If you're lucky enough to have a 360, you can play both Outpost Kaloki (original, 360) and Wik: Fable of Souls (original, 360. Mutant Storm (original on Windows, Mac, and Linux, 360, original Xbox Live Arcade), the winner from 2002, is also available on 360 and was available on Live Arcade on the original Xbox as well. On the 360, these games go for $5-$10 (400-800 Points, where 80 points ~= $1), and Mutant Storm is $9.99 on Xbox. Compare that to $20 for the PC versions of Mutant Storm and Outpost Kaloki.
I get a little scared everytime MS gets interested in adopting some standard. So I will be interested to see what they do in terms of XML. The reason is basically due to some of their other forays into standards.
XML is a "meta standard". It defines structure and validation. Microsoft has been parsing, validating, and transforming XML for years. It sounds to me that you're more concerned with standards built on top of XML, like RSS. For what it's worth, many people are very excited about some of the RSS extensions Microsoft is planning. Microsoft also has a history about being open about XML-based formats (besides Office). VML (Vector Markup Language, that Microsoft proposed to the w3c back in '98 and was a precursor to SVG) and SOAP come to mind.
The most publicized would be Java.
Java isn't exactly a standard...
However, some of you may also be aware of MS's use (misuse) of the Kerberos standard. Rather than use the standard, they co-opted it slightly by using fields previously unused in Kerberos.
Microsoft didn't just use unused fields. They used fields defined in the Kerberos standard as for extension. In other words, they used those fields exactly as designed.
Just because Microsoft didn't tell you directly doesn't mean they didn't publish what they did. In fact, theydid.
Of course Microsoft would finally embrace RSS, when Atom reached 1.0 a while ago. Gotta keep comfortably behind the times, but still pretend that you're "with it."
You want "with it"? Check this out: Live.com's RSS proxy can read Atom, RDF, and RSS feeds and present them in a unified way as RSS 2.0 to live.com gadgets and RSS feeds. I'd call that "with it".
I get the feeling that Microsoft uses "RSS" as a generic term for "syndicated data feeds", whether they're in RSS format or Atom. While it would be best to have a single standard, this follows along the lines of the whole "DVD-/+RAM/R/RW" thing. If you can't settle on a single standard, just support them all.
Well, considering the Mororola RAZR phone is one of the hottest-selling out there, and the Apple iTunes phone is a flop, I'd say I believe the guy from Motorola.
You know, the "Apple iTunes phone" is made by Motorola, and actually was the subject of that quote. The Nano and the ROKR (like the RAZR, but with iTunes compatibility) were released around the same time, and the quote is basically saying, "Screw the Nano. Get a ROKR and you can have your iTunes songs and a phone all in the same unit." Of course, the ROKR is sucking pretty bad, and the Nano has been insanely popular. Thus, foot in mouth.
most people I know who pursue that same lifestyle don't seem as bitter about it as you do.
What bitterness I may have (and apparently I sound much more bitter online than I really do in person, for whatever reason) stems from a society that prizes marriage and children, to the point of using words like "childless" with sub-conscious negative connotations (you're "missing" children in your life), or assuming an unmarried middle aged guy is gay (I've got quite a few more years before I hit middle age, but I've been on the wrong end of gay assumptions simply because I'm in my late-20s and single). In the great tradition of Free Software, where "free" gets redefined, I'll play word games like that. Nothing against you personally. You just facilitated a rant, is all:).
Beyond that, I'm just trying to spread information (in my own biased way). In this case, it's about marriage and prenuptial agreements and the myth that asking for one implies that you don't love your spouse to be. I could've gone further. For example, you have to be very careful about how you broach the subject, to avoid the possibility of having the agreement nullified due to duress. Similarly, you need to get the prenup signed before any wedding preparations take place (forget the movies where the prenup is sprung on the prospective wife the night before her wedding -- you do that, and you're going to get a very nasty surprise in divorce court), again to avoid duress defenses. Most importantly, you and your wife-to-be need separate lawyers, and she needs to pay for her lawyer herself. Prenuptial agreements are very fragile contracts, and are unfortunately very easy to defeat in court. If you're going to go for the prenup (and I'd suggest you, and anybody getting married, do so), you need to make sure you do it right. Consult a lawyer.
Wow, whatever has happened to make you so bitter, I'm sorry man.
Why do you assume that something happened to me? The presumption that the "married with children" lifestyle is the ideal to strive for unless something "happened" is a little naive, don't you think? Take a look at the world. Take a look at TV[1] and see what's idolized. A guy doesn't need to have something "happen" to him to decide that the risk of divorce, alimony, child payments, etc simply aren't worth it.
You have made a choice -- you find that the single, childless lifestyle suits you. Great. You know what? It doesn't suit everyone. Some of us tried it and found that, despite the benefits it may afford, we weren't happy. Having another person involved in your life can (gasp) enrich it in ways that toys and cars just can't.
Your word usage betrays your bias. "Single" implies that the natural state is to be coupled, which simply is not true. "Childless" implies that I'm missing something, while I know that I'm not. I don't hate children, but I'd never want one of my own. I prefer to think of myself as "free" and "child-free". I'm beholden to no one (well, except for my boss and my mortgage broker, but our relationships are well-defined:), and I prefer it that way. I can do what I want, where I want, whenever I want, without any obligations or restrictions imposed upon me by anyone beyond myself (and the law, of course). While I won't deny that relationships can enrich your life in certain ways, I don't need another person to validate me or my worth. I have very good, close friends[2], and that's enriching enough. Maybe someday the "perfect woman" will come along and change things, but I don't hope and dream for that. I make my life as I see fit, and if the day comes where I find the right woman to marry (though still no kids, please!), I'll make up my mind as I've always done -- on my own, with my own best interests at heart.
I've chosen the path of personal freedom and self-fulfillment. What about you?
[1] Yes, I know, it's TV. But it does reflect society in a way that is not always flattering. How many commercials and sitcoms have you seen where the idiot husband screws things up and it's up to the heroine wife to set things right? If that doesn't reflect society's view of women vs. men at least somewhat, it wouldn't be so prevalent on TV, and it certainly wouldn't be used as an advertising method.
[2] I have friends who are in their mid-thirties and desparate to find the "right woman" to marry. I have friends who exist for no other purpose than to get pregnant. I have friends who married too young, and friends who have gone through messy divorces, and friends who're on track for divorce even though they can't see it yet. My best friends are actually a happily married couple (the key to their happiness? She's cool and parties with the guys, and he's allowed to do as he pleases. And neither of them want kids any time soon). I've seen it all, and I've been through much of it myself as well (luckily I've not been dumb enough to have kids or get married/divorced).
So what you're saying, basically, is that a selfish, loveless single life is better than a selfish, loveless marriage? Wow, go figure! That is not the kind of relationship that the grandparent post was referring to, however.
What else is there? Sorry if I sound jaded, but love fades and human nature is selfish. After that you need a strong, stable, healthy partnership if you want to last. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high? Because people are in LOVE! They've got to get married, or they don't love each other! And in two years, when that love fades, they find they have nothing else in common and are stuck in a loveless marriage. And it's going to fall apart on them, because while he now has incentive to stay, she doesn't. In fact, she has every incentive to leave and go find another sucker to marry. While I won't deny that loving marriages do exist, they are now and always have been a scant minority. If you're in such a relationship, good luck (let's hope you're not blinding yourself to the truth). If you're not, or you're coherent enough to see a couple years into the future, why not protect yourself with a pre-nup? (pre-nups aren't just for guys. They can help women as well, though that's much more rare.)
Tell me this. If marriage is not about money, why do women compare engagement rings? Why must I spend 2 months of my salary (which is a very considerable sum, and could easily buy a nice car instead) on an engagement ring? If you're truly in love, wouldn't a $100 CZ ring be just fine? Why must women insist on big, lavish weddings costing tens of thousands of dollars? If you truly loved me, wouldn't a small ceremony at City Hall or a church of choice consisting of our closest friends and family be more intimate and meaningful? These rituals leading up to marriage are enough to put a couple into extreme debt, which is no way to start off a life together. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't start off a life-long partnership and relationship asking for more and more money from me to prove my love. (btw, "you" refers to the generic female "you", and "me" refers to the generic male "me", not you and me personally. Obviously.)
