bother me.
On the other hand, I've heard him on a couple of panels at sci-fi conventions where (IMHO) he got really self-righteous. My overall impression is that I can enjoy at least some of his books, but wouldn't want to have to deal with him personally.
This comes from an article in a chain bookstore's (B. Dalton, I think) science fiction newsletter. Unfortunately, I threw it away last time I cleaned, so I'm relying on memory.
Card is planning two more novels in the "Ender" universe. The first (The Hegemon's Shadow, I believe) is a sequel to Ender's Shadow, again starring Bean. In this story, he is helping Ender's brother Peter (as Hegemon) unite Earth under a single government. I'm looking forward to this one, as it gives insight into some of the events Card "tacked on" to the novel version of Ender's Game to set the stage for Speaker for the Dead. The second is another Ender's Game "synquel" set at the Battle School, this time focusing on Petra, the most successful female student at the School.
For anyone who hasn't read the original novel, Ender's Game has been re-released at a special ($3.95?) price, and is well worth picking up. Does anyone know of any currently available source for "Ender's War", the original short story version? I think it was originally published in Analog, but I'd love to find an anthology that includes it.
I live in St. Louis now, but I come from the Mississippi coast myself. My parents have lived in the same house there for over thirty years. Camille was just before I was born, but you can still see the water marks in the garage. They've been lucky enough to have had little damage in storms since. I seem to remember riding out some storm (Frederick?) when I was very young. I definitely remember waiting out Elena about thirty miles to its leeward. The house was about ten miles leeward of George, but my parents new plenty of people who had losses in that one. My sympathy, dude.
Get a grip. Game developers can use either WinCE or Sega's own proprietary OS. Out of the 20 or so "launch" titles for the Dreamcast, only one uses WinCE, according to the "official" Dreamcast magazine. I don't remember the title, but it looked like some sort of space dogfighter game, and the magazine described it as a rather lackluster game.
I'd simply like to point out that every time Microsoft (rather than Sony) makes such an announcement, most of the regulars here start screaming, "Vaporware!" That being said, I'm holding out for the PS2 myself.
I think that if you are going to throw away posts, either by IP or by userid, you need to make your "enemies list" public. I'm not saying that no suck blocks should ever be in place, but I do think that when these blocks are imposed, there should be a chance for some public discussion of why.
Read the W. Richard Stephens (sp?) article (a few articles back) at -1. I have been reading Slashdot for about a year, I think, and have never read any posts as mindless, offensive, or insulting as the posts in question.
X-10 may have only developed their own software for RealJukebox, but I'm sure people are already working on Linux drivers, WinAmp plugins, etc. X-10 may not go out of their way to support other operating systems, but they don't seem to hinder anyone who does. Apparently, they realize that anyone who develops software will help them sell more hardware. Linux programmers were pretty quick to develop the Bottle Rocket software to control the Firecracker appliance controller. What I wonder is, did the BR programmers have to reverse-engineer Firecracker, or were they able to get good enough specs from X-10?
I haven't seen BWP yet, but I did see The Sixth Sense this past weekend, and thought it was fantastic. Please, go see it before anyone spoils it for you.
I don't think I'll be spoiling The Sixth Sense by saying that the special effects are almost nonexistent; as I've heard about BWP, more happens off screen than on. I think Sixth Sense edged out BWP for highest gross on this incredibly crowded (5 major studio releases) weekend. I hope that the success of these films will spark more cerebral, psychological horror flicks. I'd much rather see this type of movie than self-referential, over-the-top slashers like Scream or cheesy CGI fests like The Haunting (although Sleepy Hollow looks like it might be good).
As far as The Haunting goes, I've heard that there is another movie from the same original source coming out later this year, called The House on Haunted Hill or maybe The Haunting of Hill House. The rumor goes that this one will depend more on auditory than visual effects for its scares. I can only hope the rumor is true.