And let's not forget the benefits of being single. Completely aside from not being tied to any single woman, my money is my own to spend. I don't have to justify a big screen TV and huge home theatre through cajolling and begging or bribery (if you let me buy this, I'll let you buy 15 pairs of shoes). I can buy and drive a Porsche (and I do) without you complaining that there's no trunk space or the wind ruins your hair or there's no room for the child seat or that you don't like the looks I get when I drive it. I can afford to buy a big house and put in a wet bar, pool table, workshop, home theatre, etc. And when I'm looking for that house, I'm free to use my own criteria such as a three-car garage and a deck rather than enough bedrooms for kids and a nursery. I can have as many different computers as I can buy or build without caring about cables going this way and that, or that you wanted to buy a $600 purse instead. I can spend my money on video games and entertainment rather than buying the kids clothes for school. I can save for my own retirement without having to also set aside money for college, and retirement for one is much cheaper than retirement for two. I can go out with the guys (well, the guys who are still allowed to go out, anyway), get rip-roaring drunk, and have a good old time. I can drink and smoke and spit and scratch and piss and watch sports and do all of the things that I enjoy without having to listen to nagging, bitching, whining, moaning, and complaining.
And to top it all off, I haven't yet reached my peak earning potential. Marriage puts an immediate stop to that, because you can no longer put in those late nights at work, or make those business trips to further your career, or pick up and leave for a better job in a different city or stat
I think prenuptials and such are pathetic. If you don't love a woman enough to risk losing some money to her, especially if she's raising your kids, then you just shouldn't get married.
Are you a woman? Because there's no benefit to a man in marriage. Besides, with > 50% of all marriages ending in divorce these days, a pre-nup is simply good preparation. Rather than accepting, "If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to sign a pre-nup," turn it around on her and say, "If you loved me, you'd want to sign a pre-nup," instead.
As for not "[loving] a woman enough to risk losing some money," what the hell is wrong with you? There's absolutely nothing wrong with spending money on a woman (within limits of course, though those limits relax a bit once she's a wife rather than a girlfriend), but that doesn't mean you should be willing to give up half or more of your worth (or worse, your potential worth). Consider it this way: A man gets nothing concrete out of a marriage (assuming the "average" man who is making a living for himself, not some freeloader who marries a rich wife). There are some benefits, but you're much less likely to find a woman today who will follow the three-Fs: feed me, fuck me, and fold my laundry. Women, on the other hand, stand to gain a lot. Assuming she plays her cards right (again, staying away from the freeloading losers), she can basically get a free ride, quit her job (assuming she had one in the first place), bloat up, cut her hair, and not have to do one lick of work around the house (that's what maids are for!). And a couple years into the marriage, when she gets bored, she can up and leave and take half or more of your stuff ("or more" meaning any vaginamony money she's "entitled" to, as well as any child support if you were stupid enough to get a kid on her).
You think marriage is about love? Wake up, buddy! Maybe you're worth nothing, with no potential earning capacity either. Go ahead, get married. Those of us trying to make something of ourselves know better. Beyond that, a few simple rules will keep you safe:
No marrying until you're at least 25, and preferably older. That goes both parties. She may be the most mature 19 year old you've ever known, but she's still a 19 year old. She hasn't yet developed who she really is yet. Do you want to take a chance that she'll change her mind in a couple years and take your money?
Get a pre-nup. I don't care if you have no money now. If you have the capability to earn money in the future, or you have a decent inheritance that may come your way, or you think you might win the lottery, get a pre-nup.
Keep separate accounts. It's fine to have a shared account, but you should also have his/hers accounts. That's money that's just yours, for your use only. Remember, she's basically going to rule the shared account, so if you ever want to make any purchasing decisions of your own it's best to keep some money separate.
If you're going to have kids (and I'd seriously suggest you don't, but some people just can't help themselves), you must be married a MINIMUM of five years. If you can last five years, there's a good chance your marriage will last longer. If you can't last five years, you have no business bringing a child into the world. You owe it to that potential life to make sure you're stable in your relationship before giving birth to another living, breathing human being.
But then, hey, what do I know? I'm not married. I don't have those blinders on my eyes yet...
Bastard. Mine was supposed to arrive yesterday, but now UPS is saying next Tuesday. And I'm only on vacation for another week. Aaarrrggh!
Rigged a fan to the PSU just in case.
Probably overkill. Why subject yourself to the extra noise of a fan if it's not necessary? So long as your power brick has good airflow (ie, it's not tucked into the corner of a dust-filled entertainment center), you should be fine. Assuming you didn't get a bad brick in the first place, of course.
Does anyone know if H3 would be ready in time for PS3, or will it come out later?
That's the rumor, but you know as much as anyone else here. The only people who truly know are Bungie, and they'll tell us when they're good and ready. My belief is that it probably won't be ready, considering that H2 shipped just over a year ago. It took them ~5 years to do the first one and another 3 to do the second. Can you really expect them to have the third out in only 1.5 years? And if they do, how good will it really be? Personally, I'd rather they take their time and actually put an ending on the game this time around:). (Hey, I loved H2, but the cliff-hanger ending just sucked.)
During my freshman year at RIT, I lived in a rather tiny dorm room. I kept my alarm clock on my bed, and one morning, the morning of a big CS exam, it got lodged between my bed and the wall, in such a manner that the snooze button was held down. I woke up about a minute into the exam, threw on some clothes, and hopped on a shuttle bus that was right outside my dorm. I got into the 1-hour test about 15 minutes late and was still the first one done. (I got a grade in the high 90's.)
I thought freshmen were required to sleep through part of at least one final exam? I did the same thing. First semester freshman year, my first exam was an 8am calculus test. I woke up at at 8:15, made it across the entire campus in 15 minutes (used my car, and actually found a parking spot), got into the exam room and finished the test by 9:00. This was a 3 hour exam, and I ended up with the highest score in the class. After that, I always pulled an all-nighter for any 8am exams, whether I was studying or not.
Of course, senior year rolls around, and I'm taking some blow-off 100-level ecology class to burn credits. I occassionally attended lecture, but not always. I accidentally decided to skip the class on the day of a scheduled exam (because I forgot the exam was scheduled -- it was a blow-off class!). The next lecture, the prof was handing out exams and I realized I had missed it. Oops. Talked to him after class, and because another student had legitimately missed the exam, he allowed me to make it up. Got an A.
Same blow-off ecology class, this time dealing with papers. We had to write two papers, and the hand-in dates were scheduled at the beginning of the semester (by "paper", I mean "lame 3-page double-spaced freshman-level filler crap, so long as you cite your sources"). Again, being a blow-off class, I never really paid attention. The day the first paper was due, I get into class and everybody is handing in their papers. Oops! Talked to the prof after class, and told him I "forgot" my paper back at home, and I could get it to him around lunch time. Ran home, pulled up some articles online (had to have three sources), wrote and proofed the paper in ~15 minutes, printed it out, and took it back to the prof. Total time including crossing campus back to my apartment, googling for some lame sources, actually writing the paper, picking up the paper from an engineering lab (laser printing looks more professional than inkjet, thus masking the filler crap that's really in the paper), and crossing campus once more to drop off the paper took just about an hour. Scored a 100/100.
Of course, I've also had the experience where you wake up and look at the clock and think it's 2pm instead of 2am, rushing off to shower and get to class for a test only to realize that it's the middle of the night. And I've had the nightmares where it's finals for last sememester of senior year, and you just realize that there's a required class you need to graduate that you haven't attended all semester and you have no idea when the final is, where it is, or what it's about. I'm 5.5 years out of college and still occasionally have those dreams. Asking around among my friends with college degrees, at least I'm not alone.
And Microsoft could have thrown more money at the supply chain to get more units out for Christmas. Which they didn't. Apparantly they thought it wasn't worth the money?
You've obviously never read The Mythical Man-Month, or you'd know that you can't always just throw resources at a problem and make it go away. If anything, you could make it worse. In this example, lack of money is not the limiting factor. I'm sure Microsoft could just throw more money at Flextronics or one of their other manufacturing partners, but it won't have an immediate effect. The manufacturer has to tool up, hire more employees, possibly even build more manufacturing space, all of which takes time. And that's assuming that the bottleneck is with assembly and not with creation of the parts that go into assembly. For example, if fabrication of the CPU cores can't fill the current assembly pipeline, adding more assembly factories won't make any difference. Sure, you could throw money at the CPU fabricator instead, but you still have the same problems -- the money doesn't instantly turn into new CPU cores. They'd need to increase their fabrication capacity, hire more workers, get more raw materials (copper, tin, silicon), etc. All of that takes time, so if Microsoft would've had to anticipate this 6 months ago for money to make any difference now. If Microsoft were to start throwing money at the problem now, they may make it worse by taking away resources that are currently being used to assemble boxes (existing workers training new ones, supervisors caught between new hires and existing workers, construction-related downtime, etc.).
OK, now my problem with PGR: there is something I cannot stand, it is something with the controls, or the responsiveness of the game. I have the same problem with some other games, such as Amped (vs SSX), PGR (vs anything except SRS (which is a crap)), Halo (vs most other FPS).
Well, part of the problem is that you consider Juiced to be realistic:). Really, though, I think what you're experiencing is a difference in game style. For example, PGR is much more realistic in comparison to NFS or Burnout, and feels "heavier" for it (better physics simulation, cars don't skid and slide at the drop of a hat, you have to actually brake often). For example, in NFS:MW, come to a complete stop, mash on the gas, and try to turn. The physics simulation in NFS is so weak that even a little underpowered VW Golf can break traction for 30 seconds from a standing start, and when you try to turn you just slide around because you have no traction. Do that in PGR2 and you'll probably not even spin your tires before getting traction and going. The same goes for Amped vs SSX, where at least the first Amped was very much a simulation compared to SSX's over-the-top arcade gameplay. You had to pre-wind jumps and spins, or you just wouldn't really do anything (maybe get a little air, do a 180, but you had to really prepare to get anything more than a 360 spin or flip). I'm not really sure I'd lump Halo in with the other two comparisons, though. You probably just need to adjust the sensitivity level.
I notice that same type of feeling when I play a more simulation-oriented racing game, like Gran Turismo 4 or Forza Motorsports, from a third-person perspective. Once I switch to a hood view things feel much better.
It also received very little attention in the shadow of "Project Godham", which I find a very crappy game btw (only played v 2, do not even wanna see the 3rd).
Project Gotham (here on referred to as PGR) is a completely different type of game than Need For Speed (NFS). For comparison purposes, I'm going to restrict myself to PGR2 and NFS:MW (though PGR3 is out, I don't have an Xbox 360 yet and haven't played it much).
NFS uses rubber banding for the AI competition, and the difficulty level has a poor ramp up (you go from old clunker crown vic cops chasing you to fast and intelligent Pontiac GTOs that can be nearly impossible to evade, with nothing in between). PGR allows for difficulty settings ranging from insanely easily (steel medal) to impoossible (platinum medal). The AI is not rubber banded, but can be very aggressive at higher levels, intentionally slamming you into a wall. However, if you can drive cleanly and get to within a second or two of the leader, the AI will be more likely to make a mistake so it is possible to beat the AI with skill.
NFS has customization, but it's poorly implemented. I like the fact that you can reduce your car's wanted level by changing its look, but you can do the same by letting it cool off in your garage for a couple races as well. Besides, "changing the look" of your car really means "making it progressively uglier and uglier until only a rice boy could love it". Performance upgrades are equally silly. You pretty much have to put a turbo on every single car, even if the car technically couldn't handle it (for example, the M96 3.2L-bored-and-stroked-to-3.4L engine in the Cayman S is notoriously fragile from its Boxster and Carrera brethren, runs at a high compression ratio of 11:1 or higher, and would likely blow up if you put on a turbo or supercharger running at more than 4-5 psi -- for what it's worth, the 911 Turbo, GT3, and GT2 do not use the same M96 engine found in Boxsters, 911s, and now Caymans). PGR has no customization at all.
NFS is all about winning races. While there are several different types of races, all but the checkpoint type involves beating four other cars to the finish line. PGR is all about style, and while there are street races and one-on-one races that require you to finish above a certain place, there are also time-based races, speed-based races, and cone challenges that require you to have skill.
PGR has many more cars than NFS. Granted, they're not as new (PGR2 shipped in 2003, so don't expect to find the new 997 911 Carrera S or Cayman S, for example), but there's much more variety.
PGR has awesome Live integration, and is one of the best games I've ever played on Live (my top 3 are Halo 2, Forza, and PGR 2). NFS uses EA's crap. Of course, if you don't have Live, you're missing out on half of PGR's content, as there's no story to the single player game (just a series of challenges intended to allow you to unlock cars and tracks for online play).
PGR has the Nurburgring Nordschleife (PGR3 actually includes the Nurburgring F1 track as well).
NFS was only over-shadowed by PGR on the Xbox 360. It's also available on GC, Xbox, and PS2. However, it was overshadowed by PGR3 on the 360 with good reason -- PGR3 is a game truly designed specifically for the 360. As such, it has beautiful graphics, tight gameplay, and no slowdown. NFS:MW is a multi-platform game designed and implemented for the previous generation. It suffers in terms of geometry and texture detail (yes, the 360 version has some better textures, but it's not nearly as impressive as PGR3). As well, NFS:MW suffers the occasional performance problem in its 360 incarnation (according to reviews, anyway). If I had to choose between PGR3 and NFS:MW on the 360, it'd be PGR3, no contest. However, on the Xbox there's really nothing else available in terms of new racing games, so NFS:MW it is. Then again, I'd rather just go back to Forza:).
f a product has a good quality record, Japanese will buy it, regardless of the fact that it benefits other countries. Leica cameras, Harley Davidson bikes, Bose speakers, Apple iPods, BMW cars.
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you? I'm sorry. I take it back. Bose is the best in the world, and you sure got a deal buying that $3000 satellite system that sounds just like my own $500 Definitive system [1]. Kudos to you!
Not that everything Bose does is bad. They used to make bookshelf and floor speakers a couple decades ago that weren't so bad. Of course, even those cost 2 to 3 times as much as competitive models from other brands.
[1] Yes, I have a crappy satellite speakers + powered sub home theater system. Yes, I know satellite speakers suck. However, I didn't pay $3000 for the system, either. Speakers + receiver (supporting both DD5.1 and DTS) + progressive scan DVD player cost me less than $900 (because the DVD player was bought years ago when progressive scan players still went for $400-$500). Compared to the cheapest 5.1 DVD system from Bose, that's a $1400 savings. And my system is upgradeable. I can replace my DVD player any time I like without having to also replace my receiver. Vice versa, I can replace my receiver without replacing my DVD player. And of course I can change out my speakers any time I like.
They'' just put the RFID'ish technology in your license plate.
Washington (mentioned in TFA), like most (all?) states, only requires that you update your tabs every year, not your license plate. Go ahead, put RFID in my tags. Nothing's stopping me from nuking that in my microwave for a couple seconds...
And of course if you don't have one of those when you are driving around, guess what happens..... uh, yes officer..
Oh, I'm sorry officer. It must be defective. Okay, I'll take that 10-day-or-$30 fix-it ticket, get a new tab, "prove" that it's working, and then go home and nuke the damn tag.
Front license plates are required in many states as well, but you're not going to prison for not having one. You'll get a fix-it ticket to put the plate back on, which you then have to prove (show the cops, or the courthouse, or however they have it set up). Then you take it back off again, and when you're pulled over again you must've "lost" that plate (damn road debris! Can't you use my tax dollars to keep the roads clean?:).
Think there are enough updaters out there? I mean, OS X does this with one updater, and you just pick the relevant updates. It seems like that would be better. That way there is no need to access like 5 updaters, you can just use one.
While that is a lot of updaters, there is a reason for it (in part because they're not all updaters):
Microsoft Update looks like a replacement for Windows Update. It has updates for Microsoft products beyond Windows (like Office).
You already know what Windows Update is.
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services is a way for you to run your own Windows Update. This is good for enterprises that want to validate updates before pushing them to their desktops.
Microsoft Software Installer (also know as MSI) is Microsoft's installation packaging technology. This is not an update service.
Microsoft Systems Management Server (uses the overloaded SMS abbreviation) is system management software. One of its features is the ability to push updates to client machines. This is a push approach, where the other update services are pull.
When you break it down, you've really got three update services (down from four, with Microsoft Update taking the place of both Windows Update and Office Update), and only one of those is something an average user needs to know about. The other two are targetted squarely at enterprise customers, and allow them to control their own environment rather than relying on Microsoft's update servers.
Point by point (skipping some that I don't have an argument with):
FAT isn't a camera standard. It's the filesystem that is used on most memory cards. It's a default standard because it's simple enough to fit within that small space and work in that price of hardware and it works well with Windows. It tells the camera nothing about how to communicate with the computer. Actually a lot of newer cameras are becoming standardized in how they communicate (showing up as a removable drive) which is good. There is no reason for any camera not to follow this standard for still photos. Streaming cameras could use some work on a standardized interface though.