I finally remembered what the filming of BWP reminds me of. I'm sure a lot of you have read Dream Park by Larry Niven and Stephen(?) Barnes, and possibly the sequels, The Barsoom Project and The California Voodoo Game. For those of you haven't, the books take place in the ultimate high-tech theme park. One of the park's biggest draws is its full-immersion Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs). Some of you have probably played some of White Wolf's Mind Eye Theatre games, or been in a LARP at a con. Maybe some of you fight in the SCA or other reenactment groups. Now, imagine a fantasy LARP played on a giant soundstage with full special effects. You live in the game for days, stay in character except maybe during rest periods, fight holographic monsters and live NPC actors, solve puzzles, etc. Aside from the competitive aspect (there is some sort of huge international LARP league), the best games are recorded and marketed.
The making of BWP seems more like a low-tech Dream Park LARP than true moviemaking. While I haven't seen the movie yet, Donohoughe and the others sound more like game players than actors. I can imagine that some people would be interested in taking part in something like this more for the experience than for the sake of making a film. Is it possible that BWP represents the future of interactive gaming more than the future of non-interactive entertainment?
Once the Y2K "crisis" blows over, there are going to be a lot of former consultants really desparate for programming jobs, and willing to work for next-to-nothing. There goes the high demand wor IT workers.
I got one of those transmitters at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago for $7 at clearance price. If you want one of these things, get it now. The goofy thing is, I got it to transmit tapes to my CD player. (My music is on CD now, but the occasional book on tape is nice for trips.)
You may have seen the story posted several months ago about the band They Might Be Giants releasing an album in MP3 format only. This release, Long Tall Weekend, will finally be available tonight at EMusic (formerly GoodNoise). Apparently, they've decided to make an event out of it, with a web chat and a live-broadcast concert. TMBG is one of my favorite bands, and I want to support them, but I also want to support the idea that people will pay a reasonable price for good digital music, even if it isn't copy protected.
Okay, I'm sure there are many users who want some new features. Why does that mean that every user should have to pay the price (not only in money, but also in drive space, load time, training, etc.) for every new feature? I use Word for Windows, but I doubt that I use more than a handful of the new features that have been introduced since, what, version 2.0? Background spell checking is nice, and I guess a decent scripting engine (security issues aside) is useful for any program. Oh yeah, they did recompile in 32-bit mode when Office 95 came out.
How much of the added functionality would be better implemented using some sort of plug-in architecture? Most of it, IMHO. But that's not the Microsoft Way.
Let me get this straight. Because AntiOnline is threatening legal action, Harvard is destroying all copies of the relevant data? Completely apart from whether or not this legal action has any merit, couldn't Harvard get in a lot more trouble for destroying evidence in a suit than they are likely to face in the suit itself?
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand the term, "vaporware" is an announced but not (and possibly never to be) released product, publicized in order to "compete" with an existing product. The idea is to prevent buyers from purchasing the existing product while waiting (maybe forever) for the release of yours. To skip the usual anti-MS rhetoric, I consider Sony's PS2 and Nintendo's Dolphin projects to be vaporware competition to Sega's Dreamcast (even though I am holding out for PS2 myself).
If Transmeta is vaporware, what existing product are they competing with? They aren't pre-empting sales of any existing product, because no one knows exactly what product Transmeta is supposed to be better than. Vaporware, no. Not hype either, because they aren't promoting whatever they're doing themselves, a wierd sort of anti-hype. What we're seeing (and generating for that matter) is "Buzz", all coming from outside sources who want to know what's going on.
INWO (The collector-card version) used action tokens instead of money. Each group got one action token (with, as usual for Illuminati, some exceptions) per turn, and could spend that token at any time until the player's next turn. Action tokens were used to initiate or participate in attacks, or to use some special powers. I'd say the equivalent in Illuminati Classic would be to spend X amount of money to /. another group.
Their bulletin board evolved into Illuminati Online, one of the early commercial ISP's, several years ago. I've been using my IO account for a permanent e-mail drop (although in the era of Spam, I've gotten cautious about handing that address out), a good Usenet feed, and occasional web hosting since 1993.
One of the cool things about INWO was that card frequency didn't have as much to do with playability as it does in other CCG's. It always seemed to me that the rare cards weren't so much the most powerful cards as the funniest cards. (Of all the CCG's I've seen, Star Wars was the worst money game; all of the main character (i.e. non-cannon-fodder) cards were much too rare.)
I liked the mechanics of INWO slightly better than the original (esp. the use of action tokens, and rules about which groups could get involved in an atttack), although I love both. I have two copies of the old "deluxe" edition (including the special "Black Box" edition, as well as a big box of INWO cards and the INWO Church of the SubGenius edition. Hail Bob!
I think his level of preachiness varies with the story. Ender's Game doesn't seem preachy at all, whereas preaching seems to be the primary focus of the Folk of the Fringe stories I've read. Those seem to be the extremes; other Card books I've read seem a little preachy at times, but not enough to really bother me.
On the other hand, I've heard him on a couple of panels at sci-fi conventions where (IMHO) he got really self-righteous. My overall impression is that I can enjoy at least some of his books, but wouldn't want to have to deal with him personally.
This comes from an article in a chain bookstore's (B. Dalton, I think) science fiction newsletter. Unfortunately, I threw it away last time I cleaned, so I'm relying on memory.
Card is planning two more novels in the "Ender" universe. The first (The Hegemon's Shadow, I believe) is a sequel to Ender's Shadow, again starring Bean. In this story, he is helping Ender's brother Peter (as Hegemon) unite Earth under a single government. I'm looking forward to this one, as it gives insight into some of the events Card "tacked on" to the novel version of Ender's Game to set the stage for Speaker for the Dead. The second is another Ender's Game "synquel" set at the Battle School, this time focusing on Petra, the most successful female student at the School.
For anyone who hasn't read the original novel, Ender's Game has been re-released at a special ($3.95?) price, and is well worth picking up. Does anyone know of any currently available source for "Ender's War", the original short story version? I think it was originally published in Analog, but I'd love to find an anthology that includes it.
Hmm. Maybe you should be able to moderate your own posts down when you make a mistake like this?
I live in St. Louis now, but I come from the Mississippi coast myself. My parents have lived in the same house there for over thirty years. Camille was just before I was born, but you can still see the water marks in the garage. They've been lucky enough to have had little damage in storms since. I seem to remember riding out some storm (Frederick?) when I was very young. I definitely remember waiting out Elena about thirty miles to its leeward. The house was about ten miles leeward of George, but my parents new plenty of people who had losses in that one. My sympathy, dude.
Get a grip. Game developers can use either WinCE or Sega's own proprietary OS. Out of the 20 or so "launch" titles for the Dreamcast, only one uses WinCE, according to the "official" Dreamcast magazine. I don't remember the title, but it looked like some sort of space dogfighter game, and the magazine described it as a rather lackluster game.
I'd simply like to point out that every time Microsoft (rather than Sony) makes such an announcement, most of the regulars here start screaming, "Vaporware!" That being said, I'm holding out for the PS2 myself.
I think that if you are going to throw away posts, either by IP or by userid, you need to make your "enemies list" public. I'm not saying that no suck blocks should ever be in place, but I do think that when these blocks are imposed, there should be a chance for some public discussion of why.
Read the W. Richard Stephens (sp?) article (a few articles back) at -1. I have been reading Slashdot for about a year, I think, and have never read any posts as mindless, offensive, or insulting as the posts in question.
Well, they are laboratory mice, and their genes have been spliced.
Or, for a darker version of the same story idea, there's a short story in Dean Koontz's Strange Highways anthology.
X-10 may have only developed their own software for RealJukebox, but I'm sure people are already working on Linux drivers, WinAmp plugins, etc. X-10 may not go out of their way to support other operating systems, but they don't seem to hinder anyone who does. Apparently, they realize that anyone who develops software will help them sell more hardware. Linux programmers were pretty quick to develop the Bottle Rocket software to control the Firecracker appliance controller. What I wonder is, did the BR programmers have to reverse-engineer Firecracker, or were they able to get good enough specs from X-10?