FAT is a de facto standard now, which is how standards should be created IMHO. Even my 4.5 year old digital camera hooks up just fine as a USB storage device. There's nothing more that a camera needs to do in terms of PC interaction, and almost every decent camera can do this. And even if your camera doesn't, you should buy a camera that uses removable media so you can always pull the card out and use it in a standard reader instead.
VESA is a loose standard. It's more of a video API than a real driver. It doesn't support required modern features. Video cards need basically the same information to do what they do. Most software already uses standard API's such as DirectX or OpenGL to access these cards. There is no reason that the drivers can't be as standardized as these API's. Doing so might raise the price slightly by moving processing that goes on on the CPU to the card but I doubt it'd be much because the processors of modern video cards are already extremely powerful and flexible.
The problem is that drivers are the abstraction layer for the hardware. By moving to a standard like this, you're essentially saying that your abstraction layer needs to be built into the hardware itself (like nVidia already does to support their unified driver model, where a single driver binary will work for everything from an ancient TNT to the latest GeForce 78xx). Depending on the complexity, you're talking about a lot of added cost for an already expensive product (if you buy bleeding edge, anyway), and don't think for a second that the manufacturers won't pass that cost on to the consumer. At least for video cards, I think the model we already have (standard APIs like DirectX, SDL, and OpenGL to abstract away the hardware) is the right way to go. It may not be 100% perfect, but it's a damn sight better than the old DOS days where every video card had its own special interface.
USB has nothing to with joysticks other than being the generic method by which they connect. It doesn't tell the computer how to understand the joysticks input. Joysticks are fairly standardized but they are growing less standardized and that is bad for stability. Do you want your game to crash in the middle of a firefight because it has a non-standard driver that doesn't work with your video card? Do joysticks even need to be recognized as different from a mouse? Standard mouse drivers understand multiple axis at a high precision and many buttons. What else does a joystick need?
You missed three important letters -- HID, or Human Interface Device. Theoretically, all input devices (keyboards, mice, joysticks, even webcams) should adhere to the HID spec and at least provide basic functionality with a proper generic USB HID implementation. That they don't is a problem, but the standard already exists. Perhaps this is a case where the standard is "bad" (too strict, too vague, not extensible, etc).
Modems were mostly standardized until some moron invented the concept of a winmodem. Winmodems NEVER work well. They offload hardware processing to the CPU which has the mixed effect of slowing the computer and making the modem less reliable. Brilliant. T
There really is no reason for every damn product on the market to need a custom driver though. There should be one interface for a printer, one for a camera, one for a video card, one for a joystick, one for a modem, etc. The consumer needs to demand this.
There already are such standards: printer = postscript, camera = FAT (filesystem for flash memory), video card = VESA, joystick = USB HID, modem = Hayes, etc. The problem is that these either cost way too much (postscript printers, real hardware modems) to be viable in the current consumer market (different from the business market, which is why you should have no problem using multi-thousand dollar "enterprise" printers but can't use your $50 inkjet), or they don't let you use the advanced functionality of the device (video card, joystick). In the first case, consumers aren't going to go back to paying $500 for a printer or $100 for a modem when they can get a $50 printer and $10 modem that work with the 90%+ majority OS. In the second case, while you may get your hardware working, you're going to bitch that you can't use higher resolutions at proper refresh rates or take advantage of all of that hardware acceleration in your $200 video card, or that you can only use two of the ten buttons on your joystick. There's simply no way to design a standard driver that will allow designers to continue to advance their product and still remain competitive (even "standards" like OpenGL allow for extensions, because if it didn't it would've been dead years ago).
Not only will it give us choices as to what OS and software we use with these products but it'll also make computers a lot more stable. A lot of crashes and other common problems are the result of minor incompatibilities between different drivers on the system. Standard drivers can be well tested. A mish mash of random drivers can't be tested well at all.
We'd also be stuck in the early 90s, technology-wise, because nobody could or would advance the state of the art. Standards are all well and good, but you have to be able to extend them for them to remain viable. Look at HTML for example -- the deliberate snubbing of standards by Microsoft and Netscape forced the standard to move forward. Yes, it resulted in crap like <blink> and <marquee>, and it caused a lot of compatibility pain (do you use iframes or layers? IE events or Netscape events?), but if that hadn't happened we'd still be stuck in the days of HTML 3.x, using tables for layout and not having anything close to CSS (or worse, we'd have Netscape's javascript-based style sheet language instead).
Standards are defined by committee, which the absolute worst way to innovate.
That cannot be right. Microsoft have repeatedly stated (and frequently been critised for) that they are spreading the available consoles over several weeks/months, rather than releasing them all at launch, then having a couple of months before any more are available.
Really? Where did Microsoft state that? Not rumor-mongering, but an actual Microsoft statement. Oh, that's right. They didn't. The "intentional shortage" rumor is just that -- a rumor. The reality is that Microsoft only has so much manufacturing capacity (through partners like Flextronics, of course, since Microsoft doesn't actually build the consoles themselves). Now add in the reality of a near-simultaneous worldwide launch (where "worldwide" really means "North America, Europe, and Japan", so you Australian gamers get screwed again), and the need to have consoles in the retail channel for each of those regions, and you should have a pretty clear idea of how a shortage could happen. If Microsoft had many millions of consoles to put in the market, they surely would have. Say what you will about hype from shortages, but a sale in hand is better than anticipation (when you have 300 people lining up for 16 consoles in inventory at many stores, why wouldn't you want to have more out there to sell?). Microsoft doesn't make a dime off of the $2000+ ebay sales.
That said, Microsoft has already said that they're producing the consoles as fast as they can. While that means that you're probably not going to find one this week or next (there are some Core bundles still floating around out there if you poke around), more consoles should be available in the following weeks. These are not consoles that were manufactured in advance and held "in reserve" (though I would hope they'd reserve some small percentage of consoles "just in case" for replacements and such as necessary), but new consoles coming off of the assembly line. If you don't want to believe that, be my guest, but the facts contradict the "intentional shortage" rumor mill. Who are you going to believe? The pimpley-faced youth at the checkout counter telling you they won't have any more consoles until March, or Microsoft who's said time and time again that they're working around the clock to manufacturer more consoles?
(And no, I don't have a 360 yet. I plan to get one, but right now the launch titles just don't do it for me so I don't mind waiting a bit. I hope to have one in the next couple of weeks, though, as soon as the premium bundles start getting restocked.)
My roommate works down the street from our local Best Buy. People were already lining up at about 4pm today.
Only 4pm? The Best Buy where Bill Gates will be selling the first box (Bellevue, WA) had people lining up as of 5:00pm Friday. Yes, a full weekend and more before the actual launch of 360. IMHO, that's just crazy. Worse, the guy who started the line didn't even know BillG was going to be there, so it wasn't psuedo-celebrity draw either.
Re:360 is impressive, has potential, but needs tim
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The Xbox 360 is undoubtably a monster of a machine, and one that Microsoft naturally takes much pride in. But Microsoft is going to be in the red for a while, and they will need to make the money back.
This question will be more interesting after Tuesday's launch and we see what the attach rate numbers look like. The original Xbox set records with its initial attach rate at launch, and by all indications the 360 launch lineup is stronger than the original Xbox's (yes, no Halo, but the other games are much better -- no Kabuki Warriors or Fuzion Frenzy!). Certainly the 360 will sell at a loss for some time, but unlike with the Xbox Microsoft now owns all of the IP within the box (the various chips and such -- yes, they were designed by IBM, ATI, etc, but they were designed especially for Microsoft and Microsoft owns the rights to have the chips fabbed wherever they like, to redesign and consolidate chips, etc). That means that engineering advancements in the years to come can (and probably will) make it possible to to develop a 360 that sells for a profit.
Until then, it's all about attaching games, and the most interesting data points will come shortly after launch, when people are more likely to pick up a console without being forced into a bundle. Then again, with Live Arcade built into the box this time around, you can have a lot of fun without buying any games at all (Geometry Wars 2, droooool...).
Re:Prepping for the 360 at home:
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I've already reached capacity with mine to the point I have to route things through the VCR(2 a/v in ports) and still I have no room for my atari 2600 flashback system nor intellivison system-in-a-controller thing. SUre, I could use the a/v in ports on the tv, but I want to hear the 80s glory in sourround sonud.:)
This only gets worse when you start using component inputs for video and optical inputs for audio. I've got a great (but expensive) component video/digital audio switch that I've currently maxed out (GC, PS2, Xbox, DVD), and that runs into my receiver with a 2x mux for component (other side has my cable box). I'm debating whether or not I buy another switch and run that with a 360 and my cable box, but initially I'll probably just decommission my GC.
On the other hand, part of my preparation for Xbox 360 was to buy a new TV (just did that today, should have it tomorrow). My 4.5 year old CRT-based RPTV is still alive and kicking, but it doesn't do 720p (only 1080i) and it's getting up there in age (really needs another professional calibration to adjust setting drift and overscan). With the price of TVs today, I actually paid less for my new 50" DLP RPTV than I did for my old 46" CRT RPTV, and it'll last me at least for another 4.5 years (HDMI input for forward-compatibility and for use with a DVI-to-HDMI cable if I really want to use it now, 720p for optimum HD viewing until 1080p really becomes standard in the next few years, multiple component inputs for my current hardware, VGA input "just in case", and a warranty that includes bulb replacement for 5 years). I was even able to get a local store to price-match the internet! (woo!)
Going off-topic: Why DLP? Because I didn't want another CRT-based set (I'm sick of overscan and setting drift, and requiring periodic professoinal calibration to keep it in top shape), but plasma is not worth it ($4000 for 1.5 years of life, higher risk of burn-in than CRTs) and LCD is still subpar (direct-view LCDs generally won't go larger than 40" before you run into quality problems with bad pixels, rear-projection LCDs are prone to screendoor effect, black levels and contrast are terrible in comparison to DLP and CRT, and the typical life span before quality degradation sets in is around 3 years). I don't have the room for front-projection, nor do I have the ability to totally control ambient light in my TV room to optimize the front-projection viewing experience. DLP bulb-life is in the 3-5 year range depending on usage, but I've got that covered at least through the first bulb change. DLP may still be prone to rainbow effects, but the current generation of color wheels and DMD chips make this much less likely. While some people still notice, I did my research and looked at a number of different sets, and I saw no problems. Thus, it's DLP for me.
Re:How long did it take Halo to make it to the PC?
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I detest console games and would much rather play them on a PC, so I'll wait for the X-Box 360 games to be ported. How long did Halo take to go from X-Box to the PC?
Good luck with that waiting thing. Halo was a special case (it started out on PC, and Mac before that, so Bungie felt obligated to continue on with a PC and Mac release even after getting bought and switching to the Xbox). You'll never see Halo 2 ported, nor the as-yet-unannounced Halo 3. In fact, of first-party titles, only Halo, Rallisport Challenge (only the first one), and Sudeki were ever ported back to PC (not counting psuedo-ports from the PC to the Xbox, like Crimson Skies or MechAssault). Certainly other Xbox games had PC ports, but those same games made it to every system (PS2 and Gamecube, and even GBA in a number of cases).
You can buy Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2 on PC now, but good luck finding Kameo or Project Gotham: Racing 3. For what it's worth, I'm more interested in the latter rather than the former. Thing is, you're really not the target market for a game console like the Xbox 360 (or the PS3, or even the PS2 and Xbox for that matter). Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you'll be missing out on a lot of great games (if you don't play console games, you'll never experience the LSD trip of Katamari Damacy, for example).
I don't know about you, but I purchase the majority of my CDs used (in good or great condition) for about $6-$8 each.
So? Once again, this is handled by economics. Demand is a curve, and generally goes from low to high as price decreases. If the optimal price for CDs in the market is $20 and you're only willing to pay $6-8, you're obviously farther down the curve than the optimal price. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the firms have made a decision that you're not worth courting (selling at the price that would get you interested would not be as profitable).
The basic problem with that theory is that human greed knows no bound. If the record companies can get away with charging say $2 a song, do you really think they would settle for $1.50?
You must not have studied Economics. The entire basis is greed and selfishness (both on the part of the firms providing the supply[1] and the consumers providing demand). Consumers want as much as they can get for as little as possible, while firms want to sell as much as they can at as high of a price as they can. If demand doesn't decrease when price is raised from $1.50 to $2, then $1.50 was not an optimal price in the first place.
Case in point: CD prices. I think it's safe to assume the COST of pressed CDs in the volume record companies deal in is around 50 cents. Given the prevalence of CD in this day and age, by your logic CDs should cost no more than... say, $5. The very fact that to this day consumers are still charged $15 a CD would disprove your theory...
While I will agree that CDs are overpriced in terms of the cost of goods, you can't go only by the cost to press the CDs. Creating the medium is inexpensive, even at large volumes. Recording studio time, post processing, contracts, art, advertising, etc are all much more expensive, and contribute to the cost of the CD. However, this once again goes back to economic theory -- price does not really have any relationship to cost, beyond that the price should be greater than the cost if you want to survive. If the market will bear $20 CDs without a drop in demand, then firms will charge $20 for CDs and people will buy them[2].
[1] I mentioned supply, but in terms of digital music sales supply is essentially infinite. A traditional economic curve sets the price at the intersection of supply and demand, that being the optimal price for a product (set the price higher and you end up with unsold product; set it lower and you can't provide enough product to meet the demand). In a digital market, supply can effectively drop out of the equation and price would be set at the peak of demand. If the slope of demand is still increasing at price X, that price is too low. If the slope of demand is decreasing at price X, that price is too high.
[2] I'm ignoring monopolies, where price is set artificially high because there's no competition to undercut and drive the price down to the optimum. I'm also ignoring pricing cartels, and basically assuming a "perfect" market. Obviously no market is ever perfect, and the music market is likely worse than most, but for the sake of argument it's easiest to assume a perfect market at least initially.
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If you're lucky enough to have a 360, you can play both Outpost Kaloki (original, 360) and Wik: Fable of Souls (original, 360. Mutant Storm (original on Windows, Mac, and Linux, 360, original Xbox Live Arcade), the winner from 2002, is also available on 360 and was available on Live Arcade on the original Xbox as well. On the 360, these games go for $5-$10 (400-800 Points, where 80 points ~= $1), and Mutant Storm is $9.99 on Xbox. Compare that to $20 for the PC versions of Mutant Storm and Outpost Kaloki.
XML is a "meta standard". It defines structure and validation. Microsoft has been parsing, validating, and transforming XML for years. It sounds to me that you're more concerned with standards built on top of XML, like RSS. For what it's worth, many people are very excited about some of the RSS extensions Microsoft is planning. Microsoft also has a history about being open about XML-based formats (besides Office). VML (Vector Markup Language, that Microsoft proposed to the w3c back in '98 and was a precursor to SVG) and SOAP come to mind.
Java isn't exactly a standard ...
Microsoft didn't just use unused fields. They used fields defined in the Kerberos standard as for extension. In other words, they used those fields exactly as designed.
Just because Microsoft didn't tell you directly doesn't mean they didn't publish what they did. In fact, they did.
You want "with it"? Check this out: Live.com's RSS proxy can read Atom, RDF, and RSS feeds and present them in a unified way as RSS 2.0 to live.com gadgets and RSS feeds. I'd call that "with it".
I get the feeling that Microsoft uses "RSS" as a generic term for "syndicated data feeds", whether they're in RSS format or Atom. While it would be best to have a single standard, this follows along the lines of the whole "DVD-/+RAM/R/RW" thing. If you can't settle on a single standard, just support them all.
You know, the "Apple iTunes phone" is made by Motorola, and actually was the subject of that quote. The Nano and the ROKR (like the RAZR, but with iTunes compatibility) were released around the same time, and the quote is basically saying, "Screw the Nano. Get a ROKR and you can have your iTunes songs and a phone all in the same unit." Of course, the ROKR is sucking pretty bad, and the Nano has been insanely popular. Thus, foot in mouth.
What bitterness I may have (and apparently I sound much more bitter online than I really do in person, for whatever reason) stems from a society that prizes marriage and children, to the point of using words like "childless" with sub-conscious negative connotations (you're "missing" children in your life), or assuming an unmarried middle aged guy is gay (I've got quite a few more years before I hit middle age, but I've been on the wrong end of gay assumptions simply because I'm in my late-20s and single). In the great tradition of Free Software, where "free" gets redefined, I'll play word games like that. Nothing against you personally. You just facilitated a rant, is all :).
Beyond that, I'm just trying to spread information (in my own biased way). In this case, it's about marriage and prenuptial agreements and the myth that asking for one implies that you don't love your spouse to be. I could've gone further. For example, you have to be very careful about how you broach the subject, to avoid the possibility of having the agreement nullified due to duress. Similarly, you need to get the prenup signed before any wedding preparations take place (forget the movies where the prenup is sprung on the prospective wife the night before her wedding -- you do that, and you're going to get a very nasty surprise in divorce court), again to avoid duress defenses. Most importantly, you and your wife-to-be need separate lawyers, and she needs to pay for her lawyer herself. Prenuptial agreements are very fragile contracts, and are unfortunately very easy to defeat in court. If you're going to go for the prenup (and I'd suggest you, and anybody getting married, do so), you need to make sure you do it right. Consult a lawyer.