Of course, one could also interpret this to mean that if you can maintain a Linux system from NT, you can maintain it from anything.
I haven't seen BWP yet, but I did see The Sixth Sense this past weekend, and thought it was fantastic. Please, go see it before anyone spoils it for you.
I don't think I'll be spoiling The Sixth Sense by saying that the special effects are almost nonexistent; as I've heard about BWP, more happens off screen than on. I think Sixth Sense edged out BWP for highest gross on this incredibly crowded (5 major studio releases) weekend. I hope that the success of these films will spark more cerebral, psychological horror flicks. I'd much rather see this type of movie than self-referential, over-the-top slashers like Scream or cheesy CGI fests like The Haunting (although Sleepy Hollow looks like it might be good).
As far as The Haunting goes, I've heard that there is another movie from the same original source coming out later this year, called The House on Haunted Hill or maybe The Haunting of Hill House. The rumor goes that this one will depend more on auditory than visual effects for its scares. I can only hope the rumor is true.
I finally remembered what the filming of BWP reminds me of. I'm sure a lot of you have read Dream Park by Larry Niven and Stephen(?) Barnes, and possibly the sequels, The Barsoom Project and The California Voodoo Game. For those of you haven't, the books take place in the ultimate high-tech theme park. One of the park's biggest draws is its full-immersion Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs). Some of you have probably played some of White Wolf's Mind Eye Theatre games, or been in a LARP at a con. Maybe some of you fight in the SCA or other reenactment groups. Now, imagine a fantasy LARP played on a giant soundstage with full special effects. You live in the game for days, stay in character except maybe during rest periods, fight holographic monsters and live NPC actors, solve puzzles, etc. Aside from the competitive aspect (there is some sort of huge international LARP league), the best games are recorded and marketed.
The making of BWP seems more like a low-tech Dream Park LARP than true moviemaking. While I haven't seen the movie yet, Donohoughe and the others sound more like game players than actors. I can imagine that some people would be interested in taking part in something like this more for the experience than for the sake of making a film. Is it possible that BWP represents the future of interactive gaming more than the future of non-interactive entertainment?
Once the Y2K "crisis" blows over, there are going to be a lot of former consultants really desparate for programming jobs, and willing to work for next-to-nothing. There goes the high demand wor IT workers.
I got one of those transmitters at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago for $7 at clearance price. If you want one of these things, get it now. The goofy thing is, I got it to transmit tapes to my CD player. (My music is on CD now, but the occasional book on tape is nice for trips.)
You may have seen the story posted several months ago about the band They Might Be Giants releasing an album in MP3 format only. This release, Long Tall Weekend, will finally be available tonight at EMusic (formerly GoodNoise). Apparently, they've decided to make an event out of it, with a web chat and a live-broadcast concert. TMBG is one of my favorite bands, and I want to support them, but I also want to support the idea that people will pay a reasonable price for good digital music, even if it isn't copy protected.
Okay, I'm sure there are many users who want some new features. Why does that mean that every user should have to pay the price (not only in money, but also in drive space, load time, training, etc.) for every new feature? I use Word for Windows, but I doubt that I use more than a handful of the new features that have been introduced since, what, version 2.0? Background spell checking is nice, and I guess a decent scripting engine (security issues aside) is useful for any program. Oh yeah, they did recompile in 32-bit mode when Office 95 came out.
How much of the added functionality would be better implemented using some sort of plug-in architecture? Most of it, IMHO. But that's not the Microsoft Way.
Let me get this straight. Because AntiOnline is threatening legal action, Harvard is destroying all copies of the relevant data? Completely apart from whether or not this legal action has any merit, couldn't Harvard get in a lot more trouble for destroying evidence in a suit than they are likely to face in the suit itself?
I hear the same guys who found this technology also found a skeletal metal arm along with it...