Why do you assume that something happened to me? The presumption that the "married with children" lifestyle is the ideal to strive for unless something "happened" is a little naive, don't you think? Take a look at the world. Take a look at TV[1] and see what's idolized. A guy doesn't need to have something "happen" to him to decide that the risk of divorce, alimony, child payments, etc simply aren't worth it.
Your word usage betrays your bias. "Single" implies that the natural state is to be coupled, which simply is not true. "Childless" implies that I'm missing something, while I know that I'm not. I don't hate children, but I'd never want one of my own. I prefer to think of myself as "free" and "child-free". I'm beholden to no one (well, except for my boss and my mortgage broker, but our relationships are well-defined :), and I prefer it that way. I can do what I want, where I want, whenever I want, without any obligations or restrictions imposed upon me by anyone beyond myself (and the law, of course). While I won't deny that relationships can enrich your life in certain ways, I don't need another person to validate me or my worth. I have very good, close friends[2], and that's enriching enough. Maybe someday the "perfect woman" will come along and change things, but I don't hope and dream for that. I make my life as I see fit, and if the day comes where I find the right woman to marry (though still no kids, please!), I'll make up my mind as I've always done -- on my own, with my own best interests at heart.
I've chosen the path of personal freedom and self-fulfillment. What about you?
[1] Yes, I know, it's TV. But it does reflect society in a way that is not always flattering. How many commercials and sitcoms have you seen where the idiot husband screws things up and it's up to the heroine wife to set things right? If that doesn't reflect society's view of women vs. men at least somewhat, it wouldn't be so prevalent on TV, and it certainly wouldn't be used as an advertising method.
[2] I have friends who are in their mid-thirties and desparate to find the "right woman" to marry. I have friends who exist for no other purpose than to get pregnant. I have friends who married too young, and friends who have gone through messy divorces, and friends who're on track for divorce even though they can't see it yet. My best friends are actually a happily married couple (the key to their happiness? She's cool and parties with the guys, and he's allowed to do as he pleases. And neither of them want kids any time soon). I've seen it all, and I've been through much of it myself as well (luckily I've not been dumb enough to have kids or get married/divorced).
What else is there? Sorry if I sound jaded, but love fades and human nature is selfish. After that you need a strong, stable, healthy partnership if you want to last. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high? Because people are in LOVE! They've got to get married, or they don't love each other! And in two years, when that love fades, they find they have nothing else in common and are stuck in a loveless marriage. And it's going to fall apart on them, because while he now has incentive to stay, she doesn't. In fact, she has every incentive to leave and go find another sucker to marry. While I won't deny that loving marriages do exist, they are now and always have been a scant minority. If you're in such a relationship, good luck (let's hope you're not blinding yourself to the truth). If you're not, or you're coherent enough to see a couple years into the future, why not protect yourself with a pre-nup? (pre-nups aren't just for guys. They can help women as well, though that's much more rare.)
Tell me this. If marriage is not about money, why do women compare engagement rings? Why must I spend 2 months of my salary (which is a very considerable sum, and could easily buy a nice car instead) on an engagement ring? If you're truly in love, wouldn't a $100 CZ ring be just fine? Why must women insist on big, lavish weddings costing tens of thousands of dollars? If you truly loved me, wouldn't a small ceremony at City Hall or a church of choice consisting of our closest friends and family be more intimate and meaningful? These rituals leading up to marriage are enough to put a couple into extreme debt, which is no way to start off a life together. If you truly loved me, you wouldn't start off a life-long partnership and relationship asking for more and more money from me to prove my love. (btw, "you" refers to the generic female "you", and "me" refers to the generic male "me", not you and me personally. Obviously.)
And let's not forget the benefits of being single. Completely aside from not being tied to any single woman, my money is my own to spend. I don't have to justify a big screen TV and huge home theatre through cajolling and begging or bribery (if you let me buy this, I'll let you buy 15 pairs of shoes). I can buy and drive a Porsche (and I do) without you complaining that there's no trunk space or the wind ruins your hair or there's no room for the child seat or that you don't like the looks I get when I drive it. I can afford to buy a big house and put in a wet bar, pool table, workshop, home theatre, etc. And when I'm looking for that house, I'm free to use my own criteria such as a three-car garage and a deck rather than enough bedrooms for kids and a nursery. I can have as many different computers as I can buy or build without caring about cables going this way and that, or that you wanted to buy a $600 purse instead. I can spend my money on video games and entertainment rather than buying the kids clothes for school. I can save for my own retirement without having to also set aside money for college, and retirement for one is much cheaper than retirement for two. I can go out with the guys (well, the guys who are still allowed to go out, anyway), get rip-roaring drunk, and have a good old time. I can drink and smoke and spit and scratch and piss and watch sports and do all of the things that I enjoy without having to listen to nagging, bitching, whining, moaning, and complaining.
And to top it all off, I haven't yet reached my peak earning potential. Marriage puts an immediate stop to that, because you can no longer put in those late nights at work, or make those business trips to further your career, or pick up and leave for a better job in a different city or stat
Are you a woman? Because there's no benefit to a man in marriage. Besides, with > 50% of all marriages ending in divorce these days, a pre-nup is simply good preparation. Rather than accepting, "If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to sign a pre-nup," turn it around on her and say, "If you loved me, you'd want to sign a pre-nup," instead.
As for not "[loving] a woman enough to risk losing some money," what the hell is wrong with you? There's absolutely nothing wrong with spending money on a woman (within limits of course, though those limits relax a bit once she's a wife rather than a girlfriend), but that doesn't mean you should be willing to give up half or more of your worth (or worse, your potential worth). Consider it this way: A man gets nothing concrete out of a marriage (assuming the "average" man who is making a living for himself, not some freeloader who marries a rich wife). There are some benefits, but you're much less likely to find a woman today who will follow the three-Fs: feed me, fuck me, and fold my laundry. Women, on the other hand, stand to gain a lot. Assuming she plays her cards right (again, staying away from the freeloading losers), she can basically get a free ride, quit her job (assuming she had one in the first place), bloat up, cut her hair, and not have to do one lick of work around the house (that's what maids are for!). And a couple years into the marriage, when she gets bored, she can up and leave and take half or more of your stuff ("or more" meaning any vaginamony money she's "entitled" to, as well as any child support if you were stupid enough to get a kid on her).
You think marriage is about love? Wake up, buddy! Maybe you're worth nothing, with no potential earning capacity either. Go ahead, get married. Those of us trying to make something of ourselves know better. Beyond that, a few simple rules will keep you safe:
But then, hey, what do I know? I'm not married. I don't have those blinders on my eyes yet ...
Bastard. Mine was supposed to arrive yesterday, but now UPS is saying next Tuesday. And I'm only on vacation for another week. Aaarrrggh!
Probably overkill. Why subject yourself to the extra noise of a fan if it's not necessary? So long as your power brick has good airflow (ie, it's not tucked into the corner of a dust-filled entertainment center), you should be fine. Assuming you didn't get a bad brick in the first place, of course.
That's the rumor, but you know as much as anyone else here. The only people who truly know are Bungie, and they'll tell us when they're good and ready. My belief is that it probably won't be ready, considering that H2 shipped just over a year ago. It took them ~5 years to do the first one and another 3 to do the second. Can you really expect them to have the third out in only 1.5 years? And if they do, how good will it really be? Personally, I'd rather they take their time and actually put an ending on the game this time around :). (Hey, I loved H2, but the cliff-hanger ending just sucked.)
I thought freshmen were required to sleep through part of at least one final exam? I did the same thing. First semester freshman year, my first exam was an 8am calculus test. I woke up at at 8:15, made it across the entire campus in 15 minutes (used my car, and actually found a parking spot), got into the exam room and finished the test by 9:00. This was a 3 hour exam, and I ended up with the highest score in the class. After that, I always pulled an all-nighter for any 8am exams, whether I was studying or not.
Of course, senior year rolls around, and I'm taking some blow-off 100-level ecology class to burn credits. I occassionally attended lecture, but not always. I accidentally decided to skip the class on the day of a scheduled exam (because I forgot the exam was scheduled -- it was a blow-off class!). The next lecture, the prof was handing out exams and I realized I had missed it. Oops. Talked to him after class, and because another student had legitimately missed the exam, he allowed me to make it up. Got an A.
Same blow-off ecology class, this time dealing with papers. We had to write two papers, and the hand-in dates were scheduled at the beginning of the semester (by "paper", I mean "lame 3-page double-spaced freshman-level filler crap, so long as you cite your sources"). Again, being a blow-off class, I never really paid attention. The day the first paper was due, I get into class and everybody is handing in their papers. Oops! Talked to the prof after class, and told him I "forgot" my paper back at home, and I could get it to him around lunch time. Ran home, pulled up some articles online (had to have three sources), wrote and proofed the paper in ~15 minutes, printed it out, and took it back to the prof. Total time including crossing campus back to my apartment, googling for some lame sources, actually writing the paper, picking up the paper from an engineering lab (laser printing looks more professional than inkjet, thus masking the filler crap that's really in the paper), and crossing campus once more to drop off the paper took just about an hour. Scored a 100/100.
Of course, I've also had the experience where you wake up and look at the clock and think it's 2pm instead of 2am, rushing off to shower and get to class for a test only to realize that it's the middle of the night. And I've had the nightmares where it's finals for last sememester of senior year, and you just realize that there's a required class you need to graduate that you haven't attended all semester and you have no idea when the final is, where it is, or what it's about. I'm 5.5 years out of college and still occasionally have those dreams. Asking around among my friends with college degrees, at least I'm not alone.
You've obviously never read The Mythical Man-Month, or you'd know that you can't always just throw resources at a problem and make it go away. If anything, you could make it worse. In this example, lack of money is not the limiting factor. I'm sure Microsoft could just throw more money at Flextronics or one of their other manufacturing partners, but it won't have an immediate effect. The manufacturer has to tool up, hire more employees, possibly even build more manufacturing space, all of which takes time. And that's assuming that the bottleneck is with assembly and not with creation of the parts that go into assembly. For example, if fabrication of the CPU cores can't fill the current assembly pipeline, adding more assembly factories won't make any difference. Sure, you could throw money at the CPU fabricator instead, but you still have the same problems -- the money doesn't instantly turn into new CPU cores. They'd need to increase their fabrication capacity, hire more workers, get more raw materials (copper, tin, silicon), etc. All of that takes time, so if Microsoft would've had to anticipate this 6 months ago for money to make any difference now. If Microsoft were to start throwing money at the problem now, they may make it worse by taking away resources that are currently being used to assemble boxes (existing workers training new ones, supervisors caught between new hires and existing workers, construction-related downtime, etc.).
Well, part of the problem is that you consider Juiced to be realistic :). Really, though, I think what you're experiencing is a difference in game style. For example, PGR is much more realistic in comparison to NFS or Burnout, and feels "heavier" for it (better physics simulation, cars don't skid and slide at the drop of a hat, you have to actually brake often). For example, in NFS:MW, come to a complete stop, mash on the gas, and try to turn. The physics simulation in NFS is so weak that even a little underpowered VW Golf can break traction for 30 seconds from a standing start, and when you try to turn you just slide around because you have no traction. Do that in PGR2 and you'll probably not even spin your tires before getting traction and going. The same goes for Amped vs SSX, where at least the first Amped was very much a simulation compared to SSX's over-the-top arcade gameplay. You had to pre-wind jumps and spins, or you just wouldn't really do anything (maybe get a little air, do a 180, but you had to really prepare to get anything more than a 360 spin or flip). I'm not really sure I'd lump Halo in with the other two comparisons, though. You probably just need to adjust the sensitivity level.
I notice that same type of feeling when I play a more simulation-oriented racing game, like Gran Turismo 4 or Forza Motorsports, from a third-person perspective. Once I switch to a hood view things feel much better.
Project Gotham (here on referred to as PGR) is a completely different type of game than Need For Speed (NFS). For comparison purposes, I'm going to restrict myself to PGR2 and NFS:MW (though PGR3 is out, I don't have an Xbox 360 yet and haven't played it much).
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you? I'm sorry. I take it back. Bose is the best in the world, and you sure got a deal buying that $3000 satellite system that sounds just like my own $500 Definitive system [1]. Kudos to you!
Not that everything Bose does is bad. They used to make bookshelf and floor speakers a couple decades ago that weren't so bad. Of course, even those cost 2 to 3 times as much as competitive models from other brands.
[1] Yes, I have a crappy satellite speakers + powered sub home theater system. Yes, I know satellite speakers suck. However, I didn't pay $3000 for the system, either. Speakers + receiver (supporting both DD5.1 and DTS) + progressive scan DVD player cost me less than $900 (because the DVD player was bought years ago when progressive scan players still went for $400-$500). Compared to the cheapest 5.1 DVD system from Bose, that's a $1400 savings. And my system is upgradeable. I can replace my DVD player any time I like without having to also replace my receiver. Vice versa, I can replace my receiver without replacing my DVD player. And of course I can change out my speakers any time I like.
Washington (mentioned in TFA), like most (all?) states, only requires that you update your tabs every year, not your license plate. Go ahead, put RFID in my tags. Nothing's stopping me from nuking that in my microwave for a couple seconds ...
Oh, I'm sorry officer. It must be defective. Okay, I'll take that 10-day-or-$30 fix-it ticket, get a new tab, "prove" that it's working, and then go home and nuke the damn tag.
Front license plates are required in many states as well, but you're not going to prison for not having one. You'll get a fix-it ticket to put the plate back on, which you then have to prove (show the cops, or the courthouse, or however they have it set up). Then you take it back off again, and when you're pulled over again you must've "lost" that plate (damn road debris! Can't you use my tax dollars to keep the roads clean? :).
While that is a lot of updaters, there is a reason for it (in part because they're not all updaters):
When you break it down, you've really got three update services (down from four, with Microsoft Update taking the place of both Windows Update and Office Update), and only one of those is something an average user needs to know about. The other two are targetted squarely at enterprise customers, and allow them to control their own environment rather than relying on Microsoft's update servers.
Point by point (skipping some that I don't have an argument with):
FAT is a de facto standard now, which is how standards should be created IMHO. Even my 4.5 year old digital camera hooks up just fine as a USB storage device. There's nothing more that a camera needs to do in terms of PC interaction, and almost every decent camera can do this. And even if your camera doesn't, you should buy a camera that uses removable media so you can always pull the card out and use it in a standard reader instead.
The problem is that drivers are the abstraction layer for the hardware. By moving to a standard like this, you're essentially saying that your abstraction layer needs to be built into the hardware itself (like nVidia already does to support their unified driver model, where a single driver binary will work for everything from an ancient TNT to the latest GeForce 78xx). Depending on the complexity, you're talking about a lot of added cost for an already expensive product (if you buy bleeding edge, anyway), and don't think for a second that the manufacturers won't pass that cost on to the consumer. At least for video cards, I think the model we already have (standard APIs like DirectX, SDL, and OpenGL to abstract away the hardware) is the right way to go. It may not be 100% perfect, but it's a damn sight better than the old DOS days where every video card had its own special interface.
You missed three important letters -- HID, or Human Interface Device. Theoretically, all input devices (keyboards, mice, joysticks, even webcams) should adhere to the HID spec and at least provide basic functionality with a proper generic USB HID implementation. That they don't is a problem, but the standard already exists. Perhaps this is a case where the standard is "bad" (too strict, too vague, not extensible, etc).
There already are such standards: printer = postscript, camera = FAT (filesystem for flash memory), video card = VESA, joystick = USB HID, modem = Hayes, etc. The problem is that these either cost way too much (postscript printers, real hardware modems) to be viable in the current consumer market (different from the business market, which is why you should have no problem using multi-thousand dollar "enterprise" printers but can't use your $50 inkjet), or they don't let you use the advanced functionality of the device (video card, joystick). In the first case, consumers aren't going to go back to paying $500 for a printer or $100 for a modem when they can get a $50 printer and $10 modem that work with the 90%+ majority OS. In the second case, while you may get your hardware working, you're going to bitch that you can't use higher resolutions at proper refresh rates or take advantage of all of that hardware acceleration in your $200 video card, or that you can only use two of the ten buttons on your joystick. There's simply no way to design a standard driver that will allow designers to continue to advance their product and still remain competitive (even "standards" like OpenGL allow for extensions, because if it didn't it would've been dead years ago).
We'd also be stuck in the early 90s, technology-wise, because nobody could or would advance the state of the art. Standards are all well and good, but you have to be able to extend them for them to remain viable. Look at HTML for example -- the deliberate snubbing of standards by Microsoft and Netscape forced the standard to move forward. Yes, it resulted in crap like <blink> and <marquee>, and it caused a lot of compatibility pain (do you use iframes or layers? IE events or Netscape events?), but if that hadn't happened we'd still be stuck in the days of HTML 3.x, using tables for layout and not having anything close to CSS (or worse, we'd have Netscape's javascript-based style sheet language instead).
Standards are defined by committee, which the absolute worst way to innovate.
Really? Where did Microsoft state that? Not rumor-mongering, but an actual Microsoft statement. Oh, that's right. They didn't. The "intentional shortage" rumor is just that -- a rumor. The reality is that Microsoft only has so much manufacturing capacity (through partners like Flextronics, of course, since Microsoft doesn't actually build the consoles themselves). Now add in the reality of a near-simultaneous worldwide launch (where "worldwide" really means "North America, Europe, and Japan", so you Australian gamers get screwed again), and the need to have consoles in the retail channel for each of those regions, and you should have a pretty clear idea of how a shortage could happen. If Microsoft had many millions of consoles to put in the market, they surely would have. Say what you will about hype from shortages, but a sale in hand is better than anticipation (when you have 300 people lining up for 16 consoles in inventory at many stores, why wouldn't you want to have more out there to sell?). Microsoft doesn't make a dime off of the $2000+ ebay sales.
That said, Microsoft has already said that they're producing the consoles as fast as they can. While that means that you're probably not going to find one this week or next (there are some Core bundles still floating around out there if you poke around), more consoles should be available in the following weeks. These are not consoles that were manufactured in advance and held "in reserve" (though I would hope they'd reserve some small percentage of consoles "just in case" for replacements and such as necessary), but new consoles coming off of the assembly line. If you don't want to believe that, be my guest, but the facts contradict the "intentional shortage" rumor mill. Who are you going to believe? The pimpley-faced youth at the checkout counter telling you they won't have any more consoles until March, or Microsoft who's said time and time again that they're working around the clock to manufacturer more consoles?
(And no, I don't have a 360 yet. I plan to get one, but right now the launch titles just don't do it for me so I don't mind waiting a bit. I hope to have one in the next couple of weeks, though, as soon as the premium bundles start getting restocked.)
Only 4pm? The Best Buy where Bill Gates will be selling the first box (Bellevue, WA) had people lining up as of 5:00pm Friday. Yes, a full weekend and more before the actual launch of 360. IMHO, that's just crazy. Worse, the guy who started the line didn't even know BillG was going to be there, so it wasn't psuedo-celebrity draw either.
This question will be more interesting after Tuesday's launch and we see what the attach rate numbers look like. The original Xbox set records with its initial attach rate at launch, and by all indications the 360 launch lineup is stronger than the original Xbox's (yes, no Halo, but the other games are much better -- no Kabuki Warriors or Fuzion Frenzy!). Certainly the 360 will sell at a loss for some time, but unlike with the Xbox Microsoft now owns all of the IP within the box (the various chips and such -- yes, they were designed by IBM, ATI, etc, but they were designed especially for Microsoft and Microsoft owns the rights to have the chips fabbed wherever they like, to redesign and consolidate chips, etc). That means that engineering advancements in the years to come can (and probably will) make it possible to to develop a 360 that sells for a profit.
Until then, it's all about attaching games, and the most interesting data points will come shortly after launch, when people are more likely to pick up a console without being forced into a bundle. Then again, with Live Arcade built into the box this time around, you can have a lot of fun without buying any games at all (Geometry Wars 2, droooool ...).
This only gets worse when you start using component inputs for video and optical inputs for audio. I've got a great (but expensive) component video/digital audio switch that I've currently maxed out (GC, PS2, Xbox, DVD), and that runs into my receiver with a 2x mux for component (other side has my cable box). I'm debating whether or not I buy another switch and run that with a 360 and my cable box, but initially I'll probably just decommission my GC.
On the other hand, part of my preparation for Xbox 360 was to buy a new TV (just did that today, should have it tomorrow). My 4.5 year old CRT-based RPTV is still alive and kicking, but it doesn't do 720p (only 1080i) and it's getting up there in age (really needs another professional calibration to adjust setting drift and overscan). With the price of TVs today, I actually paid less for my new 50" DLP RPTV than I did for my old 46" CRT RPTV, and it'll last me at least for another 4.5 years (HDMI input for forward-compatibility and for use with a DVI-to-HDMI cable if I really want to use it now, 720p for optimum HD viewing until 1080p really becomes standard in the next few years, multiple component inputs for my current hardware, VGA input "just in case", and a warranty that includes bulb replacement for 5 years). I was even able to get a local store to price-match the internet! (woo!)
Going off-topic: Why DLP? Because I didn't want another CRT-based set (I'm sick of overscan and setting drift, and requiring periodic professoinal calibration to keep it in top shape), but plasma is not worth it ($4000 for 1.5 years of life, higher risk of burn-in than CRTs) and LCD is still subpar (direct-view LCDs generally won't go larger than 40" before you run into quality problems with bad pixels, rear-projection LCDs are prone to screendoor effect, black levels and contrast are terrible in comparison to DLP and CRT, and the typical life span before quality degradation sets in is around 3 years). I don't have the room for front-projection, nor do I have the ability to totally control ambient light in my TV room to optimize the front-projection viewing experience. DLP bulb-life is in the 3-5 year range depending on usage, but I've got that covered at least through the first bulb change. DLP may still be prone to rainbow effects, but the current generation of color wheels and DMD chips make this much less likely. While some people still notice, I did my research and looked at a number of different sets, and I saw no problems. Thus, it's DLP for me.
Good luck with that waiting thing. Halo was a special case (it started out on PC, and Mac before that, so Bungie felt obligated to continue on with a PC and Mac release even after getting bought and switching to the Xbox). You'll never see Halo 2 ported, nor the as-yet-unannounced Halo 3. In fact, of first-party titles, only Halo, Rallisport Challenge (only the first one), and Sudeki were ever ported back to PC (not counting psuedo-ports from the PC to the Xbox, like Crimson Skies or MechAssault). Certainly other Xbox games had PC ports, but those same games made it to every system (PS2 and Gamecube, and even GBA in a number of cases).
You can buy Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2 on PC now, but good luck finding Kameo or Project Gotham: Racing 3. For what it's worth, I'm more interested in the latter rather than the former. Thing is, you're really not the target market for a game console like the Xbox 360 (or the PS3, or even the PS2 and Xbox for that matter). Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you'll be missing out on a lot of great games (if you don't play console games, you'll never experience the LSD trip of Katamari Damacy, for example).
So? Once again, this is handled by economics. Demand is a curve, and generally goes from low to high as price decreases. If the optimal price for CDs in the market is $20 and you're only willing to pay $6-8, you're obviously farther down the curve than the optimal price. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the firms have made a decision that you're not worth courting (selling at the price that would get you interested would not be as profitable).
You must not have studied Economics. The entire basis is greed and selfishness (both on the part of the firms providing the supply[1] and the consumers providing demand). Consumers want as much as they can get for as little as possible, while firms want to sell as much as they can at as high of a price as they can. If demand doesn't decrease when price is raised from $1.50 to $2, then $1.50 was not an optimal price in the first place.
While I will agree that CDs are overpriced in terms of the cost of goods, you can't go only by the cost to press the CDs. Creating the medium is inexpensive, even at large volumes. Recording studio time, post processing, contracts, art, advertising, etc are all much more expensive, and contribute to the cost of the CD. However, this once again goes back to economic theory -- price does not really have any relationship to cost, beyond that the price should be greater than the cost if you want to survive. If the market will bear $20 CDs without a drop in demand, then firms will charge $20 for CDs and people will buy them[2].
[1] I mentioned supply, but in terms of digital music sales supply is essentially infinite. A traditional economic curve sets the price at the intersection of supply and demand, that being the optimal price for a product (set the price higher and you end up with unsold product; set it lower and you can't provide enough product to meet the demand). In a digital market, supply can effectively drop out of the equation and price would be set at the peak of demand. If the slope of demand is still increasing at price X, that price is too low. If the slope of demand is decreasing at price X, that price is too high.
[2] I'm ignoring monopolies, where price is set artificially high because there's no competition to undercut and drive the price down to the optimum. I'm also ignoring pricing cartels, and basically assuming a "perfect" market. Obviously no market is ever perfect, and the music market is likely worse than most, but for the sake of argument it's easiest to assume a perfect market at least initially.